Journeys Begin

There were times that Nick Webster's intellect could be
astonishing.

Despite its slightly above-average depth, he possessed the uncommon
ability to sound like an expert on almost any subject, capable of
analyzing who he was talking to and drawing on his vocabulary to
achieve one of two results: to dazzle them with the truth, or to talk
so far above them they would shrug him off as correct to hide their own
ignorance. Nick found this ability to come in handy for debate, the
interjection of interesting comments, or what he called "the
procurement of intercourse."

When the situation called for it, Nick could focus his mind like the
needle-thin ray of light through a magnifying glass. Problems,
opinions, arguments, and of course, women were all like dry leaves,
withering to nothing in his mind's presence.

The machine that was Nick Webster's mind was perpetual, all-powerful,
flexible, and useful, but far from perfect. It was vulnerable to
emotion, which Nick couldn't harness, suppress, or prevent. Emotion was
synonymous with Nick to those that knew him. He had no neutral state.
Nick loved to laugh, hated to scream, and was afraid to cry-but it
didn't stop him. The wavelengths of emotion were either dormant or
spiked, and their constant fluctuation interfered with the smooth
operation of his mind. It was also incapable of self-evaluation,
resulting in a humility that greatly limited his potential. Nick never
considered himself intelligent, but knew he wasn't stupid. Never once
did he flex his healthy body in front of a full-sized mirror, admiring
his paralyzing good looks. His hair was short and brown, framing his
strong face and large, limitless eyes that wreaked of awareness as well
as bright blue. Women would tell their friends of the "I don't know"
about Nick Webster. It wasn't just the good looks, but a feeling. They
were unable to describe the way his words felt true and strength seemed
to pour from him, dripping from each step, each syllable, each look.
Women often dismissed Nick's effect on them as simply being
"masculine," when in fact he was far more sensitive, gentle, and loving
than most men who bore the adjective.

He hovered just above average, never once feeling to urge to push
himself further. He was content, and the need to advance in social
status, the workplace, or classroom never bothered him.

Busy in the throes of his morning routine, Nick tied his shoes with
eye-narrowing concentration, making sure to place two perfect
lace-coils on each shoe. He anticipated deep thought during his walk to
work, and loose footwear was an unacceptable distraction. Walking to
work was not part of his routine, but because of Alicia Tucker, he
wanted the extra twenty minutes to help him clear his head before his
meeting.

Love is traditionally the most powerful emotion, intensified further if
it's unrequited. For Nick, he felt love and all of it's cousins through
his relationship with Alicia-love unrequited, heartbreak, and true
love. The torrents of emotion caused by love made it difficult to
properly focus his beam of intellect. As he straightened his shirt
collar, Memories scuttled about his crowded mind-some whispered, some
screamed, but most of them laughed. The best of times hurt the worst
for Nick.

With the extra thinking time gained by walking to work, the pain would
be dulled by the time he arrived. Not gone, but dulled. The healing
could begin. Life could go on. He could come home, go to bed, and think
even more. In the morning, he would wake up and there would be a split
second of bliss, when he forgot all about her. Then he would be flooded
with Alicia and sadness all at once-not only because she was a burden
he would carry throughout the day, but because the dreams he just awoke
from were filled with her. Each day carried but one split second of
peace.

So his mind scurried to find a way to evacuate Alicia Tucker. Emotion
constipated the process, and pain was the result. Nick made the
conscious choice to walk to work, hoping to feel at least one percent
better with the extra fresh air and thinking time.

His ample, fluid, gorgeous mind had no mystic foresight. He could not
see that his choice to walk to work would alter his view of the world
and others. Life and death would run together like watercolors, as
would fantasy and reality. His heartache would become secondary to the
most primal instinct-survival. Nick Webster would never see his home
again, and in walking out of the door of his apartment, he took the
first step in discovering the awesome power, heroism, and happiness
that lay dormant in his veins, waiting to be discovered. All because of
a cell phone and a fantastic, mystic word that would replace Alicia in
all his dreams.

* * *

The day exploded before him. Traffic shuffled along, horns honked, and
air brakes hissed. People screamed-at each other, at their yowling
pets, or into their cell-phones.

Nick concentrated on the people and the cars-the action. He crossed the
street, his plaid, maroon shirt flapping in the summer breeze, sandals
clapping against the pavement.

GrantCo didn't have a dress code. They only requested that everyone
proofreading grants meet once a week at their office to turn in the
completed ones and acquire new assignments. Most of Nick's work was
done in his apartment, and most of it was easy. GrantCo kept the bills
paid and there was no clocking in. When his mind was emblazoned on a
computer, Nick had no equal at GrantCo. He could get away with
replacing slacks for khaki shorts and management wouldn't say a
word.

Now on the sidewalk, the city brutality seemed distant. He adjusted to
the occasional brush of the shoulder by a pedestrian in a rush. His
pace leveled out, and he slid Alicia into the microscope of his
mind.

He hadn't seen her in two years. This made his pain seem illogical, and
therefore, intensified since he crucified himself for feeling it. The
first step was to make his love for Alicia logical again.

Alicia Tucker was the most beautiful woman Nick had ever seen in
person. He couldn't lie to himself and compare her with Britney Spears,
Anna Kournikova, or Lara Flynn Boyle, his personal high plateau of
famous beauties.

This honesty comforted him, but could not remove her searing blue eyes
from gazing at him. He called them Cal Ripken eyes. They were swirling
hurricanes of blue, so pale and beautiful they seemed almost clear
enough to see her very soul.

The soul was questionable. He had known her since she was fifteen-seven
years, and in that time she had given him all the best memories he
could have with a person. He remembered her calling him "gorgeous."
Although feminine in connotation, the way she said it made him believe
it wasn't purely a physical description.

They shared their first kiss, their first love, their first date, and
their first time. They also shared the first breakup, the first
argument, and the first mistake.

And the second of each. And the third of each.

In all, Nick had deduced that they made love over a hundred times,
broke up three times, made up twice, kissed an innumerable amount of
times, argued to tears seven times, and cheated on each other once.
Such consistent inconsistency might spell out DOOM in big letters for
any other relationship, but Nick cringed at the thought of a flawless
fifty year courtship. He loved Alicia because of her potential to be a
bitch, which made her sweetness a taste all the more reasonant.

With progress being made, Nick stopped at a crosswalk. The stick figure
turned green, and Nick paced along with him to the corner of the
intersection. This simple distraction caused the "mistakes" to explode
in his mind like geysers.

At eighteen, so full of youthful, sexual fuel, Nick was in no position
to prevent the advances of another woman who was just as beautiful as
Alicia, such as her twin sister, Trisha. He almost convinced himself it
was an honest mistake, but their difference in breast size was
unmistakeable. Alicia was a very busty 36C, Trisha was a downright
pornographic 38D. Since she knew all too well of his tendency to
concentrate on the breast during lovemaking, Alicia could easily deduce
it was no mistake.

Revenge was all it could be. There was a need to show her that he was
capable of straying away if she didn't appreciate him. Despite this
fully appropriate reason, and despite the fact that just two months
earlier she told him the gritty details of the blow job she
administered to her ex-boyfriend Todd, Nick came home to find his class
ring, the letters that he had written her, and the pendant he gave her
for her birthday on the desk in his bedroom.

Six months later, they made love on the very same desk, with Alicia
inadvertently tearing away one of the handles as she held onto it. The
thick side drawers slide out inch by inch until they spilled all over
the floor. He remembered her on the floor, with the blank sheets of
white paper sticking to sweat, sweat sticking to flesh, and her eyes,
rolled back as white as the paper itself.

Two months later, they cried as he packed her things. Her mother got a
new physical therapy job in the city, and with it, they could afford a
new house. He did all but ask her to marry him, promising her of a
proposal when the time was right. They promised, him without a ring and
without kneeling, Alicia without a word, only a kiss on the lips, so
brief and pure that it could only mean yes.

Three months of sorrow followed. He remembered the pain well, how he
tried to think it away, much like he was now, striding down a street,
his mind working so hard it all but smoked from his ears.

The sorrow was followed by torment. She got another boyfriend. In the
phone call, the need to "move on" was stressed. Nick moved on by
putting his good looks and sharp tongue into action, engaging in as
much meaningless sex as possible, always sharing a statistical tidbit
when he reached a new plateau.

Number nine was Jessica Roulan, worn by Jim McMahon in Super Bowl XX.
Ten, as in the number of commandments, the number of men most wanted by
the FBI, or the number of well dressed people that deserved a mention
from Mr. Blackwell was Morgan Garrett, although Morgan Garrett was far
from a ten. In his eagerness to reach double digits, Nick had committed
the sin of "slumming it," which every guy he knew did, but no one
admitted to. She had a little extra girth and had earned the nickname
"junk," which she obviously stored in her ample behind.

Nick's sexual number held at twenty-three, as in the great Micheal
Jordan. The number held steady at twenty-three as he walked to GrantCo,
and had been for an entire year. Empty sexual conquests had grown as
tiring as binge drinking and video games, two of his college favorites.
He was ready to reunite with Alicia, the major reason he chose GrantCo
over several other jobs he could've had with his degree from
UConn.

She lived across town, but was minutes away, not days. They had at
least one good conversation per month over the last few years apart,
and there was no doubt in his mind that there was no doubt in her mind
that they would eventually be together when the circumstances were
right.

Convinced that they were, he called from his new apartment. He told her
he had news, and she sensed it, shutting down his pending advances with
cold-hearted precision.

"Never," she said. A simple, scythe like word. Before he could even
mention the words dinner and movie, let alone love and marriage, she
was striking with her fangs dripping with a venom he never knew she
possessed.

"Never," Alicia said. "Never in a million years Nick. You need to
realize how old we were and how long ago it was. It was special, but it
wasn't forever. Nothing is. We aren't. We're destined to be different
people, separate people. We'll grow, but our roots won't intertwine.
It's always nice that you call, but never good. Never. It just makes
saying this sound more harsh and makes me look worse. I'm so sorry to
have waited so long."

Nick was dumbfounded. The future that he had planned on, depended on,
was gone. Just. Like. That.

The line clicked off before he could even answer. He held the receiver
in his hand, awkwardly frozen, trying to compute what he just
heard.

As he stood near the crosswalk, it still didn't compute, and not for a
lack of trying. While shuttling through the fragments of Alicia in his
mind, the emotions rose and fell, like waves lapping against the shore
of his mind. He was beginning to feel their rhythms, and simplified the
situation-it was over. No matter how many years in the past or
potential years in the future, the Alicia chapter must be closed. It
was sure to be a painful process, but ten minutes into the walk, a goal
was a good start.

Emotion interfered once more, a hate for love. Oxymorons holding hands
in the fiber of his thoughts and soul, but it made such sense. Nick
thought about love, and he hated it. The seconds of bliss that it
brings are bartered for with days, even years of anguish. Love cannot
be controlled as easily as anger. It can't be choked back like a laugh.
It's embers are left to burn out slowly, with memories forever fanning
the miniscule flame that's left.

An eternity lay before him. Nick thought that love would never come
again, and he feared that it would make him bitter. He once again
crucified himself for taking his many friends and his privileged,
independent life for granted. All over a girl.

But the girl is sometimes all that matters. In life, in every movie, in
every book, there's good, evil, and a girl. There's always a girl. It's
like death and taxes, and his sentence of Alicia seemed like a thorny
burden that would never dull.

At his lowest, his mind shot through the tidal wave of emotion. It can
only get better. Nick reminded himself that he felt the exact same way
when she moved, but he recovered. He would recover, this much he was
sure of. He could even admit that he may love again, but at the same
time, he knew for sure that he would never love the same way. He would
never give of himself with such blind intensity that true love
deserves.

Struggling with mind and emotion, crowded with the pros and cons of
love, Nick closed his eyes, took in a deep breath, and decided to
remove himself from his trance of deep reflection upon exhale. There
would be plenty of time before bed, when he would tuck himself in at
eight and struggle with himself until midnight, searching for the true
face of love, life, and happiness.

Ignorant of the sounds and sights that were so vibrant and real when he
first left his apartment, Nick held the breath. The sound of a buzzing
horn shattered his serenity.
The grill of the Trailblazer was six feet away, closing fast, preparing
to strike Nick's torso just below the sternum at the modest speed of
thirty-five miles per hour.
* * *

The Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox 3 was cutting edge MP3 technology. It
could hold hundreds of hours of music on its twenty gigabyte hard drive
and its retail price was a lofty four hundred dollars. Chris Carlin had
priced MP3 players for a couple of weeks, and finally made the
purchase, even though it was well over the budget he set for
himself.

It was Chris's first opportunity to use the player, which rested on his
lap and pumped his neckphones with CD quality sound. With Cake
complaining that an unnamed woman was "Never There," Chris held the
player with one hand, his other resting on the center of the Blazer's
steering wheel. Traffic was light and not a concern to him. He looked
up and saw a green light at the intersection and a sparse number of
cars, glancing down to see if he could start listening to the Rolling
Stones "Paint It Black." He pressed the scroll wheel, looked up, and
was shocked to see a man standing in the street, his head tilted back,
and the "Don't Walk" sign obviously flashing since the light was still
green. Dropping the MP3 player, Chris braced with two hands on the
wheel and instinctively hammered the brakes with a panicked stomp, but
it was too late. He was going to hit the man, the only question was how
hard.

* * *

Nick's life didn't flash before his eyes. Time did indeed seem to slow
down, but only long enough for his mind to alarmingly announce: "Jesus
Christ, this fucking Blazer is going to hit me in the face."

His heart began to release adrenaline before impact. Every single
muscle was tense and rigid-he had but a split second to react, and
bracing himself seemed like the only option. The Blazer bore down, its
seemingly toothy grill smiling at its prey. The brakes screeched a
siren's song.

Teeth clenched and fists closed, Nick's body was like stone. He felt as
if the Blazer might incur more damage during collision. His eyes
followed suit, slamming shut like a bank vault door.

Nick's body was shut down within a tenth of a second, ready to
challenge the Blazer. Impact was upon him. He felt the air underneath
him, and then felt his head crack against the pavement. His eyes opened
to the sight of black splotches, a product of the cranial impact
against the curb, where his head rested now.

Despite the injury, his mind processed the information at hand. The
impact was from the side, not from the front, where he faced the
Blazer, but was still enough to put him airborne. As he sat up, syrupy
streams of blood coursed down the back of his head and neck.

The Blazer had come to a halt. Thick fingers of blood trickled out from
underneath it, and there was a large splay of blood in front of it, as
if Jackson Pollack had been given a bucket of Crimson Red to decorate
Sixth Street. It was then that Nick realized that someone had pushed
him out of the way, even before he saw the hand and forearm convulsing
by the tire.

His mind was returning to full function. The adrenaline buzzed hard in
his veins, and he felt numb. The sounds of the day that sounded so
distant and ambient were now shrieks, sirens, and chatter, and all of
it sounded like it was meant for him.

People clamored towards the Blazer. Chris Carlin stepped out, kneeling
to see the extent of the damage.

"Are you hurt?" he yelled, hands cupped to amplify the sound, as if the
pooling blood didn't supply the answer.

Nick finally rose, hearing the good Samaritans ask of his condition. He
ignored them, his mind clean of Alicia and filled with shock and
gratitude at the same time. He walked to the Blazer, impervious to his
surroundings, staring, astounded of the selflessness of the person
underneath the vehicle.

Nick didn't kneel. He went to the ground nearly all the way, propping
himself up with his forearms. He heard people screaming not to touch
him, that an ambulance was on the way.

The man's eyes were blank and distant, but his chest rose with air and
dropped slowly, accompanied by a coarse, pneumonic sound. Nick was no
doctor, but he assumed that the man's lungs were filling with blood and
that he would soon suffocate, his ribcage shattered from impact.

"Thank you," was all Nick could say. The man didn't respond. Nick
peeked tried to crawl further underneath, near the man's outstretched
hand. "Thank God for you," he said, grabbing his hand. "Just hold
on."

Nick thought the man had already left due to head injury, and the body
was soon to follow. The hand then clenched tightly around his.

"Nick," the man gargled. Nick thought he was hearing things. There
wasn't so much blood that he couldn't get a good look at the man's
face. He had dark, greasy hair, a slender jaw and full lips. He
appeared to be young-thirty at the oldest.

"Nick," he repeated. It was clearer this time.

"I'm here." It was all he could think to say.

The man clenched his hand even tighter, as if to prepare him.

"High. Leck." Or at least that was what it sounded like. Nick tried to
make out what the man was saying, as it would be crucial to find out
how he knew him after the ordeal was over. He couldn't focus his mind,
but he could deposit information.

Nick tried to sqeeze the man's hand to let him know he was listening.
They were clenched together as one. The ambulance arrived as the sirens
got closer and finally stopped wailing, but Nick's ears were intently
focused on the dying man that had saved his life.

"Hi - Highlaject. Highlaject." Two times, it sounded the same. It was a
jibberish word, but Nick knew he heard him say it, exactly like
that.

"Highlaject," he repeated for a third time.

"Sir, step away. Get away, we can get him from here." Someone patted
him on the lower part of his back. Nick was nearly all the way
underneath the Blazer.

"Highlaject?" Nick said, barely audible and full of wonder.

The hand loosened as the man released an exhausted breath.

"Go."

Nick allowed himself to be pulled away. The medics went to work as Nick
backpedaled. Highlaject. The word hadn't registered because there was
nothing for a mind to latch onto-no meaning, no context, simply
syllables in the strangest of circumstances.

A hand suddenly touched his shoulder, and something cold pushed against
his wound. "Take'r easy buddy. We gotcha. Here, sit down for a
sec."

Nick let the medic take him down, and his perception was recovering. He
looked

"Jesus. You know I didn't mean it. I did what I could, I swear."

"We understand fully Mr. Carlin, but understand our situation. We're
just trying to find out what happened here. You said you weren't paying
attention, glanced at the light, saw Mr. Devin, and slammed on the
brakes, correct?"

Reliving the event in his mind, Chris Carlin began to sob against the
knuckles of his fist. With a slow walk, Nick heard everything, all the
way to the snot clicking in Carlin's nostrils.

"Take it easy here Mr. Carlin. Now, did you honk the horn?" The
detective looked more like a reporter than a cop. He had slick hair and
a brown jacket on. All that was missing was a derby hat with "press"
stamped onto a card and lodged in his hat.

"No, I didn't have time. I couldn't have honked the horn, if I could've
done that I would've been able to stop probably." Chris Carlin's eyes
were sunk behind swollen red eyelids. At the age of 22, the next 6 to
10 years were flashing before his eyes.

Nick felt no pity for the man, there was no room with Alicia Tucker and
the word Highlaject, and now there was a new addition . . .

"Excuse me," Nick said, sounding alarmed and walking briskly towards
Carlin and his questioning officers. They immediately met him with
harsh palms to the shoulders, holding him back, thinking he was in the
mood to retaliate.

"No, you've got it wrong," Nick yelped against the hands, which were
carrying him back. Grunts and breath were in his ears. He could make
out a "don't do it buddy," but didn't care about any of it.

"You honked the horn!" he screamed. "Tell them you fucking honked it!
Please! I heard you!" Carlin looked at him with a look of puzzlement
and pain.

Nick gave up and let himself get stuffed into the back of the unmarked
cruiser. The sounds muffled, and the silence was welcome.

It had to be the Blazer's horn. It was practically buzzing in his ears
just before the incident. Sure, it could've been another vehicle
sounding a warning, anticipating what was about to happen, but no other
vehicle could've made such an auditory impact except for the Blazer.
Nothing else was close enough. This much Nick was sure of.

Highlaject. Alicia Tucker. The horn. So much to think about, so little
time. Nick rested his head against the seat. The sweat on his brow
dried, as did the blood on his hands. The thoughts and reasons did not
come, but sleep did.