Prologue - Part 3

From the corner of my vision I could see myself in the rear view mirror.

What the hell? That’s been in my back seat since I got this car.

Looking back at me from the mirror were my own extremely tired looking eyes. I tilted my head back to get a look at the inch of beard I had on my chin with a little bit of stubble going up the rest of my face. A cold breeze from the open window beside me chilled my earrings briefly. This was one of those times where nothing memorable happens but you find yourself getting nostalgic about it a few years down the road. Take another drag to fill my lungs. My right hand rubbed my thin face with my bony fingers and then went up and started scratching the scalp of my thick brown hair. I always kept my hair nice and shaved so it was only a couple of centimetres long otherwise it was sticking out all over the place no matter what I did.

As I went to put my lighter and smokes back into my pocket a piece of folded up scrap paper fell from between my hand and the lighter. After I put the lighter back in my pocket I picked up the paper and unfolded it. Scrawled frantically inside it were the words, “QUIT SMOKING!!!” Right away I put my smoke up to the paper; slowly it began to turn to embers until a flame finally started licking the edges engulfing it.

“Quit this.” I said to no one since I was alone. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I started getting a headache behind my right eye that radiated to my teeth. Slowly I grabbed the object in my pants pocket, tilted me head back while closing my eyes.

“You should really follow your own advice Chase,” said a voice that sounded like it was coming from inside my head, I knew better than that, I knew I wasn’t imagining it and that there now sat someone in my passenger seat, “and take your hand out of your pocket, it’s disturbing and the way you’re sitting there right now looks like you’re masturbating.” The voice belonged to a ‘being’ that went by the name of Jacinto. I say ‘being’ because...well, you’ll see in time.

Not moving from how I was sitting I took another drag, “I was wondering when you were going to show up.” Jacinto had a tendency of appearing at random times, usually when I needed him least. What made it worse is that I was the only person who could see him which meant he liked to talk to me in public for the express purpose of making me look schizophrenic.

“So you were able to get them back?”

“Yeah, I was just about to go over and see what they found out.”

            “You chose to come to the bar by yourself instead of questioning them at the most opportune time?”