Chapter 9
They were having a perfectly lovely sleep when the drawer opened itself.
Annoyed, George rubbed his eyes and scowled at the open drawer.
“Babe…” He groaned in morning voice language. “Can you shut the drawer after you open it?”
Bertha didn’t respond, breathing heavily, her back moving like a steady subtle tide.
She looked so peaceful.
“Babe…” he elbowed her. “Babe… babe”
“Ugh…” Bertha spasmed awake. “What is it?”
“The drawer…”
She sat up on her elbow.
“What about it?” She yawned.
“You left it open.”
“No I didn’t. I wasn’t up.”
(Goodness, you even have to comment on the things I don’t do.)
“Oh, I’m sure it just opened itself up.”
The drawer proceeded to shut itself so forcefully it sent tremors rippling on the bed.
They remained silent for a few minutes in half terror
“I told you so.” Bertha shrugged. “Well if that’s all for tonight, I’m going back to sleep.” She turned back on her stomach.
“That is not all.” A booming voice announced.
The closet door flew open, and blew hot air like the mouth of a large beast.
George grabbed Bertha protectively.
For a few moments nothing happened.
Despite being mortified, Bertha could not help but ask “who’s there?” in a quavering voice, shortly followed by “If you dare come near George or me I’ll cut your heart out with a fork and feed it to ravens and various other fowl.”
George was shaking despite the rising temperature in the room.
“Oh, there’s no need to worry about George.” The female voice said coyly. “I’m only here for you…well sort of…” the shadow had arms that were too long and skinny “…well to be clear I’m only here to hurt you. I’m here to win George’s affections.”
“Naturally.” Lily’s fear was quickly replaced with an atomic defensiveness.
“Well that’s very nice of you shadow figure…” George said slowly, fumbling with words. “But no thank you. I’m good.”
“Yeah, sorry.” Bertha said in the mock polite tone of a secretary when you haven’t made an appointment.
The figure seemed to shrink for a moment.
Bertha gasped audibly.
A halo of flames erupted around it and for the first time they saw its full figure.
Its neck was too long, with a bulbous, globular head on a pole. Two arms rattled about looking like a combination of dead branched with flappy strips of paper fingers. Its torso looked the most human, and had a body eerily similar to Bertha’s.
“What are you?” Bertha didn’t know whether to fear or pity the figure.
“Oh now you want to know…” the flames flickered away. “You didn’t even give me a chance last time you just plain hit me with your car…”
“What are you talking about?” George’s heart bolted. “I never hit you with my car.”
“Oh you did. Although to be fair, I don’t think you noticed.” The figure sighed. “I believe you were listening to Journey.”
Their faces super-paled.
“Oh my void!” Bertha sat up. “So what are you exactly, are you a ghost…” The figure moved as the heater turned on, like one of those giant blow-up dolls outside of car dealerships. Except it wasn’t silly looking, it was pathetic and horrible, as she in vain attempted to stand still to no avail like a husky dying insect blowing in the wind. “I can’t say I’m anything more than a leftover character. I was supposed to be placed somewhere but I didn’t end up anywhere because the author did some shoddy work and forgot to invent an afterlife. So here I am.”
“Here you are.” George said sadly. “And why exactly do you want me?”
The figure nearly fell over as the radiator shut off.
“I’m not sure…exactly… the tumble sort of disoriented me… but I think I’m supposed to be with you.”
“What’s your name…” George began to feel dread creep up in the confines of his stomach.
“Autumn… or Auburn…” the shadow wheezed. “Weird, but I can’t actually remember.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes.” She smirked. “But it’s ok if you don’t comply. We can still be one without your consent…”
“What do you…?”
George flew back and hit the floor.
“George.” Bertha asked, cautiously, picking up the lacrosse stick in the corner of the room.
A full four minutes passed, as Bertha slowly inched towards him. She could feel her skin crawl.
“George!” she shouted.
He grinned, clutching the pen which had rolled on the floor, and tilted his head a bit too much.
“Oh hell no…” Bertha jumped on the bed, having seen Evil Dead.
He stood up slowly and cracked his neck.
“It’s ok. Now we are one. I don’t need you anymore.” He jabbed at her ankles with the pen.
Bertha jumped on the bed, and by then George had developed a different strategy, placing the pen underneath where she would probably land, right under her food instead of going at it sideways.
Terrified, she made herself fall off the bed, ran to the desk, and picked up a knife.
“What are you going to do with that?” Amber’s and George’s voice said at the same time. “You wouldn’t dare hurt your precious husband.”
“No, but I can hurt myself.” She screamed. “Don’t think I won’t. How do you expect to beat me if I’m a ghost too? ”
George fell dramatically to the floor.
Bertha ran over and dragged him up to the bed.
“Stay vigilant.” The shadow laughed and took off, shutting the closet door, and opening the drawer for the hell of it.
It was early Sunday morning.
I smiled as I looked at the poem taped on the door that my roommate had written to Wordsworth.
“The country is overrated. There’s nothing to do.”
But for a split second, the thought of living in middle of no-where was somehow appealing. (Maybe somewhere in the woods up north.)
Campus was a sleeping nation
Normally the tours would come through on Sunday with wide-eyed, high school students eager to be in the position to go mad with power.
But today it was too windy.
I batted a flying newspaper, and hopped on the bus to the city for her book signing.
A tired sophomore, slept in the row ahead of me, face plastered to the window.
Every time the bus shook, it made the ibuprofen in my purse rattle, and feeling self-conscious I tried to muffle it by adjusting it in my purse.
As I look out the window, my eye catches on an advertisement for the salvation-army.
(Salvation. I bet my grandparents are worried as hell about mine. Grandpa, a Buddha like figure containing fathoms. So peaceful and wise.)
(Not much like King George the Third.)
(Alec does remind me a bit of my cousin though. Always putting the charitable stuff up on sites.)
(I always thought it was a bit silly. Kind of despise the whole label of “humanitarianism”. I don’t want to be that type.)
(I want to help without people ever knowing I helped.)
“Honestly.” He looked slightly guilty. “I found the whole thing a little uncomfortable. I’m not sure how to say it but… well… I didn’t like it.”
“Oh.” I wondered why, in that case, he had bothered to come to the book signing at all. The girl attached to his arm was giggling.
“I found it a little weird. I mean I know you’re obsessed with me and everything but…”
He began to turn away but I wasn’t done yet.
“I don’t like it. I mean no offense it was just so corny and unoriginal.”
??
?Oh.”
He began to turn around, the girl on his arm attempting to stare me down, but then looking away, not able to follow through. She seemed more his taste; weak prey. “She’s so crazy!” she laughed.
But both of their faces fell when they saw what I had written on the inside flap.
It isn’t about you.
In the meantime, I waited and waited and waited to see the other face, but it never appeared.
I shrugged, signed another book, and drew a tiny little ink rose on this one.
Ghost girl. Waif.
Servant to your own imagination.
Seal your eyes up, you wouldn’t want anyone to read them.
(Puts on sunglasses.)
A hawk took off from the roof of my dorm.
It flies over the ruins of haunted Hughes hall where two freshman did yoga and one found their soul and the other didn’t.
It flies over the chapel, hidden in the bowels of an administrative building where in the fall there was a service for a boy who committed suicide and no one cried except a stranger.
It flies over Dunkin Doughnuts and a red streak in the parking lot where a drunken college student dropped four Loko and stained the pavement red.
It spots the stray cats wandering the alleys and considers dinner.
Shantih my ass.
Work cited
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Dir. Mel Stuart. Perf. Gene Wilder, Jack Albertson, Peter Ostrum. Film. Warner Brothers, 1971.
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends