In honor of all my pirate and circus-performing friends. I haven't posted anything in a long time. Partly because I haven't written anything in a long time. But along with this being in honor of circuses and pirates, it is also in honor of the "whatever happens to be in your head that somehow ends up on paper" kind of stuff.
Criticism is always great, but if you have any old-fashioned, clean-cut acknowledgment, that's pretty good too. Sometimes I just need to be acknowledged... in proper English too.
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They had left me, and I was pretty sure they weren’t ever going to come back. I didn’t want pity. I had known all along that it would happen at some point, and I had even guessed at what point that would be. That was my problem. I could always guess.
The waves were tinted with the last gold of the sunset, and the ugly brown sand looked bleak and desolate under my feet. I wondered if I would start being an insomniac now, like last time, but then I banished the thought and turned around, trudging back up the vague slope to where my car awaited me.
It was getting chilly, and as I pulled the door open, I welcomed the stuffy warm air that had decided to hang out in my car while I was gone. Once I had closed the door, though, I could guess that I wasn’t alone. Wanting to ignore my infernal guessing, I started the engine and began to back out, but then a hand on the back of the passenger seat startled me so badly that I stalled, and then everything was quiet.
“If there is a head that belongs to that hand --” I cleared my throat -- “could it please make itself known.” The back seat of the car was too dark to see anything more than a breathing silhouette. And as far as I could tell, it wasn’t a normal breathing silhouette.
“What?” it said. “You can’t see me?” And with that, it vaulted itself into the passenger seat, the last rays of a California sunset illuminating its displeasing features.
“Beautiful… Jonathan,” I said, feeling more grateful that I wasn’t a girl than I had in a long time. Well, that sounds unlike how I wanted it to sound, but I think you can guess what I mean. And if you can’t, then we really have nothing in common, so I doubt any of this will make much sense to you anyway. “And you are in my car, why?”
Jonathan studied me, his fickle expression shifting like a holographic image. His always smiling mouth seemed to have grown stale, and he lacked the cheeriness I remembered at odd intervals. The sun made his hair a deep, jet color when really it was scarcely darker than mine -- his eyes were grey slits, and still on me.
“I was thinking,” he said after a while.
I nodded; impatient, irritated, and frightened.
“I was thinking about you.”
“And…” I said slowly, “how long has this been going on?” I liked how I sounded like a concerned shrink, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Well, as you can see, I came across your car while I was chasing mine, and I realized how lucky I am to know you. Or, more precisely, how lucky I am that you rarely lock your car. But more importantly, how lucky you are that I didn’t hot wire it, as you know I can, and make it my own without a second thought.”
I wasn’t following him. And then I was following him. And then I was sighing with relief. “Oh, if that’s all, then --”
“But that’s not all,” he said, patting my cheek. “I’m rarely done before I’m finished.”
“Oh,” I said.
“As I was saying, you are lucky -- no, I already said that.” He paused. “Oh yes, that’s what it was.” He paused again. “They knocked me out too.”
It was my turn to pause. Jonathan? Who had been foolish enough to disenfranchise lovely Jonathan? What kind of death wish were they entertaining? Clearly, knowing Jonathan, not an ordinary one.
“As I can see that you are speechless, I will continue. You see, I made a mistake. I married Clarissa.”
I grimaced. Who would marry Clarissa? Or, more importantly, who would marry Jonathan? And then I felt that sickening sensation in my stomach that meant that Clarissa was probably somewhere nearby. “No,” I said. “No.” I swallowed. “You -- um -- you are --”
“No, but I was. Don’t worry, though, she’s dead now.”
For a moment I held my breath -- dead where? Please not in the back of my car, or in the engine, or pureed at the nearest Starbucks. Jonathan looked like he was going to laugh, but I stopped him with my expression of greatest distaste and displeasure. Or at least I think that’s what stopped him, but that might be assuming too much.
“So, she’s dead,” I said casually, uncomfortable with a murderer sitting beside me. Maybe it was dumb to assume that he had killed her, but probably not.
“Yep,” he said thoughtfully, his tone resembling that of a fourteen-year-old boy acknowledging the date and time that a boring project was due.
There was a short silence where I debated whether or not to ask the “how and why and where” questions, but my curiosity won the debate, and my immediate regret was illustrated perfectly in Jonathan’s ever-changing face. When Jonathan wasn’t happy, you could wisely assume that this would effect you in, usually, a negative way. Although I always liked to use the pasta example whenever I upset him, just to calm my nerves. Once, when I had only known Jonathan a few weeks, I broke one of his favorite asian figurines, and for my punishment, he made me eat an entire pot of buttery pasta. I pretended that I was disgusted, but… I wasn’t. It was good.
“Anyway,” said Jonathan suddenly, patting my cheek a little harder than might be considered affectionate, “I was thinking of crashing at your place for a few days, while all this blows over. How does that sound?”
What he meant was, ‘The police are looking for me, and I need to endanger the life and sanity of an expendable person, and you happened to be nearby, so I’m going to take over your apartment and your life, and if you complain or argue, unpleasant things will occur, and they will probably have nothing to do with pasta.’ This being the case, I nodded agreeably, and smiled even more agreeably, and when I felt like Jonathan was genuinely assured of my agreeableness, I left the grey-green of the pitching ocean, and drove into what I suspected was going to be a very disagreeable night.
Gender:
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