By the time I left my study session at the cafe, the roads were covered in slush and the cars were regularly spraying dirty, ice-cold water on pedestrians like myself. I was hit more often than usual because I was still concentrating on the fact that Garran Keocaigh was a major player in the Chicago Spire project. The same Keocaigh who worked with Eddie years ago. The same Keocaigh who now lived in Dublin. Keocaigh and I had lives that ran in parallel, geographically at least. Also, there was the obvious differences in success, fortune and fame. <\/p>\n
I must have had terrible jet-lag, or maybe I was just cold. Either way, I didn’t notice the truck that pulled to the curb until its passenger threw something at me. I turned toward him, in time to get a hard piece of plastic in the nose. It hurt. By the time my eyes stopped watering, the dark-painted, late-model pickup truck was out of sight.<\/p>\n
I bent over to pick up the missle, and found myself in a rather embarassing position. My nose gushed blood when I bent forward, so I had to slowly crouch with my head tilted back. I felt around in the slush for a full minute, while staring into the streetlight above, before I felt the familiar shape of my mobile phone. It had to be mine; nobody else is dumb enough to spend $10 on half a plastic cover for an old Motorola. My gut twisted when I recognized my Irish phone, and it wasn’t from the coppery taste in the back of my mouth. For the next hour, I deliberately focused on getting to Eddie’s, washing up, and making dinner. Anything but the web that I was ensnarled in.<\/p>\n