Feather

by Laurie Lyons

  "Stasia," she said desperately, "this is very important. Tell me precisely what you saw last night. Please tell me every little detail."

  Concern pressed into Anastasia's features. "Lucy you look like someone just punched you in the face! Are you ok?"

  Lucy shook her head, "I'm fine. I just need you to tell me with as much detail as you can what you saw last night," she said firmly.

  "Well," Anastasia sighed, "I don't have your talents but I'll try my best," Lucy forced a small smile. "I was coming home late from rehearsal, I was dead tired. I came in the foyer…"

  "Time?" Lucy prodded with a hint of rudeness.

  Anastasia ignored the tone. "Um…let me think. Rehearsal was supposed to run until nine but it went until nine thirty but we stood around talking for a while. So it must have been ten or shortly after." Lucy was sure that she and Nathaniel were both sitting at that table at ten.

  "Kay…" Lucy nodded with encouragement. Anastasia took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling to better remember.

  "I saw you in the café, sitting by the window, there were two other tables, that creepy girl from the third floor and two annoying chicks."

  "Good." Lucy encouraged, "What was I doing?"

  "You had two cups of coffee in front of you and that beat up copy of Hamlet open on the table in front of you." Anastasia paused and looked at Lucy's face. She determined that more information was needed so she pressed on, "You were like talking to yourself and gesturing with your hands."

  "To myself," Lucy muttered to no one. A roar started in her ears. Anastasia must have gotten the wrong impression from Lucy's reaction. She thought Lucy was offended.

  "Listen babe, I would have said hi but I was bagged and you looked busy. I just figured I would leave you to it and hit the sack. I would not have been good company. Trust me."

  "You're sure that I was alone at the table, that there wasn't anyone else with me?" Lucy was starting to go numb.

  "No…" Anastasia was trying to get the right answer here, "were you supposed to be meeting someone? I thought that you were just reciting Shakespeare like how you test yourself sometimes." A look of shock crossed her face, "Oh no! I wasn't supposed to meet you was I?" she pulled out her iphone and started flipping through it with panic, "I am so crazy with the recital coming up that I am forgetting everything. I am so sorry babe. And you got me a coffee and everything and you waited all alone and had to read a book you have memorized to pass the time and then I'm so tired and full of myself that I don't even say hello and let you know I'm alive and I totally ditch. I swear, I am the worst friend on the face of the planet; seriously you can kick my ass for this. I deserve it, I can't believe I did that!" Lucy reached over again and stopped Anastasia's hand from ripping apart her phone. She had worked herself up into such a state that Lucy was sure it would not survive the frantic page poking.

  "You didn't ditch me," Lucy said sounding calmer then she felt.

  Anastasia froze, "I didn't?"

  Lucy shook her head somewhat reassured that her friend cared so much about standing her up, "No babe, we weren't supposed to hang out last night."

  Anastasia leaned back and blew out a huge gust of air, "Oh thank God, but," she looked back at Lucy confused, "who were you meeting?"

  "No one," Lucy said. The roar in her ears got louder and she felt beads of sweat on her upper lip. What was going on here? Had she imagined an entire human being? A person that walked, talked, laughed, opened doors and drank coffee? She had invented a man who could touch her and damn near make her dissolve? Why would she do such a thing? People who had episodes like this were usually having a nervous breakdown or crazy. Was she crazy? She couldn't be.

  Then a new horror occurred to her. What if something was wrong with her brain? It could be an aneurism or a neurotoxin; both of which could cause hallucinations. What if her brain had finally reached its performance limits and in the process of shutting down it was starting to malfunction? Like what Dr. Hannon always said – that Lucy's brain was a well oiled machine that she ran at a max all the time. What if her brain had just run out of gas? Terror instantaneously consumed her. Lucy choked back a sob and looked up to see the entire table was staring at her with concern.

  Anastasia reached back over the table and slowly put her hand on Lucy's arm, "Are you ok Lucy? You look like you need an Atavan or something."

  Lucy quickly shook her head to compose herself and forced a small scoff, "Sorry guys, I'm fine. I just realized that….." She began to rise from the table.

  "That what?" Suzanne asked still concerned.

  "I have to find my lab partner," Lucy stuttered.

  "That cow who spells her name with the superfluous "I"?" Suzanne challenged, "why?"

  "I screwed something up," Lucy grabbed her bag, "I have to find her."

  "I'll come with you," Nick said as he started to stand, "I have to head over to sciences anyway."

  "No!" Lucy almost yelled and Nicks face froze in shock, "I'll go and find her, thanks." She turned and almost ran out of the building. She sprinted to the sciences building, her mind a blur. By the time she got there, Lucy was in a full blown panic. She found Janielle in the cafeteria beside the biology lab; she was talking with bright animation to a group of wide eyed science nerds who were hanging on her every word. Lucy stormed up, grabbed Janielle's chair and spun her around.

  "Janielle!" she yelled into her shocked face, "Who was I with in the park?"

  Janielle froze, mid-sentence and slowly adjusted her facial expression to deep contempt as she glared at Lucy, "I was in the middle of something." She growled.

  "Yeah, whatever," Lucy said and pushed herself closer to the busty blond. "Listen, I was sitting with someone in the park when you came up, did you recognize him?"

  Janielle laughed out loud and the ice and happiness of it made Lucy's heart stop. "You think you were with someone?" Janielle challenged, "Really? Is that what you think?"

  "Yes," Lucy almost whispered. Her hands began to shake as she pushed the chair away and slowly stood.

  "Then you are not only a moron, you are a delusional moron." Janielle spouted back. She turned to the table, "she totally slacks all term, bails on the midterm and then I find her sitting on a bench talking to herself about being stalked." She looped her finger in the air beside her head. "Psych consult please!" she sang and the table erupted in laughter. Lucy stumbled back from them, knocked over a garbage can, found her feet and sprinted.

  Lucy didn't think about Nathaniel as she pounded across the campus. She didn't look around the quad for him. She did not want to see him anymore. Lucy was frantic to NOT see Nathaniel again. She carefully ran through her memory looking for gaps or lost information but it all seemed intact. She ran through the events of last night, and this morning, watching them like a movie in her head, trying to find evidence that Nathaniel wasn't imaginary.

  She thought of the coffee guy being surprised that she had bought two coffees. Of course he was surprised. She was alone. He couldn't see Nathaniel either. There was so much loss for her to cope with. She might be losing her memory and she was losing Nathaniel. He had somehow implanted himself in her life and yet now, there was no way she would see him again because he was a figment of her imagination. She tried not to panic but it seemed like the right thing to do.

  Lucy slowed her pace as she opened the glass doors to the psychology building. She ran toward salvation, safety. Janielle was right, she needed a psych consult, she needed Dr. Hannon. Was he even in his office? Lucy loaded up the schedule he had shown her at the beginning of the semester in her mind. She saw the calendar clearly, Monday, Wednesday, Friday 11:30-1:30 Office Hours. She nodded to herself. At least something in her head was still working.

  As she climbed the thin dark staircase a thought occurred to her. Lucy was not the only one who would be devastated with this news. If Lucy lost her mind and or her memory, Dr. Hannon would lose his research topic. He had built almost his entire career around Lucy and her unique memory;
all other topics and subjects had been dropped the moment he met her. Every publication, all the meetings, the studies, the experiments, the thousands of dollars in government grants and University budgets would all be wasted now.

  Dr. Hannon would become a laughing stock.

  Lucy quickly decided that she didn't have to tell Dr. Hannon everything to get some answers from him. She didn't have to tell him about Nathaniel in order to solve this mystery. It was, after all just one episode and it might never happen again. Lucy took a deep breath and was a bit calmer when she reached the second floor and walked the short hallway to Dr. Hannon's office. For now, she would keep the details a secret. Hopefully, it would never become necessary to tell him the whole truth. She sucked in a deep breath, wrung her hands together and knocked on the door.

  "Come in!" Dr. Hannon called from inside. Lucy opened the door and poked her head in. Dr. Hannon's office was not huge but it was certainly larger than any other office at the University. Dr. Hannon looked up from his enormous mahogany desk and his face lit up, "Lucy!" His sparkling eyes could barely be seen over the stacks and stacks of paper on his desk. Dr. Hannon was exceedingly disorganized. The only person who kept him on time and prepared was Gail, his administrator. She somehow managed to make sense of those massive piles so papers got graded on time, letters sent and memos acknowledged. Lucy assumed that Gail had taken a long weekend because Dr. Hannon's paper mountains were bigger than ever.

  "It's so nice to see you!" he extolled while coming around the side of the desk to put his hands on Lucy's shoulders. He gave her a light squeeze and smiled showing how genuinely happy he was to see her and let go. This small act broke Lucy's heart even more. Hiding the truth from Dr. Hannon was going to be harder than she thought.

  "Coffee?" he asked. He didn't pause for a reply but instead headed over to the small coffee station he had set up in the corner and poured two cups. He mixed in cream and sugar and returned, talking the whole time; "I have received twenty emails today from doctors and students who were at the conference last night. They have been requesting more information. They just can't get enough of you Lucy. Sorry the coffee is from this morning, Gail took a long weekend."

  Lucy took the cup, sat at one end of the couch and dropped her school bag on the floor. Dr. Hannon sat at the other end of the couch and crossed one leg over the other. He waited, knowing Lucy had come here to say something.

  "Doc, when was my last MRI?" Lucy spoke quietly while staring at her coffee cup. She couldn't see if there was any reaction on his face.

  "You would remember better than I would Lucy, I think it was January of last year. Does that sound right to you?" Lucy nodded. "Why?" Lucy decided not to answer that.

  "And everything was normal right? I mean…normal for me," Lucy's voice was monotone and soft. She was worried if she displayed any emotion at all she may crack and start to bawl.

  "Yes Lucy, normal for you," he paused, "is there something wrong?"

  "What if there was?" Lucy probed in the same robotic voice. Dr. Hannon's voice was not so robotic- it was full of concern.

  "Then we would look into it and fix it. Lucy, what's going on?"

  "But what if you couldn't fix it? What if I couldn't be fixed? What would you do Doctor? What would you do for work?" she finished quietly.

  "Lucy look at me," he said firmly. Lucy shook her head. She could feel him leaning over trying to get into her line of sight. He sighed and continued, "If I could not have you as a subject, I could do many other things. I admit that none of them would be as fascinating as you are but I would survive. Please do not forget that I consider myself a fairly smart man." Lucy could feel him smile at the joke but she didn't look up. "Lucy look, if you want out of the program, you leave, that's all. I wouldn't be angry with you. I would completely understand. My research takes up a great deal of your time, time that as a young freshman you might prefer to spend with your friends or," he hesitated, "dare I say, a boyfriend?"

  Oh God! Don't cry. Don't cry.

  Lucy managed to shake her head but could not open her mouth for fear of releasing the floodgates of her misery. "Oh," Dr. Hannon sat back, "Well, whatever it is, you can tell me. I won't be upset. I promise." There was a long silence. Dr. Hannon seemed to be contemplating something.

  "Lucy," he asked carefully, "did you see something strange?"

  At this Lucy's head snapped up and she stared at him her mouth agape. "Like what?" she almost yelled.

  He startled in shock at her sudden reaction and responded quickly sensing her urgency, "Spots of light, or spots of dark? Images tracing themselves across your vision?"

  Lucy relaxed and put her head back down, "No. Nothing like that." Just imaginary dream men, she thought.

  "Any problems with your depth perception? Are you bumping into things?"

  Hot guys in the quad? "No."

  There was another long pause as Dr. Hannon contemplated his next line of questions.

  When he spoke again, his voice was soft, "Lucy, have you had any new memories pop up?" Lucy looked at him again, this time with total confusion in her eyes,

  "What do you mean new memories?"

  "From your childhood maybe? From before anyone knew about your gift?"

  "From before I was two?" Lucy asked completely confounded.

  "Yes," he answered calmly, "anything like that?"

  Lucy shook her head, "No, why?"

  Dr. Hannon seemed to relax a little, "Well, despite my many years of study, the brain is still a mystery. We don't know why it does some of the things it does and sometimes it can play tricks on us."

  "It can?"

  "Yes," Dr. Hannon laughed a little, "even a brain as perfect as yours can show you strange things or store images for a long time without you knowing. Your brain isn't physiologically all that different from everyone else's. People remember new things all the time. What we think is a random thought is actually a memory of something we have read or seen but just forgot about. Your brain is usually far more accurate, being able to see a memory exactly how it happened. Most people do not remember anything from before the age of two. You might be different. I would not be surprised at all if your mind came up with images from infancy."

  He didn't seem worried about this at all, "In addition to that Lucy, you are exhausted. College takes a toll on a student. You have been pushing it very hard the last few months and maybe you just need a break. Even the most powerful jet engine needs an oil change every once in a while. Our minds need vacations too. Yours especially with all its extra talents might just need a reprieve. Why don't you take the weekend and try to rest your mind a little? I won't tell you not to study or go to the library because that would be impossible for you but maybe go easy on your poor head for a few days. You will be amazed at how much better you feel." Lucy nodded. That wasn't a bad idea after all. Maybe she was just tired. "Go be a normal, vapid eighteen year old for a couple days. Doctors orders," he added with a grin, "Now would you like to tell me what is really bothering you?" Lucy took a deep, shaky breath and a gulp of her coffee. It tasted like metal but she didn't mind.

  "Not today," she said with conviction. Dr. Hannon began to protest, "But I'll make you a deal, if anything changes, I promise to let you know." Lucy felt much better. Her mind was tired and it was playing tricks on her. This made complete sense. She would rest her mind this weekend; it wouldn't be hard with work tonight and the party tomorrow night. She really had little studying to do. She had to cut her brain a break. She was just human after all.

  "That's a deal," Dr. Hannon said starting to rise. Lucy stood too and glanced at her watch, 12:45. She had just enough time to make it to Ancient History.

  "Thanks Doc," she said sincerely and picked up her bag.

  "I didn't do anything."

  "You did actually." Lucy started to walk to the door.

  "Well, then I am glad to be of service." Lucy laughed. Dr. Hannon started to return to his desk but stopped, "Oh and Lucy, tell that boyfriend of yours to be ni
ce to you."

  "I told you Doc, I don't have a boy…" Lucy started but he cut her off.

  "I may be an old graying professor who lives with a very handsome man, but I," he tapped his temple, "am a remarkably astute chap. I have seen my share of lovesick freshman girls and I am telling you my dear, he isn't worth it if he makes you sad."

  "But Doc…"

  "I am a genius young lady," he waved his hand dismissing her and sat back behind his desk, "now go or you will be late. I have no interest in hearing from Professor Johnson about you being disrespectfully tardy."

  Lucy rolled her eyes, sighed and walked out the door. Lovesick? Lucy thought that was a little strong of a term. She had a crush, that's all- a crush on a figment of her imagination. She had daydreamed, that's all. She had daydreamed because her mind was tired. She had spent the past 16 years overloading her brain with piles and piles of information and now it was fatigued. She sighed as she pulled open the door of the psychology building and headed out into the sunshine.

  Anastasia was leaning against the closest bike rack, her arms crossed. "Nice try loser."

  Lucy smiled, "Piss off and mind your own business."

  "You ARE my business," she spouted and pushed herself to standing as she sauntered over. "You might have fooled the rest of them but I know you better." She walked over to Lucy, opened her arms and wrapped her in a tight hug.

  "I'm fine," Lucy sighed into Anastasia's thick hair. They pulled apart. "I just talked to Dr. Hannon. I'm just tired. I'm going to take the weekend off and then everything should be fine. If I am not ok, I will come back and deal with it ok?"

  "Tired hey?" Anastasia challenged, "You don't say! Up all night, reading a bunch of stupid books the size of my ass, spending days on end in the library? I can't imagine why you are tired!"