Frank: Chapter 3

The following morning, the sun crashed into Joshua's room through his lone window, piercing his eyelids, scrambling his brains. He groped at the stuff of his dream but already it was gone. It had been a nightmare. Black patches and haunting laughs. Groaning, he sat up in bed. There were a few drawings on the floor next to him. Each page was filled with a single, wide-open eye. They varied in shade, eyelash, and etcetera, but every one of them had a bright glint stretching across the iris. And every pupil was dilated.

He vaguely recalled drawing them, but thought it had been part of the bad dream. He started up the coffee maker and stared at Frank. Who? Joshua thought. Isn't that what you call him? And.... it was. And.... some coffee would be good. He never should have bought those beers. Alcohol was the downfall of most of the people Joshua had been close to throughout his life, himself included. It was just plain stupid. He couldn't even remember why he'd broken the vow to himself and tied one on. As he pondered this, he absent-mindedly began to thumbtack the eye drawings to the wall around the slightly damaged centerpiece.

A fugue. That's what Joshua decided had happened, which really didn't shed light upon last night's events, but made it romantic and, so, bearable. The coffee maker burbled at him and pulled him from these thoughts. He added milk and sugar before slurping in the warm elixir. It was delicious and hot. So, of course, he burnt his tongue. This is only worth noting because it was at that instant, as the scalding brew slid down his protesting esophagus, that he thought of the perfect ending to his story.

The revelation swooped in out of nowhere, as they are accustomed to, and he stepped to his typewriter with tears still swelling in his eyes from the hot coffee. Before now, he had been trying to end the story on an high note, trying to ultimately solve all of the problems in his terrible vision of the future. But now Joshua realized what was most awful about the place he wrote of: there was no ending. The worst trait a dystopia has is that there is no pulling out of the nosedive, that humanity is doomed to the gloom, that hope was abandoned long ago and control handed over with a bow.

Joshua, clearly pleased with himself, tapped out the last line of his story so he could use it as inspiration to finish its middle: It was the worst of times.

A way to sum up the whole tale and a tip of the hat to an English master at the same time. Joshua plucked the page from the typewriter and used a magnet to hang it on the fridge, where he could see it while writing. Already more plot elements were bubbling up within him, but, noticing the time displayed on the microwave in digital red, he chugged his cooled coffee. He hardly felt any hangover at all now. Joshua actually felt good. That is, until he noticed movement in the tiny shadow high up on the wall, the one cast by the ridge poking from a water damaged drawing, the one cast by Frank's nose.

Frank was shaking his head back in forth in the drawing with just his nose beyond the paper's plane, a sharp, gray shark fin cutting in unnatural directions. "You woke me up with that typing noise," Frank said and Joshua wondered how a dream ever became real. "It is kind of a mystery," Frank said, "but I figure water, like that from the upstairs leak, is the stuff of life and you, my friend, have one hell of a fertile imagination. You like that explanation?" Like a cliche, Joshua dropped his mug to shatter at his feet as he stared, agape, at surreal animation invading his reality. "Don't be so surprised," Frank added, "I can read your mind because I am you."

"No," Joshua barked. "You. Are. Not."

"Well," Frank said, pulling himself out into the real world so that he could raise both of his hands, palm out, in a placating gesture. "I suppose my claim isn't entirely true. I am a certain aspect of you that has been magnified, without distortion. From my vantage point, I've been purified. Still, I am you in many ways. When you made me, you gave me the haircut you've worn since high school. More importantly, haven't you noticed? I have your voice."

"You have my voice," Joshua said and, indeed, it seemed an echo.

"And," Frank said, "our DNA is identical, since your my only parent. Hell, we even have the same fingerprints."

"That's imposs-," Joshua began but realized the absurdity of the statement quickly. None of this was possible. Yet here he was, stone sober, talking to a creature that viewed him as creator and traitor simultaneously. Joshua bit his burnt tongue hard to make sure.

"Oh," Frank said, "This is no dream. Quite the opposite actually, but enough chit chat. It's time for you to take a shower and go to work. The worst part about not having a phone is not being able to call into to work. Am I right, Josh? You don't have to answer, but, when you get back, you're going to put '2095' away until that year comes and your going to draw. Your going to draw until your fingers are raw."