Forgotten Tomorrow

The rain fell like bullets. Each bullet cascaded and bounded off the roof, leaving a hollow pounding to echo through the apartment. Dana stood by the window, staring out onto the street. Cars streamed up and down the roads, their tail lights formed a dazzling sea of red neon, their constant honking nothing but white noise. Up in the clouds, you saw only the high-rises and skyscrapers; just the clean shafts of glass and glimmering rooftops. Up there it looked like an achievement, and that’s what mattered. Dana placed her hand on the window. It felt icy against the warmth of her skin. Here, people called her many names, none of them hers.

She closed her eyes. She saw herself in bed, waking up to the gentle warmth of morning as golden rays poured into the room, and to a sky that was blue for once. She could remember the fragrance of pine cones and feel of the sun on her face. Dana saw herself back in the country, back with Tom and Dad, just the three of them. A place where snow was white and the view looked like a painting waiting to be hung. A place where everything was hidden in the light.

A knock arrived at the door.

“Dana Rothstein?” A voice called.

Dana opened her eyes. Outside her window was a glass high-rise shrouded in shadows. She walked over to the door and opened it. Standing before her was a high-cheekboned man in a gray suit. He was in his late-twenties, in decent shape, and had his hair slicked to the right with a gratuitous amount of gel. In his left hand, he had a brown suitcase, a real ugly one too. He looked naive, like a kid applying to college.

“Dana Rothstein?” the man said.

“Haven’t heard that name for a while now,” replied Dana.

“Yea I know. But it is Dana Rothstein?”

“Sure.”

“James Doyle, I’m a private investigator,” he said as he extended a hand.

“Don’t do handshakes.”

James lowered his hand. “Your brother sent me.”

“What brother?”

“Don’t play dumb, Dana. I’ve been looking for you for the past three months. You’re awfully clever-”

He paused.

“Perhaps we should continue the conversation inside? May I come in?”

She didn’t respond. James arched an eyebrow, looked past her, as if signalling. Dana stepped aside to let him in.

“Thank you,” he said.

He entered, sitting down on a decaying leather couch.

“Coffee?” asked Dana.

“No thank you.”

Dana poured some coffee into a mug and sat before James.

“So tell me, how's Billy doing?”

“He wants you to come back home. That’s what I came here to tell you. The sentence has been dropped. They’ve forgiven you. You can go home now. You don’t have to keep running.”

Dana sipped her coffee. She stared at James, but without much thought to it, curious as to how he would react to the silence. He didn’t.

“Mr. Doyle,” she said finally.

“James. Please.”

“James, how long have you been a private investigator?”

“Just over a year.”

“And in your ‘experience’, what have you learned about people?”

James tilted his head. He looked puzzled, unsure as to what to say. He was thinking. Dana smirked. She could tell he was a college kid. Only college kids would think so hard on an answer. Too much pride she thought, as if they always had to say something smart. She broke the silence.

“There was a time when I wanted to be a poet. I started work as a TA for a professor at Brown. His name was Howard Jacobson; a pretty insufferable guy. Never really liked him, but I needed the ‘experience’. Jacobson churned out a book every five to seven months, and it was always a collection of critical attacks on modern writers while praising the efforts of men who died generations ago. I suspect literature was too hard for him. Easier to dissect the words of others than come up with your own. Me, personally, I think one can appreciate the effect of words without the need for dissection.”

Dana stared into the space, ignoring James.

“Look Dana, this isn’t about me, it’s about you, and I’m just here to help,” James said. “Billy said you were hard to impress, so I brought some insurance.”

James hesitated for a moment, looking at the cluttered coffee table before him. He pushed several takeout containers to the side. He opened his briefcase, taking out a series of documents that were bent at the corners like pug ears. He handed them to Dana.

As she sifted through it all, he spoke, “As you can see, the charges have been dropped. They uncovered new evidence at the scene, a set of fingerprints. Belonged to some guy up in North Dakota, but by the time they could get to him, he'd died of a heart attack. Crazy story I know, I mean, can you believe it?”

Dana couldn’t. This had to have been scripted. James had been told to bring her in, and she was supposed to just fall for it. A badly miscast play in her opinion, but James didn’t see that. She could see he thought that he was a real charmer. James smiled. His pencil-thin lips stretched out across his narrow face, bent sharply upwards like an upturned sickle.

“You’d love it back home. It’s a changed place. Believe me when I say that. Heck, they’ve just installed a brand new railway system - it’s great.”

A train roared overhead. The heavy trundling of the wheels screeched against tracks as it came to a lurching halt.

“Pardon me James, but I have to use the bathroom,” Dana said as she got up.

“No problem.”

In the bathroom, Dana looked around. She found a rusty hammer. Better than nothing.

It was quick if a little messy. He put up a fight, but she knew how to kill ever since she was eleven. By comparison, this was just killing time. Besides, she’d been prepared for another ambush and had already packed what she needed. Dana stood by the door and glanced over at James lying on the floor. She pitied him. He was a hapless idiot, but he got himself involved. She’d done this many times before and took no pride, and she supposed, she was an idiot too for getting trapped in the first place. Before she left, Dana looked out of the window once more. Above her, a giant screen lit the dark. Sprawled across, the slogan of some washing brand: Rinse, Dry and Repeat.

Dana laughed. She closed the door behind her, and glided down the fire escape, onto the city streets. She kicked a puddle of gray slush off the sidewalk and she slipped into the crowd, grinning as she did so. Surrounding her were the faceless ones, the people who’d never think to bat an eye at her, all because she looked just like one of them. There was nothing to stop her from grinning, like a wild card in a playing deck. Thing was about people, they were always looking for something to entertain them, for better or for worse. Always jumping from one scandal to another. No one really forgave and no one really forgot. They just ignored and moved onto something new. Rinse, Dry, and Repeat.

Keagan '17