The Universe wants to play with you (15)

Quigg sat on the deck in darkness, the sea distant but audible, clouds blotting out the stars and moon. He was tired after driving. after his visits, after thinking about the past. He was tired of lying; all day, everyday, for 33 years. He was tired of the emptiness, the futility, the lack of joy in his life. He'd long stopped listening to music, reading, watching movies, doing anything. Days were spent driving around the South Island, lying to people, encouraging others to lie and deceive and manipulate.
When he was home, he sat around, every other weekend he saw his two teenage children, other than that he drank beer and sat around, inside or outside, on the deck. The years doing all this had eaten his soul  or whatever it was, from the inside, but he never felt guilt or remorse, just a hollow feeling. Since the Snowden story began, he'd started thinking how he was a part of this huge spiders web stretching over the world; or one of the flies. He wondered if he'd said too much today; they'd both looked angry and shocked by it. One of them could report him to Farry most likely Aaron; he got on too well with Merlin. Or to Taggart, though he wasn't sure if they knew of him; he'd never given them too much. He didn't know what would happen if they did. In his darkest moments, there was always that question; did he know too much to walk away-what would happen? He'd kept a lot of notes over the years, quite religiously, for no conscious reason he wanted to think about. Layers and layers of fabrication made up his world, all the world.

Reality wasn't real, not what we thought it was anyway. He checked his emails on the lap, there was one from Merl; the file on the woman, including a photo. He opened it-he'd seen her before, maybe on the disastrous trip to England; he hadn't been briefed properly. What was the name of the UFO nut? he couldn't remember-fuck, he'd worked him out before he'd spoken. Denounced in front of the audience. What was that book of his with the odd title? Oh, that's right, 'If you think I'm weird, look at my reflection'. And he'd signed it for him, 'Fuck off and die, Aussie spy'.  Villan was in the audience and she'd spoken to him afterwards; distrustful and inquisitive-gave him a hard time. Fuck, this is worse, he thought. What could he do? Opening another bottle of beer, the full moon popped out through the clouds and he stared at it; imagining living there, especially if it was made from green cheese.  Sound and vision blocked out of his mind and for seconds or minutes, he felt somewhere else; another time and place, in a different past or a different future. Maybe now was the time to jump out of the loop; how bad could it be, for god's sake, while there was still time, while he still had time. He could do it quite easily. It could change lives but he'd have to plan it carefully.