He ignored the pain in his shoulders, keeping his smile plastered on, while Clyde bounced painfully on him. He looked out at the parade, suddenly hearing a woman’s voice:
“There’s more than this.”
He turned around, but there were so many people pressed against him, and all of them facing the street, that he wasn’t sure who spoke to him.
To his left he heard a woman’s voice, “You have a destiny.”
He turned, but the man next to him was watching the parade. Was that a voice in his head? Who spoke? His face registered confusion, and the man next to him glanced at him for a minute. He didn’t like what he saw, because he turned to watch the parade again.
He felt chilled. What was going on? Clyde drove his tailbone into his shoulder with one hard bounce and LaBonte grunted. Clyde didn’t care, and kept on doing it.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the parade ended because the last clowns were running through the streets, tossing candy to the children. He saw Sophia shove aside a smaller boy to grab a pile of candy.
He put Clyde down, wincing. He was going to need a massage tonight. The family gathered back up, heading toward the food courts. He kept the plastered smile on his face as Sophia proudly showed him her fists full of candy. Her brother got a few, and looked sheepish. Tammy put the candy in her bag, mixing them up to Sophia’s chagrin and screaming that she didn’t want to share any of it with Junior.
This is what he lived with. Tammy knew this, and massaged his shoulders gently as they stood around eating, there being no tables available. Tammy didn’t eat, not with her overly sensitive stomach. Junior was allergic to nearly everything and only got some french fries. Sophia ate enough for them all.
He forgot about those words in the crowd until after Tammy had rubbed his shoulders to the point where he was half-asleep. He heard that woman’s voice again, “You have a destiny.” It was the last thing he heard before he drifted into a dreamless sleep, and the first thing in the morning.
“Destiny?” Tammy looked at him over her waffles.
The kids were getting ready for school, and he was on his way out to the office. He turned to his wife. “Huh?”
“You said ‘destiny’ in your sleep.”
“Oh. Oh, I don’t know. Must have been dreaming.”
Work was no better than home. A client was demanding his web site have movement like water at the top, and a few people were trying to explain that that could cause seizures. He wasn’t paying attention.
“So what is your destiny?”
He was in his cubicle, staring at code, when a woman stopped just outside of his cubie door. She had long blond hair, wore a miniskirt, and had legs that went up to her neck. He swallowed, trying to calm down because she was absolutely beautiful.
“Me…my?”
“I’m taking a poll,” she said, smiling. He’d never seen her before in his life. “What’s your destiny?”
“I…I don’t know.”
She came into his cube. “I can help you find it.”
He found himself backing away. She touched his arm – it was electric. “Come with me.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice. She led him into the conference room, and closed the door. Alone with her. In a relatively sound-proofed conference room. Alone.
“Sit down,” she said, and gently pressed his shoulders. He sat, and she came up behind him. She gently placed her hands on the side of his head —
Her voice, in his head: You have a destiny. See your destiny.
A blond man, with empty gray eyes, held a blazing white sword in one hand and a black short sword in another. The man was hard to see, and shimmered, sometimes clear, other times cloudy and black. But always those eyes, empty of emotion–
Before him was Sophia, but a much older Sophia. Sophia was in a blue uniform, a police officer. She held a gun at the man.
Then the man smiled, a cold, predatory one, and the swords moved of their own volition. The white blade severed her gun hand – the gun went off and the man was hit somewhere, as he stumbled back. The moment he did, he disappeared, but he could see the glow of the white blade in the darkness of what he had disappeared into. He saw the white glow sever Sophia from her shoulder to her hip, and crossed again to the other side.
Her legs toppled one way, her body another, and the split caused a fountain of blood to burst forth, coating the white blade red.
LaBonte fell forward onto the table, gasping. “My…my God…”
The woman walked around him, and then opened the conference room door. Two burly men were outside of it. “He is ready.”
=================
The man in the dark suit sat across from Michael LaBonte. The room he was placed was stark, with only a table and two chairs, and a typical one-way glass wall. He sat, fidgeting, scared. No one answered his questions, so he stopped asking.
Finally, though, this man walked in. He took the chair and turned it around, straddling it, studying LaBonte.
“How old are you, Michael?”
“Thir…thirty-eight.”
“Do you know why you’re here?”
“No, no, I don’t.” LaBonte looked up at him, hoping he would give him an answer.
The man watched him.
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…I have no idea where this is going.