• Shadow of a Doubt

    It was dark in this room. Cut up light from the shuttered windows was the only source of illumination, asides from the radio, which was always on. Years of this routine had gotten me used to the soft orange glow, so much so actually, that the light seemed as one with the darkness of the room. The familiar lull of voices emanating from the radio was the only noise to be heard in the room. They were my lullabies, those voices.
    It was 2:56 am.
    Today had been such a long day. An eternity of school it was. A routine it was. But at least I could count on tomorrow. Friday. Only one more school day and it’d be the beautiful weekend to look forward to. Sleeping in, perhaps some time with some friends, awesome breakfasts, and just some alone time, you know? It’d be a perfect two days, this weekend. It’s just too bad I have to endure one more day, you know? Another routine, another eternity, another round of periods we go. A carousel.
    I almost forgot that it was already Friday. I think of days on terms of sunlight hours. It’s something I’ve grown to do.
    It’s 2:58 am.
    I’ve had something of a sleeping disorder, a minor one, really. At least I consider it a sleeping disorder. My doctor just tells me to sleep earlier and get some exercise. The thing is, is that I can’t go to sleep early. My body just doesn’t work that way. I’m what people call a night owl. That is, I’m a late-night kinda guy. I normally get 4-5 hours of sleep every night, it’s just how I work. It might be insomnia or something, but it’s pretty much an every-day thing. Sleep is something very hard to come by for me. The other part of my nighttime problems is that I don’t dream. You know those dreams where you’re just kinda floating there in the darkness of your mind? Your bed? I always have those. Always. They might not be much, but they’re soothing as hell, for sure. I only wished I could experience those crazy dreams people get. Screaming down an infinite slide, exploring the dreamscape of my mind, going on goofy adventures with things I’d never normally imagine, that kind of stuff. Most of my time spent in my bed is waiting for the cushion of my sleep to take me, like heavy velvet.
    It’s 3:01 am.


    We were slowly falling into sleep, like usual. The young man shifted onto his side to check the time on the radio, his movement causing a gentle rustling across the entirety of his bed. The orange glow read 3:01 am. He proceeded to stare emptily into the glow, eyes glassy with tiredness. The voices in his radio seemed to grow fainter and fainter as he dropped off, his eyelids closing, his eyes still seeing. Me, his unconscious mind watched on as our mental processes slowed.

    Eventually the voices from the radio were smothered by sleep.

    The smells of a lavish breakfast were the first signs he felt. Eggs. Toast. Bacon. Coffee. Orange juice. Each sensation accentuating the other, if smells could be visualized as symbols, this would be Breakfast. Nothing else could have done better. The boy’s eyelids opened. Sun streamed from his windows, a beautiful alarm clock. The boy found himself sitting up, feet dangling over the edge of the bed, stroking the carpet of his room. Not being the kind of person to linger on life’s subtle beauty, the boy sent himself towards the bathroom, knowing full well there were already clothes there set for him. The process of washing, shampooing, and piss-taking was a blur of time, like it usually was. Who actually thought at that time in the morning? Everyone who’s been alive for seventeen years has some sort of a routine, pattern, structure, you name it to their morning. Things like that just can’t be random.
    Mom and dad were in the kitchen. The boy’s mother was intent on the bubbling of the coffee machine, while the father was sitting down, munching on a piece of toast. Good morning, they said in near-unison. The boy grunted as an answer, miraculously finding a plate and cup in his hands. Breakfast was quick and wordless, as usual, and the spears of the morning shone through the windows. He said bye to his parents and was in his vehicle, hand turning key, foot depressing pedal, eye checking mirror, car gripping road. His mornings were always the same. I made sure of it.

    My time getting ready for school is always so rushed. At last I was stuck in place while the world moved around me, the scene outside my window ever-changing. But that’s not a surprising thing right? Not in an age of transportation where everyone owns cars. It’s really frightening for me, driving, I mean. The dreamlike state I enter when driving is just plain creepy, just thinking of other things, like what’s outside my window or what those people are watching on that T.V. in their house. I could literally go on for miles this way, only to find myself wondering where I’ve been for the last half hour. Speaking of which, I’m passing through the barrier between school and real life, which happens to be a fence. I’m in the parking lot now, getting out of my car. The sun’s a bit further up now, and wow, never noticed how big this school really is! I almost forgot just how sprawling the grounds were, and how tall some of the structures really were.
    It’s strange how much the sun really does affect how things look, this very school being the creepiest thing ever at night, while in the morning like this, it’s just so beautiful. Gothic church-stained glass-flying buttress-beautiful. It’s too bad though that by the time midday comes ‘round, school is nothing but a routine. Nothing beautiful, mind you. A routine. Like waiting for sleep to come, not having the leisure to choose when you get it. Like driving a car to school without knowing where you’re really going. Like proceeding through your morning routine half asleep. Like that.
    By the time school ended today, I had absolutely no idea what the hell I had learned, no idea what I had read or written throughout the day. This huge and beautiful school was nothing more than a prison, really. As nice as it looked initially, the thing really did become an eyesore after awhile. All-and-all, it was a great surprise hearing my friends after school. Their voices were just so welcoming after a long day of work. “H-Hey, we’ve been waiting here for like, ever, man!” They said in unison.
    Although it was obvious they all didn’t say the same thing at the same time, the words they spoke were more or less the same thing re-phrased, so I perceived them to be one voice, okay?
    “Oh hi dudes. Crappy day of school, amirite?” I said. My voice was strange to my ears. I think it was my cold.
    “Every day this month so far’s been shitty dude,” one friend said.
    “I think I failed all my tests today,” said another.
    “Er, we only had two tests today man. And those were quizzes.” Said the third friend.
    The test-failer decide not to say anything back, and my first friend spoke up again, after dropping all of the papers he had been previously gripping tightly.
    “Speaking of quizzes, check out her. Over there!”
    I, along with everyone else in our little group turned to the direction indicated. A small wave of disappointment hit me as I saw nothing, that one small terrible feeling everyone’s felt at least once.
    “Who are you talking about, I don’t see anything guys...”
    My friends only laughed at my inability to see the obvious looker they had all caught glimpse of. They told me to look harder, commenting me on a need for thicker glasses. I squinted at the dispersed crowds before us, the school patio overrun with kids of all grades scrambling to find a ride out of school.
    I didn’t see her.
    You know that white noise-kinda thing people turn into when you’re searching for a specific someone? That’s kinda what was happening to me now, except a bit different. I innately knew there was something different about the girl I was searching for. Something I couldn’t put into words, as of now. Everywhere I looked everyone just…looked the same. Not physically, mind you. It was…their forms, just their very selves that looked the same. I could easily compare my situation to searching for a dove in a fluttering mass of pigeons. But, nevermind that. I see her.
    Oh god, I see her.
    And just like that, my friends knew.
    “Hey hey hey, looks like old Blindey over here finally sees what we’ve been trying to show him for ages!” said a friend. He began to frantically scrape up the scattered papers he’d dropped a minute ago. The second one to comment laughed as he bent over to help pick up some of the scattered leaves.
    “Oh yeah, you can say that again bro. Literally AGES. Like I said before, that’ll be another four inches for those glasses of his..”
    “Wait a sec, guys, I’m not even wearing glasses..”
    “We know.” They said.
    “Oh, okay.” I said.
    “Just making sure.” I said.
    They spoke as one again, to me. “ Well seeing as you’re the last guy to see her, why dontcha go and introduce yourself? Feelin’ brave?”
    Before I got the chance to respond, that voice in the back of my head uttered a single thing to me. “Don’t.”
    The message reverberated in my mind.
    Of course, when faced to choose between my conscience and my friends, I chose the obvious.
    “Watch me at work dudes.” I said.
    I wove through the crowd of look-alikes to get to her.

    She was indeed strange to behold. It was something I couldn’t get off my mind. Although I could distinctly recall her aura, and even her voice somewhat as she spoke with her friends, her appearance was the hummingbird to my camera, something I just couldn’t keep in focus. There was no doubt that she was attractive. Jesus, no doubt at all. Her eyes met mine before I had the chance to sneak up on her. Instantly the clouds of friends about her kinda disappeared from my vision, and it was the two of us in that courtyard, mostly alone.
    “Hey.” I said.
    “Hay is for horses.” She said.
    Jesus Christ.
    That was too much for me. I laughed long and hard.
    “I was just saying hello, you know.” I said. I still had some of those laughter-tears in my eyes.
    She blinked once and considered me, an eyebrow slightly arched.
    “Oh believe me, I know.” She said.
    I think a smile was beginning to form at the corner of her mouth. Maybe. It was strange how she actually seemed to want to hold down a conversation out of the blue like this. I’d honestly only talked to her once or twice in the last year, school related things, you know? She never put me off those couple times too.
    “So why exactly did you trouble yourself with me? Friends?”
    “Yeah, friends,” I said. “More or less a dare I guess.”
    “I see…” She elongated her ‘e’ for a bit.
    I averted my eyes for a moment, and scratched my arm.
    “Yeah, um, sorry for the inconvenience I guess, I mean, if I’m being one. I thought it’d be nice to-”
    “-Oh no, no, it’s nice meeting people this way! Doesn’t happen often…” She said.
    She flashed this awesome thing people call a smile, all white and bright and genuine. She didn’t smile purely with her lips; her entire face was behind it. Stuff like that’s real.
    She took me by surprise again.
    “I’m starting to feel we actually might have a bit more to talk about, and I’m really hungry right now, and I just wanna get out of school, and enjoy the weekend! Don’t you?” She said. I would have interjected then, but she caught me beforehand and continued.
    “How about we go somewhere right now? Does a café sound nice? I have a favorite one nearby, and I’ll show you where it is!”
    She shouldered her backpack, beaming now as she interrupted me again. It seemed I would just let her talk for now, not that I minded. Her voice was nice.
    “It’s just that here of all places, school I mean…Not such a nice place to just talk with all these people around, yeah?”
    I actually just noticed them.

    Something was wrong though, something subtle and disturbing.
    I couldn’t really put my mind on it though. People never just went out and did things with people they barely knew, did they? I personally had a pretty dead social life, self-inflicted or not. I dunno.

    “Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you mean!” I said, finally.
    She made that humming noise people make when they think. Or maybe that noise people make when they think something’s particularly delicious.
    “I mean, a café’s not exactly quiet per se…but it’s a nice noisy you know? It’s more…how can I put it…safe? I dunno. I’m just babbling now.”
    “Oh, I don’t think you’re babbling. Thinking out loud sure, but not babbling.” I said, sticking my hands in my pockets.
    She smiled at that. God damn I’m smooth.
    “Ha, thanks. But we’re just wasting time here! We gotta get moving! I’ll meet you in the parking lot okay? I need to fetch some things.” She said. I could tell she was getting a bit antsy, from the way she was looking around at the slowly evaporating groups of people headed off to home, or wherever.
    “Okay, okay, I’ll see you over there then in a bit, then!” I said.
    She smiled at me a last time and turned around on her way to whatever needed doing. She disappeared into the crowd just as suddenly as she had appeared to me just a while ago.
    I was alone again, not even my friends had seemed to stick around. Without much else to do, I turned to the direction of the car-filled lot and walked. It was a long walk, indeed. I wonder if she had to walk just as far? I wonder what she thought of me? Maybe she thinks of us as friends! All my assumptions kept with me as the land changed from brick to concrete and asphalt.
    The parking lot is huge from my position. It stretches miles in all directions, it seems to me, but then again most parking lots seem huge when you’re in the middle of them. At this point there was nothing much to do but wait for her, which seemed a bit absurd since I hadn’t told her where I’d be waiting for her. But this lot wasn’t a forest obviously, and though she was a bit short, I’m sure she’d be able to see me and my vehicle fine after a bit of searching. I decided then and there to make myself a bit more noticeable by jumping up to sit on my hood, raising my head height by about two feet. My legs brushed against the silver bumper, gently making contact with some small dents in the shiny metal every once in awhile, my feet scraping against the ground the entire while.
    I’m pretty sure it was then we saw each other at the same time. As soon as I noticed her over the bodies of unused cars and trucks, I waved and was genuinely surprised when she mirrored my movement as I was doing it. I guess my little plan did work out the way I wanted it to. As she wove her way through the vehicles to get to me, I was granted the chance to get a better look at her without being weird. Wow, was she strange. In the blustery wind, her long hair undulated everywhere, like it was alive, see? The sun shone upon it like none other, not even the shiny and factory cut steel of the cars surrounding us could compete. There was just something so ethereal about the whole deal. Luckily for me, she was quick to approach my perch. I could already tell I was getting a bit too lost in the moment. She stopped a short distance away, hand held up to her eyes to block out the sun’s rays.
    “Hi up there!”
    “Uh, hey to you too, are you ready?”
    “I guess so…Who wouldn’t be ready to leave this place as soon as possible?”
    I laughed a bit, not really thinking what she said was funny. I just laughed.
    I earned a strange look from her for that.
    “Oh yeah, I have no idea where this place is…Got a map?”
    She made that humming noise again, thinking.
    “No, not really. But here, look.”
    I looked.
    She took a pencil out of one pocket and a small and grubby piece of notebook paper out of the other pocket and began scrawling something, using her palm as a table. She was at it for a couple of seconds and paused before handing it to me.
    It was a map. I stared at it for a few moments, trying to interpret the lines and words written on it. Everything seemed blurred and strange, I don’t know what was causing it. It was just a headache, I guessed, but something was tugging at my mind. I’d heard about this somewhere, but I pushed it out of my mind. I turned back to her and smiled a bit.
    “Well, awesome. I know the area that’s in actually. Thanks for the map though.”
    “Oh, no problem!”
    She looked at me, looking like she had something else to say.
    “So uh…Yeah! Did you need a ride or something? To the Café?
    “Oh no, no. I have my own car actually-”
    “-Oh! Okay then, I guess…”
    I paused, wondering whether or not to end the conversation or not.
    “…I guess we should get going then? Don’t wanna waste anymore time here, do we?”
    “Nope! We’ll see each other in a while, anyways.” she said.
    “Yeah. Yeah, we will.” I said.
    “Well see you in a bit then, Bye!”
    “See ya.” I said.
    She smiled once more and walked backwards a few feet before turning to walk away. I watched her until she finally disappeared behind a car before I eased myself off the hood of the car, and onto the hard ground. I unlocked my door and climbed into my vehicle, scanning the area for any moving cars before turning the key, shifting the stick, and placing foot against pedal.
    I drove on and on. The scene changed.

    Inside his room, outside his head, the sun had begun shining through the boy’s shutters. As hard as I tried, there was no rousing him yet. He was driving on and on. He’d met that damn girl too. At this point there’d be no hope in reaching him for awhile. He would be late for school if this kept up.

    The plains were rolling and green. The ebbing of the surroundings gave everything I could see a ghostlike effect. I took a hand off the wheel to check the slip of grubby paper in my lap, and I think that this was the right place. It was hard to tell because it seemed like her drawings and instructions kept changing, but whatever. I think this was the place. I carefully navigated my vehicle onto the dirt on the side of the road and parked it and climbed out and looked around. For sure, I was alone. I looked to my left down the road I’d been traveling and looked to my right where the same road stretched to the rolling horizon.
    There was nothing out here.
    Nothing at all.
    On either side of the two-lane road, knee high grass formed an ocean of green. With no oncoming cars to worry about, I walked across the road to the other side and tentatively crossed the barrier from asphalt to grass and soil.
    The ground. It was soft. Cloudlike almost.
    On either side of my body, my arms hung, and I could feel it all around me, whipping clothes about and roughing up hair. Pushing clouds and grass alike, pushing the doubts in my mind aside. The wind. I closed my eyes and let the feeling pass.
    Even with closed eyes I could see the sun, or feel it, to be precise. It was like seeing into another world, it was. A world where I was still in bed and sleeping, a place where the sun was beginning to rise.
    To be honest, I was kinda beginning to freak myself out, so on that note, I opened my eyes.

    The elevator I saw before me was the starkest contrast I had ever seen in my life.

    It was glass, or plastic, and the most opaque black I’d ever seen. It seemed to absorb the soft green surrounding me into its hard shape. I stared for a minute wondering what exactly it wanted me to do with it. It was pretty clear, now that I think about it. I walked towards it and the door silently slid open for me.
    No one was inside. I momentarily hesitated a last time before I walked inside it. Before I had even begun to turn around, the doors had shut. Without much else to do, I glanced at the area where there were normally buttons to choose your destination, and I found one. In neat little uppercase print, the word ‘DOWN’ was printed in white. I looked around the insides of the black box and found nothing but that one button, so left with nothing else to do, I steeled myself before firmly pushing the button.
    I hardly felt the nudge of the elevator as it descended, and I was genuinely surprised that I didn’t die or burst into flames or something. Seconds dragged on to minutes and nothing visible was happening. I was beginning to think I was trapped in there forever. After what seemed like hours, I felt another nudge as the elevator reached something below my feet.
    The doors slowly slid open, and I saw that I was…somewhere. I stepped outside to get a better look, feeling sand beneath my feet. This time the black elevator behind me stood its ground. I was satisfied.

    From what I could see, I was on a very small island, no more than twenty feet by twenty feet if it was a square. The funny thing about this island is that apparently it was suspended in space. A huge black expanse one would find underneath the skin of the earth. The darkness seemed to be held at bay with a few tiki torches speared into the sand. This cavernous destination, while strange indeed, actually made sense, really, being underground. I mean, the elevator had been traveling for awhile, down. I explored the surrounding area, being careful not to stray near the edges and get swallowed up by the darkness surrounding me. To my surprise, hidden behind the elevator I had just come out of was a small and old wooden walkway illuminated by garish party lanterns. The walkway-bridge extended out into the murky space and ended at the front doors of a rowdy-sounding building with the words CAFÉ written in neon cursive.
    It’s funny how things never work out the way you want them to.
    Still in a state of disbelief, I wandered moth-like to the bright building, wondering how all of this could be real. Tentatively, I crept into the café, suddenly experiencing a feeling that I shouldn’t have been there. I was busy with these thoughts when some guy in a uniform loudly greeted me.
    “Welcome! Welcome! Do you have a reservation? Or are ya gonna wait for a table to open up?”
    I stared at him for a bit. I honestly had no ******** clue.
    “Well, I was supposed to meet someone-“
    “Ah, yes. What’s their name?”
    “Who’s name?”
    “…The someone you’re meeting, sir.”
    That strange feeling of forgetfulness was happening again. I could have sworn I knew her name.
    “I don’t know. Her name I mean. But she is a she, yeah. Have any girls walked in alone recently?”
    The uniformed guy stared at me, his eyes on fire. Apparently I’d asked for too much, I dunno.
    “I don’t know for sure sir, but I will go and check for you sir.”
    “Oh, thanks man. I appreciate it.” I said.
    The waiter-guy sniffed before turning on his heel to walk away.
    I was alone again, but there were people all around. People…I think. Most of them were too blurry to tell. I think I needed glasses after all, or maybe it’s my headache acting up. All the vivid colors in this place were ridiculous, screwing with my sense of perception they were. I couldn’t tell where someone started and another begun, to be honest. I could feel sunlight on my cheek right now. It was warm-
    “Hey! Hey! Over here!”
    Her voice was familiar and reminded me of home in a chaotic place like this. I looked excitedly in the direction her voice came from, and found her instantly. Nothing like the first time I looked for her.
    “Are you gonna sit down or what?”
    I looked about for the waiter-guy, who hadn’t returned from looking for my someone. I wove through the tables and people and colors to get to her table, which was smack dab in the middle of everything.
    “Jesus, you could have told me this place was so weird to get into-“
    She interrupted my protest with a laugh.
    “-Oh shut up. You’re here, and that’s what counts.”
    “Ugh, I guess so.” I said.
    “You guess so?”
    “Well, I guess I mean so.”
    “O-kay then…” She said, her face adopting a blank look.
    “So yeah,” I said. “How’s it going, then?”
    “Oh, everything’s fine, you?” she said.
    “Well, besides being really disoriented, I’m fine.”
    “Disoriented?” She laughed. “Why would you feel that way?”
    I stared at her for second to make sure she wasn’t joking around.
    “Nevermind, it’s nothing.” I said. “I just have the feeling I’m dreaming, that’s all.”
    “Dreaming?” Her eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted. She repeated the word again, stretching out the last syllable “Dreaming…”
    The look on her face shifted, the sudden change violent in our ebbing surroundings. Suddenly everything around us seemed to grow dim.
    “I…I’m moving, you know.”
    “Wait, what!? What are you talking abou-“
    “-It’s my family. We’re moving somewhere far away. Business you know?”
    Her eyes were softened and watery. At the same time her eyebrows furrowed sharply.
    “God, I want to run away so bad. So bad. Would you ever run away? We could run away, the two of us somewhere else. It’d be fun right? Somewhere, anywhere so I don’t have to leave!”

    My head was beginning to feel unbearably strange, like it was being ripped in two. I could hear my mother’s voice, telling me to wake up. But, hell, I was already awake. What I didn’t get was this girl wanting to run away, with me of all people. We’d barely talked for less than a day, or something. But weirdly enough, I felt like I’d known her all my life. Like we were…friends.

    “I don’t think I could do that, you know. I have a family here, and they’d be upset if I left.”
    I saw a tear form in her eyes. And another. And another.
    “No! Don’t take it that way! I mean, they can’t just uproot you from this place, can they? You’ve been here for years!”
    She said nothing. My mother was saying something.
    “No! Talk to me! Please! I can call you! Write to you!”
    She said nothing, and looked down at the red and white checkered tablecloth.
    I was saying something, and was slowly floating away.
    “No, please, you can’t leave like this!” I said.
    I could feel sunlight on my face.
    “Please, no.” I said.
    I rolled over in my bed, mumbling.
    “No.” I said. I could hear my voice cracking.
    My vision was blurring, coming apart.
    The colorful scene below me faded away. My voice fading with it.
    Millions of years passed. Or something like that. Everything had faded to white, being caught in sunlight.
    A letter materialized in my hands, and I brought it to my quickly dissolving face to read.

    Hi, I’m sorry I had to leave you.
    I’m far away though, and it’s likely this will be the last you hear from me.
    Believe me though when I say this:
    I miss you.

    I woke up.
    Sunlight in my eyes.
    Mother in my doorframe.
    “You’re going to be late to school.”

    I just had the strangest experience today at school. I was crossing between two classes when I see this girl.
    That girl.
    The girl, at least I think so.

    Weird how things like that happen, huh?
    It was heartbreaking when we managed to exchange a quick glance and nothing more.
    I could have sworn we’d been friends in another place, in another time.
    I could have sworn.