Only the streetlight outside the bay window illuminates the murky townhouse. You hesitate, sensing a disturbance in the air, then shake off suspicion and flip the switch. Books crowd together on shelves. The plasma television holds dominion over the sofa.
You drop your purse on the floor and kick off high-heeled pumps. Renovations started on the office without prior notice, forcing you into a cubicle off the copier area. Today, even your colleagues seem bewildered by your presence.
Why is the house so neat? Didn’t you leave a half-cup of coffee and a plate of crumbs? Chrysanthemums in a vase guard your old high school yearbook on the gleaming coffee table. So you debate calling the police, to report what? Someone cleaned? Gave you flowers you don’t like?
You turn on the television and flip through channels until you find a program about psychic phenomena.
Shifting the yearbook into your lap you look at the friends who never have time for you a decade after graduation. You recall asking everyone to sign, although no one wrote personal comments.
Somehow, the signatures faded away. The pages have a sour, musty smell.
***
Dreaming, you wander in a labyrinthine building. If only you could find a window and see the sky, you’d orient yourself. Every door you pass through leads to more corridors. The building becomes a high school, the crush of students rushing to classes while the bell rings. You enter a classroom and sit to take a test but when the papers are handed out you don’t have a number two pencil and quietly leave. You stand in an empty hallway, unsure of where you ought to be or how to get there.
***
Car doors slam, accompanied by angry voices. The television buzzes with static. You stretch and yawn on your way to the bedroom. The bulb snapping and crackling, you stare right through your reflection. What trick of the half-light gives your skin a gray
tinge?
Last week, a receptionist claimed she’d attended your school and quizzed you on teachers, until you mentioned an elderly South Asian gentleman named Mr. Singh.
“You didn’t go to Edison.” The girl snapped her gum. “There was no Indian teacher. You’re making it all up.”
Now you search for proof of your existence. Skimming the youthful faces, you can’t pick out yours.
You hear the intruders’ voices in the kitchen. The heat of their argument pushes you into the empty closet, yearbook clutched to your chest.
***
“This place is weird, Steve. Things move.”
“What do you mean, Jen? We can’t move. We’re financially strapped as it is.”
“Someone else is here. Look at that creepy yearbook on the coffee table.”
“Nothing’s there but the flowers I gave you.”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“What? That I’m apologizing and I still don’t know what I said?”
“Yes. No. Things move.”
***
You were passed over for valedictorian in favor of a more “rounded” candidate. When you complained to your advisor, he riffled through the file.
“It’d be wasted on you,” he said, pushing reading glasses to his forehead.
“Excuse me?” you choked out.
“You’re an overachiever. You’ll be nobody before you hit thirty.”
The memory echoing in your head, you crack the closet door and gape at a bed piled high with unfamiliar clothes. Panic grips your gut. Why can’t you remember your name?
***
“Steve, did you leave the light on in the closet when you fixed the clothes rod?”
“No, it blew while I was working.”
The bedside lamp flashes on.
“Jennifer, this bulb is black and half unscrewed from the socket.”
“What a stink! That must be mildew.”
“How did that old yearbook get there?” says Steve.
“I told you, things move.” Jennifer’s teeth chatter. “Is the heat even working?”
***
The book crushes you to the floor. Struggling, you gasp for breath as you expand and dissipate. Your heart gives one last sluggish beat as you seep into the floorboards. Senses numbing, you sink into the abyss.
- Copyright: © 2008 Tessa Johnstone
