I Am the Messenger: 8 of Spades Summary & Analysis

Ed drives his taxi on the hottest day of the year. His air conditioning is broken, and his customers complain. Ed remembers he has Lua’s lucky stone in his pocket and feels happy despite the annoyances. When Ed returns his taxi to the company lot, he runs into Audrey. She wants to talk to him, but he notices her boyfriend waiting for her and leaves. He walks the Doorman to the next address on the card and thinks about how Audrey’s boyfriend probably doesn’t appreciate her beauty like he does.

Ed buys an order of French fries on the way to the address. When he arrives at the address, he realizes that it’s a small Italian restaurant. Ed sits on a bench across the street and watches the restaurant, but nothing seems to happen there that night. He returns to the restaurant every night after that, but still sees nothing he needs to fix.

One night when Ed returns from the restaurant, Audrey is waiting for him on his front porch. When he asks her why she’s there, she says that she’s missed him. She says he “used to just be” but now he is somebody. She feels a distance between them now, because he has begun to improve himself. Ed realizes Audrey felt more comfortable with him when he was more ordinary and less confident, because back then he would never have expressed his feelings for her.

Ed feels the lucky stone in his pocket. He considers how Audrey says he’s changed. He agrees that the old version of himself is gone, and now he lives a new life with purpose. He knows this transformation should make him happy, because he always wanted to change himself, but instead he feels sad.

Ed tells Audrey that they should get drunk and she agrees. He asks her what else she was doing before coming over. She says she was having sex with her boyfriend, but after he left, she just felt empty. Ed reasons with himself that he could be happy just providing Audrey with emotional support. They continue to drink. Later, Audrey asks Ed if he hates her. Ed says that he does. They laugh, but then Audrey says she doesn’t blame him.

Ed falls asleep on the couch and wakes up to someone at his front door. He opens the door to find the young man who led him to the stones of home standing in front of him. He looks annoyed. He tells Ed to return to the restaurant tomorrow at 8 pm, and to hurry up, because he has other business to take care of. Ed asks him again whom he works for. The young man tells Ed that he “might not be the only one getting aces in the mail.” Then the man disappears.

After the young man leaves, Audrey follows Ed to bed and begs him to tell her about what he has been doing. He tells her about Milla and Sophie, but then realizes she has already fallen asleep. He continues to tell her about the rest of the people he has helped anyway. Ed feels happy as he falls asleep.