Image credit: Dimitro2009

Part of what they propose?

“Go on,” I said, because I had nothing else to say at the time. Natalie had rested her head on my shoulder. It was so close to something completely impossible that I wanted anyway that I almost cried.

“All right, basically, amoral creature that I was and curious as to the limits of my abilities, I took to a bit of a life of crime. It wasn’t anything to do with needing money or drugs or any other such thing, you will appreciate that those were always at my disposal. It was to see what I could do by being ‘invisible’. It seemed risky at first, but if I was caught I planned to pull the ‘sad rich boy’ act and get off with a hand-slap and some therapy, and anyway I soon realised I was accomplished. I went from just taking things from people in small cafes or bars, through to following them into their homes and taking their belongings from right under their noses. As long as they hadn’t seen me before I started to follow them, and nothing outside of myself made me come into their consciousness, they just didn’t see me or what happened. They found it impossible to look at where I was, and so wherever I was became open season for the taking.

I often gave the stuff back, left it like a mystery in their backyards or in the middle of their lounge-room floors or whatever. I didn’t need it. But sometimes I also kept it, like keepsakes, it depended upon my mood. I’d like to say it depended upon their own wealth or lack thereof, that I returned to those more in need, but I’ve always been more quixotic than that..”

“Don Quixote’s eccentricity without the moral vision. Given that I don’t think the word means what you think it means,” I said dryly. Gabriel laughed. He seemed impossible to disturb or offend.

“Exactly! What I didn’t realize, of course, until you and your filmic discovery, was that my invisibility, and that of Natalie, was just as powerful on film. See, I’d never even guessed that. I’d never thought to test it out, it had never occurred to me at all. I thought if other people didn’t see me it was probably some form of telepathic control I had on their minds, not something that was actually physical, for want of a better word. So I never tried anything like my own building, nothing that would have security cameras, and it would never have occurred to me in a million years that the security cameras at your friend’s bar would have ‘lost’ me either, so I never did anything illegal anywhere were cameras were likely to be present. It was a bit of an impediment to me, but you showed me that under certain circumstances, I need not worry about that, as long as I am never seen by anyone from the very beginning of any crime, the film won’t see me either. If I cloak myself in my intent to be invisible well in advance of approaching the building in question, I’ll leave no filmic footprints of my presence at all. This was a wonderful thing to realize!”

“I’m gratified I could be so enlightening to you Gabriel,” I responded, sarcastic. I’m not sure why I thought I was in a position to inhabit the moral highground but I claimed it nevertheless.

“Oh Peter, don’t be so pedestrian, you know you’re beyond all that, just as we are.”

“Yes Peter,” said Natalie, suddenly seductive, touching my hand with a form of coquetry, “You’re no more like other people than we are and you know it! So let Gabriel finish!”

It was almost like a mother chastising her child, although it was a whole lot more sexual than that. I felt like a morsel trapped on a web shared by two irresistible spiders, awaiting my end, and wanting it.

“So,” Gabriel continued, amused at most by my reluctance to just acquiesce, and watching Natalie very closely because he clearly knew what she was doing and approved, “We’ve been testing the ability in places with cameras, mainly buildings around here, and this one. I don’t need to explain to you in detail, I’m sure, how we both managed to test that and then get access to the security camera film? You’d realize it was all part of the same process? We were very successful I must say. Sometimes we did it alone, sometimes together and both invisible sometimes having one distract while the other entered. We mixed it up a bit. It was fun.”

“It was!” Natalie agreed, glowing.

“And then we had this idea. How we could use this new-found talent and do something for you Peter. Something to say thank you, but also to demonstrate the many possibilities our abilities provide for us, and for any business venture.”

“A thank you for me?” I asked. I was at a loss to see how this could be achieved. Had they stolen some incredible piece of technology for me? Was that it? Why not just buy the bloody thing if they wanted to say thank you, then. Gabriel could afford it. Just showing off, that was all it was.

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t that at all.

“So, for you to see the gift, we need to show you a film we made. Watch this and it will all become clear.”

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved