Glimpse

by Renee Wakefield

  “Is that what happened here?”

  “Did I plant all of that in your head? I’m glad you think so highly of my skills. However, that sort of thing is a little beyond me.”

  A little colour returns to her cheeks, giving me confidence she won’t die right now.

  “Repressed memories are events that get blocked from the mind because they are too stressful or traumatic to process.”

  I have to contemplate about this for a while. “So, you’re saying that it’s possible what I just experienced is what happened at the party and I couldn’t deal with it, so I blocked it out?”

  Brenda takes a deep breath. “Maybe. I don’t know. There is certainly some link to what you are seeing now.”

  My brain struggles to make sense of this. I had fun at that party. At least that is what my non-hypnotised memory recalls. I had a good night. I didn’t freak out or anything. I certainly didn’t see something like that on the dance floor.

  “I am really sorry, Ellie, but I don’t believe I am going to be able to help you. If you want to lose weight or need help giving up smoking, I might be able to be of assistance. Those are the type of cases I generally deal with. This is… different. Sharon told me about your situation and suggested I might be able to help. It seemed like something I could try. But when you wouldn’t wake up…”

  She wrings her hands.

  “Fine.” I pout and look away, frustration prickling at me. I didn’t mean to scare Brenda. That doesn’t give her the right to shove me in the too hard basket and abandoned me. Another dead end, more wasted time.

  “Can I make a general observation?”

  My eyes won’t leave the floor, like a surly school kid.

  “Do you know the story of The Caterpillar Nightmare?”

  “Is it like The Very Hungry Caterpillar?”

  “The Very Hungry Caterpillar? Oh my, no.”

  My little joke actually makes Brenda titter, which in turn makes me smile. I can’t help but like her.

  “No, nothing like The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The Caterpillar Nightmare is our novella by… Someone. Oh, dear. What was his name? Anyway, the story talks about how caterpillars are more or less happy creatures. They eat leaves and they grow and become beautiful butterflies. But the main caterpillar in the story isn’t happy. He is terrified of chrysalis and doesn’t want to be a butterfly.”

  “Okay…” I have no idea why she is telling me this.

  “The story is one of futility. All that happens to this little caterpillar is that he makes himself miserable. There’s no future in being an old caterpillar.”

  The slight hum of traffic drifts in from the street as I wait for her to continue.

  “I can’t pretend to know what is happening to you or why. What just occurred here with you and the party, that was terrifying.” She holds up one of her hands. It’s shaking badly. “I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like for you. My point is, what is abundantly clear to me, is that you’re changing. Change is just… Well, it’s life. It’s inevitable.”

  Her eyes remain focused on me, but she stops talking. I don’t know whether I’m supposed to say something, so I don’t.

  “Change isn’t a negative or positive in and of itself. We attribute that to it. But resisting change, you might as well fight the tide from coming in or the moon from rising. It’s not a battle you’re going to win.”

  “So, what? I should just be happy? Embrace the fact that I’m going crazy?”

  “You don’t seem the least bit crazy to me, Ellie. You can see things. And maybe this has been going on for some time. It’s only now you are in a position to acknowledge what you see.”

  I give her my best ‘you are nuts’ look. “But these things that I’ve seen, they’re not real.” My voice is firm. Determined.

  Brenda studies me. “Is that a question? Are you asking me or are you trying to convince yourself?”

  15

  Catching the bus home after my session with Brenda is probably a mistake. Even the process of making it to the stop and waiting for the bus is one of the more surreal experiences of my life. My mind feels fragmented. Split into pieces and no one has bothered to put it back together. The world seems foreign to me, as though I have just now returned from a long journey.

  The decision not to go to work is an easy one. I have no desire to be under Jill’s eagle eye while I feel like this.

  The chilly, grey day closes in around me as I attempt to work out the consequences of my actions. Tempting as it is to grab an Uber, I can’t. Ubers cost money.

  Not having a job in the near future seems more and more like a very real possibility. Virginia and Bear seem increasingly to be a finite resource as well. Before I would have assumed them to be endless in what they would do for me. However, that was before I began dipping into the well. And who knows what will happen with Bucks?

  Better to move than stand still, so I walk in small circles around the bus stop as I wait. The implications of what Brenda suggested rattle about my head. I do my best to ignore them. I have no doubt I will give her ideas plenty of thought. I simply can’t process them right at this second.

  The bus finally makes its appearance and I spend the first half of the journey trying to work out if this is the same exact bus I caught on the way to my appointment. It certainly smells the same. Maybe all buses stink like this. I am not exactly an expert when it comes to public transport. But will I be? Is this my future?

  There are only a few passengers aboard the bus. I watch their faces. Do I look like one of them? If someone new gets on the bus right now, do I seem like one of the crowd or do I stand out as different? Someone who doesn’t fit? I am sure they all have their secrets. Everyone has secrets. You can never tell people’s secrets by merely looking at them. So why do I feel like I have FREAK tattooed across my forehead?

  My cheek balances against the bus window, sending vibrations through my face. The party is still fresh in my mind. As though I am on my way home from the party now, not as if it were 10 years ago. The dead girl waits on the periphery of my thoughts. Her desperation and her fear. I do my best to blink her from my brain.

  I can hear music coming from Virginia and Bear’s house as I approach. Bear runs an Internet start-up, meaning he makes his own hours and works from home quite a bit.

  I wander inside and find him grooving as he moves between the rooms. Bear moves gracefully for such a big guy. I watch him for a few moments before he realises I am there. When he turns and sees me, he doesn’t stop. Not remotely self-conscious or embarrassed.

  “Hey, El. Wanna dance?”

  I smile but shake my head.

  “Come here.”

  He wraps in a big, comforting hug. He is warm and muscular and surprisingly never seems to smell of sweat, which is impressive given how much time he spends working out.

  We hug for a long time which is nice. I doubt I could get away even if I wanted to. I don’t feel the least bit uncomfortable in his presence even when it’s only the two of us in the house.

  With the music reset to a more manageable level we reconvene in the kitchen. Bear grabs two bottles of beer from the fridge.

  “So, Ginny said you were getting hypnotised today.”

  He places one of the bottles of beer in my hand.

  “No, thanks.”

  His expression suggests what I’ve said doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense.

  “I don’t want one.”

  “Yeah, you do.”

  Reluctantly I take the beer, placing it on the kitchen table.

  “So, this hypnotist, he didn’t make you bark like a chicken or anything, did he?”

  “She. And I don’t know. Maybe. How can I be sure?” We share a smile. “Actually, she thinks I’m a caterpillar.”

  “A caterpillar?”

  “Never mind.”

  I often wonder what Bear and my relationship would have been like if we had met under different circumstances. Like when we were at school or whatever. T
here’s no chance we would have been romantically involved. It’s hard to imagine we would even have been friends. However, the way things fitted together our friendship seemed to come ready-made. As though the universe conspired to make us friends. We couldn’t fight it. We have always known exactly what we are to each other. He and Bucks have been tight since they were in kinder. Bear loves Buckley and is fiercely loyal to him. I love Buckley, therefore, by extension, Bear and I love each other. It’s the same with Virginia. Why can’t everything in life be this simple? At least that’s how I feel about everything. Maybe he feels entirely differently. He is a guy.

  “Thanks for… You know… Letting me crash and everything.”

  Bear makes a dismissive noise, as in ‘Don’t be stupid.’ He leans on the edge of the table. “You’re always welcome here, El. Mi casa es su casa.”

  I sit on one of the kitchen chairs.

  “You know, Ginny is really worried about you. I mean, so am I. And Bucks? Phhhfftt. Forget about it.” He gives me his most sincere look. “You’ve got friends, El. That’s what we are here for.”

  “Thanks, Bear.”

  I nurse the beer for a bit. I really don’t want it, so I place it back on the table. Little bubbles of condensation dot the side of the glass bottle.

  “Yeah… I’ve never been hypnotised. I was going to once, just to see what it was like. I kinda feel it’s the type of thing you need a reason to go, right? It’s not like skydiving or something. Not the sort of thing you do just for the experience.”

  I do my best to listen to Bear, but my mind wanders. Brenda’s words bubble up in my thoughts.

  “Are you asking me or trying to convince yourself?”

  It never even occurred to me what I was seeing could be real in any way, shape or form. I merely assumed it was all in my mind and I was going crazy. Does this mean I’m not?

  “You don’t seem the least bit crazy to me, Ellie.”

  Out of nowhere a white-hot memory of the dead girl sears through my consciousness, hurting my brain.

  The dead girl on the dance floor while the party continues all around her. Everyone oblivious.

  The dead girl reaching out of the darkness in the pulsating strobe light.

  I struggle against the recollection. This is not an average memory. The memory is talking to me. Attempting to tell me something.

  Bear continues on, not noticing.“I had a friend who went to a hypnotist once. Not a real one, one of those shows. You know, when they hypnotise a bunch of the audience.”

  The dead girl appears again, burning through my brain. Reaching for me. Flopping about on the dance floor like a dead fish.

  I grimace and hold my forehead. With luck holding my head with my hand will prevent my brain from splitting in two.

  “The dude was never the same again.”

  Maybe I need to lie down. And by lie down I don’t mean go to bed or move to the couch or anything, I mean lie down, right here on the kitchen floor, right now. The memories come in waves and even though I’m ready for the third one, the knowledge it is on its way doesn’t make it any easier.

  I’m back at the party. The dead girl flops about on the dance floor, eyes taped shut, tube dangling from her mouth. The memory lingers. I gaze about the party desperate for help. Desperate for somebody to do something.

  That’s when I see him.

  There’s a guy sitting across the dance floor. A slightly older guy, all dressed in black. It’s only a momentary flicker but it’s there. My brain takes a few seconds to process why this is important. The fact that there is a guy there is hardly significant. The party is full of guys. It is what he is doing. He is looking at her. At the dead girl. Watching her. Staring straight at the dead girl. He can see her too… The guy looks up. Our eyes meet fleetingly before he looks away.

  “He can see her too…”

  At the party, my eyes flick from the dead girl to the guy and back again.

  “El… Ellie.”

  I come back to the kitchen, still holding my head in my hand from the pain of the memory. Bear regards me with concern.

  “You all right? You look pale.”

  “Yeah, just a headache.”

  Bear fixes me with a funny look. “Who can see who too?”

  I stare back blankly.

  “You said ‘He can see her too.’”

  I don’t respond. My brain feels like it’s alight with pain and possibilities. A million unformed questions pepper my thoughts. I hurry out of the room, abandoning my untouched beer.

  Bear watches me go. If I had to guess I’d say he’ll probably finish my beer rather than let it go to waste.

  I spend the rest of the day searching, pouring through social media and other Internet searches, trying to piece together a puzzle from whatever bits and pieces I have. How did people do this stuff before Facebook and Instagram? The search is made all the harder because of my inability to stay in contact with people. It’s not that there have been any significant issues or harbouring of ill will, at least from my side, it’s more that friendships run their course and when they have there seems little point in keeping them artificially inflated.

  Nobody is cold or unpleasant when I reach out to them, more just indifferent, which makes sense. Through a chain of contacts, I am eventually able to get the number I am after.

  I place the call. Tash answers, sounding much the same as when I knew her.

  “Hey, Tash. It’s Ellie.”

  “Ellie, Ellie…” Tash pretends she is trying to place me. “Oh, Ellie. Wow, one from the archives.”

  “How’s things? What’s been going on?”

  There is a pause on the other end.

  “Really, Ellie? I mean, we can play the whole catch up game if you want to. That’s not you though, is it?”

  I try hard to recall if Tash and I had some sort of falling out. It seems likely. We were both quite volatile when we were younger and never really friends. I can’t recall any major issue, at least not any that ended our acquaintanceship once and for all.

  “You don’t care how I have been or what I have been up to.”

  She’s spot on. The way I remember it we simply stopped being useful to one another and that was that.

  “You want something. That’s fine. But let’s not waste time. Just tell me what it is.”

  “Okay. You remember that guy Donnie that you kissed and his sister and that party we went to?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “It was a terrace house. We went together.”

  “Actually, I took you along, as I recall.”

  Still trying to show who is the dominant one. “Yeah, that sounds right.”

  “What about it?”

  “Something happened which made me think I wasn’t remembering the night clearly. Do you recall much about the night or the party itself?”

  “Not really. It was a party. Lots of drinking. Cute guys.”

  “Do you remember anything about me?”

  “About you. Not really.”

  That’s what I thought. Tash would —

  “Except I remember you freaked out.”

  What? “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yeah, you did. You freaked out majorly. Got all hysterical in the middle of the party over something or other. Took forever to calm you down. Meant I missed half the party.”

  That is not what happened. I am sure of it and yet fits perfectly with my hypnotised recollections of the evening.

  “Why? What was I upset about?”

  “Who knows? Something scared you. I don’t know if the party had freaked you out or you just had too much to drink and you weren’t used to it but there was something. You were a mess.”

  I would like nothing more than to call her out for lying, except I don’t think she is.

  Tash gives me the information I am after without bothering to ask why I want it and I manage to extract myself without promising to catch up.

  16

  I find Bear working at his computer.

/>   “Hey. Can I ask a favour?”

  The swivel chair creaks as he leans back to face me. “Sure thing.”

  “Can I borrow your car?” I pull a face I hope indicates I feel bad for asking yet another favour, given I have pretty much moved in at this point. It’s a big ask. Not that Bear is a car nut or anything. It’s more he takes a certain pride in his possessions.

  His eyes narrow in a stern look. “What do you want it for?”

  “Oh, I’m just… I…”

  He holds up a hand to halt my spluttering. “El, I’m kidding. Of course you can borrow it.”

  He jumps to his feet and retrieves his keys from the bookshelf.

  “I’ll be very careful with it.”

  “It’s fine. Seriously.” He tosses me the keys. “Have fun.”

  I drive the suburban streets with a little more caution than Old Ellie would have. My hands grip the steering wheel too tightly, aggravating the tension in my shoulders and back. I’m not sure why driving makes me nervous after the accident since I was a passenger when the crash occurred. Being a passenger doesn’t make me nervous now, and yet driving does.

  I try to assemble my thoughts into some sort of cohesive order. I don’t know what I’m going to say or even where to start. I guess I’ll have to wing it.

  Bear’s SUV has always seemed a little ridiculous to me. The car is like its owner, enormously oversized. I am not sure why anyone needs a car this big. I have been a passenger plenty of times. Driving is a whole other experience. This is what it must be like to navigate a cruise ship down a suburban street.

  The SUV eases to a stop at a set of lights. I take a quick drink from my water bottle. As I wait apprehension needles away at me. More than simply nerves. Something isn’t right. Fortunately, the lights change. I slam on the accelerator and get out of there.

  The trip takes longer than I anticipate, dragging me way out into the depth of suburbia. The houses out here are an odd mix of falling down old weatherboards and the type of cheap, modern display homes people buy off the plans. My phone finds the street for me and I drive along slowly, watching the numbers.