Project Boussh: Self Indulgence
by Majick

It was, all things considered, a very nice cafe. When you've been bombed,
burnt, fried, electrocuted, shot, slashed and thrown around like a piece of
garbage, the last thing you expect is to wake up in a cafe in the middle of
London.
But here I was, and none the worse for wear, so it seemed. I looked down at
myself, clad in my wonderful trenchcoat, and the baggy black jumpsuit I'd
worn while sparring with Vickie. The waiter passed by, and took my order.
Seconds later he returned, depositing a milky cup of tea on the table in
front of me. I sipped it. Perfect.
I looked around. I knew the place, had been here the night my A-Level
results came out. Three passes, a place at my first choice university,
several good friends, and the world at my feet. I'd come back a year later,
with another friend, before going onto the theatre district to see a
musical.
Happy memories.
Here I was again, then. I looked around, and a flicker of movement caught
my eye. I squinted, and sipped my tea again, to hide my disguise.
Faintly, against the backdrop of a typical London day, I could see the
years old ghosts of myself and my friends. Drinking beer, telling jokes,
watching the girls go by.
I looked inside the cafe, at the only empty table. I squinted again, and
the table suddenly had food on it. Looking up, I saw myself, a year older
now, and my friend sitting opposite me. We were laughing, I remembered,
about the size of the pizza she'd ended up with.
I smiled at the memories.
"Anyone sitting here?" I looked up, and this was no ghost. my friend Matt
stood in front of me, his hand on the chair opposite mine. As he sat down,
he offered me the paper he was holding.
"Spurs won," he said, his eyes sparkling. I took the paper, and looked at
the back page. He was right. Spurs, our local football team, had indeed
beaten Liverpool, one of the best teams in the country.
Gosh.
"Mr B!" I heard now, and looked up to see my best friend, Michal, sliding
into the chair beside me. "How's ya doing?" he asked. I offered him the
paper. Friend or not, he was a Liverpool fan. He glanced at it, then quietly
set it aside.
"Yeah yeah, blah blah, mmmm, Britney..." he muttered, his usual litany when
I caught him out on something.
"Hiya!" Yet another voice, this time Michal's girlfriend Catherine. The
table was now full, and still more people were appearing, and they were
people I knew.
There was Lucy, my pizza eating friend. With her were the Toolan clan,
Jonathan, Terence and Judith, all intact. Terence, as is his wont, was
tickling Diana, Matt's fiance.
Behind them were Stewart and Jay perpetually at war, yet more alike than
either would care to admit.
Soon, the cafe was full, people laughing, joking. I caught the distinctive
laughs of Michael and Cat, and realised finally that this couldn't be real.
The difficulties involved in getting everyone to London, at the same place,
at the same time, were insurmountable.
Unless the occasion was very, very special.
I stood up.
"Hello? Can you hear me back there? Hi. Um. What the hell are you all doing
here?"
"I'm surprised you need that explaining," came a voice I found hard to
place. I turned, and grinned. Terra Group had crashed the party as well.
"You're late," I said with a grin.
"Ewok in the engine room," Vickie explained, and I realised it was her
voice I'd heard.
"I've told you about them things. Nothing but trouble."
"Like you," Nick pointed out.
"What do you mean?" I asked, feeling a little stupid.
"Well, look. You've scared everyone to death by nearly getting yourself
killed," Sci began.
"...and now you're just lying there in the bacta tank, not doing anything
to help us beat Atner," Emily finished, idly playing with her sword.
"They've got a point, Mike," Matt chipped in, from behind me.
"Dead or alive. Your choice," Catherine added.
"But you do have to choose," Michal finished.
"Excuse me? I don't have the right to let myself heal? I did get a hell of
a beating, you know!"
"We know," said Jonathan, as he extricated himself from a game of thumb war
with Terence. "But you've said yourself you're a quick healer. Remember the
time you broke your wrist?"
"Don't remind me..." I said, remembering how much it had hurt.
"But you said yourself it stopped hurting less than a week later."
"So what's stopping you?" Alison chimed in, her hair a new and...
interesting variant on when Mike had last seen it.
"Come on Mike, sort it out mate," said Jay. "We've got a disco in ten days,
and I'm buggered if I'm doing it all by myself."
"Selfish git," I said, flipping him the bird. "Can I just say, I'm in a bit
of a bad shape. We're talking full body toasty, lot's of cuts, concussion,
general mankiness..."
"All have started healing while you've been talking to us," said my sister
Fiona, the nurse, looking at a chart.
"Really?"
"Really. You had some kind of mental block preventing you from healing, but
now you seem to be over that. I'm very impressed."
"Damn..."
"So get up and get moving. My car needs washing," said Deborah, my other
sister.
I looked up and out at the cafe. One by one, my friends were packing up
their stuff and going.
"Hey, wait!" I called. "I didn't get the chance to speak to any of you
yet!"
"That's kind of the point," sad Catherine. "If you choose to live, you do
get to talk to them, any time you want. If you choose to die. Well, it's
kinda spooky for us to be talking to a dead person."
"There are your choices, Mr. B." Michal added. "We've gotta go now. See ya
later, yeah?"
I looked around. Only Matt, Michal and Catherine were left.
"Where'd they all go?" I asked.
"Same place they've always been," said Catherine. She reached out, and
tapped my forehead. "In here. Now, you can decide to see us again, or decide
to give up. Be honest. Which one is you?"
I sighed, and looked down at the ground. When I looked up again, I was all
alone. The café began to fade away, until I was surrounded by blackness.
I shut my eyes, and chose.