Holly Golightly Syndrome

  Chapter 4

  Bertha suddenly realized it was Valentine’s Day.

  She couldn’t stop smiling, but not the fake smile you give for a picture, it was that goony smile that comes organically, like when you see a passing puppy or baby unless you’re the sarcastic sort to pretend not to like these things.

  (Babies are so last year…)

  The alarm on her phone made her jump. She picked it up cautiously.

  “Hell…”

  “Bertha, oh thank goodness I got a hold of you, you won’t believe what I did yesterday.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Well yesterday Andy and I drank a few cranberry and vodkas, and I thought, wouldn’t it be a great idea to buy some fun, you know some weird antique? So I went on ebay of course the whole time Andy was talking me into it… and this morning I woke up with an 18th century confessional on my porch.”

  Bertha was vaguely intrigued. “Can I have it?”

  “What in the world, am I supposed to do with it, I can’t return it, I was thinking… wait what would you do with a confessional?”

  “I don’t know actually, it just sounds like one of those things you want to have.”

  “Exactly my thinking…wait, you’re supposed to be the cheap one?”

  “Why don’t you just put it in the coffee shop?” Bertha suggested, half shouting over the buzzing doorbell “Look I’ve got to go, but I’ll talk to you later.”

  She tugged on one heel with the unfortunate task of finding the other, which was for some reason wedged behind the couch.

  The knock at the door startled her too.

  “Come in!” She moved the couch back just in time, and stood there, awkwardly standing next to it with her hand resting on the arm.

  “Hey.” He looked cute, in a pair of gray pants and a blue sweater that made his eyes pop. They were shy today.

  “Hi.” She tilted her head back and grabbed the sides of her skirt.

  She felt unexposed and happy, as she had been kindergarten: feet shorter, paler, tiny, and wearing a jumper and half of my hair pulled up into a mini pony tail.

  He seemed to transform as well, turning into a freckly little boy, who had reluctantly let his mother dress him up in khakis because she told him that girls like boys better when they dress up.

  “You look pretty.”

  “Thank you!” She kissed him on the cheek, and blushed a bit trying to hide her goofy smile. “You look so handsome.”

  “Oh so I have so much to tell you…” He began to talk about his new job as they walked briskly down the red carpeted floor to the elevator.

  As the elevator door closed, their hands collapsed together.

  A passing old woman smiled through brief metal lined crack in the wall at the two ageless figures headed down together all in blue tones.

  “So where exactly are you taking me?” Bertha asked over the whipping wind. It was a particularly cold night, which she began to calculate would later work to her advantage.

  Right then and there she got the feeling that this would not be a half-love. This was not the sort of thing that would lose its potential. This was the sort of relationship that was like falling into an endless pit; soon it would get to the point where she could not remember any state other than falling and prefer it infinitely to the solid ground.

  “It’s a surprise…”

  She was blindfolded so she couldn’t tell where he was driving her, but when she opened her eyes her first concern was that they had gotten lost.

  “Where are we?”

  All she could see was a remote beach. The sand was cold under her feet.

  “You’ll see…”

  Noticing her heels, he picked her up and carried her across the frozen sand.

  A light temporarily blinded her.

  As she recovered, she noticed the small house boat docked at a nearby pier. It was a bit shoddy looking, not terribly big, and looked like a rundown cabin that had been set on the sea.

  “Is that our ride?” She smiled at him, nose growing numb in the cold.

  “It was supposed to be surprise.” He always wrinkled his nose like a squirrel when he was mock angry.

  It looked bigger from the inside, and it was warm enough for her to take off her coat to reveal a low cut navy dress.

  “Have a seat.” He grinned at her. “I’ll be right back.”

  A second person was definitely upstairs, which concerned Bertha a bit.

  “Oh don’t worry.” George seemed to read her mind, bouncing back downstairs “He won’t bother us.”

  “How did you get this?” She couldn’t manage to keep her mouth shut, out of pure shock.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  He remembered the look on his sister’s face, when he had told her what she was going to do.

  “You’re doing what?” Her red hair began to quiver violently like perturbed snakes.

  “You know what.” He looked back at her fiercely. “I like her. Yeah, I know she’s hurt me in the past and that you’re just looking out for me, but I’m going to be ok. I really like her, so I think it’s worth it.”

  The snake hair mane subsided, and now she just looked tired. “Well I’m sorry I just don’t like her. She’s so dramatic and emotional and crazy, you’d be better off…”

  “Look.” He took her by the shoulders. “I know we need to hang out more, but don’t make this about Bertha. You would have been mad about any other girl I dated.”

  “But do you really like being trapped with a girl like that?”

  He shook his head. “Neither of us is trapped. We’re dating each other because we want to. I know, I’ve heard this before. A lot of people don’t want us together, but I don’t really care. Maybe they’re right, but for the time being I don’t think so.”

  “Wow.” Bertha looked out at the view of the city, all lit up by the sunset, as beautiful and neat as layered pastel jello.”It’s…”

  Suddenly nothing in his background mattered, being absorbed is a bit like wearing blinders; all the other suitors and worries get trampled underneath, left in a dusty wake watching the bouncing blackened heels of the runners.

  They talked in breaths.

  Afterward they lay, warm flesh mass, tired, sedated figures in the ocean.

  But one you turn the key in the lock and throw it into the Seine, can you ever get it back?

  I saw pale kings and princes too,

  Pale warriors, death-pale were they all…

  But for once she had become the pale captured warrior, obsessive as poor Porphyro hiding like a creeper in the closet with R. Kelly.

  (This might not last…)

  (Oh, pipe down sensibility. You can pick the meat off my bones like a raccoon at a later date. I’ll pencil you in for Thursday, or whenever George comes to his senses.)

  She wondered, lightly, if his father would give his blessing.

  He probably would, but only in his typical sacrilegious blessing way, by quickly muttering “Homina homina homina Santa Spree Amen.”

  Yes yes. A blessing for his three children. The one like her father, occasionally riled up and smiteful but mostly friendly towards all. The son, being the one everyone wanted to be their son, good at setting trends too. And the holy-ghost locked in her room like some Emily Dickinson wannabe, burning enough incense to set the fire alarms off.

  But don’t you know that all good and bad things happen in threes?

  The world was a largely picked over oyster for those three children.

  If you start with everything what else are you supposed to want?

  His eyes grew a bit more disquieted. They were so trusting, so unaware of the tangled enigma lying before him

  “I’ll figure you out.” He said reassuringly. “I could write a book about you.”

  She gave him a strange look, as they stepped out of the boat onto the sand. Her feet were instantly frozen agains
t the cold grain and stray rocks.

  “That’s sweet of you, but who would read it?”

  “Your parents, and friends. They’d read it and say “ohh this finally makes sense…”

  “I can’t even understand me, good luck with that.”

  The wind whipped violently physically moving the car, and on the ride back it began to snow rapidly.

  Scared of thinking about what would happen when he would leave in about a week, she escaped out of herself to another multiverse.

  In that other-verse she could do these things, like falling in love and that sort naturally and they wouldn’t drive her out of her mind.

  But the probabilities had been unfairly distributed to this universe and left her with being only good at one thing.

  (I can only be in rest when in motion.)

  (Do this, do that, do this…nope you and your resume are still not good enough.)

  She remained hyper-suspicious of…

  “Holy shit!” the brakes screeched, the demon break lights of the cars ahead of them endless, and the sound of honking.

  Overhead the sound of helicopters whacking the air began to grow louder like an emerging monster metronome.

  He quickly switched the dial to traffic…

  “… backed up all the way to the 90 east. It’s seems a novelty double decker bus and ten ton truck simultaneously collided, and spun out, knocking out at least five cars.”

  Bertha shuddered, and wondered if she had brought this upon the world.

  It became sort of a running joke, how “things fall apart” whenever she approached them.

  (I go to London, they have riots.)

  (I go to New York, they have a hurricane.)

  (The Bills lost the game the moment I was born…)

  Even the things she owned had a habit of falling apart or destroying itself.

  Torn folders, notebooks that lose their cover, pens that explode...

  Her phone interrupted her. “Hello Rose?”

  “Hey I have to thank you for the coffee shop idea! It’s gotten me a lot of business.”

  “Oh you mean the 18th century confessional?” George looked over at her, horribly confused. “Oh, you haven’t even unpacked it… lawsuit… artist…. Existential existence… yeah they do sound like English majors, I’ve got to go…”

  Traffic slowly began to shift over to the right lane.

  “Who was that?”

  “Oh that’s my friend Rose. I’m surprised you haven’t met her yet, she really wanted to meet you. Anyway, it’s sort of a long story but she managed to… come about… an 18th century confessional, which she cannot return, so she put it in this coffee shop her boyfriend owns for the time being.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “However in a period of two hours the cardboard box containing the confessional attracted the attention of a number of hipsters, who thought that it was a new artistic installation, and spent the remaining afternoon contemplating the existentialism symbolized by the box, as well as its applications to Marxism. Unfortunately, word got around that someone had created this highly symbolic cardboard box positioned in a coffee house, which the new upcoming artist Putana claimed had infringed on her idea of putting a shorter cardboard box in a coffeehouse nearby thus simultaneously riling up local politicians because of the artist’s politically focused…”

  George remained silent, as traffic picked again in one lane. A number of evil glares followed them.

  “You think I’m crazy don’t you?”

  “Well, naturally, but you’re sort of crazy in a different way. But its ok I like you.”

  As they finally cut ahead of an angry suburban mother, he turned the dial up…” She wondered if they really matched as a couple. It was always obvious when other people matched. Sometimes they looked alike, or wore the same color, or walked or talked the same way. Despite the concept of opposites attracting, even couples originally opposite seemed to indoctrinate the other person as part of themselves like some strange unconscious creed.

  (But why can’t I tell with us?)

  “Hey I was thinking…” George looked a bit disgruntled, as they lie awake in bed. “About what you said the other day?”

  “What’s that?” George seemed to remember what Bertha did better than she did herself. She rolled over listlessly and laid her head on his stomach.

  He touched her hair delicately. “Well remember how you were saying we don’t have that much in common?”

  “Yeah…” She hugged him so tightly he winced, and eased himself out of her iron grasp.

  “Well I’m starting to think you’re right. I mean you don’t listen to metal, or are interested in the mechanics of everything the way I am. And I’m certainly not like you, with your spastic burnout over-achiever personality. I just like to chill and…”

  She backed up as far as she could go, with her back to the cold wall. “What are you trying to say?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I guess I’d just like if we were more alike that’s all.”

  “Oh.” She felt taken aback, horrified that perhaps this whole time she had been blinded trying to fit into a relationship with a person who though not normal, was at the same time not strange enough to match her.

  (One of these things is not like the other, one of these things…)

  When we’re very little we’re told to point out the things and people who are different.

  “Well that’s ok.” She hugged him but he was unresponsive, so it felt unfulfilling. “I mean we’re not supposed to date versions of ourselves; that would just be weirdly narcissistic. That’s infantile love. If you love someone who isn’t like you but you admire them none the less and want to be like them; that is true love….I guess.”

  George seemed unconvinced.

  “Oh come on!” Bertha clung on to him regardless. “Well if it really bothers you that much I’ll try listening to metal more. I mean granted I can’t get into your hobby of collecting straight razors, but I can try everything else. What do you want me to be, seriously, tell me?”

  He pushed her off, annoyed. “Never mind we’ll talk more tomorrow.”

  “What, what’s wrong?” Being called annoying only prompted her to become more annoying.

  “I just told you oh my God do you ever listen to me?”

  “Yes…” she said quietly and resigned.

  “I don’t want you to be anything. I like you how you are… ugh… whatever I don’t want you to change for me or anything. We’re just supposed to be like each other naturally. Maybe there’s a guy out there for you who want to explore the world too and see everything, and maybe there’s a girl who will actually relax…I don’t know, maybe we’re just not… right.”

  “But…” Bertha started tearing up. “I thought we were.”

  “No…well I know it’s kind of late, but I can take you home…”

  Bertha rolled over, and pretended to be instantly asleep, as if that were somehow possible.

  “Get up.” His voice was devoid of sympathy, and he was immune to her tears.

  “No.” She replied stubbornly clinging to the side of the bed.

  “I said get up.” He began, more stubbornly.

  “I said no!”

  Suddenly she felt herself being forcefully put on her feet.

  “There you go!” He said angrily. “Do you want me to drag you outside too?”

  “No don’t I’ll just stay here.” She crouched, and laid calmly on the floor.

  “What are you doing?”

  (When I was little we used to play a game where the goal was keeping still.

  You’d try not to twitch or make too much stomach movement as you breathe. It was called “Statues” or something dumb like that.)

  Bertha refused to move, and suddenly she didn’t mind not moving for once. It was as if she had simply lost the will to move, so she remained in fight and flight response at the same time lying o
n the ground in peaceful protest.

  “Alright.” He paced angrily out of the room to go talk to his roommate. When he came back twenty minutes later, she was still lying in the same position.

  “Babe!” Concern began to creep into his expression. “Alright I’m calling the hospital.”

  Those two words prodded a chilled sob out of the muffled depths of her lung.

  He leaned down and looked into her face.

  She mouthed the word “No” and seemed to collapse again while still remaining in the same position.

  “But babe…”

  “No no no no no no…” She began to sob more deeply then bit her hand, so as not to embarrass him even though the damage had probably already been done.

  “Ok, ok shhh…”

  Her eyes were closed, but she could feel his warm lap as he moved her head up.

  He began to rub her temples, which in some odd way helped, and then ran his thumb along his chin, and pushed a piece of her hair back.

  “I’m sorry.”

  To which she responded something like… “Ahm nah see blue.”

  “Babe.” He laughed. “I can’t understand you.”

  “I’m sorry too...” She began to sit up, and her ugly red face convulsed yet again, as she buried her head in his shoulder.

  “It’s ok…” he let him ruin her sweatshirt. Outside the morning birds began to sing, ever so chirpy, it’s so miserable listening to happy things when you can’t understand them. “Here…” he picked her up and gently placed her back in bed. “Hey.” He got in next to her. “Everything is going to be ok.”

  “threally?”

  “Yes really. Ms. Cry cry pants. ”

  “so … the weather?”

  “Yes, we’re still together.” He sighed, which nearly prompted her to cry again.

  “No, no I’m kidding, just kidding, you’re my monster and I love you and…” his fingers lightly began to crawl across her stomach.

  “Not fair…” Bertha laughed uncontrollably, and shook so hard that she fell off the bed.

  “Oh God.” George sighed. “You’re going to start crying again aren’t you? Ugh, you are so much work.” He hugged her tightly as she crawled back into bed.

  “No I’m ok.” Bertha sniffled. “But now I’m hungry.”

  “I finally figured out how you stay so skinny… you cry all of it out…”

  The next morning, she dropped him off at the airport, feeling empty and…

  “What where the fuck you going miss!” An Indian man shouted at her from a cab.

  (On second thought maybe I’ll daydream after I get out of the JFK terminal.)

  Seeing the airport again gave her shudders, as she remembered the frantic chaos of being one of the 50 flights cancelled during a major runway shut down.

  It hadn’t been her first encounter being stuck at an airport. The other time coming back from a ski trip people had adapted so well, that some even bothered to jog near the baggage claim when they shut the airport down so they could stay in shape. That’s Denver for you.

  However, as soon as the wind storm took out a major runway in New York, instant panic ensued. There was crying, and people started to walk briskly and some full out run to the ticket counter. She imagined music from the ork scenes in Lord of the Rings playing in the background.

  (Oh yes, JFK has many soundtracks. It’s to the point that I’ve encountered so many delays and cancellations there that every time I actually get onto a plane in JFK, I consider belting out “We are the Champions.”)

  Someone honked loudly.

  (Yeah I’ve got to stop doing that.)

  Instead of heading back to the city, Bertha ended up at a large outlet outside of town, consisting largely of Asian and Middle Eastern shoppers.

  This was one of those absurd places for people who liked labels.

  It had been something she had always grown up with.

  In high-school everyone had a Vera Bradley, a North Face, and they all went to Spot coffee.

  For a while there was a fake Chanel bag phase too.

  In college, it seemed less noticeable, at first…but if you looked closely enough everyone was wearing Uggs or knockoff of those, and of course the Hunters for the rain.

  It had gotten to the point where someone noticed her Steve Madden flats with a knowing face. Of course, Bertha hadn’t known they were Steve Madden, until taking them off later, because she had gotten them discounted, and she just liked the way they looked.

  Her phases of style moved from brand to brand. It started young with Limited too, then Aeropostle, then American Eagle. Then there was Tommy Hilfiger, then Polo, and some Calvin Klein and Lucky (none at full price) and Forever 21 and H&M…

  Yet Bertha didn’t consider herself materialistic.

  Of course it extended to coffee: from Tim Hortin’s to Starbucks to Dunkin’ Doughnuts…

  And finally to Apple products with the iPod the iPhone the iPad.

  Brand Recognition is everything.

  People gravitate towards things they know.

  But it wasn’t a source of happiness for her.

  It was more of a prerequisite for having an identity.

  America is a cruel place.

  We’re not as deep as we think we are.

  Sorry idealists.

  (I think Aristotle would argue that it would be better to look up at the stars rather than keep up with personal appearances even if it meant walking into a hole. Well, if you’re looking up at the stars and not taking care of yourself, you’re also walking past a number of job offers.)

  (Wait, what job offers? This is a recession.)

  And the jobs that are out there are for the sharks.

  Finders, keepers, losers, weepers.

  (She thought back to high school, when her well-intentioned but inadvertently degrading principal had read some Dr. Seuss book “Oh the places you will go.”)

  (Even then she realized how silly the whole thing was.)

  Everyone was so intent on making themselves different and unique.

  But when you strip yourself of all the external things, is any one all that special or different?

  In the fancyfancypurse store, over the different rushed dialects, the faint sound of “Paradise” began to play…

  “Ja, ja! This one is so cute, Ja!”

  There was a wall of identical looking purses, with the garish, trite, letter pattern in ugly, plain shades of brown. The only difference was that some of the handles were different colors.

  (Who defines what looks good?)

  (You wonder if they just make these ugly things because they can. Why put more design, effort, or creativity into everything. Let’s just put our logo on in with some dumb word that sounds high fashion.)

  (It’s Derelicte.)

  It was amusing how the foreigners crowded around all the brands.

  (Yes! Yes! This will make us either more or less American. Which-ever you prefer.)

  (Oh, I do hate when you walk into a party and someone has the same purse.)

  (Why is that? Why is that such a threat to us?)

  (Aren’t we aware that it’s mass produced?)

  (Gimme gimme validation.)

  Bertha stepped outside, feeling too claustrophobic in the store as more tides of overly-enthusiastic shoppers filed in.

  Outside, a swindler in a bright yellow shirt had a card table set up.

  That drew her thoughts back to London, where a British police-man told her about how sometimes thieves worked in pairs. While one would do the card trick and cheat people that way, the others would search the pockets and the purses of the people watching. Or some were so adept that they’d work alone in coffee shops or other public places by throwing their coats over your things, and taking it from underneath.

  (Do you ever get the sense that the whole world is going to a dark place?)

  (What’s going to happen to us? Maybe we’ll
shoot or sue our way out of this mess; it seems to be the only two things we’re decent at anymore.)

  (Of course, I suppose it always seems like the world is going to hell, because no one reports the happy news.)

  Bertha’s apocalyptic thoughts immediately ceased upon smelling a Cinnabon stand.

  (Ahhh that smells so good!)

  Despite her initial inclinations, she ended up eating some Mexican food next to a family with two young kids and a baby.

  The baby had brilliant blue eyes and was gazing up at an ornament hanging at the top of her carrier, cooing carelessly.

  Bertha smiled at her, and she replied with a toothless grin.

  The other two kids were four and five.

  The four year old boy was dressed in hipster glasses, corduroy pants, and a button-down shirt. He was playing on his PSP. The five year old was a girl, who was carrying an iPad and playing Temple Run. She was dressed head to toe in pink, and had a streak of pink dye in her hair.

  (What’s going to happen to them when they grow up?)

  (What happens when kids grow up like this, and they aren’t able to reproduce the way they grew up by themselves?)

  Bertha looked away from the baby, concerned it might see the worry in her face.

  (Oh, yes the two party systems are definitely helpful for the person who gets turned off by the extremists of both.)

  (Ours is a country that polarizes people.)

  (Well, I’ll vote because I don’t want a democrat in power, or we’ll I’ll vote because I don’t want a Republican in power.)

  (Things fall apart.)

  (In fact we’d be better off with anarchy.)

  (At least anarchy is fair.)

  (People always argue that life isn’t fair. But that isn’t necessarily true. So far as we know there is nothing that controls the weather and natural disasters, or determines that the “best, well intentioned” people get ahead in life, because often they don’t. It’s not that life isn’t fair. Life is undiscerning chaos and chance, and that, whether you decide to agree or not, it perfectly fair. There was nothing that was particularly “fair” or “unfair” about the world until people arrived…)

  (I guess the only way to step back is to realize that no, the world isn’t going to end necessarily when people die out. There was life before us, and there’s probably going to be some form of life after us. And though humanity could be comprised of some greater purpose and all of history is progressing towards something, it’s also entirely possible that the existence of mankind as a whole was a sheer accident. In fact, it seems like we’re more like the exception than the rule…

  Green on gray. Green on gray and mist to mull the whole thing in together.

  (Like Witch’s brew.)

  After a slow, long drive back through the fog, Bertha imprinted herself on the couch and picked up her phone, nearly calling George out of habit.

  (Time to order sushi and bubble tea, should I get the crouching tiger roll, the hidden dragon, or the tiger hidden inside the dragon that is simultaneously approached by a hippo from Fantasia…Not the new one, the good old one.)

  Of course, it would be at least a half hour before the food arrived or maybe more depending on the adeptness of the delivery person.

  Legends arose of the apartment no one seemed to be able to find. Scholars trace the curse back to the ancient Native American burial ground on which several séances and witch burning held, some at the same time. There were also multiple tales of Morgan Le Fay who, when learning witchcraft, accidently set a curse upon 44 west Hamilton.

  The delivery people all had different names for it in their respective languages, but it all roughly translated to “Where the hell is this damn apartment? There is no way we are going to deliver it in a timely manner.”

  (Speaking of witches, George had lovingly told her that she had a bit of a distinctly shaped nose, as he liked to call it a “witch’s nose”, and threatened to exorcize her every time she cried.)

  (“You have a crying demon inside of you.” He said jokingly, but his eyes turned darker. “Here.” He stuck his hand in a glass of water and sprinkled her face and muttered something in Latin and made the sign of the cross. “That ought to do it.”)

  (But it certainly hadn’t done anything before. No, it certainly hadn’t cured her bright pink infant head of something dark and wandering. Most wanderers are by nature a bit dark. Wandersheidt, it was practically in her blood.)

  (The one who wanders is the one who, by definition, does not stay on the straight and narrow path.)

  (But once you have wanderlust, can you ever really eradicate it?)

  She had been taught to enjoy wandering; to the endless, winding endless golden hills of Idaho like braided hair, and grainy sugar crepes of France on a merry-go-round, to the frigid cold walks in Wisconsin where the snow always squeaks but the sun does make everything look beautiful and desolate, to the boardwalk in Quebec with its quaint shops, to the Boston Commons where old people do tai chi in the morning, to the market in Seattle with the big clock marking the way, to the glaciers of Alaska, to Christopher Columbus’ home in the Dominican Republic-my was he short!-, to Yosemite, to Yellowstone, to Ocean City boardwalk with the cheesy tee shirt shops, and Florida where we shop at Bells and eat grapefruit for breakfast and Disney of course, to Philadelphia where everything is historical, to Galveston and the old hotel in San Antonio, and up Mt. Camel undeniably hot and Mt. Tremblant so wicked cold, and up Mt. Marcy in a day, and down into the depths of the grand canyon where we almost reached the river. Almost.

  Some people like to settle more, and dread travel. But Bertha wanted to avoid her own silt, to avoid becoming a scab at all costs. Because to a certain extent it’s hard to see past where you’ve come from the way you can’t see around contacts if they’re in your eyes. It was easier to be the stranger, always new, always allowed to be wide-eyed and mysterious. It was easier not to be held to any previous standard of identity.

  (Stagnancy will be the death of me.)

  “Arghhhhh…” the buzzer startled Kitty who darted out from under the couch and ran into the wall.

  “Awww.” She picked up Kitty. “Poor baby… Come in!” the door unlocked.

  At the smell of the fried pieces rolled delicately into the sushi, Kitty’s ears perked up and she slowly padded on towards the door and tipped her head inquiringly towards the delivery man, who was a pimply young teenager in Harry Potter glasses.

  “Here’s your food mam. Geez…”

  The sight of the cat made him jump.

  “Here you go.” She gave him a moderately generous tip for being timely.

  “Don’t you know that black cats are bad luck?” He chuckled walking away.

  “You poor fool, everyone thinks you are really a witch don’t you know?” She looked into her reflective eyes; brown green black. “It’s ok between the two of us one of us was bound to get burnt had we been born in the 1630’s.”

  Suddenly, Kitty froze in place.

  She padded softly, cautiously over to the window, where instantly she began to hiss, and her fur shot up in spikes.

  “What is it girl?” Bertha asked, unsuspecting at first. It was probably that German shepherd that lived down the street. She took the opportunity to take out the sushi without having Kitty jump out from somewhere to sniff it.

  But five minutes passed, and she would not stop hissing. Kitty seemed to get more disgruntled and outraged by the second. Kitty was not amused.

  “What is it?” She opened the drapes that looked down at the city streets.

  There was nothing particularly unusual. A vendor began to pack up his cart of sugared cashews for the day. A woman hauled out her trash, talking angrily on the phone in Spanish, and slammed her door, leaving the street empty.

  “Look, Kitty there’s nothing out there…”

  And then in the distance, as darkness began to hover in the streets, she noticed a man walking down the
street in a trench coat and carrying a suitcase. There was something so oddly regulated and rigid about the way he walked it was as if he were some sort of robot.

  “Aww its ok girl…here…” she tried to tempt Kitty with a piece of sushi, feeling her ribcage grow tighter as the man approached closer.

  There was something wrong about his proportions…but what was it?

  (His neck is too long.)

  When he came into better view, Bertha noticed that a man identical to him was walking directly behind him… at the same speed… with the same timing. She wanted to close the curtains and look away but she couldn’t help it. The German shepherd began to whimper, and pulled on the end of his tether, trying to get inside the house with anxious clawing. Her palms began to sweat, and she stare, unblinking at the surreal parade, and it made her think about that one urban legend…