A short story (or it was at first). After you read this, it'll seem really strange, but I had this as a dream a couple nights ago. o_O At the end, you'll think I'm lying, but it's true. I dreamt this one night. Go ahead and read, crit, comment, whatever. Let me know if I should consider expanding it.
Key:
Cyan: See – Anne
Ide: Eye – Dee
Cyan Ide
“Daddy, this way! The food’s this way!”
“Lead the way, Melanie.”
The small girl squeezed my hand tightly and pulled me down the school halls. I watched my daughter run ahead of me, her long bushy brown hair flying behind her. She started running now, our heels echoing on the polished wooden floors. Parents waiting to see the teachers watched us bound down the halls, some with disgust, some with amusement. The children watched us, some with amazement, some with humor.
Melanie turned a corner and ran some more. I was out of breath already. I began to slow down, pulling Melanie down with me. Melanie whined and looked up at me with big brown eyes that made me smile. “C’mon, Dad! We’re almost there!”
I took a moment to catch my breath before replying, “I haven’t ran that much in a really long time! I don’t get recess anymore, you know.”
Melanie sighed. “Okay, we can walk, but hurry, Dad! Hurry!”
I chuckled as Melanie pulled me down the halls again, this time at a fast-paced walk. “What’s the rush?”
“The food’ll be all gone!” Melanie said. “And Katy wants me to save her a spot!”
We continued hurrying down the halls until Melanie turned into the cafeteria, crowded with parents and children Melanie’s age, more or less. The cafeteria was so big, the wooden floors and walls cleaned or polished. The wooden beams in the ceiling held fans that slowly spun around to cool off the room. It reminded me of a grand hall, but it also reminded me that my wife grew up in this school which had once consisted of grades kindergarten through twelve. Now it was only kindergarten through fifth, but was still used for special events by the upper grades such as dances or fairs.
“Let’s get in line, Dad!” Melanie pulled me over, catching me off guard. My the time I caught my balance, we ended up in the long line for the buffet. Old women wearing hairnets and gloves dished up food onto the plates. Slowly the line grew with more families behind us, but we slowly got closer to the buffet.
By the time we got there, Melanie took two plates and handed one to me.
“Thank you,” I said and Melanie smiled.
“You’re welcome!” she said cheerfully and turned around to look at the buffet. She gasped. “Hotdogs!”
I loved parent-teacher conferences here because they served dinner. I didn’t have to cook for a change. It seemed like they try to encourage parents to come to conferences by serving dinner. Well, it worked for our two-person family. I don’t like cooking.
“Hotdog, please!” Melanie said, holding up her paper plate. The woman laughed as she fitted the hotdog into the bun.
“For you, sir?” she asked as I looked over the hotdogs and the hamburgers.
“Hamburger, please,” I said, “with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, and…ooh, pickles, too,” I finished as I spotted the round green circles of delight at the end of the buffet table. The second woman took the burger and fulfilled my order. She handed me the plate and I said my thanks before following Melanie to the second table where the salads and fruits sat.
“Grapes!” Melanie reached to pluck one off the vine and ate it before I caught her. “Mmm! Delicious!” She took a batch of grapes that had enough for the two of us. I decided to just get the salad and eat the grapes with her. I poured the ranch dressing atop the lettuce, sprinkled some cheese on, then followed Melanie to one of the six long tables to sit at.
“Here, Dad. We’ll sit here. Katy can sit here,” she patted the seat next to her as we sat down. Melanie began eating her hotdog, and I took a bite out of my hamburger. We ate in silence for a while until another small girl with blonde hair seated herself next to Melanie.
“Fruit salad?” Melanie squeaked as she saw the delicious fruit salad on Katy’s plate.
“Uh huh!” Katy said proudly. “It was right next to the salad.”
Melanie looked over to me, her eyes falling on the lettuce salad then to me. “Did you see the fruit salad?”
“’Fraid not,” I replied. “I was too busy thinking how many grapes you picked up.”
Melanie giggled then looked back to her friend. Another woman came over and sat next to Katy. She also had blonde hair like Katy, gorgeous blue eyes that shone under fluttering eyelashes. Her lips were a bubblegum pink, her face smooth as baby’s skin.
“Hi, Mrs. Kelly,” Melanie said politely.
Mrs. Kelly? I cursed under my breath.
“Why, hello, Miss. Melanie,” Kelly said kindly.
“Hey, mom,” Katy spoke up, “do you have any extra fruit salad Melanie can have?”
Kelly thought before saying, “No, I’m afraid not. I have an apple, though.”
“No thanks,” Melanie said with disgust.
“Melanie doesn’t like apples,” Katy whispered to Kelly.
“Ah,” Kelly simply said and picked up her fork to eat at her lettuce salad. I smiled without knowing, staring at Kelly with awe. When she looked up at me and silently giggled, I caught myself and returned to my food, my face going red-hot.
The two girls talked the whole time, eating as they chatted. I listened to Melanie and it reminded me of her mother. It ached to think of her, but I didn’t have to think for long.
“Daddy, me and Katy are going to get some cake.”
“Go ahead, princess,” I said. I watched Melanie and Katy run off to the buffet tables, leaving me and Kelly alone. I shifted uncomfortably and stared at my bare paper plate.
“You’re Melanie’s father?”
I looked up at Kelly, a bit shocked that she spoke to me. I nodded and said, “Y-yes, I’m Jerry—Jerry Goldsman.”
Kelly smiled. “I’m Kelly Jones, Katy’s aunt.”
My brow furrowed suddenly. “You’re not her mother? I thought—” I stopped and flushed. It was rude of me to say that to her. I looked away, but Kelly only giggled, making my face burn even hotter.
“No, I’m her aunt. My brother and his wife died in a car crash last year,” she said gravely. “Katy’s been in my care ever since. I was the closest relative.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I muttered.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Kelly said, waving the subject aside. “Forgive and forget. I didn’t mean to scare you,” she added quickly.
“Oh, not at all,” I replied and hesitated before I continued. “My wife…already…”
“Oh.” Kelly’s face fell sympathetically. “I’m sorry about that.”
An awkward silence fell between us. Getting a little uneasy, I looked up to find Melanie. I found Katy holding a small plate of chocolate cake, carefully making her way back so she didn’t drop it. However, Melanie was no where in sight.
“What’s wrong?” Kelly asked, looking concerned at the sight of me.
I didn’t reply. I sat up straighter to look above the heads of the crowd, looking everywhere for my little girl, but I couldn’t find her. Katy soon arrived and sat down by Kelly.
“Katy,” I said, breathing quickly, “where’s Melanie?”
“She was right behind me—” Katy turned around and didn’t see Melanie either. “I can go look, Jerry, if you want.”
“No, no, I’ll go look,” I said. I stood up from my chair and walked toward the buffet, thinking I’ll find Melanie talking to some other classmate, or her teacher pulled her aside.
I arrived at the desserts, but no Melanie. I started to panic. Where was Melanie?
“Melanie!” I called out. Parents and children started looking at me. The parents were very concerned at the sight of my worry and began looking around for that familiar cheerful girl or asking their own children where their classmate was.
“Melanie—”
I stopped at the sight of a woman standing a doorway I have never noticed. It lay behind the buffet tables, looking like a pantry door, for the door slid into the doorframe. The woman had long dirty blonde hair, her eyes seemed to be blue-green, but I could hardly see at the distance we stood apart. However, her gaze was strong and almost frightening.
Then she vanished.
I ran toward the door, excusing myself from the people I ran into or the children I knocked over.
“Excuse me, sir!” shrieked one of the hairnet women.
I didn’t pay attention. The door began to close. I didn’t think I’d make it, but I had to. I had to find Melanie, and this woman may know where she was. That sounded a bit absurd, but she at least seemed suspicious, and I may receive a reward if I caught her. We certainly could use some money.
I just made it through the door into a very narrow hallway. And very dirty too. Cobwebs decorated the wooden walls, ceiling, and floor; dust covered wooden crates that lay snug against the wall. I looked down one way, but no one was there. I looked down the other and found a heel disappear from around the corner. I followed.
I arrived at the doorway and looked down the hall where the heel was headed. No one was there. No one was the other way either. How could I lose her? There were no doorways in this hallway, though it was a bit wider than the one I arrived from. I walked down the direction the heel disappeared and came to another fork. This time, it was the school hallways.
I looked down one direction, but no one was there. I looked down the other—
I yelped loudly at the sight of the woman inches from my face. Our eyes interlocked at once and I saw nothing else but her different colored eyes; the left eye was blue-green, but her right eye had orange around the pupil. I had never seen such a sight. The colors intrigued me.
They intrigued me for too long. She suddenly took off. I hesitated before I remembered what I was doing. I ran after her, our heels echoing through the halls. No one else was here. Conferences were over and every one was eating in the cafeteria.
We soon ran outside. I ran as fast as I could. She could really run. I could hardly keep up. I took a few short cuts here and there, but they were not that short apparently.
She bolted across the streets in front of the moving vehicles. I usually would have stopped to wait for passing cars, like a good father would demonstrate for his child, but I didn’t think about it. I ran after her, pushing people aside and running into the intersection.
Cars honked loudly in my ears, people yelled insults in our direction. I heard a huge crash behind me and more screams from passersby. I didn’t look back. The woman was already almost out of sight.
The woman must have stopped because I was gaining on her. I picked up more speed if it was possible, but my legs felt like lead. A cramp grew in my side and I stopped in my tracks, in the middle of the street. Breaks screeched as the cars were brought to a stop to ignore running me over.
“Help me!” the woman shrieked and I looked up at her. She spoke to an officer. My heart skipped a beat and I began to step back. I was innocent, but the woman could bend the tale any way she wished to make it work out for her. “Help me! That man’s chasing me! My stalker!”
Stalker?!
The officer drew his gun immediately and pointed in the direction the woman pointed—at me. I took another step back, my eyes wide with horror. Sweat beaded my face and my legs shook violently.
“Stop right there, sir!” the officer shouted, his gun not moving from me.
I looked to the woman, but she was gone. The officer’s stern look faded to confusion at the sight of my face’s expression and glanced quickly to where I was looking.
“She’s gone,” the officer muttered with disbelief. He looked around for the woman, paying no attention to me.
I saw her, though. She entered the building directly behind them, staring back at me through the glass doors. The other people in the small shop looked panic-stricken at the sudden entrance she made and now all glared at me.
Without thinking, I ran toward the doors and made to open them, but the people inside beat me to them and held them shut so I wouldn’t get in. I pulled frantically at the metal handles.
“Let me in!” I shouted, banging on the glass.
“Please, sir! That’s enough!”
Someone grabbed my wrists and pulled me back. I kicked at the doors as the officer dragged me back.
“My daughter! She has my daughter! Melanie…”
I wept. I fell to my knees, completely exhausted, and cried for my daughter. She was gone, and the officer will surely not hear me out. No one will defend me. Thinking back, I did look like a maniac, racing after a woman like any stalker would do. I looked like a criminal.
I looked up into the shop and the woman stood there, staring at me with her unique eyes and blank expression, her breathing normal as if she hadn’t ran at all. The people inside began to calm down from the sudden panic, the cars in the streets were being examined or towed. But the woman did nothing. At that moment, I knew what she was.
“A Cyan,” I muttered hollowly.
“Stand up,” the officer said sternly and pulled me up by the arm. He spoke through his walkie-talkie, but I didn’t hear what he mumbled in the speakers.
The Cyan didn’t move, and neither did my eyes.
“Follow me, please.”
I didn’t. I was dragged to the police car, my eyes glued to the Cyan.
“In the car, sir.”
I was pushed gently into the seat, my hand-cuffed hands placed neatly into the arm grooves of the seat. The door closed. I watched the store pass by as the officer drove off.
“A Cyan,” I muttered as I got one more look at the blank woman.
“A Cyan, eh?” the officer said, continuing conversation. “What’s that?”
“A Cyan…” my voice trailed off. I still couldn’t believe it. A Cyan.
“What’s your name?”
“Jerry…Goldsman…” my voice sounded empty.
I heard him mutter something, probably in his walkie-talkie, but I didn’t care, nor pay attention. A moment of silence fell between us.
“History professor, eh?” the officer finally said.
Yes, that’s true.
“You live with your daughter only.”
Yes, that’s also true.
The officer looked into his rearview mirror at me, realizing I wasn’t answering him. “What’s a Cyan?”
I didn’t answer right away, still staring outside with disbelief. “A woman. Only one. Die only after…”
“Die how?” the officer persisted.
“…birth of fifty-third child.”
The officer nearly slammed on the brakes when we reached the red light.
“Name…Ide…”
The officer watched me with a mixed expression of worry and fear.
“Lonely…Myth…Rogue…Melanie…”
I wept.
A Cyan.
Stalker.
Arrest.
Melanie.
Stupid conferences.
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If your really curious, the perspective of my dream is the same as the story. 'I' was 'Jerry,' running after Ide.
'Twas really hard putting it in story format. I only remembered flashes of it when I woke up. Enjoy. ^_^;
Thanks for reading it. ^_^
Thanks for pointing that out. I probably should have made more of an effort in making it a story and put a reason behind that, but I obviously was busy on putting the dream itself into words. Lol
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