Lord of Time Read online

  Lord Of Time

  Michele Amitrani

  Copyright © 2019 Michele Amitrani

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used, edited, transmitted in any form or by any means, (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or reproduced in any manner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews or articles. It may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the Publisher’s permission. Permission can be obtained through www.micheleamitrani.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-988770-08-6

  First Edition 2019

  Published by Michele Amitrani.

  Cover Design by Benjamin Roque

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. A Gray Man

  2. The Trickster

  3. Déjà Vu

  4. Gold Digger

  5. In the Name of Fear

  6. Six Feet Above

  7. The Richest Place in the World

  8. Hodie

  9. A Gem in the Dark

  10. Cross of Ashes

  11. Providence

  12. Gunfire

  13. A Grain of Sand

  14. The Story of Time

  Epilogue

  Subscribe to my Newsletter

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To those who know that time is just a story

  Prologue

  Names are powerful things few people know how to handle.

  When you name something, or someone, that thing or that person becomes the name itself. And then it can’t be anything but the meaning it’s bound to.

  Stories begin with names and end with names. Without them, the fabric of a tale would lose its structure. No beginning, no middle, no end.

  There aren’t many things more powerful than a man who knows the inner truth of his own name. Except, perhaps, a man who possesses many names.

  A man with many names is a harbinger of change because he can be many things at once—or nothing at all.

  The morning brought a stark wind that wormed between the buildings of the city like a never-ending snake. The cloudy sky spoke of rain to come, and the streets still wet spoke of rain that was already embedded in the past.

  Everyone in the city was stirring, moving, preparing for the beginning of a new day. Everyone but him.

  For him, a day was never young and would never grew old. It was not a ring added to the chain of history. It was a drop of water in a river.

  He was a tall figure clad in black, wearing a beanie and a pair of sunglasses. He wore something else besides clothes. He wore many names, and he despised all of them.

  Those names were stories someone else had attached to him. He was not fond of those stories. And yet he could not get rid of them. Names have a way of sticking, no matter what one does to get rid of them.

  The building he was looking at also had a name.

  It was the tallest structure in the city, made out of shining glass and steel so polished it was able to reflect the clouds in the sky. The building was less than one year old, and it gleamed like all new things presented to the world with pride.

  It was magnificent, it was imposing, and it was indubitably pompous.

  They called it the Spear, a fitting name for a building whose design seemed to thrust the sky with arrogance.

  The figure clad in black was fascinated. The Spear was exactly what he needed, a wheat field ready to be harvested. It sheltered many names, each one with a story attached to it.

  Those stories were filled with needs he could satisfy. For a price, of course.

  He just needed a key to enter that vault, gather names around him, listen to their stories, and use them to his advantage.

  The process of finding this key would be long and hard. He would fail many times over, and he would have to start anew.

  The tall figure glanced at his wristwatch. The hands of the clock were still, trapped in the amber of the moment. He smiled an odd smile as he looked back at the Spear.

  Failure didn’t matter to him. Every endeavor requires an investment of time, and he was willing to use all he had for the promise of success.

  The main entrance of the Spear had two security guards. One was tall and muscular. His name was Logan. The other one was even taller and, if possible, even more muscular. His name was Bob.

  They looked equally bored with their job.

  Nothing ever happened inside the Spear. Or in front of it. Or anywhere on the property, for that matter. The role of the two security guards was a ceremonial one. They were well-dressed scarecrows paid by the hour to nod professionally when people placed their badges on top of an iron pillar that flashed with a green light, granting them access inside the building.

  It was a few minutes before nine o’clock in the morning. Nine was when the workday at the Spear began.

  A short man with a balding head came running toward them. He stopped a few feet away from the entrance, bent over to catch his breath, hastily scanned his ID and made his way in.

  “Rush hour’s over,” Logan declared, glancing at his cell phone.

  “Uh-huh,” Bob said.

  “Looks like it’s going to be another rainy day, eh?” Logan looked at the sky, rubbing the back of his head lazily.

  “Guess so.” Bob shrugged. “How’s Betty?”

  “Complaining about her yoga teacher,” Logan said, scratching his carefully trimmed beard. “Again. She said the yoga mat stinks, the blocks stink, the bolsters stink. Even the damn mirrors stink, she said.”

  “She pregnant or something?” Bob asked, fighting a yawn.

  Logan seemed to think about that for a while. “Nah,” he finally said, waving the thought away.

  Silence washed over them.

  “I’m going to take a piss,” Logan said, turning away.

  “You got it.”

  Bob inhaled sharply and then yawned a long, satisfying yawn.

  Something black caught the corner of his eye. He turned toward the inside of the building.

  A tall man stood a few feet past the fancy glass entrance of the Spear. He was wearing a long black raincoat, a black beanie, and a pair of sunglasses.

  His gloved hands held a bulky DSLR camera.

  Bob blinked and looked around. He glanced at the entrance he had been guarding, then he looked back at the man with the camera and started walking toward him.

  “Sir?” he said in a firm tone.

  The tall man didn’t seem to hear him. He raised his camera, pointed it at a man who was heading to one of the many elevators, and took a shot.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Bob said, this time more loudly. “Pictures are not allowed inside the building.”

  “Really?” the man didn’t look at Bob. He shook his head while looking at the picture’s preview. “Too much time left to this one,” he mumbled dismissively. He scanned around and took the picture of another person a bit farther away. “And why is that so, young man?” he asked absentmindedly.

  “Security reasons,” was Bob’s flat reply.

  “Security reasons?” the man mused. Again he studied the picture’s preview. This time he smiled a broad smile. He finally looked at Bob. “Whose security?” he asked, sounding puzzled. “My security? Yours? The system’s security?” He spread his arms wide, as if pointing to the whole world. “You ought to be more specific if you want me to take seriously this security of yours.”

  “How did you get in?” Bob asked, pointing to the entrance.


  “Through the front door,” the tall man said.

  “No, you didn’t.” Bob took another step forward. “How did you get in?”

  “I told you,” the man insisted. “I used that entrance.”

  “I didn’t see you.”

  The man shrugged. “I surely hope you did not, otherwise you’d be far more interesting than you look.”

  “I—” Bob cut himself off. There was something odd about that man. He couldn’t put a finger on it. He didn’t look like somebody who worked at the Spear. “Sir, I need to ask you—”

  “What is your name, young man?” the man interrupted.

  “What was that?”

  “Your name. What is it?”

  Bob frowned at the unexpected question. The stranger seemed genuinely curious to know his name. He had put away his camera and was studying the security guard.

  “Bob,” the guard finally said. “Listen up. You—”

  “Bob.” The tall man nodded thoughtfully, as if a dark secret had finally been revealed. “The diminutive form of the name Robert. Also a diminutive of Bobby. Do you know the story of your name, Bob?”

  “What?”

  “It has ancient roots, buried deep inside European history. Your name started as a colorful pastime. Rhyming names was a popular practice in the Middle Ages. That is how William became Will, Bill, or Gill, and Robert became Rob, Hob, Nob, or Bob. The craftsmanship of names is a fascinating art. Also a dangerous one. Do you know why, Bob?”

  “Sir, I’m asking you to—”

  “I’ll tell you why,” the stranger continued with resilience, unconcerned with Bob’s peremptory manners. “The meaning of a name plays a huge role in the life of a person. It shapes their story and can affect everything they do.”

  Bob opened his mouth, but nothing came out of it. It was a split-second hesitation, during which the stranger raised a hand to gain Bob’s attention. “The people you meet,” he continued, “the action you take, the woman you love. Everything in life is influenced by the power of a name. Your name is quite boring, though, and frankly, I didn’t expect anything else from a person feeding so much of his time to this place.”

  Bob held out his hand. “I’m going to need that camera, sir.”

  “This?”

  “Yes, sir. That one.”

  “Here. Take it.” The man handed the camera to Bob.

  Bob stepped forward to take it, but the stranger drew his hand back and met Bob’s eye.

  “But first,” the man said, wearing a wide smile, “don’t you want to know my name?”

  Bob had had enough of that.

  “Control?” he spoke into his radio. “I’ve got a seven-oh-one in the—”

  He never finished the sentence.

  Instead, he found himself rubbing his chin absentmindedly in front of the entrance door of the Spear.

  He looked around, lost for a second. How did he get there?

  “Rush hour’s over,” Logan declared, glancing at his cell phone.

  Bob turned sharply to his right, where he found Logan staring at nothing.

  A long, tense moment passed before Bob said awkwardly, “Yeah.” He glanced at his phone. It was nine o’clock. “It is.”

  “Looks like it’s going to be another rainy day, eh?” Logan looked at the sky, rubbing the back of his head lazily.

  “Guess so,” Bob said, like he was reading lines from a well-known script. He glanced behind him, where just a few seconds before he thought he’d seen somebody. “How’s Betty?” he felt impelled to ask.

  “Complaining about her yoga teacher,” Logan said, scratching his carefully trimmed beard. “Again. She said the yoga mat stinks, the blocks stink, the bolsters stink. Even the damn mirrors stink, she said.”

  “She’s pregnant, or—” Bob paused, glanced back again, and looked at his colleague with a confused expression.

  “You okay?” Logan asked.

  “Wait a sec,” Bob said. “Didn’t we have this conversation before?”

  “Sure we did.” Logan grinned. “We have it every day. Hey. What’s up, buddy? Having a little déjà vu?”

  Bob stared at Logan. “Yeah,” he said after a moment, smiling sheepishly. He nodded, as if convincing himself of something. “I guess so.”

  “I’m going to take a piss,” Logan said.

  “You … You got it.”

  Logan walked away, chuckling.

  Bob was left looking around aimlessly, wondering about something that had never happened.

  1

  A Gray Man

  Alfred White woke up to the sound of an alarm clock. He rose from his bed in a fluid motion, picked up his phone from the bedside table, and turned off the alarm. He then looked at the display with bleary eyes; it was seven thirty in the morning.

  He yawned. His jaw cracked a few times, and he stretched with a moan, got off his bed, and headed to the bathroom.

  From the partially opened window came the noise of cars moving, occasionally honking, and the soft, muffled rapping of dewdrops.

  His home was on the second floor of five in a building located near the city center. Alfred could hear people talking in the street. He grasped fragments of their conversations. Sometimes at night, when the city was quiet, the cars were fewer, and the shops were all closed, a homeless person would shout something in the darkness, and Alfred could hear everything as if the man were right beside him. It wasn’t easy to sleep with that constant noise in the background, but Alfred liked the place because the rent was cheap and the building was just a few blocks away from his new workplace.

  His workplace was the reason he had moved into the city. He didn’t know a single soul there and had no idea if he would like it, but being accepted to work at the Spear was reason enough to pack his things and start a new life.

  Working at the Spear had proven stressful and time consuming. He had to pass a half-dozen interviews with a half-dozen different people just to have the privilege to finally get in front of his project coordinator, whom Alfred had to impress quite a bit before finally landing the job.

  You don’t get to work for the third-biggest company in the country without sweating blood, but now that Alfred had finally earned his cubicle on the twenty-fourth floor of the Spear, he felt things would only get better.

  There was a big mirror in his bathroom where he used to check his reflection before heading out. But he had stopped looking at it several days ago.

  He knew too well what he’d see: dark eyes besieged by shadows, hollow cheeks, skin that had slowly turned more white than pink, and deep lines on his forehead that made him look much older than he was. He knew his body was thin and getting thinner. He had lost almost ten pounds in the last couple of weeks.

  Alfred didn’t care much. He knew his physical decay was a temporary thing caused by the stress of moving to the big city and by the many demands of his new job.

  Soon enough he would get used to the fast-paced rhythm of his new life. He was fine. Everything was going to be fine. He just needed to settle in, get comfortable, and learn to go with the flow.

  It didn’t occur to him that he’d had the same mental conversation the day before.

  And the day before that.

  He finished up in the bathroom and headed back in to get dressed.

  He opened his wardrobe. Five white shirts flanked five steel-gray jackets and five pairs of steel-gray trousers. Alfred picked up one jacket, one pair of trousers, and one shirt and started dressing.

  When the top button of his shirt had been buttoned, Alfred picked up a small gel container and combed his hair.

  He picked up a black umbrella from a coat hook by the front door and left his home feeling more tired than when he had come back the night before.

  In the morning sky, countless iron clouds moved slowly toward a sun already stifled by grayness.

  A stark wind blew from the north. It moved the branches of the leafless trees lined up along Main Street as Alfred walked down the wide boulevard. They
were some of the leanest, barest trees he had ever seen, their trunks a dark brown that reminded him of mud.

  Many other people were walking. They were all hurrying to their destinations, occasionally glancing around but mostly looking at their cell phones, their eyes intent on the devices’ colorful images, messages, and notifications.

  Alfred blended in very well with the rest of them. He checked his cell phone and perused the Web. Just another gray man, wearing a gray suit on a gray day.

  Eventually he arrived at the intersection of Daw and Main. The local street newspaper vendor, a woman in her late forties with long, tangled hair, wearing a worn coat and a pair of heavy rain boots, was shouting.

  “City council approves tax break!” the woman announced, waving a bunch of newspapers toward the passersby. A few stopped to buy one and moved on.

  At the second intersection, Alfred turned left onto a narrower, less crowded street, at the end of which a food truck was selling something sweet that looked a lot like crispy crepes.

  Alfred had never really gotten the name of the food right. The vendor, a short old lady from Thailand with a broad face and an easy smile, had told him the name the first time he bought one. To him it sounded a lot like kanbuag or kannung. Now, when Alfred ordered one, he just called it a kanny.

  Alfred rather enjoyed kannies, and they had been his breakfast since he’d moved into his new apartment.

  He waited in line, a very long line. The food vendor was getting more popular by the day.

  Once in front of the Thai lady, she smiled at him as always.

  “Sawatdee ka,” she greeted him. “Usual today?”

  “Yes.” Alfred rubbed his hands eagerly. “One kanny, please.”