Before Bertie

As I floated between the soft embrace of slumber and the abrasive noise of consciousness, my eyelids felt impossibly heavy.

I tried to open them.

The sound of So What by Miles Davis filled the room. Where was I?

A dingy, poorly lit office emerged from the distortion. I'd been lying face down on the desk and could feel where the edges of some papers had pressed a pattern into my face. Beside my head was a bottle of Laphroaig 20-year-old Scotch. The earthy scent filled my lungs as I sat up. Without hesitation, I pressed the glass to my lips and emptied its contents, feeling a rush through me as it warmed my stomach.

While I roused myself, an impatient, almost nervous tap on the window of the door brought me more clearly to my senses.

A blonde broad walked in with an attitude.

Ruby-red lips pursed into a frown. Her husband was missing.

Bertie.

Out of character.

I asked about payment as maestro Miles led his ensemble through another transition of modal jazz, and she leaned across the desk.

"Please just find Bertie!"

I still felt a heavy haze over a lot of things, but I was not about to leave a poor dame in distress.

I grabbed a Magnum and a hip flask from the drawer that hung down precariously from my desk and locked arms with her.

"Come with me, ma'am."

"It's Chantilly," she chided with a blush.

"Fine, Chantilly. Come with me."

I didn't know where to start, just that the mystery of Bertie's disappearance lay beyond my shabby office.

As we stepped into the dark, cold night, something felt off. My legs gave way a little, like I was trying to learn how to walk. There was a strange musk in the air, and when I looked at my reflection in a window, I swore it changed momentarily to a younger version of me.

Organ chords drifted through the rain.

The visage shrugged into dissipation as I walked along the rain-soaked streets. Though I wasn't immediately sure where, I headed off to the nearest bar. Not least because I needed something a little stronger than the Islay 10-year in my flask. The drums pounded rapidly as the bass drove my movement.

The shabby bar we found ourselves in was still classier and better kept than my office.

"What will it be?"

The stout gentleman behind the bar did not look like the type for small talk.

"A double of your oldest Scotch and a brandy for the lady."

"How did you know?"

Chantilly seemed baffled and charmed in equal measure.

"It's my job to know."

"Besides, you look like a brandy drinker. My mom was a brandy drinker..."

I felt dizzy and lost the room for a moment. I remembered my mom sitting at the table drinking a brandy.

Before the shots rang out.

When I came to, it was the guy behind the bar tapping the mahogany for payment.

"Do I know you?"

"I don't think so. Do you?" I asked.

I wasn't sure of many things right now.

"A friend of Bertie's?" he asked.

"You knew my Bertie?"

Chantilly chimed in, though the attractive blonde with curves was momentarily replaced by what I could best describe as a monster.

My vision blurred, distorted. I couldn't tell if she was asking the bartender or me.

Then darkness consumed me.

I blinked and found myself in an impossibly long corridor with a man in a white coat.

"Are they closer now?"

I blinked again and then I was outside the bar.

"Are you okay? At least the barman gave us the information we needed!"

Chantilly looked at me.

What information?

"Aren't you coming?"

Chantilly started walking ahead of me. I followed. I felt it was important, but knew not why.

The further along the street we walked—no, ran—the further Chantilly seemed to fade into the surroundings like a memory.

My legs gave way again and I fell into a puddle. When I pulled myself up, my arms were... not broken, but felt lifeless. At least my forearms did. Like my skin was longer than my limbs.

Like when you wear your parents' clothes as a child.

Chantilly disappeared further ahead into a small doorway between two shops. It looked like the entrance to an apartment.

Everything felt a little bigger.

I couldn't work out how.

As I reached for the handle, the door pushed open and someone called out to me from behind.

"Bertie? Your mother's been working hard and this is how you treat her? She's been worried sick."

When I turned, a tree was looming over me, its branches stroking my coat.

I ran through the hallway of the apartment and found an open door, but tripped over my shoes, which were three sizes too big.

Chantilly stepped over me.

Though it wasn't Chantilly.

It was a greying old woman.

"Bertie, don't let go of Granny's hand again or a bad man might take you away," she scolded as she stretched her hands down and pulled me close to her chest.

"Don't say that, Mom! He'll have nightmares!"

The other voice wasn't Chantilly's or my granny's.

It sounded distorted and came from a woman. Yes, definitely a woman, who was out of focus and more silhouette than flesh and bone.

Then darkness washed over me and I fell.

I tried to open my eyes.

Saw only semblances of humans.

Mom was crying.

No, Granny was crying.

Mom was lying.

Tomato ketchup was pouring from her stomach.

No, not tomato.

Crimson.

I tried to call out to her.

Mom!

But I couldn't.

Or it felt like my voice was distant.

Not distant.

Unintelligent.

All vowels and rough consonants.

Then blackness again.

The soft floating harp and piano of So What lulled me.

Don't run away.

Don't run away.

Don't run away.

Follow your mom.

Then a different kind of blackness.

Not blackness.

Darkness.

Liquid.

A balloon cocoon.

Muffled noises or voices beyond.

Inside-out flesh surrounded me.

All sinew, blood, pulsating. Alive.

A heartbeat.

Not my own.

Louder.

Two heartbeats.

A force pushing.

Breaching the cocoon.

Screaming.

Muffled, but louder.

It can't be.

Awake.

Curled within warm liquid darkness, listening to a heartbeat that was not my own.

Claustrophobia and inevitability fill me as I remember what I can't and shouldn't remember.

*

Thanks for reading!

This is for both the Out of the Dream Vocal Challenge and Sasha Desideri's Summer Mystery Unofficial Challenge.