Dreams Delivered in Top Hats

It’s been three days and four nights since Raquelle last slept.

She sits at the register, making a conscious effort to keep her eyes open. An ancient clock ticks above her, its faded numbers swirling and shifting. A grating sound echoes throughout the cramped station, which smells strongly of something that combusted decades ago. The air is stale with grease, reminding her of just how long she’s been subjected to sitting in a backless chair. 

Who the hell invented backless chairs? They’re torture devices, is what they are. Raquelle would honestly prefer to be standing in one of those caskets with spikes on the inside. At least then she’d be able to lean her spine on something.

The mental image is enough to make her snort, and she’s grateful there’s nobody around to witness it. 

A shrill chime snaps her out of her delusions, and she glances at the sliding glass door. A man in a dressy coat hobbles in, his shoes clicking on the grass. He gives her a stiff nod of acknowledgment. Raquelle blinks, trying to figure out if the top hat he’s wearing is a result of her sleep deprivation.

Better yet, maybe the guy’s a magician. She’d be ecstatic if he could pull a ‘now you see me, now you don’t,’ and teleport Raquelle straight to bed.

Or, she would be ecstatic. If she still had a bed to teleport into.

She had to sell the thing — springy mattress and all — to try and scrape up enough cash for this month’s rent. Her landlord made it abundantly clear that if she was late for any reason other than terminal illness, she was getting kicked to the curb. Unfortunately for her, financial irresponsibility does not fall into the category of life-threatening diseases, even though she’d beg to differ.

Well. At least the curb will be more comfortable than that brick she called a bed.

A sudden throat clear catches her attention, and she winces when she realises she’s accidentally been staring into this man’s soul for an inappropriate amount of time. 

And very creepily, at that. Because in the attempt at looking like a fully functioning human being at three in the morning, she gets the sense that all she managed to accomplish was look like a vaguely electrocuted raccoon.

She whips her eyes away before he decides to call the police.

Her phone dings abruptly, the volume only rivalled by the incessant whirring of the old air conditioner above her. It gives a threatening rattle.

She lifts her phone, squinting against the faint glow of the screen. Trying to read the notification through the cracks is like deciphering hieroglyphics, so she unlocks it to marginally increase her chances.

The message icon pops up like a jump scare, and she groans internally at the contact name. It’s a message from her boss.

Or better known as: the message that’s about to determine her fate.

With a sharp exhale through her nose, she rubs at her eyes to delay the inevitable. She’d sent in a request for an earlier payment tonight, because of her landlord’s tight deadline. If her boss refuses, she’s screwed. Dramatically.

She opens the message with bated breath, skimming over the words far too quickly for her frazzled brain. 

“‘No early payments. You know the police. You’ll have to wait until next week.”

‘You know the police?’ Is that some sort of precaution to stop her from robbing him?

Oh, nevermind. That says policy.

Raquelle stares at the screen, her thumb hovering over the keyboard as she tries to think of a response. The words blur together, but the content doesn’t change.

All at once, the bone-deep exhaustion drags her under. It’s a curse that she doesn’t fall asleep right where she sits. 

Of course it was a no. In the back of her mind, she’d expected this. At least she’d packed all her bags in advance.

She closes her eyes, a risky but necessary move. If she keeps them open any longer, there’s no telling what will come out of them. 

Possibly a demon. Definitely tears. 

When she peels them open, she startles visibly. The magician man has appeared right in front of her, his skin almost offensively flawless for being awake at this time of night. Not a single flaw in sight.

Meanwhile, her eye bags have started to look like suitcases.

With gloved hands, he unceremoniously drops a handful of items on the counter. Raquelle scans them robotically, idly wondering if she’s about to be a witness for a murder.

Her eyebrows climb further up her hairline with every passing product.

The assortment is strange enough to warrant a double-take. Even by 3 AM standards, it makes no sense.

There’s a neon coloured energy drink, which she supposes is fair enough, three pairs of polka-dotted socks, and a cartoonish cowboy hat.

She didn’t even know they sold cowboy hats.

Raquelle pastes on her best customer service smile, though she’s sure it looks more like a grimace. The characters she encounters during her job never fail to remind her of life’s greatest tragedies.

While she’s on the verge of eviction, there’s always someone out there who is willing to buy a bunch of junk they’ll never use, all for the sake of getting a reaction out of the person at the register.

Frankly, she’s too tired to deliver.

“Will that be all?” she asks, her voice thankfully sounding less dead than she feels.

“Yes, thank you,” he replies, his tone smooth and calming. Like he could be reading her a nice bedtime story. Or her obituary. 

… Damn it, she really needs to sleep.

The man hesitates for a moment before his eyes crinkle, and his lips curl up into a half-smile. 

Ah. She said that out loud.

“Rough night?” he asks, and Raquelle kind of wants to sock him in the face.

Her sigh comes out on its own volition, and she runs a hand through unkempt hair.

“Could be worse,” she lies, with a quick glance down to check if her pants erupt into flames. She’s still convinced this guy has magical properties. “I could be ringing up four pairs of socks instead of three.”

She cringes at herself immediately, and prays to anyone who’s still awake at this unholy hour that he doesn’t get offended. The absolute last thing she needs is to get fired over a joke.

The man tilts his head, considering her with a flat expression. Raquelle bites the inside of her cheek.

Tough crowd.

Then, to her utter horror, he reaches into his breast pocket.

Please don’t be a gun. Please don’t be a gun. Please don’t be a -

“That was a good one,” he grins belatedly, and her gaze snaps up to his face, venomously noticing that his teeth are whiter than the smiling toothpaste ad behind him. She hates this guy. “Here you go, miss. Please keep the change.”

He does not pull out a gun. Instead, he places two hundred dollar bills on the counter.

Raquelle’s eyes nearly bug out of her skull, and she retracts her earlier resentment. She might just love this guy.

Her hands twitch in her lap, and she stops herself from snatching the money like some sort of cretin. 

“Uh. I’m sorry, what?” she asks dumbly, glancing at the register. His total is eighteen dollars and fifty three cents.

“Call it a tip,” he says, and his gaze turns mischievous. “I’m a big fan of stand up.”

Raquelle looks down at her chair, and then back at him. His grin stretches wider.

What in the world?

She laughs out of a weird mix of both pity and fear, and her hand inches towards the bill. It’s enough to cover the rent she was about to be late on.

It’s almost too good to be true.

See, the rational part of her brain would usually be warning her against accepting cash from strange men in top hats. 

But then again, the rational part of her brain also shut down on coffee cup number twenty.

Before she can decide, the man simply gives her another knowing smile, tipping his hat before waltzing towards the door. It opens with a squeak, and he pauses in the entrance.

 “Get some sleep, Raquelle,” he calls over his shoulder, tossing her a playful wink.

The chime rings again as he steps out into the night, bidding her an ominous farewell. Raquelle pockets the money in her worn jeans, and finds herself subtly returning the grin.

***

When Raquelle wakes, the first thing she feels is the jagged concrete digging into her back. A cold chill seeps into her skin, her matted hair is stuck to her cheek.

Did she collapse in front of the station? Shit, the rent —

She jolts up with a wince, tiny rocks making homes in her palms. A sharp pain shoots up her spine, a car crash denting her bones. The ache is deep, like she’s been lying there for hours, and the back of her skull throbs as if she’d hit it on the way down.

Her head whips around, her neck cracks concerningly. How did she get here? She should be sleeping in her apartment, safely curled up in her blanket —

Raquelle’s eyes drift down, finally registering the heaviness warming her lap. Hideous stripes greet her, the cheapest selection in the second-hand store. Her shoulders slump at the familiar sight of her blanket, and last night worms its way into her memory.

Her bastard of a boss didn’t give her the early payment, and she’d fallen short on rent. Off by one hundred and eighty-one dollars, forty-seven cents. The bag of her hastily packed belongings sits by her side, slumped over pathetically. There’s not enough weight securing its shape.

Afterwards, she’d asked her landlord for an extension. He understandingly slammed the door in her face.

Now, she sits two streets away from the old apartment building, resting her back against the frigid bus seat. She shivers, sinking further into the scratchy fabric of her thin hoodie.

She hears the faint whisper of the magician’s dream-like voice lingering in her mind, feels the crinkle of bills and worthless hope secured in her hand.

It had all felt so real. The kindness, the relief.

She should’ve known it was as real as the magic, nothing but a temporary distraction from reality.

Leave it to her brain to play a joke as cruel as that. 

Her eyes catch on something behind the bent bus stop, a dark blur clinging to the fence. She squints, trying to make out what it is.

Her breath hitches, a cool cloud of air condensing in front of her.

On the fencepost, there stands a top hat.

It’s tilted, torn at the brim, swaying in the wind like a taunt. She blinks hard. Once. Twice. It’s still there.

Her eyes dart around. The street is empty. The silence is suffocating.

She swears she hears his voice, melodious and distant, carried by the wind.

“Get some sleep, Raquelle.”

A shudder snakes up her spine. She grips her hoodie tighter, using her fingertips to stop it from disappearing.

She shuts her eyes, her heart thunders. The applause of a final act.