Terrenian (Book 1): Dream Scar

In the summer of 2012, night of the August Blue Moon, a dark presence had awakened. The semester had just begun. There’d been a murder. Odd circumstances surrounding the death of a teenage

�"Prelude�"

1

Dark Hour

 

White Mountains, Lincoln, New Hampshire

Sunday, 19 August 2012. 10:37 pm

HALF-PAST TEN. THE STARS were gone, and the thunderstorm had turned nasty. Darkened by the haze of night and blurred by the gray cast to the air, an ancient college rested in shy isolation across unknown horizons. Masked by the veil of rainfall, the aged institution had never appeared more deserted, incredibly forsaken by the allure of life, and of time itself. Little short of a tarnished crown on the craggy rock face of a distant mountain, it seemed rather rundown for just a century of its existence. With pride and grace, though, the Victorian-style building towered into the threatening eye of the storm.

Lightning sliced across the soggy sponge beneath the darkling sky, forking off its twisty stalk with the lash of cat-o’-nine-tails, and vanishing in a flicker against those crumbling walls of campus.

A pair of bare feet skittered on the wet sidewalk, scurrying across the muddy lawn without a trace of being wary of slipping into a deadly fall. They belonged to a girl, seventeen or thereabouts, slender legs under a patterned sleeveless dress, picking up speed with each electric flash, and sloshing in the recently born puddles where tiny diadems popped up with every drop of rain. She seemed all alone, panting, wide eyes, yet not on route to shelter.

Rain quickened, colliding with itself and leaving a uniform wetness as threads slithered down the stonework and flooded in the gutters. A raging roar of thunder approached from beyond the horizon with an aggressive crackle, rumbling harder as it drew nearer, pounding against the looming block of nimbus, as if trying to shatter it into a million frozen pebbles.

‘Stephanie!’ a girl’s voice, seeming to have shot from nowhere, had called out in a trill. As it turned out, the cry was calling out for that girl in the dress. Stephanie glimpsed back for a twinkling and then trebled her speed.

The girl hollering appeared for an instant and, just as soon, heavy sheets of mist obscured her path as they fluttered in the rising wind and drifted across the sky like the hefty sails of a ghost ship. In that moment, three extraordinary events occurred at about the same time.

In the first occurrence, as much suddenly as the second and third, a stray bolt fell from the heavens and struck a nearby power pole. An alarming surge of naked energy buzzed along the cables, racing from one pole to the next, following a winding road up the steep hillside, and headed toward the giant wrought iron gate by the entrance.

The sky trembled and rumbled, except not from thunder. High up in the air, something resembling an enormous crystal ball with a graying exterior of wind and rain came falling at tremendous speed, tearing through the clouds, and approaching the earth with a deafening raspy whistle. It hit the ground somewhere at the foot of the mountain. Upon impact, the mountain shook, and the manner in which this happened made the entire world seem as if it had tilted in a jolt. Sharp pointy rocks disintegrated and avalanched down the hill while a whirlwind took shape and hurtled to the gate, dragging splintered wood and hoisting debris that rolled along the road. The surface of the old potholed road knew no better than to give in to cracks and crevices that zigzagged forwards and sideways. Once there, the wind forced entry in a wailing shriek of the great gate’s rusty hinges.

The veins of electricity reached a dead end and butted the glowing head of a lamppost. There followed a fierce explosion that sent sharp pieces of broken glass soaring through the air. Tinier fragments spiraled in every direction and lit up the sky like a thousand mutant fireflies. The entire lamppost was set ablaze.

‘Stephanie,’ her voice must have been pinched by the chill, ‘listen to me, you have to stop running!’ somewhat gruff, but that’s as loud as she could get.

Vapor buffeted a fuzzy shape, tracing the girl’s young figure out of the gloomy darkness. Her bare feet wadded through the ankle-high puddles of water, feeling the thunder shudder in the cobblestones beneath them. Her thighs, tender and exposed, had become pastel to the prickly cold stinging them.

Rain had soaked through her tiny French short, turning it into a clammy wet suit, deepening its original color and adding a dull tinge of fuchsia. The sleeveless top had equally adhered to her torso, giving room to bare her tummy button and outline her breasts �" pointy, firm, throbbing with fear.

She’d bent one arm over her forehead, shielding her eyes from the wet darts of rainfall that swooped down on the diagonal, pelting her skin. Gusts of wind scattered the spray of fog and almost knocked her off balance. The path ahead became clear for a second. There she was �" Stephanie �" standing stiff and lifeless.

‘Get away from there!’ the girl choked on the ozone odor circling the atmosphere. ‘Move away!’

Stephanie did not move. She stood still under the burning lamppost.

‘Steph?’ a quick realization stung her tone. She gasped. Something wasn’t right. She’d stopped suddenly, dreading to get any closer.

Stephanie was not herself anymore. That strange wind had been swirling around her. Her feet hovered inches above the ground and her body had suddenly become see-through. That was the third instance.

�"Prelude�"

2

Meat Allen

 

 

THE DOUBLE DOORS REMAINED closed, keeping out that dull rumbling of thunder. No one dared to walk out into the storm. It was safe and warm inside. The Arts and Crafts style interior, made from hard mahogany wood, sustained an antique look; worn crusts of veneer peeling off the walls in bizarre maps, literature from prehistoric times stacked on shelves that crept to the ceiling.

It happened again. The warm brown glow between bookcases dimmed and shadows united as the light bulbs, hanging on cords high up the arched roof, started flickering and making the library look like a  12^th century disco house.

Just minutes ago, there was a brief outage, and the students were warned that if it happened one more time they’d have to evacuate immediately. Some faces darted hopeful looks above and crossed fingers. Grumbles fused into muffed voices, which then waned and became a soft, silent breath, nearly in compliance with the “No whispers!” sign nailed at the end of every shelf.

Nobody loitered, except this one girl in a plaid skirt and a purple cardigan. She walked past the sign and sauntered up a curving staircase leading to a higher deck. The banister creaked as her hand gripped hard for support. She was moving toward a boy whom she’d seen riffling through a card catalog. As soon as he noticed that she’d targeted him, he scurried to safety and spared no time to push the cabinet closed.

Finding refuge between a couple tall bookcases, hidden from proper light, he leaned against the wood and pacified his throbbing heart. He grabbed an old black volume squeezed between other books. It wouldn’t budge unless wrenched out from the top end of the spine. This bought him a ticket to act busy. He calmed himself down by focusing on the gold lettering along the spine, which was worn by time, and could only be read when the book was tilted towards light.

He had to get away from this girl, and fast. His only chance for success was to sit in plain sight �" the Librarian’s sight. The girl’s image materialized from darkness. He was gone.

He spotted a desk right under a broad window where strokes of rain continued to thrash at the stained glass, trying to break in. Perfect. Brushing the dust off the cover of the book, “LIKE EINSTEIN” the title read out, he licked a thumb and turned the musty pages over at a casual pace.

It didn’t take a while before, ‘Allen,’ he heard his name. His knees jerked, knocking against the table. She was right behind him. How incorrigible! ‘Can I sit here with you?’ she asked with a polite smile.

He thought that facing in the direction of the librarian seated behind a lofty desk in a corner, half disguised by darkness, would ward off evil spirits. Maybe (just maybe), he’d sat on too conspicuous a spot.

Allen’s brows sprang up. She’d interpreted it as a sign of consent and quickly pulled a chair. The next thing he knew, he was breaking down a mathematical equation, which she’d claimed was way beyond her scope of experience.

While his head had cast a shadow over the flowery pages of her notebook, concentrating on the task she’d given him, her eyes lingered on his untidy brown hair in amorous adoration. A funny sigh from her enticed him to take a short glimpse away from the arithmetic. Her chin had rested on her wrists, face tilted to one side, and lids pulled wide apart. Allen gave her the sort of look that asked ‘What?’ but she ignored it straight away, opting to carry on with her awe. He thought she was making a big deal out of nothing.

He pictured her standing beside him at a formal gathering, her arm hooked around his elbow. Now it became obvious what she liked about him. So he had quite a few exceptional assets to show off which, lucky him, he didn’t need Dr.90210 to stitch up because every one of them etched against an even, whiskerless face, in the natural order.

He owned peacock blue eyes, an aura of intelligence in their gaze, sparkling almost magically below a happy couple of biologically tweezed brows. And there was an exciting knob for a nose, two kissable ruddy lips too, that reminded everyone of fun in the meadows, chasing soap bubbles, and rainbows, and butterflies and what have you.

‘You’re a terrific guy,’ she said at last. Her tiny, ringed hand reached across the desk and held his, rubbing it gently with a thumb. ‘We should go out some time, just you and me’ she paused for theatrical effect. ‘Maybe see a movie?’ but she made it less of an idea and more of an order.

He wasn’t sure how to reply to that. He’d never had a clue. This wasn’t the first time she’d asked him out. It was the… he counted his fingers… the third! It could have as well been the fourth time now. Anyway, whenever she did, she’d use the same words, with the same leer. She was all over him, like a fairy, and, to him at least, not the typical endearing fairy. Seeing that she had tailed him since the first day of the semester, he’d gathered a lot more than ample reason to refer to it as threatening stalking.

She was pretty. She had established her beauty, as it were, right from scratch (dimples, a charming twitter, a quick stare, fine figure of a model and all that �" an absolute picture). Allen could never bring himself to deny that. Given a gadget that could quantify levels of magnificence in women, its meter would probably shatter to her intensity. See. More or less everybody thought so anyway. Like the first time she stepped foot into his class, there was no holding off wolf-whistles upon her display (not even the professor could help a loud and careless ‘Wow!’). Girls began to think of themselves as boys, while boys will be boys �" drooling as they nearly injured themselves watching her catwalk to a desk.

Pretty much everybody understood how she had so much to live for. She came from a family of means, well, take for instance the marguerite camisole top underneath the cardigan. Must have cost a fortune, Allen supposed. Or that short, seriously short, red plaid double-belted skirt that left her thighs naked. Onwards then, sometimes she had a strong sense of humor (somehow, affluence and humor were thought to be related).

The glitch for him was simply that she was a… a princess (not a real one), but incredibly close to a thorough replica of one. In a weird way, princesses were too jazzy for him. Perhaps he was tolerating the tendency of his paranoia to run away with the somewhat justifiable impression that her chief mission, among a dozen others, was to turn him into Prince freaking Charming right in front of his own dignity. Actually, he’d married the same old impression (heaven knows where he picked it) with every girl he’d met.

He looked over her shoulder. ‘I’d more than love to!’ he said, making each word in the sequence sound deliberately louder than the one preceding it. He’d finally given her the reply she’d been waiting two weeks to hear.

Students’ faces had turned against him before shifting to the front. The librarian’s head protracted from her tortoiseshell corner and her hard bespectacled gaze was forever accurate. Allen understood he’d earned that rebuking eye for not abiding by the library’s timeworn stricture. There literally was a tattered placard just above him, and below the window ledge, that read, “Don’t you dare whisper!”

Well, these signs were rather misleading, to be honest, as they bore some equivocal connotations. The students may have been required to converse distinctly as opposed to spitting whispers. In which case, nattering should have had a far less disturbing effect than the hissing.

In a few seconds, the stare was gone. That was all she ever did. Stare and retire back �" typical traits of her idea of a warning. Normally, in the next occurrence, she’d simply ask someone politely to leave the premises or she’d have to come to them in person. For some reason, no one ever dared her to engage in the latter. Her quietness was never to be underestimated.

‘Great!’ the girl yelped in a whisper, perking up her shoulders with excitement. She had soon gotten up from her seat. That was all she needed to hear �" a (sort of) yes, and a loud one at that.

‘Scarlett,’ she was just leaving. ‘Have your pencil back,’ he said, wagging this short handmade pencil. It was literally a fresh twig, with its dried bark still on, carved in simplicity and injected with graphite. He found it fascinating.

‘Keep it,’ she twirled her flaxen tresses, throwing a coquettish smile at him. The best smile Allen had seen so far. Well, if pronounced on basis of kindergarten pantomime. ‘Think of it as your talisman.’ Her blue eyes glistened under the light bulb overhead as she thought of what else to say. ‘Stick it up your ear as geniuses do.’

His brows met in the middle, wondering in what circumstances a pencil would ever turn out to be a lucky charm with magic.

‘Good Night, Allen,’ she gave him a soft, patiently warmed kiss on the cheek, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

He may not have been aware of it, but his lips had curved to one side in permanent fascination. He fondled the wooden tool in one hand as he watched her mince between the bookcases and down the staircase.

Scarlett stopped by the large desk in the front, requesting something in an inaudible voice. The librarian’s throat crackled. She stood up at a steady, unrushed pace that demonstrated how much she was at peace with the environment, and what strong connection she shared with the books. The musty smell too.

Her figure loomed over Scarlett like a menacing dark cloud. She was tall, lanky, and came across as past middle age, approaching the later stages of life. The texture of her face resembled the surface of a gently flowing river, yet it had not lost its youthful allure. All the same, she wore a flat façade, almost blotto, and the small, round and neat glasses that sat right on the bridge of her nose were a mere signature of the wintry silence dwelling inside of her. Somewhat as a result, she had this withdrawn gloomy personality.

Scarlett smiled whimsically, but the lady never smiled back at anyone, even if the conditions were so perfect they required a hug, and for whatever sneaky reason she never snarled or snapped at anybody either. Maybe she’d grown out of it. Scarlett wondered as she traced through the wrinkles on the woman’s face, all the way up to her silver hair. Frankly, there was likelihood she’d read so extensively that she’d reached an extraterrestrial stratum of enlightenment, some next level form of mental civilization.

Scarlett couldn’t help but recognize that brown jersey, which �" ye gods have mercy �" anybody who ever came close enough to sniff a whiff of it might doubt she ever took off. She wrinkled her nose very briefly and made a deliberate sneeze of it, pointing to the less apparent dust in the air. She was wise enough to put the blame on something that wouldn’t come back for her. After wandering, her stare somehow stumbled back on the brown jersey. It possessed (or was possessed by) the offensive smell of an old blanket left to decay in the attic.

But she was a lovely lady, to say the least. Well, she’d been there long enough to become a ghost that would live to haunt the place.

She reached her hand into a drawer and brought out a rubber stamp. A thud echoed up the arched roof, down the polished floor, and through the aisles between shelves. Scarlett, borrowing that recently stamped book, juddered, both in fright and to the cold that slinked in underneath the doors.

‘Thank you, Mrs. �" Miss… uhm.’ As luck would have it, nobody seemed to know her name or even bother to find out. Given the state of affairs, the whys and wherefores were quite reasonable.

Scarlett slipped the book under an arm, flashed a glimpse back at Allen, and walked on in her usual small and delicate steps. She grabbed a pink umbrella hanging on a hook beside the door. Allen’s stare followed her through the exit but couldn’t go as far as out in the rain. Knowing Scarlett, she would never let her hair down; there certainly must have been a pair of fancy gumboots waiting in some vehicle parked right beside the wall. He breathed. Now then, at least she wasn’t coming back.

He was just returning to those stale pages when suddenly, there came a heavy thump on the rooftop. Something had crashed. Alarmed, the students darted glances at the lambent lights overhead. Trembling, now dimming, and finally the lights went out. The roar of thunder made the entire building quake like a coalmine. That must have been so powerful a strike on the lightning rod that the surge had to lurch aside and blow up a fuse.

‘We might as well hope it didn’t wreak any serious havoc.’ The librarian’s flat voice spoke out of pure darkness. A few flashlights gleamed one after the other �" creepy eyes in the tree trunks of a gloomy forest. ‘All right now, you all know what you ought to do.’ She told them solemnly.

How plainer could it get that she had meant every syllable she’d uttered? The place had never owned any generator, and, as prone to disaster as it was, management would never go to the trouble of sprucing it up (or simply knocking it down). Uphold tradition, they’d always stressed, all in the name of preservation of character, and the character instilled in the college upon its inception.

Torches would soon drain out, and no matter how urgent studying might have been, candlelight wouldn’t do them any good either. Despite all that, frustrated gripes and grouses still went on protesting. The noises had as soon melted into backpack zippers buzzing one way open, and the other way around, books being shoved back into niches in random order, and chairs creaking back to their original shape as the pressure from heavy buttocks ebbed away.

Allen could hear hassled footsteps above his head on the upper level, marching down the flimsy staircase that now wobbled as its treads got stomped on by the ruthless army of vexed boys and girls. He figured that, by the time he got up from his seat, he’d have to jump to the ground floor, since the wooden helix should have already crumbled and piled up, ready for burning.

Approaching the wide-open doorway, overwhelmed by the ancient pong of tatty parchment while bumping shoulders with others and dodging the potholed woodblocks, Allen just remembered not to forget his leather jacket by the coat check.

He’d never seen the heavens get that angry. Darkness had closed in from all ends of the earth. Streaks of lightning shot helter-skelter across the sky, flashing this blinding afterglow that scattered shadows and left the startled faces of strangers lingering in eyes for a split second. Storm clouds had continued to gather, heaping up in masses of sopping wool, looming with ample hostility, as if threatening to last until further notice.

Wet prickly wind angled sheets of rain towards the library, lashing at the students’ faces. They all huddled under an overhang, wincing away from the misty hand that reached out to snatch them. Pressing hard against the wall, they waited and shivered. It wasn't long before they were competing for the dry patches, trying to shield their shoes from those beads of rain that bobbled in the shimmering pools.

Allen set himself apart, poised to take a bold step into the storm as he studied the meandering path ahead. He had the map in his head. The library stood alone on a prominent spot just off the main path to the lecture halls. A few meters away stood the exemplary statue of a girl in a turtleneck sweater, sock on head, legs folded on a pedestal, staring down at a hefty-looking book in her lap. Apparently, reading in the rain wasn’t a bother, even as her daily teal complexion had been so lost to the gloom of the night that she now resembled a vague slab carved from coal.

The sooner Allen could get to the two arched bridges running parallel to each other, the better. The bridges cambered over a bendy canal, which channeled its water from a river flowing deep in a forest on the other side of the mountain. One bridge led to an abandoned chapel in the heart of the forest, and the other was his route to shelter.

Tree branches hang over the walk of the bridge while their roots drooped over the edge of the canal, relishing the nourishment of green waters. Though waning, the branches would provide a useful canopy all the way down to the cloister. Once there, he was well on his way to a warm bed.

He pulled the leather jacket over his head, hunched over and ventured out.

�"Prelude�"

3

Ethereal

 

 

SHE WATCHED HELPLESSLY. ‘HOW are you doing this?’ her distraught voice, trying to hold back that classic scream of terror, had ultimately become faint and croaky.

Stephanie floated in silence, now six feet off the ground, cocooned in that whirlwind. The clouds were opening, and the winds carried her further into the air.

‘Gosh!’ the girl gasped, ‘This isn’t happening,’ her head was shaking in continual denial of that incident unfolding, shoulders rising and falling in rhythm, and arms dropped stiff on her sides.

A stranger form of energy, the sort that could be likened to the fumes of a burning tire, crept from the sky like serpents, and Stephanie, now more transparent than the wing of a bat, seemed to be in the middle of it, making it happen. She took in the fumes through her nose. Her body stiffened in the air, limbs sprawled, and the smoke began exuding from her mouth as a smoldering dark breath, effervescing with specks of burning dust. Slowly, it began to settle.

The girl on the ground had started to choke. Cowering back, she brushed the air and plugged her nose, as if anticipating a rancid smell. In that moment, it occurred to her that something of human form had materialized within the smoke. Everything was vague, but she could still distinguish a long, layered and ragged, pitch-black robe. She saw humanoid feet beneath the helm, scaly, clawed, and running with volcanic veins. The last she saw were two large raven wings unfolding from the murk.

Her leg muscles tightened and nearly collapsed under that paralyzing urge to flee. She widened her squinting eyes and noticed that Stephanie had dropped and was lying silently in a puddle. The smoke faded away and an aura of deceiving innocence took over.

The girl took well-calculated strides toward the lifeless body. She came near enough to touch, but couldn’t quite get up the courage to. Suddenly, Stephanie sprang up to her feet in complete defiance of certain apposite physical laws of nature.

The girl flinched and fell on her back. In just a second, Stephanie was gone.

�"Prelude�"

4

Coincidence

 

A LLEN GOT TO A flickering lamppost by the walkway. He stopped. Something fishy was going on. The entire line of lamps ahead had gone totally dead. Why not this one? He walked on steadily and slackened at another one, which, as soon as he’d come close enough, lit up fiercely.

The nonsense had continued for each lamp in his path. Whereas some brightened to the point of blowing up, others caught flames from… he didn’t give a hoot where! The bridge wasn’t too far now. Just a few more spooky lamps and he’d be there.

He looked back, the rains, or whatever incorporeal thing was responsible for setting them off in the first place, must have put out the flames.

On the bridge now, he felt somewhat less spooked out. The downpour seemed to lessen to drizzles as the canopy overhead grew thicker. Crusts of lichen camouflaged the waist-high battlemented parapet, gradually forming into a slippery mesh of alga that clustered around gaps in the cobblestones.

Leaning on the parapet was a neglected red bicycle �" flat tires, and a broken handle bar. Rainwater had probably penetrated its paint and started to rust the iron bars of its framework. Allen seemed to be noticing everything. Rain had soaked through his clothes too. He thought he might as well just drop the collar of the jacket. He walked on.

Faint noises ahead caught his attention. Steadily, they became clear. He wasn’t so sure that was the sound of feet slapping the ground, speeding his way. He listened for it. Cripes! Who could possibly want to run that fast on such a dicey path? It had happened so fast, she’d appeared from nowhere, surging forward like a night train, showing no signs of slowing. All he felt was an arctic gust of wind push through him. In the next second, his life hung in the balance.

A misty gasp escaped his lungs as he struggled to heave himself upward and perhaps stick his foot in one of the hollowed-out places on the parapet. He held on to the slippery edge with his left hand while the rest of his body hung over the rapidly flowing canal. Seeing it from that view, he appreciated how far down it was. The fall, if not downright, would be close to deadly.

‘Do you own any eyes?’ he yelled at her. It just slipped. What he truly meant to scream out was the single word HELP! How can she be so numb?

He could now feel the grip beneath his three enduring fingers slowly slackening. ‘Hey!’ he prompted.

Stephanie had come to an abrupt halt, taking short steps back. Lightning flashed and lingered as a broad sheet in the clouds. He’d seen it all �" a young girl �" glowing white eyes on an old face. Was she looking at him? It proved slightly difficult telling without the pupils.

‘I can see you,’ something hissed inside her, for certainly that couldn’t have been her natural voice. Her lips had barely moved as she whispered, and every syllable tamped a shudder down his spine, ‘But she won’t let you live.’

He felt his heart skip more than a few beats. Suddenly petrified, his digits lost grip. Limbs sprawled and wiggled in the course of the plunge. He plopped into the canal and was soon weltering below the water’s surface. He’d never learned how to swim.

Water rushed through the nose, forcing his mouth to burst open and freeing a knobby mass of air bubbles. The struggle slowly died down. Quietly, he sank to the bottom.

�"Prelude�"

5

Freshman

 

White Mountains, Lincoln, New Hampshire

Friday, 24 August 2012. 12.03 pm

FRIDAY HAD DROPPED IN too quickly to believe it. The clock struck twelve. Students rushed out of those boring and tedious lecture rooms in a great flood that enveloped the entire campus. The midday cacophony of chatters and grumbles had pitched up at its height as the undergraduates darted in every known direction in pairs of boy and girl.

That racket had arrived unaccompanied by those fickle moments when laughter and glee would fill the air on the best days. That day, faces looked as if the whole 2012 apocalypse boloney had taken a dreadful toll on them. But they could all look forward to 21 December, and perhaps prove the pundits wrong after all.

Sooner than later, nearly everyone was gone, leaving the place good as empty, except for the few couples clearing the yawning entrance of a vaulted passageway that led to the lecture theaters.

Right at the bottom of a set of broad, fractured marble stairs stood the eighteen-year-old Allen McFinn. He was alive, but something had changed about him. Weighing that buoyant look on his face, so full of beans, perhaps the memory of that accident five nights ago had shrunk to an elusive wisp.

Not unlike any other day, he was immobile for quite a while, so curiously watching the rest scatter that he’d seemed a lot lonesome than handsome. That is not to say he’d somehow lost his allure when he fell over the bridge and into the canal. Inspecting him in the gray light of day (cloaked by a cloud not too far above), he did, however, seem the insecure type. He’d demonstrated that he was the only student, if the only selfishly good-looking teenager among the dozens, with no partner.

Over the years, he’d gathered empirical proof that the greatest ordeal he’d ever have to confront was a girl. Rain or shine �" it’d forever have to be a girl, or possibly an evil witch, wishing to ascend to perilous levels of wickedness. Perhaps that explained why he always stood lonely by the entrance, staring in amazement at those that found a piece of cake in conversing with people of the opposite gender.

If somebody were to walk up to him on Valentine’s Day saying ‘no man is an island’, he’d look the saying in the eyes and blow its brains out. Each time a girl uttered the innocent words ‘Hiya there!’ he would shudder like a drilling machine. He sure must have been the most spineless student in the history of humanity. In effect, the people who came to know him suddenly found themselves handing out hells of ridicule as retribution for a serious crime they referred to as “daring to be different”.

The few gorgeous girls that took it upon themselves to swallow the acrid pill and approach the boy understood him, (they really didn’t, but that’s what they told him).

Not so long ago, a girl had come to him at a picket fence, around a place that they called “The Garden”. She was not insignificantly older than he was, and she dripped with sweetness as she cast an intent gaze into his pupils. Filling her palm with his cheek, she told him,

‘Who am I to judge you on the merits of others? You were born this way, and I understand you.’

It was all a lie, and it made his eye twitch until it crippled. What actually pinched her mind behind those fishy words was the idea of packing him in a suitcase and taking him to a psychiatrist.

He seemed to have picked on that girls wanted badly to change him. If they could at least marinade his attitudes and pepper his personality to feed their cravings. Their greatest fear, which they couldn’t easily change about him, was that unusual, spellbinding look.

Maybe one day, one disgruntled soul might decide to sear his face with acid. Rather easier said than done, honestly, and not because anyone’s conscience pinned them against it. But say someone brave and sinful enough endeavored to run after him with a bucket spilling over with sulfuric acid �" she’d be, in all probability, outrun by his lifelong Houdini-inspired ambition to avoid women. Until that day, Allen was lightening, super unattainable.

Today marked the start of the weekend. The end of the third week since arrival, and freshman tendency had kicked in before long. It was time, at its max, to evaluate the daffy and name geniuses, declare the fairest of all, go eenie-meenie with the boyfriends, and come to blows over the girls.

Time had come to get to know who’s who, what they are like, what they like, who they like, who hates them, who eats canned pilchards in the morning. They had to know whichever one of them was related to Justine Bieber, and maybe beat them up on a Sunday. After all is said and done, the students would have to go snog, canoodle in dark corners, and… whatever else follows!

Today everything Allen knew about the world was going to change. Having been infatuated by a new student in his class, and if for the first time in his life, he decided he wasn’t going to be left out in the drama. And come what may, something fortuitous was sure about to transpire on that weird and wonderful afternoon. So it seemed a tad of courage had been stirred in “the lonely island” of Victoria Edward College.

 

***

A resigned sigh seeped out of his nostrils, and he felt more than ready to take the gray day. Certain enough now that every person of as little importance was out of sight, he turned around, trotted up the broken stairs, and started his way down the cloister. His feet were in a hurry, yet made sure not to create the slightest of noise while racing past many arched doors on both his sides. They zoomed into a narrower hallway and still maintained the stealth and caution.

All of a sudden, something appeared at the end of the hall. He stopped and watched. A dark figure. It floated and wafted like smoke, shapeless, seeming to have a life of its own. Allen wondered whether it really was there. He blinked and the figure slithered into thin air. It was gone.

Shrugging it off, and asking no questions, he chugged on. He’d no sooner reached the door to room 14, the treacherous mathematics classroom, than he felt a hand rest on his shoulder. He jumped with such passionate violence, gasping for oxygen like a dying piranha.

‘Al,’ a masculine voice spoke from behind, ‘What are you doing sneaking around?’

Allen could no longer smell the chalk in the air, only that weird metallic flavor of fright prickling his tongue. He turned in slow motion, and the first thing he noticed was the broad dodgy smile written on Victor’s face. It always meant that he’d be a stone in the shoe.

Victor Taylor took to a spectral prowler that stalked, lurked and crept up on Allen when he’d least expect. Most certainly, Victor relished the angst with grim pleasure. Expect nothing more from a face so sharp, dark eyes and spiky dark hair that hinted orgies of clever Dick comportment. To him, nothing beat scaring a coward right out of his socks and boots. So, forgive Allen if he’d sprung as if he were a spring shot from a pogo stick.

One more thing, Victor turned out to be Allen’s roomie, sad to say, his best friend too, probably predestined to amble down the aisle as Best Man on the wedding ceremony. Should there ever be one.

Allen leaned against one of the lockers in the wall for support before he could explain. He gathered his breath, but still ended up panting.

‘Uhm, I’m getting back to the classroom,’ with a unique quaver between words, ‘I must have left my notepad there.’

‘It’s close, but no cigar,’ Victor said. ‘I can’t afford it... how come?’

‘I think you’ve sprayed too much perfume on those clothes.’ he tried to go off at a tangent, but Victor’s suspicious squint just reeled him in again. ‘Loosen up,’ he took a sidelong look at him. ‘What does it matter where I spend my free time?’

‘It doesn’t,’ Victor said. ‘It’s with whom that worries me.’ The smirk had added something extra. ‘Of course, it’s no secret.’ He scratched at his cuticles in complacent adoration of his delicate instinct. ‘I’ve seen how you look at her.’

‘Who?’ he asked, a guise of perplexity pulled over his face.

‘Little Miss New Girl.’ He’d put on an accent.

‘You’re imagining things.’

Victor didn’t buy that either. ‘Also, it must be why you’re tiptoeing all the way through this corridor.’ He sounded interrogative.

Allen screeched, ‘Yes!’ then realizing he’d picked the wrong bunch of letters, ‘I mean no, absolutely not!’

‘Surprise me.’

The next statement wasn’t in the least convincing, ‘I’m just trying to be a little bit fastidious on my gait. It’s a little something I’m working on.’

Victor scowled at him with sneering incredulity. ‘OK, why then are you whispering?’

‘What?’ Allen exhaled with fed up eyes that shifted suddenly from the door to the bother. ‘Quit playing Sherlock Holmes!’ he was almost yelling. He was right that Victor had the knack of a browbeating detective. He was the apple that couldn’t roll too far away from the tree. Indeed, he fell right under it. Curse the saying ‘like father like son’.

‘I’m beginning to suspect,’ Victor said, stepping back to examine him properly, ‘maybe, Vicky’s lonely island is finally starting to grow irrational, possibly temporary, emotions of passion.’

By “Vicky”, he meant Victoria Edward College. Popular opinion preferred to call it Vicky, without the grown-up term “college”. Just for the love of chic �" they claimed. Since Vicky wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be in the newsletters and catalogs, the nickname might have been more truthfully a shot at preserving the original concept that the word college represents, a concept that it had lacked altogether.

‘OK.’ Victor gave up. ‘Whatever monkey business you’re up to, Al, don’t try anything stupid.’ He’d advised in a rather overly serious tone, with a friendly smile though. He ran his fingers through Allen’s hair as if he were a little brother, or a pet, and made a mess of the already prevailing disaster.

Perhaps it was the sheer absence of a nearby barber’s, but something serious needed to be done about that tufted mocha hair clustered on Allen’s rounded head. It fell half the length of his head so that stubborn locks drooped over his forehead, leaving just enough room to flaunt the brows. It was that typical sort of disorderly that made him appear quite the young, unruly heir to an ancient throne (which, in itself, isn’t half-bad a thing), albeit he wasn’t. Not any throne anyway that he’d come to know of if even remotely.

Victor patted him on the back and walked away. At a distance, he shouted ‘See you after lunch!’ over his shoulder.

Allen jerked a thumb.

Victor was out of sight, and just as soon, the lonely island drifted, pursuing that secret mission with the persistence of a tick on a dog.

�"Prelude�"

6

Fairytale

 

Room 215, Victoria Edward College

Friday, 24 August 2012. 12.49 pm

NEARLY AS IF HE’D simply teleported, Allen lacked any logical clue how he got to his dorm room. It had seemed somewhat surrealistic that perhaps only a second ago he’d been in pursuit of the new girl, and within that second came the unexpected consent to his date proposal. It had happened so fast that he’d suddenly felt the illusion of a dream. He ignored the feeling.

He’d sprawled on his bed, eyes calmly shut. Those chaotic noises of students roaming the campus had transformed into a lullaby, slowly fading out and cunningly leading him on a journey to the land of Nod. To his senses, the melody was sweet, and it matched the blissful giggles of dozens half-undressed beach lovers, taking in the ocean air and breathing it out to the infinite azure sky as a warm mist of joie de vivre.

As he almost touched perfect slumber, a hand on his shoulder got him back to life, and a quick voice roused him completely. Before he could open his eyes, he’d already recognized Victor’s beaming face.

‘Al, what’s happening?’ that broad dodgy smile ever so present. Allen sat up with tremendous excitement and popped his eyes so wide they looked like ostrich eggs. His face glowed, galvanized, and burning to tell Victor a tale he would never believe.

Lips were moving, yet not a single word came forth. Victor poked him on the throat, unleashing a tsunami of sentences that made it rather impossible hearing a thing.

After saying so much, only the statement ‘She finally agreed to go out with me’ had made it to Victor’s ears.

‘You must be sleep talking,’ said Victor, giving Allen’s cheeks quick slaps. Rolling his eyes over his watch, he now wondered what Allen was doing in bed around such an ungodly hour. ‘What are you doing in your PJs? You do realize there’s a lecture at one o’clock.’

‘You bet.’

‘Well, it’s ten to one.’

‘Won’t make it,’ he retorted, ‘need to get enough rest.’ He propped his head comfortably against the pillow and purred. ‘I have to pick up the energy to handle the date.’

‘The date?’ laughs spurted from Victor’s enormous mouth, a bit similar to how a train gushes out of a dark tunnel. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Kill the skepticism and listen. When you left me in the hall, I spoke to her. Well,’ he did this funny gesture thing with his hands, like juggling hot coals, ‘we talked and agreed to go to the freshman bash tonight at eight. It was like snatching candy from a kid.’

‘Snatching candy? You were dreaming, Allen. FYI, snatching candy from a kid isn’t exactly as easy as the world deems it to be. You’ll be mauled two ways before you even get to check what flavor it is.’

‘You don’t understand,’ his eyes skipped as though he’d dosed them with caffeine. ‘I asked her to come with me, and she, not I, made the obvious suggestion that it was a date. In fact, she said, “I’d love to date you”, and then she got lost somewhere in the middle trying to fix the statement. But hey, who cares? We’re going to start dating! Victor, this isn’t something to sniff at.’

‘I didn’t sniff at it.’

‘Yes, you did.’ Allen pushed his allegation further as Victor shook his head no. ‘You did, Vic, don’t deny it.’

‘Sucking air rapidly!’ was Victor’s puny and final excuse. ‘All right, you got me, but I’ve got persuasive reason to doubt that any of that ever happened.’

‘Give me a chance.’

Victor put on a smirk. ‘Are you trying to ask me out?’

‘That’s funny, because those are the exact words she used.’ Allen was impressed. ‘Oblige me by giving me the chance to tell you what happened.’ He said calmly.

Victor looked into his eyes, searching for any traces of a lie. ‘Okay, you have three minutes. Just don’t bore me to death.’

‘Pay attention…’

 �"Prelude�"

7

Catbird Seat

 

 

BACK IN THE HALL, when Victor had said ‘See you after lunch!’ and left, Allen had one eye tightly shut and the other peered into room 14’s keyhole with increasing focus. He’d scanned the entire room like a periscope and seemed quite convinced the rest of the class had left except the girl. To his utter surprise, at first it seemed even she wasn’t there, until suddenly, quick girlish footsteps approached the door. Terror filled his face, and panic oozed from his flesh as his hands searched the air for a place to hide. In a flash, the door opened. There she was! Allen had disappeared.

The girl stood in the doorway, glancing from right to left and right again. She’d quite taken to a child on a highway curb, at rush hour, waiting to cross over to the school side, (the only thing missing was a nursery rhyme).

Holding her body to one side, an aura of supremacy standing sentinel beside her, a red HB pencil in the hand pinching her waist, she seemed dreadfully convinced there was someone out there. As she saw no one, however, she simply went back in; leaving the door open and hoping whoever was out there would quit goofing around and deal with her.

Shortly after, Allen reappeared from one of the lockers down the hall. With a few shelves missing, the locker was large enough to house his entire body with some inches to spare, (whoever slotted them in the walls must have imagined giant students with giant books). When he’d shut the rusty iron door, there was a harsh bang, and his frenzied feet that dashed as hard to outpace themselves had grabbed her attention at once. She rushed back to check. Just a split-second before her eyes could spot him, his shadow nipped behind the exit, as the only evidence that ‘phew!’ it wasn’t a pestering ghost.

Hold on a second!

Allen slackened at the broken marble stairs outside, sticking his back to the dump wall like a slug.

Be brave on this one!

He rooted for himself, broke his fingers with such terrible aggression, and puzzled at the new entry, brave, in his mental dictionary.

Come on �" what’s the worst that could possibly happen? I’m only saying hi. After all, she’s just a new girl. Well, yes, a gorgeous new girl, that’s all!

He peeped to verify that his thoughts did not echo down the hallway, also making sure nobody was out there spying on him.

He scratched his chin as more thoughts rumbled. She isn’t any different from the rest, is she? What a lie! Of course, she is. I’ve been a nuisance all day.

Making a hairpin turn, he marched back to that dreaded class, his courage in both hands. It would be the greatest victory should he ever talk to her.

Nobody with perfectly functioning vision had Buckley’s chance of ever chatting to this girl, let alone ever daring to say ‘Hello’. Allen understood that without a glitch. No one had accosted her. Not even Frederick Donavan, the possibly biologically engineered dreadlocked inglorious b*****d.

This girl… there was just something about her that seemed to exude a social repellent. A lot like the repellent found in a boy called Allen.

That Donovan boy, given that he hosted two red daredevils in him, must have felt it was odds-on that he’d win her over, if at no other time, right then when she’d arrived three days ago.

All the dim-witted heroics and the most reckless feats in the book were allies with Frederick Donavan’s moral fiber. He had asked a lady lecturer out on a date earlier that week. The sad finish even so was that the lady lecturer had consciously agreed.

Now, Allen, by some screw-up in the normal operation of the natural world apparently, had turned out to be the chosen one. He’d visualized “daredevil Fred”, they’d dubbed him, working his a*s off in his own cerebral gym �" pondering when to come around to this wonderland.

If fantasy were alive in Allen’s imaginings, he’d very pliably settle that the girl must have cast a spell on him �" an enchantment that turned him into something more pitiable than a frog. He’d become a fool that rushes in where angels fear to tread. Only on the contrary, Frederick Donavan was everything but an angel.

Once Allen had got there, not deterred by his cowardice, he waited between the doorframes �" stubborn as a mule, legs astride and eyes gazing in fierce concentration. Figuring what to say to her, he’d made nearly no sound except his throat kept gulping. It wasn’t exactly one of those times to trot out the adage once or twice, ‘faint heart never won fair lady’. Poor Allen wasn’t so sure he had the guts to face such an entrancing girl. Or even much less a heart. At this point, nonetheless, it was clear that nothing could stop him.

The girl stayed glued to her desk, scribbling figures in her notebook with alarming seriousness until mysteriously she felt his eyes watching. Glancing back, she noticed him striding jauntily toward her. One hand stayed in a pocket, the other snapped fingers, and the face brightened up in a smile that touched his ears. Soon as he came in her perfect earshot, a gambit greeting automatically slid off his tongue.

‘H-hey,’ in a gentle, if stilted, quaver, ‘how’s your day going?’

She pulled a brief blasé face. ‘Finally, huh?’ it was the softest voice he’d ever heard. And hers were the biggest, not unattractive eyes he’d ever seen. This was going to be bruising.

‘Excuse me?’

‘How long have you been watching me?’

‘I’m afraid I haven’t the slightest idea what it is you’re referring to.’ He stated with a lawyer’s face.

‘No?’ asked the girl in a pretend state of perplexity. ‘Somebody, if not you, must have been out there.’

‘Sure?’ Allen denied in a question, taking a glimpse back, much like Simon Peter had denied the Christ. ‘Never saw anyone on my way to the… uhm, urinals.’

‘That’s odd,’ she played along, ‘could have sworn a poltergeist kept running down the hall.’

‘Odd indeed…’ he made a grating sound with his throat, ‘you think we should check?’

‘Are you attempting to ask me out?’

‘Uhm, I suppose we could...’ he flashed another glimpse behind him, and then he thought for a moment. ‘Let’s wait and see.’

She quickly gave up, and a faint delightful smile crossed her lips. So innocent, so carefree, so adorable �" it was the kind of smile often seen in little children (except those children that parents repeatedly call little terror Adolfs). Allen instantly marked how prettier she looked in close range. He would never forget such a face, even if a cold case of amnesia struck him. Realizing that their eyes locked, he became mute for a few seconds. It was as mind-blowing as gazing upon something that doesn’t exist. He had to remember that.

His eyes fell on the table and stumbled upon a leather-bound diary. It was unique… rather antique. The corners of the brown leather cover had been chewed by the canines of time. Dog-eared pages, as old as the history of paper itself, were stacked in its interior and bound together by a strip of lace that looked a lot like a bobbin braid. The blades of the pages wiggled, as if at one point somebody (he didn’t want to accuse her) just woke up and decided to soak them in tea, and later left them to dry in some scorching desert. There was a circle with a mysterious symbol inside it, which he couldn’t quite decipher. He’d never seen it before. Around it, reading down in a column, were the words “Prayers For The Dead”. Intrigued, he was ready to ask about it, but the girl picked it and packed it hastily in a satchel. She smiled at him clumsily.

‘Samantha,’ she told him, stretching out a petite hand for a shake.

‘I’m Allen Finn,’ he said slowly. He’d preferred to go by just “Allen Finn”. He ruled out the “Mac” in McFinn, because he feared he’d be reminded that he was the son of a father he never knew. ‘It’s a pleasure.’

They were shaking hands.

‘So you’re new?’ more of a statement than a question. ‘It’s impossible’, he’d added, ‘to not notice.’

‘It’s impossible to not be nervous.’

‘Without a doubt,’ Allen agreed thoughtfully, ‘one would have to be a bat not to stare.’

A bat… no, what… am I serious? Lame! Give me the strength.

Samantha, to Allen’s unexpected win, had beamed. Hands were still superglued as eyes also fastened like Velcro chips.

‘Three weeks… you took your time getting in college,’ Allen cracked the brief silence. ‘Deciding which scholarship to go for… ah, still craving the latest episode of Glee? Or perhaps untying the knot in mother’s apron strings?’

‘Family issues,’ she said it tersely and with a rare tone of sadness.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Not your fault,’ putting on a faint smile, ‘sometimes some things happen that we can’t change,’ she turned her eyes to her book. There felt something abnormal about the brevity of that final remark.

Samantha chewed her pink lip and drummed her pencil rapidly against the desk. She first glimpsed him with a tender eye, then their tied hands. She cleared her throat to draw attention to the knot their hands had made.

‘Well,’ Allen choked, ‘we’ll be fit for arm-wrestling I suppose.’

‘M’hm,’ jingled her throat, ‘I suppose we already are.’ She’d sounded amused all of a sudden and that sweet face brightened up.

Those words had stumped his ears though. What could Samantha have meant by ‘sometimes some things happen that we can’t change’?

Allen understood, quite obviously, that there were certain firmly established things he just couldn’t change. The weather, for instance �" no matter how much he hated rain, if he couldn’t do magic, he could do nothing to stop it. Or specifically what popped into his mind at that moment �" that he was born with a protrusion and a sack between his legs. Even though the thought did tickle his funny bone, that poignant tone in Samantha’s voice did scare the hell out of him with equal measure.

Divorce maybe? He suggested. An in-law can easily come against that if they were a monster, or Madea. Family issues, he thought harder, she’s pregnant. Well, if she’s truly moral she can’t change… wait �" she’s pregnant!

‘Thinking?’ she asked.

Allen nodded the thinking away, casting a casual eye at the figures on the page. ‘Finding trouble breaking that equation?’ he said at last.

‘It pretty well is a brain teaser,’ Samantha replied, scratching her scalp as if the answer would just fall out like dandruff. ‘It’s got no solution, trust me.’

Allen, feeling a bit underestimated, tilted his head in the effort to see what exactly seemed so difficult about that equation. He then pulled a chair, plucked that short wooden pencil from his ear (it was not inside the ear �" he’d not decided to turn himself into a circus freak), and he sat beside her.

‘Are you sure you can hold it?’ asked Samantha with a cryptic smile. ‘You were going to the urinals, remember?’

‘Uh-uh,’ Allen grunted, ‘I said no such thing.’

‘But, I thought you said �"’

‘Nope, you’re hearing things.’ He chuckled and directed focus to the page. ‘This, in itself, is an equation of a graph,’ he cleared his throat. That was the unmistakable symptom of brainpower. ‘Which means there has to be a rational function.’

‘O-kay…’ she murmured something to herself.

Allen tweaked his chin, ‘I know, relax,’ and scribbled digits and symbols onto the page, swift as an old typewriter.

 

***

‘X equals 1. This becomes the asymptote of our graph here, approaching but never touching the graph at any finite point. Not the best handwriting you’ve ever seen, but there you have it �" the solution!’ he finished.

‘Hold on…’ Samantha held a squint at the alien squiggles he’d drawn. ‘Go over the last bit, please.’

Her request sounded more angelic than if it were from a Sunday-school child saying a closing prayer; it must have been what invoked the genius deity in him. Slow as growing up, he made her understand.

‘Wow!’ yelped Samantha. ‘I had no idea it was that simple!’ feeling stupid, she admitted the fact.

‘It is!’ he stroked his nape, ‘Quite.’

Samantha was smiling in his face when the compliment burst forth, ‘You must be a real genius.’

‘Me?’ he sniffed, ‘Can hardly count sheep!’ stating in a meek voice. He wasn’t tired of looking into those delightful hazel eyes. God forbid. Modesty forced his glance to the cracked floor.

‘Where does that leave me?’ she wondered.

‘Most people could be like Einstein. I believe.’ He wasn’t sure he had inspected the words before they piled out.

‘You do?’ she teased. Deliberately strengthening her gaze, she said, ‘Prescribe the food for me so I could have that much gray matter.’

‘Let’s just say,’ he drummed his fingers on the desk bashfully, ‘all one has to do is grasp the concept of rational functions, we’ll be safe.’

They both afforded a laugh, and it had never felt healthier. Samantha hadn’t imagined Allen would be this warming, that he’d turn out this charming. “The lonely island of Vicky”, says who? Surely, somebody had to point to the continent then.

She lacked the strength to wrestle her eyes away from him. Try as she might, she just couldn’t remember any time in her life when she ever stared so long at a boy. She considered it rude. That must have been a spark, though. Or was it something else? She wondered. Wait, it was chemistry. She was starting to like him.

‘Uhm,’ she stood up rapidly and tucked a tress of sleek raven hair tidily behind an ear, ‘so we’re done?’

‘Uhm,’ he was blinking fast, ‘I guess we are. Lunch?’ he proposed.

‘What,’ her brows slid up, ‘what about lunch?’ she needed some clarification. How does one just go ‘Lunch!’ as if reading some kindergarten index card?

‘I mean, it’s lunchtime �" people should be piling into the cafeteria as we speak.’

‘Oh,’ she unzipped her tiny denim satchel, a three-leafed clover stitched on its flap, ‘no… I can still feel breakfast settling in my tummy.’ She sounded sure while packing the notebook.

In a shrug, Allen placed the ear-pencil back in its niche. He then read the tag at the corner of Samantha’s satchel, made in Spain. Ironic. Judging from the green clover, he’d expected made in Ireland. He just laughed in his heart to the playful thought that, as apparent from those curves on her torso, perhaps Samantha too was made in Spain.

Facing each other, both heaving sighs in perfect synchronism, they eased their way to the door. Allen took steady strides backwards, while Samantha, floundering helplessly for words from her abruptly deficient mental catalog, complied modestly with the dictatorship of his feet.

Once again, ‘Uh, uhgm,’ they mumbled in unison. ‘Go first,’ she allowed.

‘All right,’ oblivious to the blunt edge of the door, ‘what you said about certain things that �"’

Alas! That brilliant mocha coffee head banged against the wood with a thud so powerful it thrust a loud shriek of pain from his belly, whirling out of his mouth onto her face.

Samantha’s nervous expressions twisted into concern as she watched the agony tower in his face while he nursed the back of his head with his wrist. He rubbed and rubbed until the pencil dropped.

‘Are you ok?’

‘Yeah, I’m’, he wasn’t so sure if truly he was, ‘fine, I think.’

‘Sure?’ extending an uncertain hand that almost touched him. With more bravado than common sense, he told her a second time that he was fine. That he’d never felt better in years.

He hadn’t fully crouched to pick the pencil when a gecko from the ceiling fell off and sank into his blue Stop Global Warming T-shirt. The tiny critter’s adhesive feet raced down the concaved spine and Allen snapped like a mousetrap, wriggling and skipping, making shrill screams, and typifying Michael Jackson in his early career.

It was a scene too comical for a new girl to smother her amusement. Samantha laughed as if she were doing it for the first time. She even ignored the tears that sprang from her eyes.

Before long, the humiliation had ceased (or apparently). The gecko quit the torment, fell out, and skidded on the polished floor. The ribbed soles of his Adidas baseball boots stomped after it with the aim of crashing its ghost, but the lucky creepy-crawly, surviving by a whisker, managed to get away with it. It’d left behind the stump of its writhing tail, almost as if sending out an uncomplimentary gesture to the perpetrator.

The scratchy tickle was well over now, albeit he could still feel convulsions running up and down his body. Maybe at some point, Samantha had begged him to spare its life. What the heck, the thing could just as well pitch its track field elsewhere. It should pray they never meet again.

‘I feel sorry for your head, you should know,’ Samantha concealed a chuckle, ‘but that was the funniest act I’ve ever seen.’

Whoa wait �" act? She’d knocked him sideways. The funniest act she’s ever seen �" unbelievable!

He hunkered and picked the pencil, eyeing the roof for any more geckos.

Are they really like this? He had an inner smile as he checked the business end of the pencil for any fractures. Girls, do they shed tears when happy? Yes. Do they call agony funny acts? Yep. Label an idiot as genius �" absolutely!

‘Say what,’ she just recovered from a serious attack of giggles. It seemed to him that she looked even more beautiful while laughing. The wrinkled nose, squinty eyes �" he’d found nothing more attractive. ‘You’re breath-taking.’

The words overwhelmed him.

‘You’re adorable,’ he was a bumblebee when the words came out, ‘like a chipmunk.’

‘Oh, shut up, silly!’ giving him a playful fist on the shoulder. ‘It’s not a contest.’

 �"Prelude�"

8

Cloud Nine

 

 

‘THAT DID NOT HAPPEN.’ Victor shook his head. ‘What do you take me for?’

Allen’s eyes got all moony suddenly. ‘You should have seen her face when she said, “Definitely”, she was glowing, I swear.’

Victor dashed to his chest of drawers and picked out a few books, which he shoved under his arm. ‘I mustn’t deny that it is indeed one of the most hideous lies ever allowed into my delicate ears,’ he said after a tsk. ‘I think my eardrum just punctured. OK, I might be wrong, but I’ve witnessed countless guys wandering down that cul-de-sac �" she’s a dead end. That girl talks to nobody. We both understand that if there’s anybody perfectly eligible for the title nobody, it’s you, Allen, no offense.’

‘It’s okay.’ Allen said in a carefree tone. ‘Besides, you just admitted that she spoke to me. Anyway, from tonight on, I’ll be dating the prettiest girl alive. I knew that it would be much too difficult to believe, and �"’

‘Difficult?’ Victor interrupted. ‘Al, it’s impossible!’

The news did sound enormously bizarre, for sure, farfetched too. But give the boy a break. Much as Victor had fought to deny the testimony, some truth in Allen’s tone had gone a long way trying to convince him. And, by the same magnitude of doubt that Victor could not reconcile Allen’s nerdish persona with the luck that he claimed had favored him, Allen too, had found it quite arduous believing it all.

‘Heading off so soon?’ Allen asked.

‘You really need to work on your listening skills.’

‘Trust me you want to hear the rest of it.’

‘Oh, the tall tale… let me see… no. Turns out I don’t.’ he got to the door. ‘Tell me about it when we’re old and gray.’

Allen turned to his side table, picked up his Homer Simpson Alarm Clock, and set the alarm at 6.15 in the evening. He fetched himself a smug smile, burrowed under his bouncy, striped blue-on-white duvet, and shut his eyes again.

‘Suit yourself.’

In the dark space of his closed sight, he announced that he’d be taking a siesta until early evening. Victor wasn’t listening; he’d very silently slithered out of the room.

Allen proposed to himself that he’d be relieved of the suspense before nightfall if he slept through it. He was enjoying the twirl of the fortune wheel, and, although not quite sure whether to call it an achievement or a turnaround in luck, he just loved the prospect of a date with… an angel? It was as a dream that he should never escape.

Little did he know, this serendipity, or whatever it was, would sometime soon forsake him in a world whose atmosphere spelled nothing but M.Y.S.T.E.R.Y. It was imminent. His very own rusty mental Rubik’s cube was about to break through to the tangible world and unleash upon him a chain of enigmas assigned to drag him to the gruesome dungeon of insanity.

As he dozed off, he’d allowed his mind to trace all the steps he’d taken to arrive at the place where that new girl had said ‘Definitely!’, and the scene electrocuted all his qualms and worries.

�"Prelude�"

9

More...

 

 

SAMANTHA AND ALLEN HAD swept out of the hallway into the open air. After a long period of cloud cover, dazzling sunlight peeped at their faces, casting upon the ancient stairs two long shadows that looked like desert snakes. They squinted to tint the brightness of the sky as a flock of turtledoves, which invited old memories, flew over the tall jacaranda trees.

Samantha told him of how beautifully carpeted the flagged paths will appear once the violet flowers of the jacaranda were shed in their proper season. Allen added that his former school had a forest of jacaranda, so much that when the flowers fell, the place looked just too beautiful it became ugly. He’d said without intentions of paradox, and she giggled with fun. He understood that there were jokes less stupid than that.

Allen couldn’t explain how or why, but it seemed he’d magically gained freedom with her. Where the liberty came from had long remained a mystery, maybe to both.

‘Samantha,’

‘Yeah,’ she pushed her hair back to get a clear picture of him.

‘I know this might sound a little over the fence, maybe personal. But’, clearing his pharynx that clogged up with the dread of what was to come out soon, ‘you’re not knocked-up, are you?’ he asked.

‘Pregnant �" no!’ she frowned her disbelief at him, a mere symbol of bewilderment. Feeling compelled to ask, ‘Do I look heavy with child?’ she wasted no time inspecting her tummy, which was flat as a bad joke. What’s the matter with this boy?

‘Heavy!’ he screamed. ‘Not a chance! You look gorgeous. It’s just that… you seemed rather saddened back there when you mentioned “Family issues”. I couldn’t help it.’

‘So, in your infinite wisdom, a growing fetus in my tummy would certainly pull my face down.’

‘Would it not?’

‘You reckon it would?’

He shrugged.

‘Don’t worry about it.’ Her stare left him promptly and found comfort in the sky. ‘We can’t change them.’

Allen shrugged again, finally giving up, yet at least he could sleep peacefully. Samantha wasn’t going to have a baby. At that very moment, a barrage of students spilled out of the cafeteria. It was time after lunch. Time flies!

The swarm of students, satiated by sickening broths dished at the cafeteria, had thoroughly covered the campus square like roaches evicted from a rotting chest of drawers.

Some people did mind their own business, holding spotlights on their partners, while most girls, the pesky-looking ones especially, glimpsed Allen with envious eyes and offered Samantha spiteful glares as they passed them by.

This was a little shocking. Allen understood perfectly well that he was officially Vicky’s misfit. In fact, he was the faultless red herring that made people ignore all the brilliance he had to offer so they could cling only to the petty slip-ups in his personality. What’s more, the looks on those faces, bearing incredible likeness to the Desperate Housewives, made him ponder their ultimate wish.

Initially, they had all deemed him the nerd of the century, no question about it. How about now? Did standing next to a girl abruptly change their conception of him?

New insight flashed before his eyes. Allen once thought his reputation was in jeopardy, and that a girl would cost him the last of his composure in life. Perhaps this was the wake-up call. Perhaps this was the straw in the wind leading up to the elimination of that coward in him. Or even better news; it was the turning point to a nerd-free life.

At least now he didn’t have to rummage around a metropolitan library in search of a book specifically titled “NERDS: Are You Doomed?” or spend the rest of his life walking to a therapist’s office. And certainly not attending one of those ‘My name is Allen, and I’m a nerd’ sessions, only to have a collection of other nerds clap for him �" for being one!

Samantha was going to change him for the better. He could never ask for more.

He noticed that she’d got uncomfortable. ‘Don’t you worry about them,’ he told her, ‘frustration must be killing them.’

She laughed to herself within an assured smile. ‘They won’t stop staring.’ She got the strength to speak, her voice congested, forehead puckered.

She couldn’t isolate exactly what made him tick, but he’d managed to make her feel important. Of that, she was a little too sure. Simply in the way his glance lingered on her. She wondered in the bargain why they called him a coward. She got the hint that they did not just make fun of him for being weirdly interested in knowledge or for poring over encyclopedias dawn to dusk, or for being boring (more often than not) or stupid (sometimes) and unfashionable (rarely). They psyched him out for being all these things and remarkably gorgeous. And they just couldn’t have him.

‘I guess this is it,’ she stated, ‘for now.’

‘Yeah,’ he pulled his wrist to check the time, ‘it won’t be long before nightfall.’ He looked at the sky. The sun had been masked by a nimbus, and an eerie wind blew.

He saw it again. The dark figure. This time it hovered directly ahead, nearly but not touching the cobblestones. It lingered a little longer this time around, almost as if to give him the chance to make something of it. He tried and failed to see a face in it. It was nothing but smoke �" pitch-black flames. Dark energy. It nipped behind a tree and did not reappear.

Samantha looked him askance. He was going to point out what he saw, but chose instead to decline. It was right there. If she and everybody else around couldn’t see it, then until he could ascribe a better explanation for it, for now he settled that he was most definitely hallucinating.

‘It looks like dusk already,’ he said to her, eyes up in the clouds. ‘It’s always like this here at Vicky.’

‘Yeah, I noticed.’

Amongst institutions, Victoria Edward was the worst. Maybe once it was magnificent, in its earliest times, when it first emerged exactly one hundred years ago. In its modernity, a worn carpet of moss wrapped around the ancient blocks of stone crammed together in a lousy apology for tradition. Veins of climbing plants sprouting from its crevices bedecked it in a more terrifying than appealing way.

Some had called it beautiful, while the most judicious of them sniffed at it and referred to it as sheer dereliction.

Moreover, the oddest about Vicky’s atmosphere was how it was somehow able to blot out all the natural colors of the world to sustain a cloudy ashen façade, day in, day out, so terribly that, on certain occasions, it was hard to tell whether it was still four in the morning or twilight had fallen. It looked (to cut to the chase) like the historical remains of the battlefront for WWII.

‘Oh, and I’ll probably need to get your number.’ Allen seized her attention. ‘In case you have another unbreakable equation, you can call me. Or the A-Team. We’re the same. Just different departments. Now then, you know the drill.’

‘Ha-ha, I know the drill all right.’ She put her hand out, gesturing him to hand her the gadget. ‘Here, let me enter my digits. I left my phone plugged in the socket.’

‘Sure,’ he passed it. ‘Yours must really be dead; I bet it’s been powering up since morning.’

‘Mom talks a lot.’ She revised the digits she’d entered. ‘There you go. I leave it up to you to save it as you please. Free to label whatever title you fancy.’

‘What did you say your name was again?’ he teased. ‘Chelsea? No. Francesca?’

‘See, now that would be funny if, and only if, you were a dunce.’

‘Ah, I see, that explains why you’re laughing.’

She shouldered him, ‘Ego-maniac.’

‘I do not have an eagle,’ he flapped his arms. ‘I’ll need to think of something very special back in my room.’ He sniffed, ‘This is embarrassing. It appears I’ve run out of minutes. Expect a bleep any time soon after I recharge.’ He shoved the handset in his pocket and his hand stayed there.

‘Mr. Spencer,’ Samantha said after watching another one of those frustrated girls walk by with a glare, ‘we have a lecture with him at one o’clock. If you want to stay alive, I hear, you’d better not abscond any of his lectures.’

‘It is true.’ Allen sighed, reflecting the mutual disappointment. ‘His existence is nothing but an exaggerated caricature of cruelty.’ The statement cost a laugh. He held her head in place with his hypnotic gaze, and she’d immediately seen what was coming. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask �"’

‘M’hm!’

‘There’s a freshman bash at eight o’clock tonight, sort of a welcome party. Care to come �" with me?’ the offer sounded enticing, the harmony in the words was enough to make her sleep whilst standing.

‘Is it a date?’ she queried in a happy glance.

Date… a date, not a date, yes a date, and a date, simple date, nothing big, something big �" ah’m…

Heaven knows why, but he enjoyed the sound of that pounding in his brain. ‘Exactly!’ he was grinning. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ seeing the awkward delay.

‘I should love to date you!’ finally. ‘I mean, go on a date with you… not that dating you would hurt either… would hurt at all �"’

‘So you’re not coming?’ he joked.

‘No, silly,’ she punched his shoulder again, ‘it means yes.’

‘Great!’ he felt like preaching it to the world.

‘Where will I meet you?’ she asked.

‘By the main gate �" with or without you �" I’ll be there waiting on the dot.’

Samantha smiled genially. Allen turned around, just about to vanish when she spoke again. ‘Thanks!’ it sounded loud; she may have overestimated the volume surrounding them. ‘Thanks for helping me out in math. I’d never have done it without you.’

‘Sure, only the best for you!’ he said it with two thumbs up. ‘Tonight at eight!’ he prompted.

She hopped her shoulders in assent, ‘Definitely!’

They parted ways, glimpsing each other until the jealous crowd blocked their view.

�"Prelude�"

10

Nightmare

 

 

OLD FAITHFUL EYE OF heaven had retired from its pedestal up in the sky as the daylong shift glaring upon blue earth was now over. However, there certainly wasn’t much employment for the sun at Vicky. Whereas it had always roamed the skies beyond that smoky shell of threatening rain-bearing thunderclouds, every day was virtually a long weekend. In any case, while the red sun sank in utter darkness behind the hills far afield, a chilly wind had scattered the clouds into wisps. Soon, its slumber had given rise to the disquieting reign of a rather familiar inimical mood.

The well-worn tendency inherent in Vicky’s Jims and Jacks to anthropomorphize nighttime, pretty much as if it possessed a soul of its own had just kicked off.

The darkness could never be any more unsociable than then. It was evident in the tens of millions servile minions that studded the shadowy firmament, glinting with mingy luminance, to be in keeping with the time-honored code of night. A portentous feeling that something would somehow go wrong had persisted palpably in the air.

Roughly, the entire intake was out there in the dark, filling up the sidewalks like scores of toothpicks in a can. They all looked swanky in their quaint and deliberately old-style choice of clothing, somewhat complete as a boutique when coupled. They’d all embraced, one the other, like milk and water, basking in the warmth of romance on that cold moonlit evening.

Young and tender Samantha, seeming lonelier than an island, felt a sly horror weighing heavily upon her. Perhaps it lurked in the shadows, steady and sure enough to reveal itself soon, in a manner she’d never possibly find appealing. She’d grossed enough reasons to fear so because she’d been waiting, from eight o’clock, on the person who had her assured he’d be at the main gate. Whatever did he mean by “with or without her”?

It was 8:43 and Allen was not a place in sight.

�"Prelude�"

11

Time Jump

 

Room 215, Victoria Edward College

Friday, 31 August 2012. 9.13 pm

A  STRIDENT RING FROM the alarm clock shook Allen off the bed, and sent him crashing to the floor. He first rolled around in a fit and finally slapped Homer Simpson into a deathly silence. He’d nearly, but not quite exfoliated that popular primary color from the figurine’s face.

With a broad yawn, he got up, tottering like a moth, groping for the light switch, and straining to see in the gloom of the room.

A quick flick and his eyeballs ached as they adjusted to that dramatic shift from total darkness to bedazzling brightness. He looked rather hilarious in his striped blue pajamas while lurching to the closet. His feet hit an abrupt standstill. In disbelief, he staggered three steps back, glancing at the wide-open window. Stunned by the night’s chilly breeze that kept the curtains dancing, that’s when it’d hit him hard.

He pounced on the clock and squeezed the life out of the little man’s squishy neck (or was it the head?). Frowning at the two arms, he carefully counted the hours as though he were just learning to tell the time. Mr. Simpson, it turned out, was a man of his word �" 6.15 pm, period!

Something wasn’t right here. Either the clock had gone mental, or the earth had spun out of orbit and been sucked into a massive black hole. Irritated, he tossed it against the wall where it splintered into pieces, around a point beyond repair.

One final restless glimpse at the wall clock crinkled his face as it resolved that the time was 9.17 in the evening, and the colleague with the yellow complexion was only being naughty. He picked up his wristwatch from underneath a pillow �" 9.17 pm. Fantastic!

But there was something else. The calendar. It wasn’t right. He tapped on the screen of the watch, thinking it too was malfunctioning. It declared August 31. The one on the wall was in sync with his watch. He did not understand what was going on. Time had skipped a great deal, yet he still felt today was the day Samantha had agreed to go on a date with him. In fact, he could see the cars and the people outside from his window.

A dreadful trembling overcame him as he languidly got to the closet; shuddering so hard that the skeleton holding him together now feared it would soon crumble and pile up on the floor. He felt slow. A migraine was pounding. His heart ached to the natural jab of adrenaline.

Some queer noise started out of nowhere and literally made him trip on fright. Well, it was only that jolly tune emanating from his handset. Understandably, he’d become too apprehensive to recognize it. He was turning things over trying to find it.

I can’t take the call �" he panicked, buffeting his head with solid fists. That has to be Samantha. I’m so screwed. Stop, I can explain. No, there’s absolutely nothing to explain. He spun three-sixty degrees. Where’s the darned phone?

He found it under the bed, in a shoe. Fumbling to press the receive button, he read the caller ID. Victor? That willies-inducing name wrote across the blue screen. Yep, didn’t see that coming, huh.

Silence sighed on the other end. Possibly out of guilt.

‘You tampered with my clock!’ Allen yelled into the mouthpiece, ‘Deny it!’

‘I’m in good health, thanks,’ Victor’s electronic tone came calmly, ‘good evening to you too.’

‘I will kill you,’ his heart was pounding, thirsty for some blood (someone else’s, really, beside his), ‘I swear!’

‘Bet you’re wide awake now,’ he continued to sound incredibly casual. ‘Listen carefully �"’

Allen’s head was spinning. ‘Return to this room after seasons, pal,’ he tried to quiet down that ranting tongue flipping about in its cave. ‘Better get this square, okay, you’re dead. Do you hear me? Carcass!’ his uvula became sore from all that growling.

‘Wait, wait,’ it felt like spittle in Allen’s ear, ‘don’t you dare hang up on me.’

‘Five seconds,’ his jaws had locked in place, ‘Tick tock tick tock �"’

‘Pay attention,’ Victor barged in, ‘it was one o’clock when you slept…’

‘What the hell did you do?’

‘Try being a good listener, Al!’ he shouted, and then put on a therapeutic voice, like some renowned hypnotist. ‘You set the alarm for six-fifteen, m’hm?’ he said, ‘Well, I decided you needed more time, so I set the ticker three hours back. I think that’s ten to be succinct. Nine fifteen, in real time, the clock woke you up. Do the math.’

Allen’s eye had started convulsing.

‘So with all that added time,’ Victor resumed, ‘you got the rest you badly wanted and let me do the rest. Any questions?’ he must have been grinning when he asked.

Allen pulled the handset away from the ear, frowned at it, and placed it back. ‘I’m sorry, you decided?’ he’d asked gently.

‘Affirmative,’ he said.

‘Under what circumstance would I require your infinite wisdom to decide that for me?’

‘Tonight… and several other occasions that �"’

Allen smacked his forehead, screaming, ‘You’ve messed me up so badly!’ and nearly shedding tears, ‘Something’s the matter with your head!’

‘Enough with the blame game,’ was all he had in reply. ‘Look, dude, I’m only doing you a favor; besides, there’s no way I’d let you mess up a date with a girl that pretty. You probably don’t even know how lucky you are.’

‘Lucky?’ he chuckled in annoyance. ‘Hang on a second. So the picture’s this, you made me sleep, oversleep, so I couldn’t mess up my own date?’

‘Tadda!’

‘Will you ever grow up?’ he cut the line, ‘Fool!’

Seconds later, the jolly tune played again. Victor.

‘What?’

He took a deep breath, ‘Get to the window now and look across to the gate.’

‘Quit the mindless games, already. I can see it hasn’t occurred to you yet, but this stopped being funny a long time ago!’ he got there anyway, ‘What’s this?’

‘Tell me what you see.’

‘Okay,’ he searched for something prominent, ‘there’s a limo parked beside the road.’

‘Good boy. I want you to get dressed. Forget about a shower. Wash your passport photo or something. Pour a bottle of perfume on whatever outfit meets your fancy. I’m out. Look elegant.’

‘Hold it, you hired a limousine?’

‘You’re such a genius,’ though said plainly, it still had the intentional mocking twist to it. ‘Get dressed.’

‘Wait…’ excitement churned in his gut. Clutching the phone between his cheek and shoulder, he assigned both hands to pull on the knobs of the closet. ‘How about the tickets?’ he asked, yanking the doors open.

‘Shut up,’ Victor said, ‘everything’s set, darn it!’

Empty. From end to end of a wooden beam, orphaned metal hangers swung gently to the slender wind that hurried in. Allen probed downward. A rumpled heap of clothes spurted from the unzipped mouth of a duffel bag on the floor, piling skyward and tipping forward. He’d foreseen an avalanche. There’d be no time to shovel it back inside. He pushed the doors closed just a split-second before the clump could come tumbling down at his feet. Taking a short breath of relief, he leaned back.

‘Your girl’s waiting.’ Victor seemed to have hung up. Actually, he was speaking to someone in the background.

Allen was still a bit confused. He’d woken up rapidly, of course, and that time discrepancy had induced “jet lag”, but time was really skipping. He had to admit it made him feel like the young girl Cinderella, not anything beyond a housecleaner, who grew up despised by her stepmother and the two ugly stepsisters with whom she lived and for whom she worked (some old fairytale). Victor was the equivalent of the fairy godmother that, by flicking a magic wand, created a beautiful royal chariot out of a pumpkin, except, in this case, the pumpkin was the limo. Whoa, all of that just for me?

‘And one more thing,’ he was back, ‘please, uhm… decontaminate that mouth. You’ve slept eight complete hours. It ought to be a stink bomb in there. It’s a beautiful night… you never know what might happen, jus’ sayin’! See you soon.’

‘Hey buddy, uhm… what’s today?’

‘Friday,’ Victor said.

‘Um, the date?’ he said with embarrassment.

‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ he asked in disbelief, ‘August 31.’ He finally hung up.

Get dressed.

�"Prelude�"

12

Blue Moon

 

 

KNOWING THAT THAT WAS the second full moon in the month of August �" a blue moon �" Samantha feared that the worst of nightmares would appear on the scene from the mysterious land of disappointments.

For some, that night especially was the perfect time for a beautiful beginning. It was the impeccable moment for that delightful edge, not knowing where that brand new serendipity would lead them. It was a time to discover one’s soul mate, to be at one with the universe, and to cherish the passions one suffered for another. It was the ultimate symphony of love. Such people, to be sure, reckoned on the powers of a moon, glowing tenderly above the wispy clouds.

Most others, on the contrary, deemed nighttime as nothing more than a dour tyrant who never gave two hoots about the welfare of his subjects. And that peculiar power within a blue moon, they claimed, doted on locking them away in labyrinths profuse with bewildering marvels.

Samantha sourly admitted this terror had now extended its malevolence to her. Caught up in the clasp of uncertainty and terrorized by the strange turn of events, she’d upheld a glum diagram of worry as her only mien. Paranoia had surged in, and it’d forced her to watch her surroundings with unquenched suspicion. Overwhelmed by panic, she feared that, from the loneliness, something unimaginable would emerge. She shuddered at the dreadful understanding of what would soon become of the date that had sounded, from the humble onset, entertainingly uncomplicated.

Whilst the other students drove off in fabulous vehicles, as well as in cheap taxis, to the great Manor House down the hill where the party was to take place, Samantha kept nibbling at her nails. Her left foot did the anxious slip-jig all on its own, and although her gorgeous hazel gaze had clung to the couples surrounding her, seeming to beg for that comfort which the other girls had, she had her attention tethered to Allen’s unrewarding hostel. She’d hoped, with all her desire, to see him materialize from the darkness, primly chic in a suit tailored from tickets, and with an obese apology swelling on his tongue. Restlessness sent her pacing about the pavement, as if counting the small blocks that constructed it. As she swung left to right like a dozing baby, her wine colored Florentine Victorian dress expressed her curvy torso to match the delicate art of Michelangelo. She glanced right through the slits of the gate and a dismayed sigh followed after �" she looked away.

In that moment, a black limousine drove by and killed its silent engine near the pavement. Everybody was captivated as the driver’s tinted window dropped at a leisurely pace, revealing an expert chauffeur. They could tell he was a professional because of the cap, his stillness, too (like a dressmaker’s dummy). The students wondered as they gawked with towering inquisitiveness, who would step out. They only needed to know what rich brat booked a limousine, a professional chauffeur moreover, simply for a ball that would hardly endure a night.

Samantha marched a few steps away from the gate to wait near the limousine on the off chance that Allen would pop out of it, flapping Tinkerbell’s wings, and wearing a pair of shoes borrowed from Peter Pan. Possibly also blowing a whistle and screaming ‘Surprise, surprise!’ as though his sentence to an asylum had recently been lifted. She realized how stupid the idea was, and she imagined reality. She brought to mind the cruelty of nighttime and the shadow of sorrow hiding in the camouflage of the gloomy sky. Or behind that freakish full moon!

The thought just hiked her anxiety by the minute, thanks a lot to herself! She took a disinclined peek into her crocodile-skin purse to have her iPhone announce that only seven minutes to go and Allen would be a complete, shameful hour late. She nibbled harder on her nails that there was nothing left of them now.

It was decision time. Her pride was badly injured. She’d started to choke on her emotions. Everyone understands how terribly rude it is keeping a lady waiting. Yet again, she thought, he seemed real, personable, and quite humble too. He had a brilliant smile, a great appetite for math (a wizard at it too), he danced with a gecko for her entertainment, and he made her laugh all in a remarkably short time. There’s probably more where that came from.

What was she supposed to do? You can always give people a second chance. It’s not as though he had no logical explanation whatsoever for it. Yet again, isn’t a delay that long rather demonic?

There started an Armageddon deep inside Samantha’s heart. Such violent war, she was certain, would soon spill over as tears. Or furious laughter. It was always one or the other for her, and sometimes both.

�"Prelude�"

13

Mirror, Mirror

 

 

TONIGHT WAS THE SORT of party that demanded a particular dress code from the…1900s? Whatever! Well, it wasn’t your typical costume party, and, typical of a freshman, the nitty-gritty details were rather nebulous to Allen. The night commemorated someone, so it seemed, or maybe something.

The entire sartorial affair wasn’t even distantly lucid. So he was searching for a suit, possibly three-pieced, wait a minute… Victoria Edward College. Very well then, think Victorian era, somewhere within the 1800s, and a few decades later.

Accordingly, as Victorian garments were for the girls, he had to dress up as an Edwardian gentleman. It was the first time in his life that ladies were generally supposed to be older than gentlemen were. Girls, 1837 and beyond, while boys, 1901, and it was such a simple equation. He was on the right track after all. He needed something stiff and formal.

Before going in, he took a deep breath, counting down from ten, counting what bits of the ensemble he’d require, and ferreting about their supposed location in his mind.

He snuck a quick once-over into the shady opening between the closet doors and instantly spotted exactly what he was hoping to find lying amidst the dirty laundry. They were the only antique clothes stashed in there, and were actually too dingy for a laundry machine to clean out. He’ll have to pretend he’s merely taking drastic interest in his proposed character �" an old-fashioned, high-ranking laird from a history book.

He yanked the doors open again; his hand stretched out with the skillful maneuver of a chameleon’s tongue and quickly snatched the suit. He shut the wardrobe. No avalanche, phew!

He thought himself as lucky to have found that promenade costume, literally from the past, still dwelling amongst his favorites. The suit was a hand-me-down from one of his great grandfathers. He was sure it dated back to before the twentieth century, possibly the 1870s (he’d just rounded it off to King Edward’s era). But who was going to know anyway?

As he gussied up, he’d thought to take no trouble digging up the garments’ point of origin (and don’t blame him �" his family tree had twisted roots).

Now inspecting it with a suspicious eye, he suddenly felt that perhaps it might just be a tiny bit necessary tracing back who first wore it. He was only trying to avoid putting on an ensemble that housed thousands of demons from who gives a hoot when or where!

He placed himself in front of the mirror. Every detail was just so, and each article was neatly arranged �" lavish and elegant, exceedingly extravagant… ancient.

What made for an outer garment was a dress coat of black ribbed worsted cloth, front edges and skirts cut away, with the corners meticulously rounded off. All edges and cuffs were bound with fine braid cloth, two buttons at the hind arm seams, long, well-thrown back turnovers lined with black glace silk, and pockets on the hips topped by square flaps. It included a black poplin waistcoat, paisley quilting, without a collar. Trousers were of black cashmere while dancing boots were made from leather.

In simplicity and without pretension of allure, he made an excellent point adding a cravat in place of a bowtie, the purity of white kid gloves, and a pocket watch that would surely come in handy, too. If he were up to impressing Samantha with his etiquette and punctuality, this was just the ticket. No pun intended.

Then, it dawned on him that, much as he was dressed precisely as the occasion, he did not look half as proud as the laird he’d imagined. But this… this innocent-looking boy in the glass, staring back at him, he was the spitting image of a simple, young man with millions to spoil, yet who lived on his deceased father’s wits and hard work. He observed as his reflection suddenly loosened and took on a dismayed expression.

‘Papa’s hard work?’ he chuckled and put up a smile; faint, silly, and that only made him feel embarrassed about his futile efforts to conceal the frustration of a life without a… papa. He brushed it off his mind with a stronger smile. Perhaps one that hoped to draw the best from the night. ‘You never know what might happen,’ he mimicked in the mirror and moisture fogged it up. ‘Cripes, my breath sure reeks.’

About his mouth, he did what was necessary. After slicking his untidy brown hair with gel, winking at his double, he dashed out with fingers crossed.

�"Prelude�"

14

Wakeup Call

 

 

ONE WARM STARBURST GLOWING softly against the darkened building was everything Samantha’s desperate look could see through the decorated rings of the wrought iron gate. Her twinkling wet eyes had started running. Allen should have taken a good look at her as she now typified a miserable old nanny who’d served her master pretty well a couple of lifetimes that she’d do anything to retire.

‘What’s taking him so long?’ she’d never been in the habit of talking to herself. At this point, however, she couldn’t help but say it, and the tone had sounded raw.

She thought hey, what the heck. The famous, now somewhat infamous, Allen Finn was never her master �" she was well at liberty to quit whenever she pleased.

Now perfectly aware that he could never be anywhere near ready, she broke down. Silent sobs snuck out of her mouth as she’d tried, all to no avail, bridling them. That urge to break down in torrents of tears had turned into a beast too powerful to subdue.

She glanced at the sky, expecting the all-convenient rain. Nothing? She suspected she’d end up in a cliché, folded up in a corner, whichever corner would do, as rain comes washing away her sad tears. Poof, if waiting an hour wasn’t commonplace enough!

Working with clichés taught her that she’d have to become evil. She’d have to pick up a claw hammer and murder all the “popular” nerds at Vicky. Maybe on Valentine’s Day. Beginning with Allen. Maybe even better, she’d kill on every blue moon, once every three years.

None of this was worth her time anyway. Just standing there (the mere standing there waiting on Allen) was like waiting for the blue moon itself.

Her focus shifted for a tiny moment to the limo that rested as still as a Pyramid of Giza. The chauffeur, too, sat in it like some pale-faced mannequin.

From dozens of couples that once filled the sidewalks, there was only one left to go, and even though the gray Mercedes to carry them away was right there waiting, the two decided they should kiss each other some more (in her presence), before getting in.

Little wonder why, on such nights, they’d often end up manic in bed, Samantha thought. The routine had always been the same. The prelude would kick off the moment they throw themselves at the mercy of hours of hardcore calculus until it drives them mad. Then, they’d come across a healthy mate between the library shelves, healthy in the context seen from a demented appearance brought on by unbearable boredom (and, of course, a bizarre posture that illustrates a swine in heat). And finally, they’d binge on each other only to awaken the next morning to one hell of a brutal hangover, screaming ‘Holy Smokes!’ as they hasten to peek at their pubes and discover just how hard they’d done it to each other.

Yuck! She couldn’t give a care about that now. Fine that Allen had so far fired up the modus operandi with calculus and all… the calculus in room 14, all right, his handwriting in her notebook and whatnot, but he was obviously not thinking about obliging her tonight.

Feeling that sour blend of frustration and jealousy suffocating her, she pushed focus back to the unrewarding lit room in an orgy of indignation. The same stupid feeling she got while solving that stupid equation with him had returned to haunt her.

‘Am I truly this worthless?’ she knew she said it only to wallow deeper in self-pity. ‘What was I thinking?’ she chuckled, a mechanism for fighting tears. She looked around to see if anybody heard the sorrow in her voice, but of course, at that juncture, there was a still silence, and she didn’t have to worry about the mannequin.

She finally accepted that there was no way of controlling the silent tears that painted two wobbly Mississippi of mascara as they trickled down her lovely cheeks to drip off her chin.

‘I’m not going,’ she whispered. It sounded definite through those clenched teeth. No matter how much she tried, she just couldn’t swallow down that huge muffin of emotion blocking her throat.

With all that self-pity now replaced by an entirely new feeling �" resentment (possibly hatred) �" she swung the heavy iron structure and scurried away. Her heels almost broke with every hard knock against the cobblestone path. That feeling of rage had vaporized her breath, subliming all the warm feelings she’d so far suffered for him. It was dark, on top of which those tears fogging her vision made it nearly impossible finding her way back to her room. She ran into somebody.

Gentle hands wrapped around her, ‘Samantha, I’m here,’ a soothing voice spoke. Just then, the door to the limousine opened. Victor stepped out.

How convenient!

‘The chariot’s waiting,’ said Victor while holding the brim of his trilby at a rakish angle.

Samantha looked up at Allen who, still embracing her body, did not take long to notice how much she had cried. On the other hand, she instantly made notice of the perfume factory explosion. Victor’s advice had come in a tad too handy.

‘Allen,’ she snuffled. ‘I’m sorry.’

He cut her sobs short. ‘No, I should be,’ he launched the soon to be discarded futile apology. ‘You don’t deserve this, we both know that, and I’m terribly sorry.’

‘I’m afraid, I �"’ her raccoon eyes touched the ground for a moment. They hesitated on the round moon another moment and eventually rolled back at him. ‘I can’t go!’

‘Uh,’ he wasn’t sure he heard her. ‘What are you saying?’

‘It’s a little too late, Allen. I can’t.’

‘Sam �"’

‘Hey,’ she sounded threatening, ‘need I point out how you kept me waiting out here in the cold for over one lousy hour?’ she was interrupted by armed forces of loud sobs, and after finding her breath, she concluded. ‘Find someone else to date. I’m thinking I, for one, will not do it!’

He grabbed her as she tried to escape. ‘Samantha, please don’t leave. It’s my first date,’ he pleaded. ‘If you let me, I can explain everything later on. Right now, all is set. All we need to do is get in the limo and disappear. It’ll be great, I promise.’ He chuckled in a silly way, quite assuring though.

She observed the sincerity leaking through his eyes and pity spilled from her fragmented heart. Pity for him (her poor self, too, she had to be honest). That sincerity would never be sufficient glue to fix this. Her sense of right and wrong wandered on an isthmus, poised between the hurt that throbbed through her bones and the contrite mask on his face.

She shook her head in adamant disagreement, slackening from his clasp. ‘It’s not some fairytale experience that I long for,’ a hand gestured to the limo, ‘I just wanted to be with you.’

‘Let’s be together then.’ He was losing it.

‘I’m only being polite,’ her tone rose, sending shivers down Allen’s spine. She parried a hand that reached out to touch her and shoved him away. ‘I do not intend to be with you, here or any place else in the world. The truth is I feel like slapping you into a coma, and that is no joke! Don’t hold me back, I beg you. All I want is for you to leave me alone. I’m tired, and my chest hurts.’

She escaped. This time she ran away. Her cries synchronized with the pounding stilettos beneath the hitched dress, echoing the brutality of sheer failure.

The dark figure. In the light of the moon, and despite all else, it was clearer. It was getting closer. Whispering. Hovering. Warping out shape and back in shape, smoke and fire �" black fire. The whispers became louder as it got even closer. However, they were unintelligible. Allen could not make out the words. It was rushing to him, like a ghost. Surprisingly, he wasn’t threatened by it. The hissing got louder the closer it got. The distance between them was no more.

He shut his eyes. Utter darkness took over. A hand rested on his shoulder and started shaking him savagely.

‘Wake up, Allen!’ Victor screamed into his ear, ‘Wake up!’

�"Prelude�"

15

Dream Scar

 

Room 215, Victoria Edward College

Monday, 20 August 2012. 06.15 am

‘WAKE UP, ALLEN!’ VICTOR’S voice blustered, ‘Wake up!’

As his eyes slowly opened, he saw Victor in a white tank top, check boxer shorts, and a toothbrush in his mouth.

Allen started, jumped out of a navy blue duvet, and awakened to an awful migraine.

‘Aargh!’ holding his head between his palms, he screamed and squeezed hard. ‘What’s happening?’ his eyes shut in pain. The pain came from all over his body. He tried opening them but everything around him warped out of shape and spun in circles. He pressed his wrists into the eye sockets. It took a while for relief to come by.

‘How do you feel?’ Victor asked.

‘Terrible!’ another agonized yell made it out. ‘Had I fainted?’

Pulling the trembling hands away from his veiny forehead, Allen noticed how pale the skin was, greenish even. Confusion suffused his reddening face as he studied the surrounding. He was back in the room, on his bed, in his striped pajamas.

Coughs suddenly spurted from his lungs with watery gags. He stood up rapidly, thumping a fist on his ribcage, also set to run in whichever direction.

‘Hey, relax,’ Victor said as he grabbed hold of him and pressed him down by the shoulders. ‘Your eyes are red, breathing is short, and your thinking’s shallow �" you’re in shock. Calm down, okay, and wait for the ache to peter.’

‘Where is she?’ he stood up again and rammed his chest into the friend like a buffalo.

‘Hey, listen to me, just calm down!’ he yelled, taking the impact like a man. ‘You need to lie down first.’

‘No!’ Allen’s teeth slammed together. ‘Let me go!’ every time his mouth opened, he sounded like he was in labor. Victor grappled with him for a while until he was able to wrestle him down again. ‘Tell me what’s going on!’

‘You drowned!’ he said. ‘Remember, you drowned.’

Allen stopped. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You nearly died last night,’ he explained.

Allen’s panic had again overwhelmed him. He was up, a bit patiently though (so horrified he had to take it easy), heading straight to the window where curtains danced to the friendly morning breeze.

‘You fell in the river.’ Victor said more, in an accent distorted by the froth of toothpaste in his mouth. ‘Somebody saved your life.’

Allen felt the edges of the window. They felt real. ‘No, no, no…’ he shook his head in denial as the aroma of wet dirt in the wind rushed into his nostrils. He stared from the high building at the pavements down below, darker and polished by dew. The rains had stopped. The sun rose amidst a cold morning mist, dropping its red reflection on the diminishing wet patches. The gutters were still flowing with rainwater from last night’s terrible storm.

His sight ventured ahead. There was a fallen pole at the gate, lying across the driveway with pylons intertwined like spaghetti. A group of men in blue overalls (the typical garb for electricians) seemed to be working on it. The road behind the wrought iron gate was torn apart, as if there was an earthquake in the night.

‘This… this is… this doesn’t make any sense.’ Allen turned to face his friend. ‘What’s today?’

‘Dude, you sleep like a fat baby,’ Victor said, brushing his teeth. ‘And I think you’d better start getting dressed up for the first lecture.’

‘What’s the date?’

‘Monday, 20 August, quarter past six. Is there a point to all this?’

‘Whoa-ho, wait… Monday?’ he stared. ‘Hold on a second… Monday?’ he asked again. ‘What is happening to me?’ he cracked his fingers, and the aggression with which he did so was disturbing. ‘I can’t have been dreaming.’

Victor pulled a grotesque face. ‘Is that question for me?’ he cracked up, ‘I guess that’s what happens when people retire to sleep �" one of nature’s curiosities.’

Allen glanced at the bedside table only to learn that Mr. Homer Simpson, whom he’d so savagely destroyed, was still sitting there, well as new, his belly proclaiming the quarter past six, and crisscross eyes gawking.

His glance fell on the floor and immediately saw the wet footprints left by his sneakers, leading a muddy trail from the door to the bed. His skinny jeans were soaked and rumpled on the floor just a meter away from the Stop Global Warming T-shirt in the same state. The leather jacket dripped on a peg hanging on the wall. He threw up.

‘Oh come on! Seriously?’ screamed Victor. ‘You had to puke. Terrific!’

Allen stopped and swallowed the urge. Seconds later, the sound of a toilet flush gurgled out of him. He puked again.

Victor glared. ‘And again on the floor, incredible!’ he spat the froth of toothpaste in a basin screwed into the wall. ‘Okay, you’re freaking me out now,’ he said, taking a break to wash his mouth. ‘I know drowning’s a little weird, but that �"’

‘Shut up, don’t say a word,’ Allen said with a finger wagging in the air. Not the middle finger. ‘You don’t understand, OK.’ He squeezed his own throat. ‘There was a limo, the freshman party, I had a date, and it was Friday night. Next week. How is it Monday?’

‘Frankly, I also don’t see why Monday should be the second day of the week, but I can’t change the Gregorian calendar. That’s just the way it is.’ He said in a carefree manner, now inspecting his teeth in the mirror. ‘Look, you are not making any sense except the sense that your dream was way over crazy. Limousine? You clearly need to grow up.’

‘Vic �"’ he said in horror, because it was all starting to piece together now. He gradually began to detach himself from the dream. It really was a dream. He felt a tug on his tether to reality. He was dizzy, but he could remember something from last night, Sunday.

‘Mhm’hm.’ Victor’s shorts dropped, leaving him butt-naked. Allen shoved his vision sidewise, avoiding eye contact with Victor’s funny business. ‘All right, listen �"’

‘Wait…’ Allen barged, ‘it was dark,’ it was all starting to come. He sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I was in the library. The lights had gone off. She’d asked us to leave. Aha, streetlamps were blowing up. Something had shifted the path… no, I was on the bridge. Somebody pushed me. I hung over the parapet.’

‘Yes. You fell in the river, in the eventuality.’

‘Canal…’ he corrected. Allen was thoroughly lost for words; half because of the muddle in his head, and in part because of Victor just standing there naked.

Victor had the physic of a ball player, which he was. Volleyball. And he seemed very proud of it. Allen hated that the only sport he could play was… uhm… he didn’t… couldn’t play any sport.

Anyway, that had actually happened. He’d almost died, as Victor had said. And the rest was all a dream. Well, the vividness of the… his dream was beyond his psyche �" it was tangible. He wasn’t willing to accept that it was all just a dream. In fact, he was convinced Victor had something naughty to do with it.

‘But that’s all I remember.’

‘A girl named Leslie saved your life,’ Victor explained. He reached into his closet. ‘I’d say you owe her your life.’

‘Who?’ asked Allen.

‘Rumor has it that she pulled you out of the river about seven minutes after you �"’

‘Canal…’

‘Excuse me?’

‘It’s a canal, Victor, not a river.’

‘I’m the one telling the story here,’ he retorted and sighed heavily. ‘She pulled you out of the river and left. She must have given you the kiss of life too.’

Allen looked up at him, silent for a moment. ‘Why… why’d she save me and leave?’ he finally said. ‘Uh… mean, why didn’t she wait for me to come round?’

‘That’s the mystery, boy,’ he licked a finger, slicked his brows, and pointed with the same finger, ‘and there’s more.’ He got into a pair of fine trousers, possibly an orphan of a suit. ‘Leslie denies it. She says she had an early night. She was nowhere near the storm. But, all of her peers seem pretty sure they saw her.’

‘Do you know any of them?’

He looked at Allen with fatigue. ‘Do I know any of them?’ he repeated sarcastically. ‘No, Allen, I don’t. The twins brought your almost dead body here, if you must know everything. I say you thank them also.’

‘The Scalawags?’ he asked in disbelief.

‘Yep,’ Victor piped. ‘If I were you, I’d find the girl and ask her out. I mean, this mystery girl came out of nowhere, saved your life, and disappeared, taking no credit for it.’

Allen looked away in thought.

‘Uhm, but let’s get back to how you ended up at the bottom of the river.’

‘Canal,’ he corrected softly. ‘Somebody… I don’t know whom, all I know is she was running, and the next thing, I was wallowing, sinking, and drowning, and…’

‘Was it an accident?’ he asked. ‘Or did she push you?’

Allen gave it a thought. ‘Well, she… she didn’t bother to help me… and there was something she said. Something strange…’

Victor gestured him to spit out the words.

Allen’s face was blank.

‘How is it that you won’t remember what happened last night, only a matter of hours?’

‘Hey, between what happened then and right now is this large barrier, OK. I had these weird loops and hiatuses in time. There was this special girl in my dream. Samantha. She was new, I’d asked her out, and she was pretty…’ he said as if he were going to cry.

‘O’ right, time out!’ he chopped his palm. ‘So, did you get a chance to see what she looked like?’

‘Of course, I did,’ Allen said quickly, ‘I was with her the entire time. She had dark hair and beautiful brown eyes. Very large eyes. Her lips were, you know, like when you get a knife, a sharp one, and you begin to carve out bits of a strawberry �"’

‘Al, snap out of it,’ Victor slapped him on the cheek. ‘Forget the dream girl. What can you say about the girl that pushed you?’

‘Victor, I’m alive.’ He stood and walked back to the window. ‘That’s the important thing.’

‘You almost died.’ Victor said harshly. ‘This could be something bigger.’

Allen hissed, ‘Pessimist.’

‘I’m not the one who can’t swim in a tiny river.’ Victor fired back. ‘If memory serves, and I’m sure it does, not so long ago I’d offered to teach you the dog paddle, free of charge.’

‘Not so long �" eight years ago?’ Allen chuckled. ‘Remember that came at the cost of my left testicle.’

He was ten, Victor eleven. He wanted the testicle for surgery. Some experiment he came up with that sought to understand geniuses. He proposed that, as opposed to most researchers who posited research in the brain, the real answers were to be found in the thing… the left one.

‘Anyone with a business mind would agree that was a giveaway price.’

‘M’hm,’ he was thinking about her again. Not half his entire life had he ever known a girl going by the name Samantha. She never existed. Room 14 never had a new girl. Today was the third week since admissions closed, there was no way a new student would simply walk into college. ‘What kind of messed up dream was that?’

‘The kind that leaves you wet in the morning.’ Victor said. ‘Check yourself.’

Allen gave him a disgusted squint. ‘You need help.’

‘Not as much as you need Oprah.’ He giggled. ‘Too bad, her show was discontinued. Hey, there’s still Ellen DeGeneres, right?’

‘Am I missing something?’

‘But seriously, when was the last time you ever spoke to a girl, huh? And don’t… not the girl from your dream.’

‘Yesterday,’ Allen said as if he’d just chewed the seed of a lemon.

‘I mean a decent girl,’ his expression plunged. ‘Scarlett doesn’t count.’

‘I wasn’t referring to her.’ He said, ‘You’re right, though.’

‘Oh ain’t I?’ he said with feigned modesty. ‘The bare-bottomed truth is that she likes you, she wants you all for herself, and she will stop at nothing to have you walk arm-in-arm with her so all the other girls burn with envy. End of story.’

‘It wasn’t her.’

‘Oh uhm, Die Anna doesn’t count either,’ he got up after tying the laces of his shoes, ‘in fact, not at all.’

‘I think it is pronounced Diana,’ Allen shot him a lazy stare, ‘and that is not the nicest thing to say about people.’

‘Yes, sir!’ he saluted.

 

***

Accepting reality, ‘Uhm,’ he swallowed hard, quite ashamed that his mind had pulled a darned good one on him. A sigh of discomfiture puffed out of his nose as he said, ‘Do you know any girl called Samantha?’

‘The girl from your dream?�"No.’ Victor nearly choked. ‘Where’s this going?’

Allen’s face flushed, ‘I had a nightmare about my first date.’

Loud giggles chimed in Victor’s gigantic mouth, ‘What, the limo had overturned?’

‘It’s probably not that funny.’

‘Come to think of it this way,’ he pointed with the toothbrush, it was flat from overuse, yellow and with red bolts along its length (but that’s beside the point), ‘we’ve both heard about going on a dream date, right?’ he was waiting for a nod of the head. ‘Honestly, I just don’t think there’s anything as sick as going on a date in a dream, especially when the date is a girl who doesn’t exist at all.’

After a problematic moment of silence, Victor noticed how serious Allen was about his stupid dream, so he walked up to him, held him on the shoulder like usual.

‘Oh, cheer up, Al,’ he said, ‘it was only a dream.’

Author's Note

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