Part I: Memories
The war was supposed to end yesterday... Nothing seemed to change in the world, nor did it really matter... Resistance was futile and only strong managed to cope with the horrors of the night and the walking dead. The fires still burn as homemade explosives are used in self defence, and sometimes self-infliction. It is usually cold at night, but the fires attract them, making sleep almost impossible. I try to sleep during the day, but the threat will not sleep, nor do they need to. World governments crumble one by one with each passing day, and the world’s military power disappears in a blink of an eye. Life is scarce these days, but I live on to tell about my tales.
Today is another day, ‘another day...,’ I tell myself, another day of death, pain, and a countdown to the time I will finally be put to rest in my grave. I remind myself about the past, and what I used to have; a job, a house, wife, three kids, and even the odd vacation here and there. I had ‘the good life’ as one might refer to as, needless to say I was happy with what I had; I never did want it to change.
I was waiting for one of my company’s business partners; Joe, George, or whatever his name was. I was lounging on the reception area’s couch, reading the paper and helping myself to a cup of Americano, when I heard a few mutters across the room. It was the receptionist and the boss’s personal secretary; they were discussing something on the news it had seemed. I wondered what the fuss was about, and turned to the front page that I had skipped ahead of to read the daily sports article. On the front was a cartoon depicting the Roswell incident decades ago. The headline read, ‘What you don’t know,’ and it smaller subtitles, ‘-courtesy of the US Government.’ The article told about a leak in a confidential letter sent to the president. The letter had been traced back by unknown investigators to an unknown address in Nevada. Suspicions rose among those he first knew about this and went to decode the letter that was sent. The private investigators eventually came out to the public just yesterday to announce their collected findings of the private message. They were to hold a press conference later on the date of Tuesday, March 15th 2019 when their offices were raided by New York City police. The two investigators were taken into custody for questioning and were charged with treason against the US government. On the 2nd page were people’s opinions on the subject, and the results were of no surprise. Many people are now withdrawing support from the government in fear that they may turn ‘corrupt’; while others voiced that it was of no right for the investigators to ‘peek’ in on private matters of other people, including the subject of today. Most of the population however, were simply apathetic and went about their daily lives as usual on this apparent not-so-eventful Wednesday afternoon. “Creighton!” I heard my name as the main office doors swung open. It was George after all.
These days, things are different. I never carried a gun with me, nor did I ever own or want to fire one. I was never an irrational American civilian who acted upon gut rather than thought. I had found the small .357 sig cartridge which incidentally fit perfectly into the Glock 17 pistol that was found not a foot away. I had never fired a gun before, but my life now depended on a natural instinct.
“C’mon son, just pull it back,” I followed the instructions carefully; I had never felt such a rush before in my life. I pulled, closed my eyes, and released. A satisfying sound of a direct hit filled my mind. “Good hit!” the balloon was no longer filled with water, nor will it ever hold anything else, ever. It was my first day with any sort of a weapon, an old sling shot that was passed down for generations from my father, and his line. The rubber strips had been replaced over the years, but the integrity of the wood still held firm.
I searched through my closet for it, unable to remember where I had left it in my haste. The mess of clothes and supplies always seemed to work as a system of organization for me; probably why I was still alive...perhaps... I finally found the small shoe box that once held my first pair at size 2. I pried open the cover that was sealed tight with super glue as a sort of time capsule till when I was older. It was the first time I had looked through the objects of this treasure cache since twenty years ago. In the box were several pictures of me my parents had taken of me at the many ‘first times’ of my childhood. I scanned them quickly; ‘first day out of the womb, first day at kindergarten, first day at baseball practice...’ and then finally, I found the picture I was looking for.
“Craig!” people used ‘Craig’ in preference rather than my actual name, it was simpler after all, to say and spell; an economically productive, one syllable, simple transformation. I turned around to gaze into the eyes of her. I still remember those eyes to this date; a perfect combination of blue and green to attract one’s attention such as myself. Her smile as well, perfectly symmetrical on all angles, and the voice that came with it; I could hear harmonies and melody in perfect sync. But to sum it up fairly economically, in a one syllable transformation, ‘Rebecca’.
I had lost track of time over the period of which I spent gazing at the picture. I lifted my hand to look at my watch as the hour hand grazed the bottom of the circumference. ‘Another night,’ I thought to myself. Walking over to my old rotten dresser; I had managed to peer out of my apartment window to catch a glimpse of a commotion outside on the streets. This certainly wasn’t going to be another night.
I could hear gunfire outside of the suite as I woke up to another day. I slowly crawled out of the sheets to take a look at the street fifteen stories below me. It must have been the night guard on duty, as it was still only two hours into Friday. I opened my closet to gather what I needed. Slowly, I pieced the one of a kind jigsaw puzzle until it was viewed in its entirety. I carefully place it on the window seal. I peer through the circle of glass, and then fired. The bullet was dead on, as I aimed to take another shot. Soon there were more guards on the street. They held behind a barricade of chunks of metal, debris, and the odd overturned semi.
“What the hell is going on outside?”
“More of them,” I took another shot as soon as I could. Yaris closed the door behind him as he left the room, swearing under his breath.
“And I thought I would be getting some sleep tonight,” Rachel leaned over the window sill, like she did on most nights. Her sarcastic tone lightened the mood just a little. “How many are we talking here?”
“Two hundred, maybe three,” I quickly glanced.
“There are more of them every night, I wonder how long we are going to last…” it was a rhetorical question, especially with the inactivity of government troops in the area. The firefight was over fairly quickly. We regrouped as soon as we could at the main lobby of the hotel.
“Role call, state your assigned aliases, specific order, you all know the drill.” The men and women of 61st street hotel lined up in order. There stood 12 of us, each, a different code name; the names mostly resembled their role in the party and personal traits.
“Overseer.” (Charlotte Noel)
“Talker.” (Malcolm West)
“All nighter.” (Ted Bell)
“Keg Master.” (Akemi Yoshida)
“Glass eyes.” (Blake Rink)
“Tank.” (Kgosi Koroma)
“Leapfrog.” (Jun Lu)
“Campfire.” (Jason Rink)
“Shooter.” (Me)
“Steering.” (Jack Rent)
“Red Cross.” (Rachael Moon)
And last but not least…
“Full House.” (Frank Weld)
No one really understood why we used codenames rather then our actual names, but it definitely helps the new comers.
The sun rose between the once crowded streets of Broadway and Main, but not today, like most other days. These streets were never safe, and they certainly aren’t safe these days ether. I try to understand why no one goes out anymore; it isn’t all bad these days, you just have to be careful. The cafes in Soho never open, nor do the churches or the businesses of New York City. ‘Where did everyone go?’ I ask myself.
The day was clear for most of the morning, a true blessing to the 61st company of New York. The day went on as one would expect when finding him or herself in a worldwide holocaust, struggling to survive and get through the day to see another dawn.
The creatures slept during the day, or at least they chose to remain unseen. But the threat was always present. Government forces were to be avoided as well. The white house had ordered full lock down on as many infected areas as they could, and encouraged other world leaders to follow. Other remaining armies on the face of the earth were ordered to ‘cleanse’ anything that moved within these areas. It was suicide to wander towards the borders of the lockdown zone, as the areas are heavily guarded with military and police units, carrying more then enough firepower to fend off any threat before them. New York was never truly a safe place, housing the world’s most organized crime. The title still stands.
“What’ve we got here?” Charlotte observed the nearby incident not too far up 42nd street. Miss Noel was a young woman at the age of twenty-four and was previously working for human resource management of a small manufacturing company stationed in the suburbs of Brooklyn. She had found herself star-crossed when they blew the bridges to contain the civilian population on a routine check-up with her sick Grandmother living in an “after-retirement-complex” as she would refer to as. Charlotte never did like her all too well, but was obligated as much of her family’s debt had been repaid by the old hag herself. There were very few people they could’ve evacuated on that fateful day…
“What the hell is going on?!” I could hear an enraged civilian in the backdrop. The cops had quarantined part of a large part of the city, every street from 76th to the Harlem district. Never had I been so close to a police blockade before.
“Nothing to see here folks, please return to your homes and let us continue our work,” the young lady officer stood behind the yellow tape. Her facial expression predicted that this was nothing more then a minor inconvenience to the city.
“What seems to be the problem here Craig?” Charlie Dent finally decided to come out of the office.
“Seems to be a quarantine operation sir, or at least that’s what they label it as,” we could see more cruisers rolling in from Main Street to the 66th parallel.
“That’s odd, why didn’t they evacuate the people living in those homes?” He had obviously been watching for quite sometime, he was situated in a decent sized townhouse two blocks down the road at the corner of 64th and 5th avenue. “Fascinating…” He took another glance, “possibly a biohazard? This could be serious…” He was always an imaginative one.
“What have we got here?” Jack got out of the truck for closer examination.
“Another poor soul as it seems…” Kgosi towered above the victim; of what seemed to be, bullet wounds.
“Impossible… unless….” I was quickly interrupted.
“It’s Five thirty, we best be heading back,” Miss Moon was always the cautious type; but indeed, it was already getting dark. I looked over at the body, still curious as to what could’ve brought down the victim and forced him to his bloody end.
“We’d best take this one back to the lab,” we quickly agreed and stowed away the luggage in the back of the truck safely tucked in a black body bag, the blood still dripping off the unzipped teeth.
“Sir, please step away from the yellow--,”
“You expect me to leave me wife and two children in that apartment?! What the hell is going on anyway?!” The man was around his mid thirties, had three daughters and a lovely wife. Frank was as stubborn as usual, but no one could blame him; what would you do when you find out your family has been quarantined off because of an apparent bio hazard?
“Sir, everything’s under control, the area should--,” the officer was stunned; everyone was, and in a matter of seconds the homes on the corner of 66th and 5th instantly malformed into a cloud of dust and moulder.
The sunset was a refreshing break from the day’s roving. The glimmer on the city’s skyscrapers reflected off each other, filling the dark streets below with the last bit of light for the day. It wasn’t usually safe to laze on the hotel’s roof at night, as helicopters would routinely fly through on patrol around the park. They were on the lookout for breeding grounds, and an occasional bomber would make a fly by to drop if its payload.
“Care for a drink?” Frank was always the social type, and never lost it. He was in his late fifties and age hadn’t played a part in his character. If there was a phrase out there to describe Frank fairly briefly, “forever young” might be an understatement.
“Just like most nights Frank,” I said with a grin.
“Damn capital hill bureaucrats, if only they had been infected first,” he pointed to a black hawk chopper in the distance. “And that is why I don’t vote,” he began to rant, and I quickly lost any trace of thought or familiarity towards the topic of conversation.
The National Guard was all over the scene in an instant, a chaotic painting of despair and turmoil, a masterpiece of disaster and mayhem. Any scourge was preferable to this, please, any other. Frank had an abysmal expression, the crowd was in an uproar, the building still burning before my eyes. People screaming, and not a moment of peace in the frantic disorder. Some officers about to enter the building before the blast were thrown metres from the epicentre, sometimes in more then one place. It was a trailer from the next horror movie, and it opened that night.
The night was quiet tonight, ‘peace at last’, I thought to myself. Rachael was on watch tonight, and the dawn was to come soon. I always was a nighthawk, and almost independent of sleep. But then again, who can sleep in times like these? I marched over to the dresser once more, to gaze at the photo. I missed her, and I still do.
“C’mon Craig! Let’s go!” She wouldn’t let go of my hand, or my ear. I had promised her to take her to the florist to pick up some lilies for our friend’s wedding. I never understood why I needed to accompany her, but that’s an argument I might never win. She immediately marched over to the florist to get a second opinion on color choice, ‘so why am I here again?’ And then in hit me. I soon after handed over my debit card for the necessary transaction. Oh the things I would have done against my will for her.
“Do you think we will ever get married?” she asked as we stopped at the traffic light. I now had time to ponder the question, but realized there was only one acceptable answer to such a question.
“Perhaps, where will we have it?” the marriage, or at least that’s what I hoped to imply.
“Florence doesn’t sound like a bad area,” if you had the money.
“If we had the money.”
“Of course we will, I made sure of that,” so are we switching roles all of a sudden? Why don’t you go ahead and put on the suit then while I stay home, moping to myself about how fat I’ll probably get.
“Really now?” she was only a desk clerk after all; the girl must be damn good at pleasing the boss. I hoped I was wrong. It turns out she had been working another job at a local bookstore, managing the shelves and helping them sort out for the coming Christmas season. I soon learn that she had been busy with two other small part time jobs, and to think she was avoiding me for the past month. I felt guilty in a sense, for a change. I wouldn’t let go of her after.
I was briefly interrupted by Jun, and immediately an unrecognizable dialect flowed from his mouth like water to sandpaper. It was two in the morning, and his yells w could be heard from the four corners of the earth.
“Jun, what the hell you yelling ‘bout? Kgosi burst into the room, picking up the considerably smaller twenty-four year old exchange student from Nara. He wasn’t brusque, he just lacked grace. It didn’t help the situation; Jun was now in a high pitched frenzy.
“Put him down Koro!” Rachael exclaimed as she barged through my door. He did eventually, and when the dust settled finally, Rachael translated the obscured message. There was an awkward silence; something definitely wasn’t right.
Timothy Tang
17
Rockdige Secondery
Jan 13th 1992
[[ The Wishlist ]]
I could use a new set of headphones...
More guitars?
Maybe a grand piano...
and the will power to write my books
If only life was a fantasy story...
A weekend away with my extended family perhaps? (You know who you are) (^_^)
Fantasy of Darkness (A book project of mine)
Da creater
[[ Don't talk crap, it's ****ng rude ]]
Part I: Memories
The war was supposed to end yesterday... Nothing seemed to change in the world, nor did it really matter... Resistance was futile and only strong managed to cope with the horrors of the night and the walking dead. The fires still burn as homemade explosives are used in self defence, and sometimes self-infliction. It is usually cold at night, but the fires attract them, making sleep almost impossible. I try to sleep during the day, but the threat will not sleep, nor do they need to. World governments crumble one by one with each passing day, and the world’s military power disappears in a blink of an eye. Life is scarce these days, but I live on to tell about my tales.
Today is another day, ‘another day...,’ I tell myself, another day of death, pain, and a countdown to the time I will finally be put to rest in my grave. I remind myself about the past, and what I used to have; a job, a house, wife, three kids, and even the odd vacation here and there. I had ‘the good life’ as one might refer to as, needless to say I was happy with what I had; I never did want it to change.
I was waiting for one of my company’s business partners; Joe, George, or whatever his name was. I was lounging on the reception area’s couch, reading the paper and helping myself to a cup of Americano, when I heard a few mutters across the room. It was the receptionist and the boss’s personal secretary; they were discussing something on the news it had seemed. I wondered what the fuss was about, and turned to the front page that I had skipped ahead of to read the daily sports article. On the front was a cartoon depicting the Roswell incident decades ago. The headline read, ‘What you don’t know,’ and it smaller subtitles, ‘-courtesy of the US Government.’ The article told about a leak in a confidential letter sent to the president. The letter had been traced back by unknown investigators to an unknown address in Nevada. Suspicions rose among those he first knew about this and went to decode the letter that was sent. The private investigators eventually came out to the public just yesterday to announce their collected findings of the private message. They were to hold a press conference later on the date of Tuesday, March 15th 2019 when their offices were raided by New York City police. The two investigators were taken into custody for questioning and were charged with treason against the US government. On the 2nd page were people’s opinions on the subject, and the results were of no surprise. Many people are now withdrawing support from the government in fear that they may turn ‘corrupt’; while others voiced that it was of no right for the investigators to ‘peek’ in on private matters of other people, including the subject of today. Most of the population however, were simply apathetic and went about their daily lives as usual on this apparent not-so-eventful Wednesday afternoon. “Creighton!” I heard my name as the main office doors swung open. It was George after all.
These days, things are different. I never carried a gun with me, nor did I ever own or want to fire one. I was never an irrational American civilian who acted upon gut rather than thought. I had found the small .357 sig cartridge which incidentally fit perfectly into the Glock 17 pistol that was found not a foot away. I had never fired a gun before, but my life now depended on a natural instinct.
“C’mon son, just pull it back,” I followed the instructions carefully; I had never felt such a rush before in my life. I pulled, closed my eyes, and released. A satisfying sound of a direct hit filled my mind. “Good hit!” the balloon was no longer filled with water, nor will it ever hold anything else, ever. It was my first day with any sort of a weapon, an old sling shot that was passed down for generations from my father, and his line. The rubber strips had been replaced over the years, but the integrity of the wood still held firm.
I searched through my closet for it, unable to remember where I had left it in my haste. The mess of clothes and supplies always seemed to work as a system of organization for me; probably why I was still alive...perhaps... I finally found the small shoe box that once held my first pair at size 2. I pried open the cover that was sealed tight with super glue as a sort of time capsule till when I was older. It was the first time I had looked through the objects of this treasure cache since twenty years ago. In the box were several pictures of me my parents had taken of me at the many ‘first times’ of my childhood. I scanned them quickly; ‘first day out of the womb, first day at kindergarten, first day at baseball practice...’ and then finally, I found the picture I was looking for.
“Craig!” people used ‘Craig’ in preference rather than my actual name, it was simpler after all, to say and spell; an economically productive, one syllable, simple transformation. I turned around to gaze into the eyes of her. I still remember those eyes to this date; a perfect combination of blue and green to attract one’s attention such as myself. Her smile as well, perfectly symmetrical on all angles, and the voice that came with it; I could hear harmonies and melody in perfect sync. But to sum it up fairly economically, in a one syllable transformation, ‘Rebecca’.
I had lost track of time over the period of which I spent gazing at the picture. I lifted my hand to look at my watch as the hour hand grazed the bottom of the circumference. ‘Another night,’ I thought to myself. Walking over to my old rotten dresser; I had managed to peer out of my apartment window to catch a glimpse of a commotion outside on the streets. This certainly wasn’t going to be another night.
I could hear gunfire outside of the suite as I woke up to another day. I slowly crawled out of the sheets to take a look at the street fifteen stories below me. It must have been the night guard on duty, as it was still only two hours into Friday. I opened my closet to gather what I needed. Slowly, I pieced the one of a kind jigsaw puzzle until it was viewed in its entirety. I carefully place it on the window seal. I peer through the circle of glass, and then fired. The bullet was dead on, as I aimed to take another shot. Soon there were more guards on the street. They held behind a barricade of chunks of metal, debris, and the odd overturned semi.
“What the hell is going on outside?”
“More of them,” I took another shot as soon as I could. Yaris closed the door behind him as he left the room, swearing under his breath.
“And I thought I would be getting some sleep tonight,” Rachel leaned over the window sill, like she did on most nights. Her sarcastic tone lightened the mood just a little. “How many are we talking here?”
“Two hundred, maybe three,” I quickly glanced.
“There are more of them every night, I wonder how long we are going to last…” it was a rhetorical question, especially with the inactivity of government troops in the area. The firefight was over fairly quickly. We regrouped as soon as we could at the main lobby of the hotel.
“Role call, state your assigned aliases, specific order, you all know the drill.” The men and women of 61st street hotel lined up in order. There stood 12 of us, each, a different code name; the names mostly resembled their role in the party and personal traits.
“Overseer.” (Charlotte Noel)
“Talker.” (Malcolm West)
“All nighter.” (Ted Bell)
“Keg Master.” (Akemi Yoshida)
“Glass eyes.” (Blake Rink)
“Tank.” (Kgosi Koroma)
“Leapfrog.” (Jun Lu)
“Campfire.” (Jason Rink)
“Shooter.” (Me)
“Steering.” (Jack Rent)
“Red Cross.” (Rachael Moon)
And last but not least…
“Full House.” (Frank Weld)
No one really understood why we used codenames rather then our actual names, but it definitely helps the new comers.
The sun rose between the once crowded streets of Broadway and Main, but not today, like most other days. These streets were never safe, and they certainly aren’t safe these days ether. I try to understand why no one goes out anymore; it isn’t all bad these days, you just have to be careful. The cafes in Soho never open, nor do the churches or the businesses of New York City. ‘Where did everyone go?’ I ask myself.
The day was clear for most of the morning, a true blessing to the 61st company of New York. The day went on as one would expect when finding him or herself in a worldwide holocaust, struggling to survive and get through the day to see another dawn.
The creatures slept during the day, or at least they chose to remain unseen. But the threat was always present. Government forces were to be avoided as well. The white house had ordered full lock down on as many infected areas as they could, and encouraged other world leaders to follow. Other remaining armies on the face of the earth were ordered to ‘cleanse’ anything that moved within these areas. It was suicide to wander towards the borders of the lockdown zone, as the areas are heavily guarded with military and police units, carrying more then enough firepower to fend off any threat before them. New York was never truly a safe place, housing the world’s most organized crime. The title still stands.
“What’ve we got here?” Charlotte observed the nearby incident not too far up 42nd street. Miss Noel was a young woman at the age of twenty-four and was previously working for human resource management of a small manufacturing company stationed in the suburbs of Brooklyn. She had found herself star-crossed when they blew the bridges to contain the civilian population on a routine check-up with her sick Grandmother living in an “after-retirement-complex” as she would refer to as. Charlotte never did like her all too well, but was obligated as much of her family’s debt had been repaid by the old hag herself. There were very few people they could’ve evacuated on that fateful day…
“What the hell is going on?!” I could hear an enraged civilian in the backdrop. The cops had quarantined part of a large part of the city, every street from 76th to the Harlem district. Never had I been so close to a police blockade before.
“Nothing to see here folks, please return to your homes and let us continue our work,” the young lady officer stood behind the yellow tape. Her facial expression predicted that this was nothing more then a minor inconvenience to the city.
“What seems to be the problem here Craig?” Charlie Dent finally decided to come out of the office.
“Seems to be a quarantine operation sir, or at least that’s what they label it as,” we could see more cruisers rolling in from Main Street to the 66th parallel.
“That’s odd, why didn’t they evacuate the people living in those homes?” He had obviously been watching for quite sometime, he was situated in a decent sized townhouse two blocks down the road at the corner of 64th and 5th avenue. “Fascinating…” He took another glance, “possibly a biohazard? This could be serious…” He was always an imaginative one.
“What have we got here?” Jack got out of the truck for closer examination.
“Another poor soul as it seems…” Kgosi towered above the victim; of what seemed to be, bullet wounds.
“Impossible… unless….” I was quickly interrupted.
“It’s Five thirty, we best be heading back,” Miss Moon was always the cautious type; but indeed, it was already getting dark. I looked over at the body, still curious as to what could’ve brought down the victim and forced him to his bloody end.
“We’d best take this one back to the lab,” we quickly agreed and stowed away the luggage in the back of the truck safely tucked in a black body bag, the blood still dripping off the unzipped teeth.
“Sir, please step away from the yellow--,”
“You expect me to leave me wife and two children in that apartment?! What the hell is going on anyway?!” The man was around his mid thirties, had three daughters and a lovely wife. Frank was as stubborn as usual, but no one could blame him; what would you do when you find out your family has been quarantined off because of an apparent bio hazard?
“Sir, everything’s under control, the area should--,” the officer was stunned; everyone was, and in a matter of seconds the homes on the corner of 66th and 5th instantly malformed into a cloud of dust and moulder.
The sunset was a refreshing break from the day’s roving. The glimmer on the city’s skyscrapers reflected off each other, filling the dark streets below with the last bit of light for the day. It wasn’t usually safe to laze on the hotel’s roof at night, as helicopters would routinely fly through on patrol around the park. They were on the lookout for breeding grounds, and an occasional bomber would make a fly by to drop if its payload.
“Care for a drink?” Frank was always the social type, and never lost it. He was in his late fifties and age hadn’t played a part in his character. If there was a phrase out there to describe Frank fairly briefly, “forever young” might be an understatement.
“Just like most nights Frank,” I said with a grin.
“Damn capital hill bureaucrats, if only they had been infected first,” he pointed to a black hawk chopper in the distance. “And that is why I don’t vote,” he began to rant, and I quickly lost any trace of thought or familiarity towards the topic of conversation.
The National Guard was all over the scene in an instant, a chaotic painting of despair and turmoil, a masterpiece of disaster and mayhem. Any scourge was preferable to this, please, any other. Frank had an abysmal expression, the crowd was in an uproar, the building still burning before my eyes. People screaming, and not a moment of peace in the frantic disorder. Some officers about to enter the building before the blast were thrown metres from the epicentre, sometimes in more then one place. It was a trailer from the next horror movie, and it opened that night.
The night was quiet tonight, ‘peace at last’, I thought to myself. Rachael was on watch tonight, and the dawn was to come soon. I always was a nighthawk, and almost independent of sleep. But then again, who can sleep in times like these? I marched over to the dresser once more, to gaze at the photo. I missed her, and I still do.
“C’mon Craig! Let’s go!” She wouldn’t let go of my hand, or my ear. I had promised her to take her to the florist to pick up some lilies for our friend’s wedding. I never understood why I needed to accompany her, but that’s an argument I might never win. She immediately marched over to the florist to get a second opinion on color choice, ‘so why am I here again?’ And then in hit me. I soon after handed over my debit card for the necessary transaction. Oh the things I would have done against my will for her.
“Do you think we will ever get married?” she asked as we stopped at the traffic light. I now had time to ponder the question, but realized there was only one acceptable answer to such a question.
“Perhaps, where will we have it?” the marriage, or at least that’s what I hoped to imply.
“Florence doesn’t sound like a bad area,” if you had the money.
“If we had the money.”
“Of course we will, I made sure of that,” so are we switching roles all of a sudden? Why don’t you go ahead and put on the suit then while I stay home, moping to myself about how fat I’ll probably get.
“Really now?” she was only a desk clerk after all; the girl must be damn good at pleasing the boss. I hoped I was wrong. It turns out she had been working another job at a local bookstore, managing the shelves and helping them sort out for the coming Christmas season. I soon learn that she had been busy with two other small part time jobs, and to think she was avoiding me for the past month. I felt guilty in a sense, for a change. I wouldn’t let go of her after.
I was briefly interrupted by Jun, and immediately an unrecognizable dialect flowed from his mouth like water to sandpaper. It was two in the morning, and his yells w could be heard from the four corners of the earth.
“Jun, what the hell you yelling ‘bout? Kgosi burst into the room, picking up the considerably smaller twenty-four year old exchange student from Nara. He wasn’t brusque, he just lacked grace. It didn’t help the situation; Jun was now in a high pitched frenzy.
“Put him down Koro!” Rachael exclaimed as she barged through my door. He did eventually, and when the dust settled finally, Rachael translated the obscured message. There was an awkward silence; something definitely wasn’t right.