by LJ Frank

 

Looking at the pedestrians walking by the coffeeshop she noticed him. He was wearing blue jeans, dress boots and a gray tweed sports coat and carrying a double strapped leather briefcase.

“Does he know?” Her girlfriend asked.

Clarise bit her lower lip. “In an hour or so I’ll reveal to him who I really am and… who he really is.”

The man continued walking, pass a cathedral and several small shops, stopping at a building next to a brick paved alley. He climbed up a cement staircase to the entrance and then climbed another staircase to the second floor.

As he unlocked the door and walked inro the room he was startled by the cathedral bells ringing. He then looked at his watch. He set down his briefcase on a table and opened it. Everything he needed was there. He sighed, “Perhaps this will be it.” He was tired of freelance work.

He heard a man’s voice in the street shout, “Clarise!  He walked over to the window. No one. Was he hallucinating? He saw her just a few months ago. He enjoyed her and gladly paid for her services. He asked himself, “Who didn’t prostitute themselves for something in life?” Value is both tangible and intangible. A major detail of existence is to continue breathing. Death makes no exception for the breathless.

It began to rain. There was a knock at the door.

A thin man dressed in a dark raincoat and wearing a slight frown on his face greeted him as he opened the door. “Good evening, Sir.

“Good evening. And you are?”

“You weren’t told?”

“No.”

“I’m familiar with why you are here, and that once you’re finished, you’re leaving the city. Is that correct?”

“That was the intent. I still don’t know who you are and why this visit.”

“It’s best to leave it that way.” He nodded and then departed.

The man shook his head and looked at his phone. There was a text message, “Meet you across the street from cathedral. I’ll be wearing a brunette wig. 30 minutes. XO” Clarise.

Thirty minutes later he approached the area. The rain had passed leaving  dwindling patches of light drizzle. Clarise emerged from a shop. He started to walk over to her when he thought he heard someone in the distance shout, “Cut!”  He turned to look and didn’t see anyone. A priest who looked like the man that was in his room was standing at the top of the cathedral staircase.

He looked back at Clarise and approached her. They hugged

“Are you okay?” She asked.

“Yeah. Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Nothing.”

She looked towards where the priest had been standing.  “We better hurry. I need to tell you something.”

“About what?”

“You and I!”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Let’s just say we may not be in the stage play we think we are in life.”