The Man With No Name

As the grey light appeared in between the chimneys, The Man With No Name’s eyelids gently opened as the brightness targeted him like a sniper. London’s chimneys were dancing in the grey light, occupying the place where rays of light were supposed to be. The smell of soot and coal permeated the air aggressively, attacking the pleasurable smells, dispersing and suffocating them. The flight of a few seagulls in the distance, too far to distinguish, and the machinations of industry sounded out their groans and grunts, as they stretched their metallic limbs at the sight of their masters. The city was coming alive, and No Name was as well.

The only sensation No Name could feel immediately after his eyelids palpated and accustomed to the grey above, was the incessant throbbing in his head. Excruciating, and with that sort of pain no other thoughts can manage to surface. Striking at the front of his head, he scrambled his shaking hands for some indication of reason, rigidly touching his forehead. He couldn’t see any blood on the trembling fingers before him.

He did not realize, when the Man With No Name had finally woken up, that he had no recollection of where he was. He did not realize the street he was on, recognizing nothing of his surroundings, the bright red bricks and mortar he was looking at made no indication in his brain. He analyzed the cobblestones underneath him, hard, their curvature striking his body. Nothing seemed to be known to him. Not the noises. Nor the bricks, the street, the alleyway. Not one thing. With the pain slightly subsiding, that deep fog started to dissipate, vanish into the heavily polluted and dense air of that alleyway. Like steam, it began so clearly visible in his head, and disappeared into the grey, untraceable.

As that haze vanished, an altogether different fog had begun to settle. A dark and all-encompassing thought, so vivid that it banished everything else into thin air, very much like the initial pain had done. It had been there since No Name had woken up, but had been covered by his thoughts, a smokescreen. Burrowed in his mind it finally came at the forefront of his head, the whispers of something sinister increasing in sound, until it burst like a blowfish.

I can’t remember a single thing. Not one thing. Not one single thing.

His brain wavered at the questions. What the hell happened? Who am I? And what is this strange alleyway I am in? What was I doing there? Where did I come from?

He dove into his pockets instinctively, out of reflex, and found a beautiful gold pocket watch, sounding out the seconds that passed. 06:13. With such daylight in a city it must be close to summer. He looked at his own body, and saw he was wearing an elegant trench coat and vest, beige squares patterned from top to bottom. Below, corduroy beige trousers and wing-tipped camel-skinned boots.

There was nothing in his pockets apart from that gold pocket watch though, no stubs, nothing. He grabbed it again quickly and squinted his eyes, reading the fine print just below the 12 mark. Ulysses Nardin. Locle & Geneve. He turned it around. Embedded in elegant cursive, two letters intertwined with each other.

L.L.

Where they my initials? How could I know? He stared blankly at the woven carving, hoping to have an epiphanous realization. But nothing came. Shaking, he placed the watch back into his trench pocket, and slowly, stood up in that deserted red brick alleyway.

The Man with No Name felt light-headed, unsure of himself, every step he took towards the street the alleyway cut into solidified the thousands of questions surging through that uncertain consciousness. He had no true clue of which to follow, and no true way of knowing where he was going.

As he arrived on that cobbled road, and the hustle and bustle of industrial London sharpened his instincts and senses. The street was filled with people of all kinds; beggars and dock longshoremen, ironmen, steelmen, coalmen, landowners, homeowners, lords, ladies in carriages, horses click-clacking on the cobbled stones, prostitutes, buyers, sellers, butchers, and fishmongers. He was dead center in one of the many long markets that plagued the London streets, and invited every corner of that city to shop its wares. Fish, cotton, fabric of all colors and shapes, pig’s heads for stews, whiffs of the British Raj, spices from the Far Seas, strong tobacco, trinkets. It was a plethora of sights and smells, sounds of one screaming to another, small children running around, crying, bellowing. The air, filled with distinctly putrid smells, continued to have that lingering soot and smoke in that freshly grey morning air.

And I still remember nothing.

In a fragile state of mind, this cacophony was too much for him to bear. He continued taking one step after another, to nowhere, evading the eyes of the beggars bumping into him and the elegantly clean ladies, their bendy corsets. He had to show the right combination of indifference and care, to not draw attention to himself by any of the thousand strangers. Didn’t matter though, as The Wandering Thousand Eyes followed him, while the horse’s hooves clattering across made him jump when they neared. But nobody cared. He looked out of place, distraught, dressed affluently, but with a facial expression of concerned confusion.

He had walked for quite a while through that thick bamboo jungle of industrial humanity. With each trying step, little did he know that he was getting closer to something, to knowing. The subconscious tends to hide from its owner, waiting, secretly, to pounce on the conscious mind. Predator against prey, stalking through the tall grass for the right moment.

Left step. Right step. Another. Pacing through the streets unknowing.

After some time, what seemed like an eternity, something caught his eye, or his ear, a bell ringing, so faint in the loudness around him. He turned slightly to the right and there on the corner he spotted a door closing. Above it, vividly, stood two large red neon letters, in the midst of what seemed to be an industrial wasteland around the building. Those two letters, sprung his subconscious, kicking and screaming, into that conscious fray.

L. L.

He instinctively pulled out the only thing on his person, that gold pocket watch. LL. Written in the exact same way. Was this a coincidence? Maybe they knew who or what I was, and what the hell had happened to me. Blood pumping through his veins, he ventured closer to the small black and grey building, surrounded by ne’er do wells on all sides. The bell rang, and there he was. Closer to something of himself.

The room, now realizing it wasn’t a shop, was barren of furniture, just a rugged leather reclining chair in the middle, with a small wooden table in front, a ballpoint pen, quite a nice one, and a little black book neatly placed in the center of the table. The tiled floors recalled those of a restroom, dirty and misshapen, with some tiles missing altogether. He creeped closer to the chair, touched it, felt its leather-bound cracks, when he suddenly heard the horse’s hooves on the tiles behind him.

He swiveled around, only to see a man, dressed in black from top to bottom, and heavy steel boots to go along with it. A smirk, so hideous it made his skin crawl, appeared on his face at the sight of No Name. His subconscious, now moaning in his mind, felt a sensation it hadn’t before, or had but a long time ago, in this exact same place, a time unknown to him. Danger.

“Lookie lookie who decide to bloody show up.” A thick Cockney accent echoed across the tiles. “All night me boys been looking for ya, and now, like Lucifer himself, appears again worse for wear.” Wiping his mouth with satisfaction, the Smirking Man slowly stepped in No Name’s direction.

“Beg your pardon sir?” Just now hearing his voice for the first time, he realized it was a soothing deep voice, yet firm. He hadn’t even had a chance to look at himself yet, so the sound of his voice surprised him.

“Don’t make me laugh boy. It seems I owe you somefing, and it seems you owe me somefing. Well, two fings, specially to Dr. Lethe, and I can assure you, you won’t be leaving till I’ve delivered.”

Dr. Lethe? LL? Maybe it was him, maybe he knew something about me. Maybe he could help.

“Dr. Lethe? Sir, I don’t understand sir, I don’t remember, there must be a misunderstanding. I…. I don’t remember anything sir. My…my…my apologies, but…do we know each other? Could I…maybe…converse with Dr. Lethe to see…?”

Smirking Man cut him off, “Dr. Lethe is done speaking with you son until you give him what you owe. Specially after everyfing you’ve done.”

He was almost right next to him, and could smell that distinct tobacco stench on his clothes and breath.

“I’m very sorry sir…I really don’t remember…what exactly do I owe you…or…. Dr. Lethe?”

“Well, if you gonna keep playin’ about, let me refresh the memory. You, my boy, owe a story. Somefing good. A story that people would read. Somefing special. But you decided, bloody fool, to play with good ol’ Dr. Lethe. A story, that you were supposed to write yesterday. Instead, like the sod you are, you stole his money, which I was gonna pay ya anyways. 20,000 good ol’ American ones you stole. Me boys still looking for it, but you’ve probably hidden that real well. So, lobcock, all ya got to do now, is write, and we, nice fellas that we are, we won’t hurt ya, and you and I, can forget this ever happened ey?”

What was this man talking about? The questions now, thousands of them swam through his brain. This man had no idea what had happened to him, but this Dr. Lethe maybe did. Strange name that. Am I a writer? What did I write about? What story was I supposed to have written? Did I really steal $20,000? Was it in the alleyway?

If only he could have a chance to speak to this doctor, and just as he was about to explain, he heard another clicking, but just one, different to the horse’s hooves. “Done playin’ now, go ahead and take a seat. Grab the bloody pen, and write, so we can be done here and me boss can get what he wants. Or…I’ll just blow that confused idiotic look you’ve decided to wear.” The LeMat revolver was now pointed directly at No Name’s temple, and his subconscious and conscious reeled from the panic settling in.

What the hell do I do? Why was he pointing a revolver at me? He knew he was in trouble, and even more so, knew he couldn’t get out of there. So, only one option remained. He had to write. But I don’t remember anything. How could I write if I have nothing in my memory? Lord help me.

Tremoring, he sat down. Looked at the table in front, feeling the cold muzzle of the revolver above his left eye. The black lined notebook was empty. Maybe, that subconscious, that instinct, waiting in the tall grass, would pounce again if he began to write. Here goes nothing. He placed the ballpoint on that first line, seeing the ink spew out a circle on the parchment, and began writing. He was right. The letters began to take shape, words formed a sentence, almost unintelligible, and No Name’s smile of relief vanished as he felt the cocked metal pressing against his head, Smirking Man leaning over to see.

He could just faintly make out the scribbles of that sentence.

As the grey light appeared in between the chimneys, The Man With No Name’s eyelids gently opened as the brightness targeted him like a sniper…