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Vince Daniels was not a man who was prone to dreams. Even when, on the rare occasion, he did dream he very rarely remembered them. That was exactly why nothing was truly alarming about what was happening now.
It seemed to be a typical day on his life; he got up for work, read the paper that was delivered to his house every single morning, he made a cup of coffee that he drank (black, of course) and he got himself showered and dressed for work. Traffic was always part of this equation but he seemed to get into the office with some sort of ease. Almost too much ease. It was almost eerie but Vince simply wrote it off as a holiday weekend that some people thought they were entitled to get off for. It was all rather stupid, in his (not so) humble opinion. His assistant smiled at him. Wait, his assistant smiled at him? Something was clearly wrong. Maybe she was like the rest of the world that thought they were entitled to their day off and she would come into his office, half way through the day, hoping that she could charm her way into leaving early. That had to be it. He sat down at his desk, looking over the mess of things that needed to be done. Suddenly, all of his work disappeared, vanished almost like magic. Well that’s strange, he thought, thinking maybe he had too much to drink the night before and he was simply hungover. That wouldn’t be outside any realm of possibility. It wasn’t that he drank too much but the alcohol kept him numb, a way to escape from his stressful job and the fact that he was constantly putting on this fucking ridiculous and fake politician grin to keep the voters happy. No one really understood how difficult that actually was except the alcohol. So he would keep drinking the scotch that understood him best to help him sleep at night. There was really nothing wrong with that. He rubbed his eyes and nothing seemed to change, it was still just Vince, sitting in a non-descript room with a metal chair that looked like it was from an interrogation room. What the fuck am I even doing here? Just as the thought entered his mind, Richard Fontaine, the man that he had knocked out of the office before he became Senator was standing in front of him. The man was still in prison so he knew this couldn’t be real. He was wearing a nice suit, one that Vince had seen him in before, after all, he worked in the Fontaine office and on the campaign before he found the dirt that sent the man to jail. “You are here, Mr. Daniels, because you are now going to pay for all of your crimes. Your crimes against me and every other person that you’ve ever wronged.” The man spoke and Vince still couldn’t believe it. Maybe he was still drunk, having some sort of hallucination from the scotch. Yes, that would explain it. “No, Vince, you aren’t having some sort of hallucination, this is all very real.” Vince tensed up, going to move before realizing that he was stuck to the chair. “What the fuck is going on? And why can’t I fucking move?” Mr. Fontaine simply laughed at him with a very mocking tone. “You are here because you’ve wronged a lot of people, Vince. And now you will pay for your crimes.” “You think you’re so clever, don’t you Vince? You think that no one would ever figure out that you’re just as horrible and despicable as all the rest of us? In fact, it’s safe to say that you are probably the worst when it comes to being crooked. You’ve actually killed before, with your hands.” The image flashed to the man that he had killed back in October and he tried to will the vision from his mind. But the man still stood, bloodied, but didn’t say anything as he stood next to Mr. Fontaine. “So now you are going to look in to the eyes of everyone that you’ve ever wronged, in hopes that you will finally repent and confess to your crimes against the good people of Boston. After all, no one likes a shady politician, Vince.” Vince struggled in his chair, still unable to move and when he looked up, the man was gone. Mr. Fontaine was gone and breathed a sigh of relief. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, ran his hand in front of his eyes and when he opened his eyes again his father was standing in front of him. The man was just as he remembered him, hard and cold. He never smiled and instead had a very sour look on his face almost constantly. “You killed your mother,” his father said, longing toward him, almost as though he was going to strangle him but the weak man simply broke down in sobs in front of a still sitting Vince. “You killed the love of my life and never showed me that you had any reason to live over her.” Vince frowned and stuck his nose up in the air. “You never saw my potential but I am one of the most powerful men in Boston, fucking old man. I made myself who I am today, without any help from you.” The crying man soon started laughing and shook his head, looking up at his son. “You never understood, did you? Your mother was an angel, she would never hurt a fly. She was perfection and you are so rotten to the core that you would never live up to my expectations!” Before Vince could even interject the man was gone and he was alone again. The room was dusk and damp but suddenly there was a light, almost as though some sort of light was going to free him and save him from this madness that was happening all around him. A woman appeared, younger than he was, but he instantly recognized her. It was his mother, who had died in childbirth. He had only seen her in pictures and never in the flesh. She was so beautiful, almost ethereal and Vince was completely in awe of her beauty. “Vincent,” she spoke in a calm and reassuring tone. “I died so that you could carry on my legacy. I died so that you could accomplish everything that I couldn’t in life. Her tone was so sweet and so pure, it was hard to see what she had ever seen in his father. He went to speak but she shushed him, pressing his hand to his lips and he relented. “Instead of carrying on my mission, you have destroyed everything. You have taken all the beauty in the world and turned it to chaos and pain. You’ve cheated, stolen and murdered to make yourself the man you are today. You have made yourself the villain of your own story. I’m so ashamed in you.” Vince felt as though he was a toddler being scolded for doing something awful and he shrunk as much as she could in the seat, before the room was full of people, all the ones that he had wronged, and then were coming for him. “I’m so ashamed and now you must die.” Everyone was closing in on him, suffocating him and he knew this was the end of him. He struggled in the seat to try and escape but it was no use. He simply accepted his fate. He woke up in a cold sweat on the chair where he had fallen asleep before, empty scotch glass on the table next to him. He picked up his phone to see that he had missed the day, it was now Saturday, and he had several missed calls, emails that were urgent, people trying to get ahold of him. He grumbled as he got up, feeling as though he hadn’t slept a wink, let alone a whole day. “I fucking suppose I’m one of those people who had to take off on the Friday before the holiday,” he grumbled as he made his way to his desk, trying to sort which of the emails, calls and texts he should attend to first. |