Glimpse- An Obsessed Mobster Love story

Chapter 14

A breeze stirred John's hair as he laid prone on the low rooftop of a squat warehouse. The rooftop overlooked the concrete loading docks waiting for the cargo of incoming ships and John had a good view of the whole area. In front of him a small army of men wearing long black trench coats waited for something. John was certain one of them had to be his quarry. Johan, or Joseph, or something like that. Railroad tracks criss-crossed through the concrete ground to the right of the warehouse John was resting on. Shipping containers stacked up behind him and made deeply shadowed aisles for the cargo trucks John saw parked in an open garage further away. The water lapped at the concrete dock with gentle waves.

A breeze stirred John's hair as he laid prone on-

The night was dark and the smog clouding the moon only made it darker. Only some yellow lamps lit the wharf.

A breeze stirred John's hair as he laid prone on-

A breeze-

John shook his head, trying to sort out the present moment from the seconds of the future. The longer he Looked, the more he saw. An infinite amount of Johns all waited on the rooftop and felt breezes in their hair. John was all and none of them. He wasn't laughing anymore.

The abrasive, jolting sound of a ship's horn split the night and a boat pulled into the water beside the dock.

The abrasive, jolting sound of a ship's horn split the night-

The abrasive, jolting sound- John shook his head again and sorted out the seconds in his brain.

The boat was a low-floating hauler with a tarpaulin pulled over whatever it was carrying. There were loose outlines of crates and boxes under the tarp. It was at least ten meters across and four meters wide. It must have been hauling several tons of material.

Was this what the men in black trench coats were waiting for? Was this what John was waiting for? He knew he was supposed to be waiting for something. Or someone. John glanced around but his second sight showed him no one arriving in the present of the near future. But there should be someone or something coming soon. Because then John was going to kill... the person he was there to kill. His name wasn't important anymore. He was one of the men on the dock, John knew that much.

But there must be three hundred men down there. So which one was John's target?

John focused and realized he was seeing only about thirty to forty men. But in the future they shifted places or moved slightly and the echoes in time multiplied them in John's vision until there was an endless sea of men glitching into and out of each other.

It was hypnotic.

But not what John was supposed to be seeing, right?

John forced his mind to tune out the strong interference until he knew which man was in the present and which man was in the future, and which second of the future they were in. It was head-ache-inducing in its complexity but John was the master of all time. He was the entity that lived in the space thirty seconds between life and death. He could do anything.

The boat finished docking.

The boat finished docking.

The boat-

John blinked and the boat finished docking in the present moment. A few haggard looking men in heavy coats - was it cold outside? John didn't feel anything - ran to the land-facing side of the vessel and tossed over thick ropes. Or they would. The trench coat men hustled to tie them down around thick metal bars set into the concrete. Or they would, or were? Ramps slid out to bridge the gap between the boat and shore. They clacked against the concrete over and over again in John's mind until the final click of them touching the ground in the present moment.