I must be retarded. Or masochist. Or just plain stupid. Take your pick.
Right now I could be sprawling comfortably on a couch at Xavier’s, cold beer at hand, good game on TV. Instead I’m sitting out here, dangling my feet good five meters from the ground, praying as hell that the branch I’m sitting on will hold my weight long enough.
I have a pretty good view to her apartment from up here. She hasn’t come home yet. Basically it’s just kitchen, small living room and even smaller bedroom. I’m guessing that the door in the kitchen leads to staircase I saw earlier at the back of the diner. So the door in her bedroom opens to a bathroom.
Furniture looks worn but well kept. Few rugs on the floor, nothing flashy or colorful, just basic blue and grey. No paintings on the walls. A calendar hangs next to the sink, right about her eyelevel. Clean and neat place. Just like her room back at home. It was clean and neat before I ransacked it. Loved the looks on Kitty’s and Jubilee’s faces when I let them back in. Priceless.
“Honey, I’m home… Fuck you look tired. Rough day at work?” Tired? Let me rephrase that. She looks absolutely beaten. Rubbing her neck and ankles. Stretching her back. What’s that? She’s taking something out from the cupboard. Something small. Small plastic jar. Some sort of capsules… She sick or something? Would explain her exhaustion. Going sick to work is never a good option. But does she even have options?
“What are those for, kid?” Have to remember to check out that bottle tomorrow.
Making coffee. Don’t you eat? Or did you already eat at the diner? Probably. Is that… Yeah. Same coffee she used to drink back at home. Some flavored crap that’s supposed to taste like almonds. Tasted like shit to me. Looks like there are things that won’t change no matter how badly you’re messed up. Like the way she’s leaning against that table, waiting and watching the coffee maker, counting every drop. Mental problems? Who of us wouldn’t have? Seriously. Show me one completely sane person. I dare you. Take a good look around you, and show me the first sane person you can find.
She doesn’t have a TV. No computer. No radio. Nothing. There’s absolutely nothing to link to her to outside world. She’s isolated herself completely. But what’s that? Is that a book? A diary. She’s keeping a diary. Have to remember to take a look at it tomorrow.
Shit. It’s getting cold up here. And I don’t like the sounds coming from this branch. It’s about to give up. Well, it looks like she’s starting to get ready to go to bed. Not going to sit here and ogle her any longer. Can go through her underwear tomorrow if I feel like it.
“Hi, Bella.”
“Hi! The usual?” Usual? Christ. Have been here exactly two times and she’s treating me like a regular.
“Yeah.” One coffee and three over-sized pancakes from heaven with enough butter and bacon to clog up even my system for few hours. Served with that smile of hers. The one I couldn’t see even a hint from last night after she got home.
“What do you do around here when you want to have some fun?” There has to be something she’s doing. Something besides working and writing that fucking diary. Back at the mansion she wasn’t the most outgoing type, but she had hobbies. She had routines. She had things she did. Some of them even completely unrelated with me.
“Well, there’s a park and there’s a playground for kids. We have pretty well stocked library, and even a small movie theatre…” Stop! Fucking stop! I’m bored already!
“And that’s fun?” because if that’s your idea of having fun nowadays, I really have to pick you up and haul your ass to the nearest shrink.
“”Well… Yeah.” Dear God.
“Any place a guy could get a drink?”
“Oh, no! We try to encourage people to a cleaner way of life.” Cleaner way of life? And who the fuck is this ‘we’ I keep hearing about? Some kind of cult?
“Really? Is it working?”
“You have been her couple of days. Have you been outside of your motel room?” Well, yeah, but what does that have to do with anything?
“Yeah. Went for a walk few times. It’s a non-smoking room.”
“All of them are. And smoking is… It’s not illegal, but we don’t courage people to do it.” No wonder people glared at me. And again that mysterious ‘we’. People living around here? NASA? CIA? Little green men from Uranus?
“Did you notice anything different compared to… Other places you have been?” Well, now that I think about it…
“Some things. It’s peaceful around here.” And that’s an understatement. If there hadn’t been people walking around one could have mistaken this as a ghost town. Stores have no flashy neon-signs advertising weekly sales. There’s no trash and litter lying around. Everything’s neat. Squeaky-clean. Like this place, this whole fucking town was wrapped to a neat little package sometime around sixties and left forgotten to a bottom of the closet.
“It certainly is peaceful. And we like to keep it that way.”
“Who’s this ‘we’ you keep referring to?” Spit it out.
“People who live here, of course. Who else?”
Quiet as a mouse now. Can’t go stomping around. I have no idea what kind of soundproofing there is between her flat and that diner downstairs. Fuck. It was hard enough to climb in here. She left a window open, don’t know if she just forgot to close it, or did she do it on purpose.
First those capsules. Most likely reason to her memory loss. They probably have nothing to do with it, but can’t hurt to check them out. Where’s that bottle… There. Crap. I hate when this happens. No label of any kind. Just clean white bottle. Christ! These things are huge! I wonder if she’s counting them… Better leave them for now. I can always come back later and take one with me if I don’t find anything else.
Fridge. Well stocked with healthy food. Vegetables. Whole meat. Fish. Real butter. Milk. She doesn’t drink milk. At least she didn’t used to. Said it made her stomach hurt.
Bathroom. Small. Toilet, sink and shower. No bathtub. Come to think of it, there’s no bathtub in my room at the motel either. Coincidence? Maybe. Toothpaste. One toothbrush. Soap bar. Shampoo. Conditioner. Plain brands. Not that overly scented crap she used back home. No deodorant. But talcum. Rose scented. What the fuck…
Bedroom. No magazines. No books. No small decorative statues. Bed made in military style. Drill-sergeant’s wet dream. Just neatly made bed in a small room. Dresser filled with clothes. Work clothes. New uniform for every day, probably to save time. She doesn’t have to do her laundry every day. Once a week is enough. But where the hell are her other clothes? The ones she wears when she’s not working? Okay. Underwear. Model grandma. Good God. Are those fucking support stockings? Come on! Bottom drawer. You have got to be kidding me. Shoes. Plain white sandals, just like the ones she’s wearing right now. Six pairs in here. One pair for each day.
This is getting weird. Too weird.
Living room. Small couch. Looks comfortable. Small armchair. Woolen comforter thrown bunched up on top of it. Getting sloppy, kid? A bookshelf. Empty bookshelf. There’s not even that mandatory layer of dust. Just squeaky clean empty shelves.
This is giving me the creeps. I fucking saw her coming home last night. Yet I can’t even detect her scent in here. Everything except that bottle of those capsules looks fresh ad clean, like it was just taken out of a vacuum. Even furniture. Last night from a distance they looked a bit worse to wear, but now… Model looks old, but that couch looked like nobody had ever sat on it. This whole fucking apartment feels like nobody ever lived in here. Like it just popped up from nowhere.
Fuck. I have to get out of here. This is… Fuck. Out. Now. Window. It was fucking open just few minutes ago!
Can’t get this open. Come on! Open up! I have to get out of here! I think something’s coming. Straight through the walls. I have to get out of here! Now!
“Holy shit.”
Too late.
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