Dreamscape

Two

Christopher stood in front of the mirror of his cheap apartment and splashed water upon his face. The cool water felt rather nice on his warm flesh. He splashed the water on his face and combed his wet fingers through his silky black hair. After that, he looked at his reflection in the mirror and began to talk to himself.

"What's the matter with you? Why do you do this to yourself? Every single day you find new and inventive ways to do this to yourself. When are you gonna learn? Will you ever learn?" He asked himself.

He found himself staring at the reflection of his suitcase lying on the bed. It was right where he had left it. That suitcase had seen some crazy days. Like, for instance, the time he went to Bulgaria where he accidentally took a stranger's bag instead of his own and found out that the stranger was a part of a deadly mob. Or the time he visited Boston and had lost his wallet and had to take a cab in which its driver was something of a raging madman who loved to curse and had a politically incorrect rant about practically anything under the heat of the sun.

Yes, his suitcase had definitely seen some days. Those were the wild days. Nowadays, his life was pretty average and ordinary, what with his job needing him to travel from place to place in search of some "grand old holy grail" type financial ventures. His life was now quite normal, however, as of lately, he had started to drink again. Bourbon, tequila, vodka, anything that was alcoholic.

He was a borderline addict which was why his girlfriend had left him. Veronica Jasper told him that his drinking wasn't a smart idea. In fact, it was one of his worst. Christopher had "screwed the pooch on that one" as he often put it.

Christopher was alone now. Alone and miserable, which led him to drink. The booze somehow made him feel good. But when the fun was over, he felt more and more like shit. So, whenever this happened, he would do one of two things: drink again until his liver felt bruised or pay for cheap sex that usually ended with him cumming just right for the lady of the night to feel satisfied but just enough that it was only satisfying. It was safe to say that Christopher was in a shitty predicament. Was that the worthless goddamn truth?

He sat down on his bed and opened up his  suitcase on his lap. He opened it up and rummaged through its various contents: clothes, ziplock bags with hygiene products, nicotine gum (he didn't smoke but always brought the gum just in case), and a bag containing the most important item of all.... smuggled money.

It wasn't an awful lot but it was interesting because it wasn't ordinary money. It was altered money. It was money that was only exchangeable to a certain type of group. The money was laced with 24 karat gold. The gold, in its most purest form, was embedded in the money... particularly on the face of President Franklin.

There was just enough money with the gold to be highly sought after by the certain groups but not enough to be overkill. And Christopher Cadence found himself in the middle of this exchange. His job was to hand the money (it was referred to him as "gold money") over to an Antonio Paraldevenski in exchange for access to distributive goods. How did Christopher find himself in this predicament? Misfortune. Bad omens. Unlikely timing. Fate essentially caught up to him.

He was chosen, much to his chagrin, to be the middle man for the two companies to converge in agreement. He was displeased but knew he had to do this... get it done and then he'd be done... for good, which was essentially all he wanted out of life: to be done.

Christopher held the bag of money in his hand and just sat there in deep contemplation. If Veronica had heard about this, she would've surely griped the hell out of him about it. He would've dreaded hearing her bitch at him about this ordeal. Damn, he missed her. Maybe he should call her up. No, what was he thinking? He couldn't call her! Especially not right this instant! It was bad timing. Exceptionally bad timing! 

He put the bag of money back in the suitcase and then placed all his belongings on top of it and closed up his suitcase. He made sure he had all his stuff together and made one final look around the apartment before leaving and heading out to his car. He packed his stuff into the backseat and got in. He turned on his car and placed a copy of Mirror Moves by The Psychedelic Furs into the CD player and drove off on his misfortunate venture for the purpose of distributive goods.