...

Sabar turned to see the gleaming figure behind him. Sabar realized his mouth was open and almost comically agape. What? What was happening right now?

"I.. um.. wasn't going to?"

Gibraltar was.. shorter than he imagined. Like seeing a movie-star in person, it felt very strange to see one of the New Gods before his very eyes. He was used to seeing that face on television screens or websites - but seeing him now in front of him felt bizarre.

He was an actual, real-life, godamn superhero. An unelected senator that had more power than the sitting president and a more terrifying force of nature than a tsunami. He'd been behind the dissolution of forty seven drug cartels, the cosa nostra, seven south-american dictatorships and two major world religions

Stocky, solid. With hard, watchful eyes - that looked carefully - taking him all in. Wide powerful shoulders. Grey at the temples now. That broad brick wall of a chin.

The figure he'd seen on noisy phone-footage and the covers of magazines since he was a teenager was in front of him now.

A golden figure that seemed at once too.. real to be the one he'd seen on so many screens.. and too unreal to be here on this rooftop.

"I'm not suicidal, really", Sabar felt somewhat defensive. Like he'd wasted the great Gibraltar's time by somehow giving him the wrong impression.

The golden man, simply raised an eyebrow. A quirk of the mouth.

"Are you sure? I've seen my share of jumpers"

Sabar sighed, "No.. I mean yes! I'm sure. I'm not a jumper"

He raised his hands to ward off any help - though the golden man simply stayed where he stood, arms crossed.

"I'm just.. ", He tried to explain

"I'm just getting some air.. but"

"but.. "

But was he? Was he going to jump? What was he doing here? He hadn't intended to come here to jump off this rooftop - but now that he thought about it he wasn't quite sure what he had come up here to do.

And in a rush, the five words he'd held onto so hard the last few days came tumbling out.

He matched eyes with the golden figure as he spoke, his voice harsh and bitter.

"I have the sleeping sickness"

...

The sleeping sickness. Korean Trypanosomiasis Extrema. La Sieste Tranquille. Der Sanfte Gute-Nacht-Kuss. It had a lot of names, this strange malady.

The enigmatic disease that danced through the world starting in the year 2025.

In '26 they counted a hundred thousand deaths attributed to the sleeping sickness.

In '27 it swept through Asia, ephemeral and deadly, and killed eight million.

In 2028 it struck in Africa - and seventy two million men, women and children fell asleep and never woke up.

You knew you had it, when you had the dream. The red river and the boatman. The dull thunk, thunk, thunk of his oar. When you next slept, you never woke again.

It was utterly terrifying in its spread. It had no rhyme nor reason. It did not seem to follow any pandemic vector known to man. It didn't spread via breath or phlegm or blood. There was no detectable toxic, viral or bacterial cause.

One day, after a month without incident, a single person who hadn't left their house in a week, would wake up with the sickness. Another day, it would take an entire town in single night.

Then, in '29, after three years of senseless, wanton death it abruptly petered out. In the year 2029 - and every year since, without fail - it killed exactly eight people.

Over the course of '29 it put down eight random people across 5 continents - no two connected - no two on the same day. The next year, in a log cabin in California, a family of five and their three visiting grandparents were found comatose.

Then nothing.

Then eight more random deaths a year later.

.

No one talked about it any more.

In a way the disease was gone. The world was done with it. The world was over it.

The planet could afford to write off eight dead unfortunates to some cryptic cause. In another few years they'd pretend it didn't even exist. They'd pretend the dream was just some mass psychosis. They'd call it brain death by unknown cause - SCS - Spontaneous Coma Syndrome.. which was another way to say 'don't know, couldn't bother'.

Eight deaths a year. Why worry about something so unlikely - something that you had no control over? Most people - and Sabar was one of them - didn't bother or think about it any more.

Except two nights ago. When he woke up from the dream. When he remembered the red river and the boatman. Heard the thunk, thunk.. thunk.

....

When he said it, Sabar could swear he saw something in the golden man's eyes.

Not just pity (which he expected) but something else. Guilt.

Gibraltar finally spoke, "Have a coffee with me"

"What? Why?", Sabar was starting to doubt if this was really happening or if the caffeine overdose was finally catching up to him. I'm dying. I'm dead! I have the sleeping sickness!

Gibraltar gave a strange smile, one that didn't quite reach his eyes, "Humor me. What've you got to lose? At the least, we can try to make your last few hours a bit more interesting"

Sabar shrugged. He'd had this vague thought that he'd do something with his last few hours. Maybe try and load up on as many illegal drugs as he could find and get laid. But it all seemed so pointless, and he didn't even know where he'd start now. Somehow the idea of looking for a dealer in the park or flirting with someone in a bar felt utterly exhausting.

"Yeah, sure. Let's get some coffee"