Be in the Real

by Denise Mathew

  The concept that Pauline’s life was in the balance nagged at her as she soaped and washed her body, then shampooed her hair, but she could not move against her need to do what was familiar. When she had donned her soiled clothes once again, she went in search of Derrick, attempting to remember the last words he had spoken to her the night before. As hard as she tried to bring up the memory, she couldn’t quite manage. What he had said had seemed so insignificant in comparison to what had happened on their adventure.

  Urgent now to find Derrick, the only person who knew the importance of the day, she did what felt right, she paced up and down the corridor outside the room she had slept in, calling out his name at the top of her lungs. A few doors cracked and she could feel eyes on her, but nobody came out to stop her. In fact when she put her focus on any one of the partially opened doors, they closed rapidly, audible clicks of locks engaging followed. Despite her attempts to find Derrick, nobody bothered to tell her where he was. The nameless strangers and their ignorance of her desire to find Derrick only made her agitation double, then triple. Kaila raised her voice even higher, to the limits of her vocal cords, until her throat pulsated from the abuse. Only when Derrick raced up the stairs and was standing a few feet away from her, did she halt what she had been doing. By this point her throat was so sore that she imagined it bleeding from strain.

  “Pipe down, I’m here.”

  Without the gel that he normally used, Derrick’s hair was flat and lifeless. He was rumpled as if he had just jumped out of bed. There was no sign of his jeans or his t-shirt. He stood before her in merely a pair of navy boxer briefs that framed his penis beneath them. Kaila’s eyes came to rest on the bulge that said he was a man. She wondered what Derrick’s penis looked like, and if it was the same or different than Norm’s. She was certain that all men had different penises to a degree, but she didn’t think that they were altogether that different, much like women’s breasts that all came in pairs with nipples, where only the size and position on the chest varied.

  “Can you stop staring at my crotch?” Derrick said.

  Kaila’s eyes detached from where they had just been glued. She stared at Derrick. In his expression she saw something that she hadn’t seen before, embarrassment.

  “I was just comparing the size of your penis to Norm’s and…”

  “I don’t need to know,” Derrick said, throwing his hand up for her to stop speaking.

  Kaila shrugged and walked forward, toward him. When she reached him, he shifted to the side, out of her way. She repositioned her laptop under her arm as she descended the steps. Derrick followed her silently.

  When she had reached the main floor she spotted the sleeping bag centered on the floor; apparently it had been where Derrick had slept for the night. His lost jeans and tee were in a ball beside it. Kaila cocked her head then turned to face him.

  “Don’t you have a real bed?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, kind of, but not here. I wanted to be sure that I was around when you woke up, hence this…”

  He motioned to the sleeping bag.

  “Where’s your real bed at?” Kaila said.

  She had never imagined where Derrick was when he wasn’t with her, until that very moment.

  “I live with my girlfriend a few blocks away.”

  All the air came out of Kaila’s lungs in a rush at the mention of this. In her mind Derrick wasn’t supposed to have a girlfriend…

  “But why did you kiss Pauline? Why did you put your hands in her shirt, why did you…”

  Anger surged inside Kaila at the idea that Derrick had lied to Pauline, had lied to her. But even as the thoughts swished around in her mind, she knew that he had never told her that he didn’t have a girlfriend, she had never asked.

  Derrick rubbed the side of his face with the palm of his hand. He still had a red line of sleep on his cheek.

  “That’s complicated.”

  “That’s not an answer,” Kaila retorted.

  She was already deflating. The mention of Pauline’s name had been enough to diffuse her, long before her wrath had grown out of control.

  It was Derrick’s time to shrug.

  “I need to see Pauline now.”

  Kaila glanced down at her watch. She read the time as 7:00 o’clock. She was relieved to see that they still had time, or at least she hoped they had time. Kaila had no idea how these prophecies worked, and if the day was meant to be all day, or if there was a specific time when Pauline was supposed to die.

  For a change Derrick didn’t put up a fight. He nodded.

  “Let me get my clothes on and use the toilet,” he said.

  He moved forward, scooped his jeans and tee up in a fist then turned back toward the stairs. Kaila admired the tattoo that ran the length of his spine, knowing that it was another sign, though she still wasn’t exactly sure what it meant.

  She heard the stairs creak beneath him as he ascended, then the sound of the bathroom door shutting. It didn’t take long for her to hear the clang of the old pipes being turned on as they drew water up to the ancient bathroom. Alone again and with nothing much to do, Kaila took a seat on the floor. She stretched her legs straight in front of her then positioned her computer on her lap. It seemed like forever since Trillian had had a chance to write, and she could feel Trillian try to push in and snatch the time away from her.

  Kaila opened Trillian’s blog and noticed that there were even more comments, more followers, more of everything, despite Trillian being noticeably absent. Kaila also noted the date was July 11th, and that it had been exactly five days since Derrick had told her his prediction about Pauline’s death. With everything that had happened since they had left, it felt much longer than five days, as if she had squeezed a whole lifetime into less than a week.

  Knowing that she was on a schedule, Kaila pushed all of it away. She searched the blog for something that would lead the way. Amidst the clutter of words and musings Kaila spotted the message.

  Do not forgo truth for the lies you choose to believe.∞

  Once again the words added up to eleven, a master number. Kaila drew in a heaving breath, thrilled at the newest communication. She had no idea what it meant only that it was something more. All the signs were adding up, mounting until she imagined they would crest.

  Today would be the day.

  Trillian was pulling so violently on the tether of restraint that Kaila knew she would have to let her have her way this time. Still high from her day out, and buoyed by the concept that she was going to see Pauline very soon, Kaila released Trillian.

  “The spark that is the beginning will set the inferno free, and that my dear friends is what the essence of truth and understanding entails. The truth of what is, may not be the illusion you choose to believe, but that which you ignore, forgo, dispute and disband. And in that process you wonder why the gut that tells you the truth, sometimes lies, allows us to believe something that is not entirely real.

  I will impart a truth upon you that you may or may not absorb, and it is, belief is the seed, and the truth in the seed is revealed at its sprouting. Yet that truth must be the real, not the imagined, and when the mind is dark the truth feels dark, and when the thoughts are of light, it is light. The truth my dear readers is not bendable, to be stretched to and fro like an elastic band, it is solid, it is the interpretation that is malleable, able to be worked into that which we fashion.

  And how may we discover the real, the unfiltered reality of our being, where nothing stands in the way, where nothing mirrors the illusions that we work to bring into reality? The answer is simple, for when the truth is solid and the outcome is assured, then why dither and wonder when it is already done. If in fact time is not linear and the past, present, and future all reside in ONE, as it does in dreams, then how is it that we cannot believe and see that reality of that which we desire most in our lives. But so too, can we see and know and believe, the reality that we do not desire? Is desire in fact a branch with many feelers and each o
ne leads to an alternate being, a reality that is only slightly different, and when the chooser chooses, that in fact taps the line of dominoes and in a clacking motion, one against another they fall in unison, or do we believe in a line. Now, that is a true question, for if time is in fact not linear the dominoes might fall at once.

  Is your future written in time already, or do you have a paintbrush in your hand that determines what is, and what will be, or is it in fact a combination of sorts. Where choices intermingle with fate, twined together, separating and connecting, where a snip here and there, a pruning of sorts, will lead to a different shape. Not in fact a rapid shift, yet a shift all the same, slowly, steadily, pruning and clipping until the desired or maybe undesired has manifested. Truly the power is within us to reshape our own existence, not that of another, only ours, and when we attempt to prune another’s branches we will not notice the natural patterns of growth and may cut that very branch that is the strongest, the life force. It is dangerous work to shape another, and so in our journey we must guide the growth, never cutting, only guiding a branch to another place, gentle and kind. It is the only way…

  “Ready?”

  Kaila shuttled back. Where normally she would have been aggravated by an interruption when Trillian was working in earnest, this was not the time for anything but compliance. She had to stop a future event from happening; Pauline couldn’t die.

  Derrick stood in front of Kaila, staring down at her expectantly.

  She snapped the laptop shut. Trillian was more than a little put out that she had been shoved back into her box mid-sentence and thought. Kaila ignored her.

  When she stood, Kaila noticed that Derrick hadn’t changed his clothes, but his hair was damp and tousled. He no longer smelled of bad breath and sleep, and instead was scented by mint toothpaste and something light and flowery.

  “You smell like a girl,” Kaila said, leaning in closer, inhaling him.

  “It was all there was in the bathroom, I mean nobody is stupid enough to leave good shit in a public space…I don’t smell that bad do I?”

  He chuckled then cocked an eyebrow her way. The act surprised Kaila. This playful Derrick was one more side of him that she had not seen before.

  “You smell like a girl,” she repeated.

  Kaila glanced down at her watch. It was now 8:12 o’clock. It was odd for her to have checked the time so frequently, but since it was a monumental day she felt that she needed to keep time in a precise fashion, like the others did.

  “Don’t say it, I know, we need to see Pauline. Let’s go.”

  A bird took flight in Kaila’s chest and they were on their way.

  CHAPTER 37

  From what Derrick had said, Pauline’s house was about three hours away from where they had been staying. Since she lived on the outskirts of the city, no taxis went that way, so Derrick had arranged to borrow his girlfriend’s car. Kaila hated the idea of getting inside something that belonged to someone who she now termed her enemy. Even though there was no basis for her instant hatred of the unseen girlfriend, it was still there, simmering beneath her skin ready to boil over at the slightest provocation.

  The car was electric blue and sporty. Kaila had never cared much for cars and had only been inside a handful of them, so she wasn’t impressed. She expected that Darla from Wildwind, would have been quite thrilled with it though. Unlike the beat up cab that Derrick and Kaila had rode, this car smelled new, like leather and warm plastic with an undercurrent of something sweet like the cherry lollipops that Janelle had smuggled inside Wildwind on occasion.

  It wasn’t like candy and sweets weren’t permitted in Wildwind, only that the staff preferred that patients steer clear of things that might contain too much food colorings or sugar. That food color detail never seemed to carry over to all the colored pills that they fed Kaila and all the others every day.

  Being out and away from her medications made her wonder why she took them at all, because most times she felt fuzzy brained and out of focus, not able to enjoy all that life had to offer.

  Kaila pushed back into the plush passenger side seat. She had never sat in the front seat of a car before. She was stunned by all that she saw as they zipped down the road and away from the house. The wall to wall buildings, people, and filled spaces of the city, soon gave way to open expanses of fields that were leaf green and others golden yellow. Houses spread out and Kaila even noticed a few farms with milk white cows dotted with chestnut, and goats in varying shades of brown, black and plain white, grazing in the fields.

  Unlike the day before, the sky was pure blue with no hints of the clouds that had tangled together before and blotted out the sun. Kaila had always been impressed by the shifting seasons, but even more so the days when the weather was unpredictable, where rain spilled at the same time as the sun shone.

  “Why does Franco look like Einstein?” Kaila asked.

  They had mostly driven in silence since Kaila had been mesmerized by all the new sights. Now that the question had sprung into her mind, she needed an answer.

  Derrick ran a hand through his hair. The strands stood on end then promptly fell back into place.

  “It’s complicated,” he said as if that was answer enough; it wasn’t.

  “Nothing is complicated unless you make it so,” Kaila said, quoting one of Trillian’s sayings.

  “Well this is.” He paused. “The abbreviated version is that he’s got a bit of this little man complex going, and by adopting Einstein’s look he feels bigger. I think it works for him…I kind of bought into the whole persona until…”

  Derrick abruptly stopped speaking. His hands worked the smooth leather of the steering wheel. Before Kaila could ask another question she had a flash of Franco, but it was in a different place, a different time and she’d had things attached to her. It had scared her because she knew the spiders were coming soon and…

  Before Kaila could get a reading on what she was seeing, Trillian shut the curtain, effectively obscuring what Kaila assumed was a memory.

  “What did he do to me?” Kaila asked.

  “Who?” Derrick asked.

  His gaze remained trained on the road ahead. Kaila noticed however that his knuckles went white from gripping the steering wheel too tightly.

  “Franco.”

  “He didn’t do anything to you.”

  Derrick jerked his head toward Kaila. There was aggression in his gaze but also something else, regret.

  “If you want to see Pauline you’ll give the questions a rest, otherwise I’m turning this fucking car around and we’re going straight to Wildwind. ”

  Kaila didn’t usually react to threats, but for some reason Derrick’s words felt like a slap across the face. They also struck cold fear in her because she was certain by the set of his jaw that he would go good on his promise. Her first instinct was to rear on him, hit him, make him feel the terror and anxiety that she felt. For once she didn’t act on her initial desires. It was just long enough for her to catch sight of a storm in the distance, just over the horizon. The sun still beat down on their car but far ahead the clouds were like black sheets of cotton batten, rolling toward them. Lightning, white and jagged skewered the land below. Kaila had witnessed storms before through the glass at Wildwind, but never until right then had she had the opportunity to drive into the melee. Her excitement grew by degrees as they approached the raging storm.

  Kaila pressed the automatic button that wound down the window. The wind tossed her hair around until her curls snapped against her cheeks and eyes, and she was immersed in the feel of it, the wild, untamed and powerful all in one. Not long after, they were beneath a canopy of thick clouds. They had passed over a line drawn by nature, where the boundaries of the thunderstorm had been painted with an invisible hand.

  Huge drops of rain hit her face, hard enough to sting and the wind picked up. Even more cracks and booms resonated, exploding around her, blotting out all other sound. She had always wondered what a tornado would loo
k like up close, and how powerful it would feel. Often times she had imagined being sucked into the vortex of it. In her thoughts this act wouldn’t have hurt her, and would merely have allowed her to feel the force of it. Later, after she had thoroughly discovered all the secrets it contained, she would have been deposited back on the ground unscathed. Kaila knew that it was only a fantasy but chose to hold it anyway. There were so many things that she didn’t want to be true, but were true all anyway, so why not wish for something else.

  Kaila fell into her imagination, where she was spinning around in a tornado, the world shifting around her, where everything twirled and she was floating on a bed of air; gravity was bypassed and all the rules of nature were broken…

  “Close the window you’re getting the inside of the car soaked.”

  Derrick’s voice brought her back to the fact that he was telling the truth, her shirt was drenched, her hair stuck to her face in wet strands. His demand was rapidly forgotten when Kaila locked on the windshield wipers, fighting to keep up the pace with the pelting rain. To Kaila it felt as if they were driving underneath a waterfall, where water poured down the glass in torrents.

  The more intense the storm became the more Kaila envisioned and dreamed. Now she was a storm chaser. She had once seen a television show about storm chasers where the people documented their encounters with all sorts of crazy weather. They had always managed to speak while being pummeled by forces that were beyond human comprehension, forces that had to be felt to be known.

  “I’m in the real,” she shrieked with absolute glee.

  She felt the press of the window sliding up against her forearms. Kaila pushed back, attempting to stop its progress, but it was to no avail. When there was only a fingers width of space left before it closed entirely, she was forced to retreat. Her subsequent attempts at bringing the window down again were met with nothing at all. The mechanism that powered the windows had obviously been broken.