Participants:
| Scene Title | Genesis 20:12 |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Nick is given a piece of the puzzle through unconventional means. |
| Date | August 14, 2010 |
Nick's Apartment - Brooklyn.
We all lead multiple lives. Who we are at work, who we are at home, who we are with these friends or those friends can be vastly different from one another.
Morning in Brooklyn is like morning in many of the other New York boroughs. People sip coffee in their respective residences, or else get an early start on their daily errands. Still, it's a relatively quiet time. A gentle summer breeze brushes the curtains hanging in windows open to accept the light of day.
But for some, these divisions run deeper. The lives they lead are in stark contrast one another, leaving those closest to them in shock when revealed.
Nick York's apartment isn't one with its window open, but the breeze blows on it all the same, and the hour-old daylight pierces through the thin, still curtains. Persistent, the sun spills into the apartment and over Nick's face in a subtle ploy for him to face the day. There's work to be done.
And so these individuals must tread carefully to ensure that these lives stay separate and distinct. To do otherwise would mean the savage destructions of the walls, the demarcations that have been so painstakingly constructed.
The unforgiving, undiscriminating sunlight stretches across the floor of the small apartment, stopped only by the door leading into the rest of the building. There, it covers an innocent white envelope that has been pushed between the floor and the bottom of the door. The seal has been broken once already, and the closure puckers with the evidence of one who tried to correct the error.
The fact Nick slept til the sun is bright enough and warm enough to wake him is surprising, given that it took him a few hours to fall asleep last night. He groans, long lashes that most girls would kill for fluttering on his cheeks for a moment before he scuffs his fist across his forehead and then rakes his rumpled hair. He glances at his alarm clock, the cyan-hued digits telling him that he's ahead of schedule by eleven minutes. He reaches to push the switch on the alarm to off.
Rising, he pads on bare feet to the bathroom, one of two doors in the open studio flat — one's the closet, one's the bathroom, and everything else is all in one room: bed, kitchenette, and what counts as a living room, couch and a television he only turns on for "company," but never actually has time to watch. A moment later he re-enters the main room — it's small enough and spartan enough that anything out of the ordinary stands out — including that envelope on the roughly-hewn wood flooring.
Brows twitching with curiosity and a little worry, Nick crosses the tiny space in a few steps, bending to pick up the envelope, turning it in his hand and frowning at the puckered closure. His finger finds a small air pocket to wriggle into, and he slides the digit across to open the seal again.
The weight of it is negligible, but when lifted, the contents of the envelope slide to one corner. Only slightly larger than a postage stamp and significantly thicker. Two edges are square, but the others are cut into a smooth design of some sort. But the mystery is made clear as soon as Nick shakes the contents out onto his palm. It's a puzzle piece, and a small one at that.
The picture side is a soft white, and gives no indication of what the final image is. The reverse is less benign. Scrawled on the cardboard with what looks like a faulty yet thin-line ballpoint and in a spidery script is an address.
Nick tosses the envelope to the side as he peers at the jigsaw puzzle piece in his hand, fingers curling around it before he flips it over and peers at the script on the cardboard side. "Ah, fuckin' 'ell, I don't 'ave time for this shit," he mutters, throwing the tiny puzzle piece. It's too light to go very far, not that there's very far to go, and it lands in the open space to the side of his couch.
He has no doubt it was the Padre's doing, and the realization that his apartment is known to the man is a frightening one. How in the hell did he get tailed without noticing it? He'd been careful every time he's come across the water — but there are always people who can see things and find things that normal people can't.
He shoves away the fear as hard as he can, moving to get dressed swiftly and efficiently. His cell phone is picked up, and he considers calling his point person, but to what end? He'd just sound like a rookie afraid of ghosts. Grabbing his keys, he heads toward the door but stoops to pick up the jigsaw piece and shove it in his pocket.
He may or may not get around to looking up the bible verse. He doesn't believe that Amato can help him, and a bible surely can't, but one thing that his rough life hasn't beaten out of him is curiosity.
Unlike Amato, the singular puzzle piece does not push. It does not insist. It simply lies amongst the lint, pressed between the denim and lining. But neither will it retreat or despair. And, should Nick choose to revisit it, it will be waiting, the dead words penned on its back ready as ever to give solace.
Or, in this case, perhaps frustration.