Tyrant Eliza Chapter 7

7- The Truth

“Mom?” I turned my head right, eying my conscience onto my mother, who seemed rather fine without any harms. She stared at me in bewilderment, before redirecting her vision to the opened papers in my hands. As the all too familiar address shone with luminescence into her pupils, the only thing which seemed to change was nothingness. She didn’t display any shift in emotions, and instead just treated it as “just some front page news”.

“Just some front page news, boring.” See? I took two steps back, cold sweat drooling from my sweat pores down towards my chin, before letting go and pummeling to the ground, hard. My mother’s chilling smile scarred my sanity, as she began to look a little, unusual? Never once my mind played two polarizing tricks on me, so one has to be cold hard reality, and one has to be some illusionary fantasy. As distorted as my grasp on realism became, I knew one person whom I could trust, and that was my darling Eliza.

So I threw the newspaper backwards before storming out of the house and onto the busy pavement. Just across the road was a tree, an apple tree to be exact, a really huge one. Those sweet juicy red apples were the most prized possession of Eliza, as she grew up eating the fruit, and remained her favourite until some distant future. I whipped out my cellphone and dialed the first contact in my favourites list. It took a while, but eventually her alluring greeting was present.

“Sweetheart, we need to meet up now!”

“5 minutes, let’s have lunch in Allisco Cuisine” I wanted to end the call, but it has already ended; no calling time was recorded, and my prepaid balance wasn’t reduced even by a bit, which was definitely weird. It agitated me, and dilated the emptiness in my heart. I had to meet her as soon as time will allow, so I signalled for a cab, which fortunately enough I managed to find one in a matter of seconds. I vehemently pulled the door open, and slammed it shut as the driver stared at me with disappointment.

“What’s up with young people nowadays…” He puffed a stick of cigarette before casually throwing it out of the window. Normally I would be disgusted by that sordid action, but that time I had more significant issues to worry about.

“Take me to Allisco Cuisine, now!” Almost immediately, he puked out the volume of mineral water he was drinking. He was flabbergasted.

“You gotta be kidding me.”

“I am serious, mister. Take me there before I sue you in high court!” I raised my voice in scale, and he knew I meant business, so he released the handbrake and sped off. During the ride, I observed his constant attention towards me, as if he knew I was schizophrenic or something.

“What are you gonna do there?”

“Meet up and have some Italian lunch with my girlfriend, of course.”

“Sir, you are insane.”

***

As the taxi ultimately came to a grand halt, I came to notice the destroyed building right of the vehicle I was in. The metallic arches and beams supporting the structure could be easily seen through the pile of wreckage, and dozens of dead electrical wires could be spotted hanging around, sticking out of concrete holes on the broken walls. All signs of life were eradicated, as if none has ever visited the leftover building for years. I didn’t know why the authorities did not take action and just demolish the white elephant; it effectively ruined the modernity of the area.  

“Why on earth did you stop me here? This pile of junk is…” I put my sentence on a pause as I saw Eliza sitting on the stairs inside the detritus-filled building, so I pushed the door open and ran as fast as a speeding bullet towards her. I embraced her with a nice warm hug, before questioning her motives.

“What in the world are you doing here? This isn’t Allisco Cuisine.” She simply smiled to my serious question. Just at that particular moment, I felt a force pulling me backwards. Two grown men wrapped their arms over my hands and brought me away from her. I didn’t resist, as I too, knew something was awfully wrong.

“Sir, this place is restricted; you can’t just stroll in like that!” They stated it as if they didn’t notice the gorgeous woman standing right in front of me.

“But isn’t this Allisco Cuisine…”

“Yes it was, 5 years ago. What’s left of it now is…”

Wait, what?

“5 years ago? Like dude, you’re dead serious?” My heartbeat grew quicker by the minute, as my brain could not tolerate such a forced adaptation of reality. At that very moment, I saw my darling Eliza disappeared from plain sight. As if time seemed to stop, my mind started piecing the broken puzzles together, but it was far from completion, as the two people themselves may be my mere illusions. I didn’t know anything.

I didn’t want to know anything.

I didn’t bother summoning a taxi, as I simply escaped from the men’s grasp and accelerated my momentum. I could not understand. As I am writing this even my very own writing hand shivered at the mere thought of the following event. But still, someone has to read this, and know everything.

I didn’t remember the journey back to lot 87 of Orion Road, which was my terrace house. All I remembered was how I saw colours, iridescent rays of light striking from multiple directions, resembling some sort of seizure. I think I banged into several people along the way, whom I didn’t really bother. I also didn’t remember how did I managed those turns and alleys, as it seemed my own legs had its own sense of direction, which was fortunate, as my mind was busy trying to not know anything about the event.

“MOM?!!” I was restricted from entering my own damn house by some policemen, and lots of other people. I didn’t fully videotape the situation into my mind, as I just kept screaming the very word which I just shrieked over and over again. Two of those policemen rushed towards me, I think, and tried to calm me down. I pitied them, as it took them long enough to tame a schizophrenic grown man shouting for his mother.

“Please ca-lm d- s-i-i-r and t- -- he - Eliza” I swore I heard her name; maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me again? As my hearing began to regain its sanity, I reaffirmed my theory.

“I’m sorry that we arrived too late, your mother hired him last night.”

“Did she have depression, sir?”

“SHUT UP!” I could not withstand it any longer. I just… wanna die.

Hide myself from reality.

Never to remind myself of that very incident ever again.