Fugue States Part I

Why Lie Below To Kiss The Sky?

Exemplary figures marched through the vapor of fog machines and camera flashes at the Auditorium Du Louvre in Paris. The platform changed after a brief interval and the models walked through the crowd at ground level with company logos projected on the walls. They wore transparent box dresses and faux leather gas masks and matching elbow gloves nude under the voile fabric.

"We were glad to hear that Claudia Maxwell reconsidered on the matter of the investment." a man named Gerard said speaking of the silver haired woman at the Pantomime. "We decided that we were seeing it near field and needed some fresh eyes on the subject."

Rumi stayed on the other side of the room and I glanced at her thinking of the garter dress she was wearing under her clothes. We were hired separately and she was thought to be engaged to someone they knew particularly well so we decided to keep things to ourselves.

"They want us to go to a conference meeting." I said taking her by the arm and leading her into the next room and moving to the side out of view.

"Tonight?" She asked straightening my tie.

"10:15 at the main office on Champs-Elysees"

She wore Doir glasses, diamond earrings, and the executive-style braided low bun she wore on formal occasions with crimped strands of bangs that hung loosely around her face. The camera lights filtered and diffused along her smooth neck and the tightly weaved braids. A smile stretched across her face.

"Hey, when did you guys become a thing?" Spencer said appearing out of nowhere as Rumi shushed him.

"We thought the less they know the better." I said

"Good luck with that."

"Why?"

"They make it their vested interest to know all the dealings of their clients." his voice trailed off as he watched one of the models pass by.

Rumi waved her hand close to his face and he returned to the question. "Oh, Why? They know everything." He said and walked off.

I answered questions with faint mutterings of yes and no the night Constance was found, as flashlights searched along the thick brush and the pillars of the freeway. What did I know about astral sensory perception or 'dream residue'? I couldn't tell them where I'd been staying or how I'd gotten there so I was content to let them think I'd been traumatized by the ordeal and stayed silent. I came into the hospital with the emergency response team and they let me in to see her when the doctors had left. She was in a coma due to an impact that fractured her skull. I knew it was from the handle of a pistol and that it was wielded by a large man who's face I recognized but couldn't place. A doctor came in to see if anything on the cognitive activity tests had been overlooked. He straightened the dividing curtain between her and another patient and put an ex-ray up to the light.

"You were the one that found her?"

I nodded

He flicked the end of a penlight and opened an eyelid with his thumb and index finger and the eye was lifeless with no reflexive twitch or contracting of the pupil as the light hovered over it and intensified.

"She lost a lot of blood." He said curiously

"Will she recover?" I asked

"There's a blood clot, right here at the brainstem." he said pointing to the base of the skull. "It stopped the blood enough to keep her alive but if it doesn't dissolve on it's own it could keep her comatose." The brainwaves peaked on the EEG machine and the hairs on my arm stood on end as if a hand reached out from the unknown to grasp a part of life.