by T B Gayle
‘Listen, I’ll be right back, alright?’ said Pascal. He headed to the bathroom, not really needing to go but kind of hoping Isobel might take the chance to take off and save him from having to figure out what the best thing to tell her was. Plus, maybe the chips will come when I’m gone, thought Pascal. He knew it was going to be a lot harder for her to be mad at him when she was scoffing her face full of chips.
Pascal stood at the urinal, feeling every bit the fake that Isobel had accused him of being. It was hard not to feel that way, standing there not really needing to go. The whole thing was doing his head in. Let’s just get it over with, he told himself. Pascal zipped up, washed his hands and walked out like everything was above board and he hadn’t just wandered in there to get away from some homeless girl he used to be friends with who was asking crazy questions that he didn’t know how to answer.
He tried to focus, tried to look as serious as he could. He just had to tell her she was in love with a memory and that if she knew who he was now that she definitely wouldn’t be feeling that way about him. He was being a bit rough on himself maybe, but it wasn’t like Isobel had had to join some queue to start stalking him.
Pascal looked over at Isobel, feeling a bit lousy and wondering if maybe he should just give her a chance, when he saw someone standing with her. The waitress wasn’t wearing her uniform, but Pascal knew straight away that it was her. He wasn’t going to forget someone that he’d spent all that time imagining being with and all that.
There was no way he was going over there. She’s going to know, thought Pascal. And then Isobel was going to know, and as much as he wanted her not to like him, the thought of his oldest friend knowing that was the sort of way he spent his nights and the sort of respect he now had for women was a bit heartbreaking.
Pascal turned and was about to search for another way out when he crashed into someone heading towards the bar. It was a girl, a student type who looked barely old enough to be buying anything.
‘Oh, watch out,’ said the girl.
‘Shit. Sorry,’ said Pascal. He glanced back over at Isobel and the waitress.
‘So, which of them are you hiding from?’ said the girl.
‘Both,’ said Pascal and the girl laughed. She actually laughed. Pascal looked at her more closely, and she gave him this cheeky smile when he realised how cute she was. He started feeling kind of nervous being as close to her as he was.
‘Do you ever feel like this isn’t who you are, you know?’ said Pascal.
‘Like you’re meant for better things,’ said the girl.
‘Exactly,’ said Pascal.
She took his hands in hers and helped them to her hips. She was swaying like she’d had way too much to drink, but Pascal didn’t mind.
‘Sometimes, I have this feeling like I should be someone great,’ said Pascal. ‘That no-one really gets who I am.’
‘I get you,’ said the girl.
She leant closer, but as she did, the lights went out.
XXIV
‘Feeling alright, Isobel?’ said the woman. She’d appeared as soon as Pascal began walking away, and Isobel knew that wasn’t a coincidence. It was like she was there to see if Isobel had really given in, to see if she’d really given up all her thoughts of making it out.
Isobel just stared at the woman while taking deep breaths, trying not to think of all the terrible things the woman had done. You have to pretend it doesn’t matter, Isobel, she told herself.
‘There are a lot of people worried about you,’ said the woman. She gently slid her hand onto Isobel’s fast-beating heart. ‘It’s always so hard to tell how much time you might have,’ said the woman. ‘Days, nights.’
Stop trying to scare me, Isobel wanted to shout at her. She was trying to do what they wanted. It wasn’t too late. They could still take this from her. She could still get better. All she needed was Pascal to come back, and she’d tell him how much he meant to her, how much she needed him. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t real. It didn’t matter that she’d be stuck here with him until the world took all she had.
Isobel turned to try and find him, but instead of their eyes meeting and fireworks exploding all around them, Isobel saw Pascal at the bar with a girl. They were close, their bodies almost touching. The girl had short dark hair and this beautiful, adorable, laughing face.
Isobel wanted to rush over and drag him away from her, but just as she was about to, she caught a glimpse of a smirk on the face of the woman in front of her. Was this some sort of final trick? wondered Isobel. Maybe Pascal had never been there to convince her to stay. What if he was a test? What if they’d wanted to see if Isobel was really ready to give up all she’d had in the darkness. And she’d nearly failed it. She’d nearly rushed over and tried to shove the girl as far from Pascal as she could.
‘Don’t get upset, Isobel,’ said the woman. ‘But we need to take you away again. Just for a while, until we’re sure.’ She took Isobel’s hand, smiled, and turned towards the door.
‘Let go of me’ said Isobel. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I passed your test. Take this darkness out from inside me.’
‘That’s not how it works,’ said the woman.
‘You did this to me,’ said Isobel. And she’d done everything they’d wanted: she’d stopped trying to find a way out; she’d tried to make things work with their pretend Pascal. Isobel felt the darkness raging inside her. She felt the room getting smaller and smaller.
When the woman caught sight of the change in Isobel, she wasn’t smiling anymore. She leapt back, looking left and right like she was hoping all the people in the room would come rushing to her aid, but that was the trouble with filling rooms full of illusions: there wasn’t anyone really there.
The woman’s eyes grew brighter as she stepped back. Then she raised her arm like she was going to strike Isobel down, but Isobel had been trapped in their world long enough to know how it worked. She reached deep inside and with a scream of pain unleashed her darkness into the world. She wrapped it and coiled it around each and every one of them so the world couldn’t reach them, couldn’t drain them, couldn’t use their light. The woman was left with nothing, just her arm outstretched and the light from her eyes fading fast. And in the darkness, there was an eerie quiet that was broken by one loud thump, and then another. The world shook and something roared in the distance. Cold deep voices started calling to her. And as they called she knew what she had to do, she knew how to get well, she knew why the shadows had been hunting her in the darkness.
XXV
It’s all good, thought Pascal. He was sure the lights would come back on and the cute girl that had seemed to like him would still be standing there. But he couldn’t feel her close to him anymore, and he wasn’t sure she’d appreciate him reaching out to check if she was still around when he couldn’t see what he might be grabbing; plus, she might have been one of those girls that wouldn’t have appreciated some guy thinking she needed to be comforted or whatever in some scary situation. That wasn’t why Pascal wanted to wrap his arms around her, though; it was more so he wouldn’t lose her in all the chaos just when things were looking up for him. She’d been the first girl he’d felt really good about in a long time. She’d had that whole ‘this might actually work’ vibe about her.
People were shouting and pushing, car horns were blaring. The whole city seemed to have lost power.
Maybe I should just ask if she’s still there, thought Pascal. It felt a bit weird, though, asking someone whose name you didn’t know if they were still there or not. It would be like, ‘Hey cute girl, you still around?’ He thought about telling her they’d have things fixed in no time and not to worry, but he wasn’t really sure if that was true, and if the power did come back on and he found himself having said that to a wall with no girl in sight, it would have looked a bit ridiculous.
Maybe I should just walk in her direction, thought Pascal, and if he bumped into her he could apologise and say, ‘Sorry, it’s a bit dark, hey.’
The risk with that, though, was what would happen if he bumped into someone completely different. He couldn’t imagine some drunk businessman would be quite so good about it, and Pascal wasn’t that keen on bumping into some other girl either. That was just asking for trouble. The last thing he needed was the lights coming back on and finding himself wrapped in the arms of another Isobel, or worse, Isobel herself.
That wasn’t being that fair on her, he knew, but what was he meant to do, keep stringing her along into thinking there could be something between them when the only thing that was going to be between them, if things worked out, was the cute girl that had seemed to like him? That was, if the lights ever came back on, and the girl hadn’t taken the chance to do a runner.
He wasn’t sure how the whole cute girl thing would have gone down with Isobel. Probably not great, he told himself. It wasn’t like he’d planned it, though. It had just happened when he’d been trying to scamper away from the waitress. What were the odds of the waitress even being here? he wondered. It was one of those ‘of all the pubs and clubs in all of Melbourne’ type moments. He just hoped he didn’t bump into her in the dark; it would have felt a bit too close to being alone in his bedroom with her, his eyes closed and all that. That was one introduction he didn’t much want to be making to a new girlfriend.
Probably best not to refer to her as that, thought Pascal, seeing as how quiet she was being and the fact he hadn’t caught any glimpses of her in the light of the phones people were beginning to shine about. He was pretty sure most girlfriends didn’t run off the first chance they got. It didn’t exactly leave him feeling that great, but then, he hadn’t been feeling that great to start with.
The city lights were all still out. There were sirens and police rushing by. Was it another terrorist thing? wondered Pascal. It normally didn’t take this long for power outages to get fixed.
After a blackout he always felt a bit more glad for all the things he had. Being alone seemed even worse when there wasn’t a telly you could just turn on for company. And as awful a place as his flat was, it seemed worth every penny he was paying for it compared to being outside in the dark with who knows what. At least he had doors he could lock and candles he could light and all that. He wasn’t sure how Isobel managed it. He was in a room full of people shining phones about, and he was still worried something was going to leap out of the shadows and start chewing on him. It was just one of those caveman type responses. Knowing that didn’t make him relax any, though.
Every person Pascal could see was crammed around the doorway, peering out into the darkness like they were worried some nightmare creatures were slinking about, waiting for all the phones to conk out before starting some horror movie rampage. It was easy to take all the city lights for granted until you were stuck there in the dark thinking about that sort of thing. He was wondering if the rest of the city was even still out there when he saw a flash of Isobel’s face in the light of someone’s phone. She was heading outside.
Well, that’s one less thing to worry about, Pascal told himself. It wasn’t like the blackout was going to make much difference to her. It was just going to be another night for her.
Pascal was about to take out his phone and look for the girl that had seemed to like him when someone pushed past him: someone out of breath, someone barely able to stay on their feet. A man appeared from the back of the pub carrying one of those bright cop torches, and when he shone it briefly on the hunched, out-of-breath character, Pascal saw that it was the waitress. She didn’t look as stunning and all that as she normally did. She looked like she might have been one of those types that slept with the lights on and wasn’t all that big a fan of the dark.
‘We’d better let the others know,’ said the man.
‘Oh, I think they already might,’ said the waitress.
The room shook, and outside there were screams.
XXVI
Things didn’t feel right. Obviously, there was something odd going on outside, but no-one was really talking about it or locking the doors so that whatever was out there causing people to scream couldn’t just walk in and set them all off screaming with the rest of them. It was like no-one was that worried about it all. It was like everyone had just figured and agreed, without asking him, that if they stayed quiet, whatever was out there wouldn’t be able to find them. They’d even stopped shining their phones about like torches so much, which just made the whole thing a thousand times worse. It was like turning out the lights just as the horror movie starts getting scary. It’s meant to be the other way around, Pascal wanted to shout at them. He was feeling too tired for it, though. He normally felt tired when he made it home from work, but this was a different sort of tired; this was a tired that lazing on the couch watching some show would never fix.
Pascal wasn’t the only one feeling a bit out of it. Everywhere he looked people were leaning against tables, against walls and the bar, barely able to keep their eyes open. It was just one of those things that turning the lights out did to people. And they had all been here drinking. It shouldn’t have been any surprise no-one was feeling the best. Pascal wasn’t sure nodding off to sleep was the greatest move, though, not when who knows what was going on outside. That made him think of Isobel. He knew she spent night after night in the dark worrying about what was going to happen to her, but this didn’t feel like some normal night. It was like everyone was holding their breath, knowing how messed up things were about to be if the power never came back on. Pascal wanted to tell them that it always came back on, but he was a bit worried about it himself. It felt like something had really gone wrong this time. And he couldn’t just leave Isobel out there alone with the world about to collapse all around her. That wasn’t the sort of thing anyone should have had to go through on their own.
Pascal stepped through the doors and shone his phone about. He hadn’t really thought about how hard it was going to be to find someone in a city with no lights. Luckily, Isobel hadn’t got far. He could make out the shape of her standing across the street, near the Parliament steps. When his light hit her, she covered her eyes and turned and fled. Then she was lost to the darkness. All Pascal could think was that she seemed to be heading towards the park.
There was darkness everywhere. Pascal had never been in the city at night without it looking like a whole bunch of those decked-out houses at Christmas stacked one on top of another. He would have hardly known where he was if just then there hadn’t been a crack of thunder and the sky hadn’t lit with light.
He knew the park should have been the last place to be running towards in a storm, what with all the tall trees about the place, but he knew it was about to bucket down with rain and he couldn’t just leave Isobel out in it. So, he made a run for it as the darkness was broken by more lightning and thunder. The sky was exploding everywhere he looked. Then, amongst the trees of the park, Pascal noticed another person there, gazing up at the storm, turning her head back and forth, following every strike like someone watching their team play on the telly. This kind of is her telly, thought Pascal, and what they were watching was more thrilling, more frightening than any show Pascal had ever watched. He didn’t normally feel like he was about to be fried into a pile of ashes when he was watching his favourite show. Which was probably for the best. He wasn’t sure watching telly would have been quite so popular if that was the case.
‘Isobel,’ said Pascal. ‘It’s about to bucket down. Let’s head back.’
She turned to look at him. And as the lightning flashed it was like she was a different person. Her eyes were even wilder, darker than the dark. Her blank stare was gone too. Now there was rage on her face.
‘I was just talking to her, you know,’ said Pascal. ‘We bumped into each other.’ Pascal hoped that was what she was mad about and it wasn’t something the waitress had said.
A loud clap of thunder shook the park.
‘Best not stay out in this, hey,’ said Pascal.
Isobel walked up to him. She put her
face right next to his, and for a moment Pascal was worried she was going to kiss him, but instead she looked into his eyes and said, ‘I’m tired of wasting my energy on you.’
She pushed him away as lightning flashed across the sky. And as Pascal reached out to try and make things up to her, it was like he wasn’t there, like he was fading.
XXVII
Isobel stood beneath the trees of the park, rain dripping down her face, lightning flashing in the sky. The shadows were calling her, wanting her to leap into the battle raging above. But it was like the rain had washed away her fury. She just wanted to find the bridge and have things go back to how they were, to how they were before she was trapped in this world. It was so hard to even imagine that though; so much had changed. There was no light left inside her. All that was good about her was gone.
Isobel lowered her head and was about to give in to it all, when there was a flash of light and a loud boom that shook the park and made her jump. Then, as the rain began to fall even harder, it was like something had changed. All around her the lights of the park started humming. They began growing brighter and brighter.
XXVIII
When Pascal opened his eyes and saw the trees above him, and the business people walking by, it was like the most relieved he’d ever felt. He didn’t care that he was lying there curled up on the grass in his damp suit, with everyone glancing at him in that ‘get yourself together’ sort of way. He was just glad the sun was out and that he’d woken up.
You were always going to wake up, Pascal told himself. But it hadn’t seemed like that when he’d closed his eyes the night before. It had felt like everything was over, done. The worst part was he hadn’t seemed to feel any regret for all the things he’d never got to do or anything like that. There hadn’t had even been any ‘moving on to better things’ spiritual moment either. It was like someone had hit some switch and he just wasn’t going to be around.