A Strange Reality (PartTwo: Jill)

Chapter 2: Jill

The thing I noticed first about Jack were his eyes. It’s difficult to describe the significance of exactly what it was that I saw in those earthly dark eyes, but the closer I became to him the more I began to realize that it was his compulsion for understanding. When I speak to him he really listens with a genuine interest. When he asks me a question it’s a question worth asking. And his opinions are something that verify his intelligence. None of the rhetorical nonsense that had seemed so natural to me before. If I would let it happen I could be hypnotized by those eyes. There’s a shifting existence in them like a constellation of rust and fire, burning without boundaries, and the more I get to know him, the more I realize that I simply can’t be without him. After just a few weeks together I knew that Jack was mine, and by all accounts he became a free loather, living in my apartment like my very own human pet.

He had introduced himself to me one morning while I was sitting by myself in a café. I’d been up all night and was in no mood for company but too strung out and mumble fucked to object as he sat down at my table, pulling out a pack of cloves from the breast pocket of his black collard coat. “Mind if I smoke?” he asked with a cheerfulness that made me feel sick.

I absently waved my hand at him in a bitchy gesture that said, do whatever the hell you want, and then tried my hardest to discourage him by refusing to make eye contact. I was doing such a good job of it that I actually felt bad for him and wondered how long he’d continue sitting there before getting the point. I pulled up my black cotton hood and sank into the reclusive privacy of its shadow.

A few minutes had passed and neither of us spoke a word. The air was thick with the bitter smell of nostalgia and soon I'd found it difficult to breath. I had just worked up the nerve to get up and leave when for the first time I lifted my gaze to look him in the face and found that his eyes were fixed on me. Those deep rusty dark eyes. Fixed on me with a solid penetrating gaze that dared me to panic and shy away. But I didn’t. I just stared right back in defiance, testing my own nerve and feeling the rising excitement in the fluttering pitter patter of my heart. The left side of his mouth curved into the sliced picture of a knowing handsome smile, as if he were reading my emotions spread out before me like spilt words. And I asked him, “why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’ve seen you before,” he stated.

I immediately responded with a lie that barely made it past a whisper, “I get that a lot.”

He took a drag of his clove and blew smoke out at the sun without ever breaking eye contact. “I saw you last night.”

I tried to smile. Tried to act normal. My face felt like a mask that was three sizes too small. I think I was still feeling the thick mind numbing after affects of LSD, my brain tripping over itself through the sticky substance of exhausted thoughts, but I couldn’t be sure. I had been going on well over 48 hours without sleep and I desperately needed to reset my mind. I played stupid. “Saw me where?”

“I saw you dancing in circles on the grass next to the golden Buddha.” He gave me a teasing smile. “You looked like you were in a trance.”

I was in a trance, lost in the folds of space and time. It was the summer beat festival and I remembered spinning around in circles with my arms stretched out to the sky, possessed by the influence of a spinning vinyl record. After so long I had gotten sickeningly dizzy and ended up lying on my back, watching with amazement as my fingers sent ripples through the thick clusters of stars that peppered the night. I had still felt the base pounding in my chest as I sat there, hours later in the café, trying to ignore the whispering beats that compelled me to keep on moving to the music that wasn’t there. I was a little embarrassed and could feel my cheeks getting warm with blush. “Ah. So you really did see me.” I was trying to sound friendlier then I felt.

“I couldn’t help but stare. I think you hypnotized me,” he said with another teasing but warm smile, pushing his limp black hair from his eyes with the flat of his hand.

And just like that, as if some invisible barrier had cracked open, I’d suddenly felt a strange attraction toward him. I still don’t understand why. I’m not the type of person that would be drawn to strangers. But he had such an appealing charm to him. Something that projected itself into the atmosphere like the sound of music. It was probably the drugs or the lack of rest but I told him my name was Jill.

Last October we’d found an abandoned house that had been boarded up with no trespassing signs and without any apparent reason we silently scurried into the house like mice. But something had felt wrong to me. As soon as we stepped onto the property it felt like someone, or something was watching us. It followed in perfect silence like a secret shadow, melting into the dark edges of my peripheral vision. My imagination was screaming with flashing images and terrifying thoughts. Pale, lifeless faces with black lips and empty eye sockets. Grotesquely thin bodies, dimly glowing with stark white silhouettes, glistening and bending and stretching out in agony. All fueled with the intensity of a mind under influence. Jack lead the way, moving swiftly and fluently, leaving me in a desperate race to keep up and allowing no time for second guesses.

We ran around to the back of the house and found a large crack in the wall big enough for us to slip into, and as I stepped inside there was such an overwhelming sensation of physical coldness that I immediately started to shiver. “I don’t think we should be here,” I said, pulling up my hood and hugging my sweatshirt tight around my chest.

Maybe he didn’t hear me. Maybe he didn’t care. Either way he ignored my comment. “Come on. Let’s go check out the attic.”

We made our way carefully through the rubble that was littered about the floor like stacks of split and splintered belongings; as if the ones who had lived there last had decided to destroy the remains of anything left behind. The air inside was thick with an extremely potent odor, but it wasn’t a bad odor. It smelled a little bit like vanilla with a sweet sting, as if I were inhaling particles of mint. I paused and looked back at the crack in the wall, half expecting to see the eyes of an angry ghoul. But beyond the sharp pale moonlight slicing its beam into the crack, there was nothing.

The attic felt safe. Whatever it was I’d felt before remained obscure for the time being. Jack pointed at something in the center of the room. “Look. There’s a candle.” He pulled out a zippo from the inside of his blue corduroy jacket and kneeled down to light it. “This place is pretty spooky, eh?”

“Ya, it is. Remind me again why we’re here in the first place?”

“Hey, it was your idea. Not mine.”

I didn’t remember ever voicing it out loud but I guess he was right. “Well, whatever. Lets just get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”

“What’s the rush?” he said, pulling out a folded piece of tinfoil with a large chunk of something black inside it. “Let’s smoke this first.”

I have no idea how long we stayed in that attic. I drifted in and out of a thick tar like dream, unaware of whether I was awake or sleeping. My body was a warm sun beam, held together in a womb of interior privacy.

When we climbed back into the safety of my little black Civic the teeming radiants of silence scratched at my brain like a thousand whispering insects. I looked at Jack and realized that he was more than simply high. “Are you rolling?” I asked. The answer was clear and I decided to head for the desert.