Sextant - June 2021

on the image. Time stood stiller than artifacts in a museum. In a millisecond, my mental dam collapsed and the memories flooded back into the foreground of my mind.

I was staring at a picture of me and my wife that she took right before she started losing her hair. That day we had gone picnicking in the French Alps. In the sunny, temperate, and cloudless weather, we ate, danced, and told stories, and she sang while I played my guitar for her. The softness in her voice always seemed to calm me down, and I would give up the world to hear it again. I turned over the polaroid to see a message on the other side.

“You’ll be OK! - N” it read. Nadine. It means hope in french. Well, it used to. She echoed the lie I had been telling myself since the funeral last month, and even in the hospital after the doctors told us that it was terminal.

“Henry…” I heard faintly in the back of my head. I paid no attention to it. I turned the photo back over and just looked at Nadine. Her green eyes that stared into the camera illuminated the picture and her smile had the warmth of a million blankets. Even then, I couldn’t help myself from looking at her; in the picture, I was mesmerized and looking at her while she looked at the camera. It was almost like Maxi“HENRY!” Yelled the voice from the other side of the phone, “I said is it done yet?”

“N-no,” I stammered, “I have not had the chance. I assure you everything will go well.” He hung up. I wandered back to my seat, still only half-present. The lights dimmed, and the second act began. I could not stop thinking about the polaroid. She put it there knowing that this suit was the one I always wore when I went to “work.” But why put it in there? Why not in the house somewhere I would have seen immediately? It certainly would have helped me cope better. Nadine never wanted to interfere with my work, but she certainly would have preferred that I choose another job. On that day in the Alps, she wouldn’t even dare step on an ant that crawled onto the blanket.

I wanted to be like her and have her remembered, and now I had a way. A way out. A way for my wife to leave an imprint on the world. A way to slowly better the world. But I couldn’t, could I? Defying my boss, who surely had the power and means to kill me. I couldn’t imagine a scenario where I escaped unscathed and untroubled.

The lights came back on, signaling the second and final intermission, and I left the mental bubble that I had been in during the entire second act. I looked across the theater, and sure enough, Maxime stood up and started walking towards the main hall. I needed to follow him. I didn’t know what course I would take yet, but pursuing Maxime was a must. He turned around a corner with a bodyguard on each side and headed into the bathroom, the guards staying outside. I followed him while my mind spun in circles like the ballerinas on stage. I stepped into the bathroom as well, the guards unsuspectingly letting me by. It was just us in the men’s room. He went into a stall while I went into my mind to attempt to find some sort of clarity.

I found none. My head clashed with itself and by the time Maxime exited the stall, I was still asking myself, “what is more important?” I approached the sink to wash my hands like Maxime was doing. I pulled out the pistol from inside my left pocket and placed it flat on the sink, pointing to my right and directly at Maxime.

“Shhhh,” I told him with a finger over my mouth. He saw my gun and backed up against the wall, taken aback by the gun staring at his torso. I then started nonchalantly washing my hands, knowing that I had all the time I needed; if Maxime were to call for help, he would have done so already. I slowly peered up into the mirror and then at Maxime. I was looking into two mirrors. One normal one straight ahead, and one temporal one to my right.

Maxime had my build, only he stood a couple of inches shorter than me. He had a cleanly cut beard that would look like mine if he gave it a few months, and, more notably, he still had a gold circle around his ring finger. It was the trait that meant the most. The trait that made you smile when you looked at them.

“I can’t do it to you.” I broke the silence. Maxime’s expression turned from pale to confused.