Listen, don’t think I’m a creep just because I’m in a strange girl’s bedroom. I don’t even know how I got here. And the girl is nowhere to be seen, but I can tell it’s a girl’s room because it has that neatness about it. Guys can be organized and everything, but girls have a certain order to things.
Also, there are lace curtains.
There’s a neat desk beneath the window with a laptop resting on it. The comforter on the bed is dark blue and has some sort of herringbone pattern etched across it. Beside the bed is a black metal table with a silver lamp on it and a few books--Hemingway, Shakespeare, and Charlotte Bronte.
I remember those names, vaguely. There’s some comfort in the name Bronte especially, and I’m suddenly reminded of a red room and a house on fire with a secret burning to the ground with it.
The sound of keys in the door brings me back to my surroundings. Panic hits me as I realize I’m somewhere I really shouldn’t be. Looking around, the best place to hide seems to be the closet, which is slightly ajar. I slip through the space between the door and the wall as quietly as I can and press myself against the back wall just as I hear the bedroom door open.
I can hear the girl breathing heavily and sniffling like she has a cold. Then her breathing hitches for a second and a sob rings out against the bare walls. She’s crying, and by the sound of it, over something immensely sad. Stepping carefully over a pair of boots, I look out through the gap in the door.
The girl is sitting on the bed, hunched over something in her lap. Her purse is on the floor, its contents spilled at the foot of her bed. She looks a mess. Black tear tracks stray down her cheeks and her dark hair is frizzy and half-wild. Her black dress is so neat against her tiny frame, but there’s a smudge on her side as if she’d been leaning up against something dirty. She’s pretty, even in this chaotic state, and something about her feels familiar and comfortable. I suddenly have the urge to comfort her, but I remember that I am a stranger and I’m hiding in her closet.
The girl stays in her hunched position for a long time and I can see now that she is holding a newspaper clipping and her fingers are smudged with the ink from the page. Her sobbing has quelled for the moment, but suddenly she lets out a loud cry and throws the paper on the floor, covering her face with her hands.
My attention is drawn to the paper lying half crumpled on the floor. It looks to me like an obituary with a large title and picture. The large letters grab me first: “Local Professor Dies in Mugging.” I feel some vague empathy for the professor as my eyes rest upon the photo beside the heading. A contented face stares up at me with dark eyes and a very straight nose. He looks younger than what I expect a professor to be, but old enough, I suppose. His dark hair is short and curly and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache rest on his face. There’s an odd familiarity to the half-smile he gives me, as if I’d seen it a thousand times.
A sudden wave of nausea overwhelms me as I realize that I have.
In the mirror.
Because that face is mine.
My lungs feel like they’ve stopped working and I stagger backwards, confused. This isn’t possible. I can’t be here and dead at the same time. Besides, I haven’t been mugged recently.
I think. I try to remember what I was doing before I was here, but my brain can’t come up with anything.
I think I recall a darkness. Not like the night, but that dark that feels full and thick. Like night-swimming in a murky lake. A very present darkness.
But before that?
My head aches as I imagine the last thing I saw--just the flash of a knife and then...this?
How did I get here? And why?
I hear a gasp and I look up to see the girl standing in the doorway to the closet. There’s a moment of silence where she just stares wide-eyed at me, and then she screams, backing away. I try to stop her screaming, but as I move forward, she slams the door on my face.
Literally.
My face is halfway through the door and as I step through the rest of the way, it’s the oddest sensation. Every molecule of my body is separated as I pass through the slab of wood; it feels like moving through deep water. The girl screams again as I step toward her, arms out.
“Wait!” I try to say, but her screams drown me out. Now she’s throwing things at me, but they just go through me. As Jane Eyre passes through my chest, the girl screams, “You’re dead! You’re dead!” She pauses before throwing a pencil sharpener through my head. The force of it pulls on the backs of my eyelids and I have the sudden urge to sneeze. Now she grabs the chair from the desk behind her and uses it to guard herself from me. She’s bawling now, her hair fully wild and black tear marks smeared down her chin.
“You’re dead!” she screams again, jabbing the chair at the air in front of her.
“I know!” I yell back at her.
“Then why are you still here?” she screams, throwing the chair at me. It breaks a leg on the wall behind me. The girl falls to her knees and begins to cry even more now, pressing her forehead against the floor and shaking with each sob.
Her crying dies down eventually and she whimpers, “Why are you still here?”
I don’t have an answer for her. I stand there helplessly with my arms at my sides.
“I don’t know.”
She looks up at me, and her large brown eyes search mine for some answer I can’t give. She feels so familiar to me, but I can’t remember who she is.
“Who are you?” I ask, and that surprises her. There’s a mixture of confusion and hurt on her face.
“I’m Lila,” she says as if it should spark some memory.
“Lila,” I say. She nods. Then she cocks her head and squints at me.
“You don’t remember me,” she says. It isn’t a question.
I shake my head no.
Also, there are lace curtains.
There’s a neat desk beneath the window with a laptop resting on it. The comforter on the bed is dark blue and has some sort of herringbone pattern etched across it. Beside the bed is a black metal table with a silver lamp on it and a few books--Hemingway, Shakespeare, and Charlotte Bronte.
I remember those names, vaguely. There’s some comfort in the name Bronte especially, and I’m suddenly reminded of a red room and a house on fire with a secret burning to the ground with it.
The sound of keys in the door brings me back to my surroundings. Panic hits me as I realize I’m somewhere I really shouldn’t be. Looking around, the best place to hide seems to be the closet, which is slightly ajar. I slip through the space between the door and the wall as quietly as I can and press myself against the back wall just as I hear the bedroom door open.
I can hear the girl breathing heavily and sniffling like she has a cold. Then her breathing hitches for a second and a sob rings out against the bare walls. She’s crying, and by the sound of it, over something immensely sad. Stepping carefully over a pair of boots, I look out through the gap in the door.
The girl is sitting on the bed, hunched over something in her lap. Her purse is on the floor, its contents spilled at the foot of her bed. She looks a mess. Black tear tracks stray down her cheeks and her dark hair is frizzy and half-wild. Her black dress is so neat against her tiny frame, but there’s a smudge on her side as if she’d been leaning up against something dirty. She’s pretty, even in this chaotic state, and something about her feels familiar and comfortable. I suddenly have the urge to comfort her, but I remember that I am a stranger and I’m hiding in her closet.
The girl stays in her hunched position for a long time and I can see now that she is holding a newspaper clipping and her fingers are smudged with the ink from the page. Her sobbing has quelled for the moment, but suddenly she lets out a loud cry and throws the paper on the floor, covering her face with her hands.
My attention is drawn to the paper lying half crumpled on the floor. It looks to me like an obituary with a large title and picture. The large letters grab me first: “Local Professor Dies in Mugging.” I feel some vague empathy for the professor as my eyes rest upon the photo beside the heading. A contented face stares up at me with dark eyes and a very straight nose. He looks younger than what I expect a professor to be, but old enough, I suppose. His dark hair is short and curly and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache rest on his face. There’s an odd familiarity to the half-smile he gives me, as if I’d seen it a thousand times.
A sudden wave of nausea overwhelms me as I realize that I have.
In the mirror.
Because that face is mine.
My lungs feel like they’ve stopped working and I stagger backwards, confused. This isn’t possible. I can’t be here and dead at the same time. Besides, I haven’t been mugged recently.
I think. I try to remember what I was doing before I was here, but my brain can’t come up with anything.
I think I recall a darkness. Not like the night, but that dark that feels full and thick. Like night-swimming in a murky lake. A very present darkness.
But before that?
My head aches as I imagine the last thing I saw--just the flash of a knife and then...this?
How did I get here? And why?
I hear a gasp and I look up to see the girl standing in the doorway to the closet. There’s a moment of silence where she just stares wide-eyed at me, and then she screams, backing away. I try to stop her screaming, but as I move forward, she slams the door on my face.
Literally.
My face is halfway through the door and as I step through the rest of the way, it’s the oddest sensation. Every molecule of my body is separated as I pass through the slab of wood; it feels like moving through deep water. The girl screams again as I step toward her, arms out.
“Wait!” I try to say, but her screams drown me out. Now she’s throwing things at me, but they just go through me. As Jane Eyre passes through my chest, the girl screams, “You’re dead! You’re dead!” She pauses before throwing a pencil sharpener through my head. The force of it pulls on the backs of my eyelids and I have the sudden urge to sneeze. Now she grabs the chair from the desk behind her and uses it to guard herself from me. She’s bawling now, her hair fully wild and black tear marks smeared down her chin.
“You’re dead!” she screams again, jabbing the chair at the air in front of her.
“I know!” I yell back at her.
“Then why are you still here?” she screams, throwing the chair at me. It breaks a leg on the wall behind me. The girl falls to her knees and begins to cry even more now, pressing her forehead against the floor and shaking with each sob.
Her crying dies down eventually and she whimpers, “Why are you still here?”
I don’t have an answer for her. I stand there helplessly with my arms at my sides.
“I don’t know.”
She looks up at me, and her large brown eyes search mine for some answer I can’t give. She feels so familiar to me, but I can’t remember who she is.
“Who are you?” I ask, and that surprises her. There’s a mixture of confusion and hurt on her face.
“I’m Lila,” she says as if it should spark some memory.
“Lila,” I say. She nods. Then she cocks her head and squints at me.
“You don’t remember me,” she says. It isn’t a question.
I shake my head no.
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