Medic wakes slowly and painfully. He doesn’t look at the clock but it feels like the better part of an hour has elapsed before he manages to roll out of bed, still fully clothed, and stumble toward the bathroom.
A sudden and powerful wave of nausea grips him as he approaches the toilet. Salivating and retching, he drops to his knees and plunges his head into the bowl.
The lengthy vomit provides some relief and Medic is finally able to stand up to have a look in the mirror.
Terrible. He hasn’t shaved in weeks, his brown hair is looking like it was put together by a drunk and very angry bird, his puffy blue eyes look especially harsh in the redness of the searing hangover.
He steps back.
In every other way he’s a very average and unimpressive guy – not short but not tall, not ugly but he’s never been called handsome, not old but starting to feel it. His broadly generic looks have resulted in cases of surprisingly mistaken identity, so much so that he had at one time entertained the idea that he might have a lost twin brother or perhaps a doppelganger.
Today he wishes he was this other self. It’s not so much the headache or the nausea as the return back to consciousness and his disaster of a life.
It begins with the realization that if he’s going to be able to pay rent then today his finances have reached their limit. The severance money gave him a couple of weeks of “self-discovery” time but, alas, he’s discovered very little except a preference for certain wheat beers.
The work-from-home software tester job was monotonous and uninspiring. He’s glad not to be doing it anymore but it was reliable income and it broke up the isolation of the one-bedroom he shared with his cat, his only friend. He died a week ago.
Next he’s replaying the argument he’d had with his sister two nights ago. Their father’s Alzheimer’s had progressed and he and their mom could no longer cope on their own. Still upset over his cat, he and his sister had it out about his inability to offer anything to their parents’ care. She finished by angrily pronouncing that she would assume the responsibility and that she didn’t need to hear from him anymore, thanks. *click*
Medic doesn’t think that was entirely fair but, if he’s being fair, it kind of was. He’d let a lot of things slide for a little too long. He’d flaked on life a little too much. He’d been on autopilot, just coasting.
Then Karma bitch-slapped his complacency.
By mid-afternoon the hangover pain has subsided but the grief and doubt remain, filling every corner of his small rental with a bleak darkness that’s punctuated only by sparse bands of gray light coming in through the windows. Medic sits on the couch, empty and spent, the miserable rain falling gently but persistently onto the panes outside.
Hours go by in solemn silence.
After a carelessly cooked and mindlessly consumed meal of toast and eggs, Medic strolls into the bathroom and turns on the taps to warm up the shower. He’s moving mechanically, the same motions he’s been going through for years, like muscle memory.
As he pulls off his pants and tosses them onto the laundry pile, a business card falls out of a pocket. He doesn’t notice it as he steps into the shower.
About an hour later he walks out of the steamy, narrow bathroom, still towel-drying his hair and unable to see the business card on the bedroom floor. He only notices it when he takes another step forward, the card coming unstuck from the bottom of his foot and wedging itself uncomfortably under his toes.
He scoops up the small rectangle, not recognizing it as a business card until he sits on the edge of his bed and flips it over. He suddenly remembers the previous night’s interaction.
Written on the front of the card in a bold but simple font are the words “The Handler”, under which appear a random string of letters and numbers, beneath which is an even longer string of letters, numbers, and symbols.
That’s it.
Medic flips the card over.
Blank.
He blinks, no idea what it means, tosses the card dismissively on the bed, turns out the light, and leaves for the living room.
After a couple of hours of bad TV Medic returns to the bedroom and collapses on the bed, unaware for the second time that he’s on top of the business card.
In the darkest most silent part of the night he wakes up laughing and drooling, vague and vanishing memories of a dream in which his deceased cat is telling him some joke. It’s at this point that he feels a sharp jab in his lower back.
He turns on the bedside lamp and notes that the alarm clock reads 3:33 exactly. “Huh,” remarks Medic as he pulls the card out from under himself.
He stares at the strange patterns printed on the matte surface, trying to make sense of them. He remembers the short, black-haired woman with the intense eyes. He remembers her two mountainous companions. He remembers the urine-soaked man. He remembers the narrow path.
Suddenly, he’s gripped by curiosity.
Gliding gently out of bed and over to his workspace by the main living room window, he boots up his laptop, logs in, and opens up a browser.
His first search is for “The Handler” which pulls up over forty pages of results. None of them seem right. He revises the search by adding a few digits from one of the random-looking lines on the business card. There’s exactly one result.
The sequence of letters and numbers on the website seem to match those on the business card. Beneath them, only the words “GET ME HOT” appear on the otherwise empty page. He waves the mouse cursor over the page looking for hidden links but finds none.
Medic is now deeply intrigued. He decides that he won’t be getting any more sleep tonight so he goes to make some coffee, not realizing that he’s been holding on to the card until he reaches the kitchen. There’s no room on the crowded counters of the tiny space so he rests the card on the stove while he fills the kettle.
Letting the water run for a few moments he contemplates other searches to try. Any combination of the words on the web page with the details on the card might yield new results. This might just be the first of many clues. What kind of internet rabbit hole is this going to be?
Kettle filled and on the stove, Medic returns hastily to his laptop and starts trying out the search terms. The words “GET ME HOT” return way too many hits so he tries combining them with parts of the cryptic strings on the business card. These don’t return many useful results but there are many more combinations to try.
Suddenly, he smells smoke.
He spins around to see translucent gray curls winding their way toward the ceiling from the stove. The source of the smoke bursts into a small flame as Medic sprints to the kitchen. The forgotten business card is on fire.
He simultaneously turns on the kitchen faucet while grabbing the flaming card, drenching it instantly in the lukewarm water. Satisfied that the fire is out, Medic turns off the faucet and examines the singed card. Most of it is intact and the text is still legible.
As he waves the card to air dry it, Medic briefly glimpses some brown smudges on its back. He stops shaking the card and looks closer. The smudges are actually writing – what looks like an email address.
“Oh,” he concludes quietly as he gazes at the card. “Get me hot.”