Accelerate - Part 5
22/07/2005

To read the first part of this series, click here.

Once back in his room, Lucky sat on his bed and examined the bottle and its contents. On the outside was a label with his name scrawled hastily upon it in black ink. Apart from the tiny yellow dot on the cap, there was nothing else to indicate the special nature of the contents. He flipped off the cap and emptied the tablets on to his bed.

Pink tablets, unmarked, twenty-seven of them, lying there apparently harmless and innocent. Yet they were the gateway to a new world. Lucky savored the moment, aware that he must not take one yet; at least a day should pass before he risked another so soon after his usual dose. He picked up a tablet and examined it closely, squinting at its pink surface and turning it over and over. It was so ordinary with nothing to indicate the amazing powers of its active ingredient. He tipped it into the bottle and then scooped up its companions and poured them in, watching them fall in a slow cascade to form a small mountain on the bottom. Carefully, he replaced the lid and then set the bottle on his bedside table.

He lay down and closed his eyes, hoping that sleep would come to shorten the waiting hours. The plan marched through his mind, the details becoming clearer as he tried to cover every possibility of error. And, at last, as the afternoon sun shot its first rays through the blinds on his single window, Lucky drifted off into sleep.

It was gloomy in the room when he awoke and, at first, he was uncertain whether it was late evening or early morning. A glance at his battered alarm clock told him that the time was 7:30. But was that a.m. or p.m.? He waited, lying motionless on the bed, until his eyes confirmed that the light was dying. Evening then, and he had merely slept the afternoon away. He was still in the day of the clinic and must wait more endless hours before his next dose.

A thought struck him then and his eyes opened to stare into the growing darkness. Yes, it was still "today" for the normal world, but for him in his accelerated timescale? It might be that his days were now succeeding each other at a much faster pace; indeed, he had slept a few hours that were as night for him, and so this could be said to be "tomorrow". It made sense and also explained his unusual sleeping patterns of the last few days.

Lucky decided, wanting to believe that he was free to take a tablet again, and refusing to hear the word that hovered at the edge of his consciousness: overdose. He rose quickly from the bed and filled a chipped and coffee-stained mug with water. Then a tablet was tipped from the bottle and, before he could have second thoughts, he threw it into his mouth and drained the mug, feeling every slow inch of the tablet's journey to his stomach. The deed was done.

He sat down then, suddenly afraid of his hasty action. If this should prove an overdose and kill him, all his careful planning would go to waste and he would never have the satisfaction of taking from the world what he regarded as proper payment for his hitherto miserable existence. He waited, watching the slow progress of the hands on his clock as they ticked out the agonizing seconds. He waited, as only Lucky, alone in the universe, could, enduring the interminable minutes, not daring to think of the endless hours. He waited, while the dim light from the vanished sun was replaced by the sickly glow from the streetlights outside.

It was an hour by the clock, although it felt like a lifetime, before Lucky began to think that he had been right. He felt no different and the long wait had eroded his fear so that he was able to shrug at the thought of overdoses. It seemed that the drug could be taken in much higher dosages than the clinic had been giving him.

Lucky stood up then and went out into the night. For hours he walked the city, enjoying the speed that took him flashing past others and outpacing the slow movement of cars in the street. If he was noticed at all, he was long gone before any cries of amazement could reach his ears. There was no doubt about it: he had accelerated beyond any speed he had known before and was still getting faster.

He stopped eventually at the window of an electrical goods store downtown, fascinated by the sight of the television screens in the window producing their bright pictures line by line. Even as he watched, it seemed to him that the glowing dots marching across the screen became slower and the pictures dissolved into meaningless striations of light. Power surged through his mind as he gazed at the screens and he knew, beyond any doubt, that the world lay helpless at his feet.

He turned away and, purely to express the joy of the moment, began to run and leap down the street, hurtling around the near-frozen people, taunting the traffic, flying over obstacles. It was only as he neared his digs that he realized that he was tiring, the years of doing nothing having left his body so unfit, and he slowed to a walk that still took him past others in a blur of movement.

Back in his room, he threw himself upon the bed, glanced at the clock and noted that it was only 11:00pm, and he rested in the darkness. At some time in the night sleep came again, so that he woke with the rest of the world in the morning. He washed carefully and shaved, the first time for days, and chose his least rumpled and ragged clothes. After all, a man should look his best when robbing a bank for the first time.

--ooOoo--

To go directly to the sixth part of this series, click here.

Clive

Back to the main blog

Have your say

You may use HTML in comments. A carriage return is <br />, use two for a new paragraph. For bold text use <strong></strong> and for italic text use <em></em>. If you know what you're doing feel free to use more complex mark-up but please no deprecated tags or JavaScript.

Name *

Comment *

Email *

URL

Commenting has closed for this post