The Three Dreams of Elian Montoya, Part One

by Brendan Mattox

Elian Montoya sat motionless, staring at the Charles River from the plush leather couch in his darkened office on the 59th floor of the John Hancock Tower.

He closed his eyes again and attempted to force the sleep that would not come to him naturally. His head ached as he pushed his eyelids against each other and sunk lower into his seat. 
...
It was no use.

For the time being, he would have to remain awake. He stood up and walked out of the room.
            
Elian yawned as he wandered the deserted hallway of Pierce & Pierce, Esqs. Turning left at the end of the hall, he rounded the open doorway into the break room, where the broken green dashes of the microwave clock read quarter past nine. He popped open the clear glass door of the refrigerator and instinctively reached for a chilled espresso. Pulling the can out, he stared intensely into the label, had second thoughts, and picked up a bottle of expensive Japanese water from the bottom shelf instead.
            
Straightening up, he stopped to cock his head to one side. He could hear the click-hum of the cooling unit in the fridge, and in the distance on another floor somewhere, the dull mechanical whine of the night shift cleaning some executive’s office. But Elian Montoya heard another sound, one that he’d never heard in the offices of Pierce & Pierce, Esqs. this time of night.
            
It sounded to him like a slow mechanical tick-tick-tick, set to the time of a slow waltz from a bygone era that Elian barely remembered. He had not heard the tune since the day of his sister Illia’s wedding, a day he would’ve given anything not to have remembered. Taking a swig from the bottle, Elian decided the only proper thing to do was to investigate.
            
The overhead lights in the bullpen were shut off, leaving the rows between the desks to be illuminated by the fluorescent strips that ran along the ground next to the walls of fuzzy gray cubicles. Outside the window, the first flurries of a December snow storm blinked in the lights of the buildings below. Elian paused half-way across the room, and with the ticking still pounding in his ears, placed his forehead against the cold glass of the window.
            
He could feels his heart beat with the metronome. He sighed a heavy sigh that fogged a portion of the glass, and quickly smudged it away with his left hand. He shut his eyes once more and wished he was asleep at home in his warm bed, not the office. The legal firm of Pierce & Pierce demanded that his every waking hour be tied to defending a man he did not want to defend.

Never mind that he didn’t have time. He was told that if this were the last case he ever defended, he would finish it. Elian’s reputation was too good for him, and the file had him whipped – it was his 6th consecutive night staying late at the office.
            
His head ached at the thought of his meeting with his client, Philip Gunderson, the next morning. Nine-thirty am sharp, only half a day away now. The high-profile drug dealer’s cold stare bore into him even now, his cold blue eyes crossing the hours between their last meeting and this very moment. Those eyes, those brilliantly blue eyes. The rest of Gunderson’s face was blurry in his memory now, but his eyes stared at Elian’s whenever he closed his own.

Back in the office, Elian sighed and forced his lids open. The ticking had stopped. The office was dead still.

Completely still, in fact.

The hum of the building heating system, the buzz of the florescent strips, the vacuums of the cleaning men - there was nothing.

No sound.

The silence pressed in on him, growing more pronounced. A ringing began in Elian’s ears, at first first distance, then louder, until it became a single tone. Elian’s heartbeat quickened. What was going on?

He turned back from the window, eyes flailing wildly in their sockets unsure of his place. He gripped the top of the cubicle wall next to him, and held tight to the grey felt as his legs gave and kicked, one, two, out from underneath of him. His foot struck the potted plant near the window, knocking it to the floor. His sweaty palms slipped on the wall and Elian toppled to the drab gray and maroon carpet of the Pierce & Pierce offices, his breathing labored. The ringing grew louder.

And then it stopped.

Silence.

And then.

Tik

Tik

Tik

The metronome began it’s horrific beating again, faster now than it had in the past. It echoed through the office, starting back by the break room and ending in the corner by Elian’s office. It warped in and out of tune as it reverberated, cutting the dead air around him like a knife. Elian still struggled to breathe, inhaling fiercely against the empty vacuum around his head. His lungs collapsed and in his final moments he heard the ticking sound beat loudly against his ears as his vision blurred and then went black. He saw his body lying on the floor in front of the window, the December flakes falling thickly in the background.

Elian bolted upright in his chair, gasping for breath. The face of the ticking grandfather clock in his office read 11:30 pm.

To be continued next week...