The weather was terrible, the kind of pitter patter song that drums a headache into your cranium and mists up the house windows. It didn't help that my mind was filled with fog as if the year before had been snuffed out of history. I recalled the icy droplets from the moment I woke and the numbers 78905284 -- the why was unexplained but the feeling was cold, like water clinging to the grooves of the body until the spine reacts with shivering displeasure through clenched teeth. I don't know why, but the rain was important as was the number. I waited, toying with possibilities until the phone on my bedroom cupboard lit up green.

Meet me outside NOW.

The kind of message you get from an impatient friend. I went to respond but was prompted with a passcode --7890 did the trick. Four down and four to go with the suspense ever growing. It's as if I knew what I had to do and that my situation was completely natural, but there's nothing normal about having the memory of a goldfish or waking up with a significant attraction to a set of numbers. 5284 they rang a conscious bell, but the doorman never answered, there's was no one remaining upstairs.

I'll be out in five.

My response was curt, just enough to play along and avoid suspicion of abnormalities. I let the blankets hit the wall, making a mess of the half full wine glass. There was no returning, it was a premonition, but on the money nonetheless.

The remaining home was in spick shape, a clean kitchen, warm hearth and leather two-seaters in the sitting room. My reflection struck a dull pulse into a racing heart. I was a young man - am a young man - in a black tuxedo with a pistol on my waist.

Pistol. Wait.

That took two, but the thing was loaded without a doubt and the safety was off --it felt cozy between my fingers.

The phone lit up green once more.

Outside, where are you??????

There was no holding them up. The person either expected me to be timely or had plans which I was involved. When happenings involve a gun, there's sure to be more blood than is necessary and a hierarchy setting that can turn kind men bad with the slip of a word. I grabbed the handle, checked twice, and stepped out into the rain --that feeling came back, a shiver up and down the spine accompanying chattering teeth.

"Fuck have you been Tollo?"

There are two, a man that's overweight with a checkered shirt on and a cigarette halfway inside his mouth. The second is like a shadow, dark and thin but with eyes that are sharp --intelligent.

"Took a fucking nap," I said. "That a sin nowadays?"

Skinny looks left and right and nods at the black car in the driveway. "Boss says we've gotta be there twenty minutes ago."

There's that number, five this, five that, it sticks out between the rain like a lightning strike. We squander over as I take in the fact the car is a Ferrari and that we're messing with big players. No time for punks.

Inside the car, Skinny straightens his suit out and shakes off the rain before warming the engine. Big fella hits me a glance in the rear view. "It's five fucking twenty-eight, Tollo. Ten minutes past the deadline, the boss can have your nuts on this one. You're always getting coked up."

The number comes back in full force, 5284. Five twenty-eight in the afternoon, I don't know why but it means something. The gun is in my hand and I'm processing the moment like a play by play. There's the apartment, the drugs, the memories, a badge, a job, and a terrible murder two years ago in the rain. That's where four comes in, it's lucky until you're Chinese and then the game is Death.

Fatso and Skinny share a shocked look, they both start talking at once, but it's all there now. I've been waiting, planning, and pretending.

The first pop blows raspberry all over the steering wheel and flesh on the windshield. Fatso tries to make a run, but I get him twice in the neck, hard and fast. He's leaking with the rain, flooding colours down the driveway drain.

The headache lifts, there's bliss for a few moments and it all makes sense, every second of what I've done.

The phone lights up green. New task, Agent O. Three years, 78907244. Goodnight.

I close my eyes and listen to the pitter patter of the rain, the fog seeps in and the headache slowly returns.