Harry pours himself a mug of hot, black coffee. He sighs, sips his steaming coffee, and readjusts the mauve-colored robe which hangs over his t-shirt and pajama pants. He gazes around his trashed apartment, at the garbage on the counters, the empty bottles in the sink, and the general disarray of his belongings. Andy lays sprawled on his couch, her mouth open, snoring gently. Harry sighs again, and crosses the room to wake her. “Andy, you should wake up now. Andy. Andy?” he calls, changing the mug to his other hand. As the strong aroma of coffee crosses Andy’s nostrils, her bloodshot eyes open. “Harry,” she croaks. “That was a fun night out.”
She sits up, and takes the mug from Harry’s hand. “Hey-” he starts to complain, but is interrupted by Andy’s loud yawn.
“Have you got an extra razor?” she asks. She runs a hand over her stubble-covered jaw, and then her delicately painted fingers go to her cheek. “A girl should never be seen in the morning without her makeup on.”
“You can use mine,” Harry says. “Listen, what was the name of that girl we met last night?”
“The girl-girl or the boy-girl?” Andy giggles. Traces of thick eyeliner are smudged around her eyes, and she has lost one of her set of famously long fake eyelashes at some point.
“The girl-girl,” Harry replies.
“I’m not sure. Denise, maybe?”
‘That’s right. Denise.”
Andy looks at him over the rim of the mug. “Hmm. Well, I’m going to get in the shower.”
“Towels are in the cabinet under the sink.” Harry stands and crosses back to the kitchen. He cleans up a little, filling a garbage bag, and then goes to put it outside in the hallway.
The door to the apartment across the hall opens as he sets the bag down next to the garbage chute. A woman stands there, her gaze sleep-filled. She brightens upon seeing him, and he notices the black smudges on the ends of her fingers. “Hello,” she smiles. “You wouldn’t happen to be the owner of a pair of red Ferragamo pumps, size…” she leans back inside her apartment, “twelve? I found it in the hall just outside the elevator.”
He blinks, taken aback. “Yes, actually. I mean, no, it’s not mine, but my friend was wearing a pair when we went out last night.”
“Twelves are hard to find in designer shoes,” she informs him, and he notices a black smudge under one eye, too.
“Yes. Andy—my friend—has a very hard time. I think she had them custom-made.”
She hands him a shoe, which he notices is, indeed, Andy’s pump, and smiles. “You both looked lovely when you came in last night. I especially liked your wig.”
“You saw us?” He cradles the shoe.
“Well, I have a show coming up soon. I don’t sleep much. It’s coming together, though. I mean, I wasn’t staring out the peephole in my door. I’m not a stalker or anything,” she adds hurriedly.
“Of course not,” Harry smiles. He feels himself starting to warm to her. “Harry,” he offers his hand to her.
“Aretha,” she smiles back, and shakes his hand with a surprisingly strong grip. “Well, I’ll be going,” she says, and smiles again as she closes the door.
Harry tucks the shoe into the pocket of his robe, and tips the garbage down the chute, and starts humming an old tune.
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2-16-07_____________Time: 3: 59 p.m
In present time I woke up, not knowing what day it was or where I was. Deja vu hit and my stomach rolled with unease and hunger, not knowing what happened last night or the night before is a leaded dread to wake up to. It felt as if no time has passed and and once again I am reliving that first morning I finally awoke only to find myself in a bare room with nothing but a blank journal and strange clothes. This time a strange nonsensical dream of scattered images and faces, lies distantly but still present in my mind. Compulsively, I reach out for that familiar journal, now filled with entries and as I write this it starts trickling back. Slowly at first but then a flood of memories and images from the past couple of days submerse me, wave upon wave. As I write the last ones come, like distant friends tugging at my memory, trying to tell me something. I see the a simple glass vial tipped over, but there are no contents left to spill, a rough piece of white paper with something scrawled on it. Take with caution, effective immediately. Dose- 1/3 vial at one time = 10-12 hours undisturbed sleep. I had taken 3 doses, and slept through a day and a half. But why had I wanted the draught in the first place?
Slowly it came back... I had misplaced hours and hours, I won't find them, they're no longer mine to keep. Time's an intricate thread holding the days together into a bigger patch, of month, year, decade; a quilt pieced together by those little minutes and hours, marking our time, our brief passage. Sometimes, time will disappear; hold, pause. Or sometimes it just stops. I will piece together the next three days as best I can...
Vaguely, I remember bumping into a young girl, reaching under the shelf for the last elusive paper back, and as I brought my eyes lower to the last shelf I saw it. That black leather bound journal, so familiar yet untouched as I felt the old leather bound cover and the floppy half pages, I knew so well. Each page held in by the leather stitched binding, sewn by hand. I had never seen another journal like it, until now. It was my own.
Time here, is no longer relative. Disjointed images blend together, like the pieces of snow in a snow globe, shaken up then falling ever so lightly through the water. That clerk with the lanky frame and thick, obscure glasses.
"Excuse me, are you, uh, alright? Can I help you find something?"
"No I've haven't seen that before (here a perceptible shudder, hand withdrawn as he noted the aged, time worn cover) but then, we have a lot of unusual books and editions here. Perhaps Mrs. Ryan's would know…" he stammered, trailing off swiftly and stumbling back with eyes unmoving from the black journal. Why had he reacted so? I wished to question him further but he stumbled out of the aisle, precariously knocking into a thick stack of books.
Another image, flashes of scrawled handwriting spilling out, twisting and turning over one another in attempt to escape from the page, dancing before my eyes. The cramped r's, and loopy a's, and half crossed t' all sloping slightly right running before my eyes. Feel of pliant and slightly piling underside of the fine leather cover, marked in the upper left corner, barely legible. Jude V n ra ke with a date, unreadable except as a black smear. The handwriting could belong to no other. I don't remember leaving the bookstore, or whether I paid for my thoughts or not, I'd pay for them soon enough.
In another image I find myself at the door way of a little shop, with the journal firmly bound up and secured in my coat. “Hello! Welcome, welcome, please what may I get for you? Love potion? Perhaps a ” A small flighty man with white hair and laughing eyes winked at me, letting me in on his joke. “I need...a sleeping draught, anything please, just make it strong.” He glanced at me curiously, and then nodded quickly dancing from bin to bin, gathering herbs and roots and mixtures before disappearing behind a dusty red velvet curtain in the back.
Finally I find myself with two secure parcels heavily weighing on my conscience at Thallow Flats. The image is a blur of myself going through the motions, but one point becomes sharp among the static. A young man, around my age but with a different air, a foreign air about him. The point of collision on the entry way of the third floor, and then the black cover peeking out of the packaging from the rare book bag. That black corner, so sharp, even in recollection it is almost piercing with focus. I stumbled, thoughts doing pinwheels in my head, automatically reaching for my package to touch the familiar worn cover. No, he can't, impossible. But really, how many journals are there? Did I leave behind one, or a series? Either way, I have to get my hands on that book.
CRASH!
I awoke with a sudden jolt. My reality violently shaken from the surreal dreams that filled my subconscious. "What was that? " As I looked around the room, I pricked my ears for the sounds of footsteps and whispers. Nothing. All was quiet and still in the house. The bed creaked as I carefully got out. I walked down the hall turning on every light as I past. An old metal book end sat in a pile of rubbish in the corner. I picked it up feeling its secure weight in my hand. As I slowly shuffled through the house, I finally came to the source of the crash. A box had fallen from the top of a book shelf. Pictures, letters, and books were sprawled across the bare wood floor. It was the plaque that had caused the crash. As I bent down to pick the contents of the box, my muscles screaming in protest, my hand hit a worn leather bound book.
It was his old journal. He had written in it everyday when he was in the war. As he thumbed through it he recognized his untidy scrawl. Then a picture fell from between some of the pages. It was that of a toddler. The small boy's face was alight with a huge smile full of small baby teeth.
"Oh my god." As soon as my eyes fell on the faded face in the picture, my heart skipped a beat. I felt like my inside were withering in sorrow and pain while at the same time blossoming with treasured memories. I hadn't seen his face in many years. I averted my eyes every time I passed his picture hanging in the hallway. As I forced my eyes to stay on his small face I felt the hole in my broken heart close slightly. After several minutes of studying every feature of his young face, from his bright eyes to his nose too big for his face to the lines of his mouth turned up in a smile, I forced myself to look away. It was going too fast. The pain that had been diminished by adrenaline came to full strength. The picture fell from my hand, landing on the floor face down. I turned and walked away leaving it untouched where it fell.
The next morning carrying the box with its entire contents, except the photograph of the boy which was still lying on the floor face down, I walked out the front door. The streets were quiet as I walked the block and a half to the bookstore. Entering the dusty shop my eyes took in the walls and walls of books. Standing behind the counter was a young man in a beige sweater. He looked up as I entered.
"May I help you?" he said.
Without a word, I left the box on the counter and walked out of the store. I felt as if a weight had been lifted, just to be filled by another void.
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