Chapter 35 - Reflection
Shelley the first and I were sitting and talking about some homework when Jamie comes by and knocks my books off the desk. “Heh whoops, sorry Johnson.” Jamie was a guy, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t have a penis. He liked to do things like that. Nothing major. Just poking me all the time. Always poking. I bristled whenever he came around. So did Shelley. But she always had a look on her face. A look that told me I should have been able to stand up to him. To do something about him. I never did though; there was nothing to do but wait him out. Neither of us gave him any reaction, but I know he hurt my chances. They all did. Every chance they got.
“Why do you hang around her so much?”
“I like her.”
“Yeah but why? She’s stuck up.”
I shrugged.
“And boring.”
I didn’t say or do anything.
“Besides she’s not even your type.”
“Then who is my type?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Somebody else.”
I snorted.
Conversations came and went like that. When she wasn’t around, they made fun of her. Even though I was there, and they knew how I felt. Friends. Of course, in the long run, they were right. Not that it mattered, or helped.
Another day, another stack of papers knocked on the ground. He had a few hangers on that were always around. They didn’t do much but giggle behind his back. The saddest thing is being the lackey to an incompetent bully. One day, I went after him. It wasn’t a real effort. He knocked me backwards and I fell off a concrete step. His friends – and some of mine – laughed at me and walked away. I got up and left. Filed the experience away for a rainy day with the rest of them.
Then there was the day I found out about them. Maybe a few months after the study session. Doesn’t matter. I know it was after.
“What’s wrong with her?” I was asking a mutual friend of ours why Shelley was crying in the next room, trying not to let anyone notice. Of course, everyone immediately noticed, and made fun of her.
“Oh, you know. Guy she likes, doesn’t like her.”
No, I didn’t know.
Late September. Our ten year class reunion. I’d been dreading it. In more pleasant times, it could have been tolerable. Fun, even. If the right people had been there, and the wrong ones weren’t. But they weren’t, and they were.
Jamie walked over to me.
“Heh, look at you Johnson. Haven’t changed at all, have you.” He slapped me on the arm. I could feel my nostrils flaring.
“What guy?”
“What?”
“What guy is this, that she likes?”
“Heh, where’s your friend Shelley at?”
“She died.”
“Oh, that … that sucks, I hadn’t heard th…”
“You know, him. That Jamie guy.” He pointed him out. I could barely stand.
“She died. She DIED TODAY.”
He stood, dumbfounded, with a dumber than usual look on his face.
“You know, you haven’t changed at all either.” I hit him in the gut with my beer bottle.
“Hey, watch it man.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“And he turned her down?”
“Ha yeah. Said she wasn’t his type.”
“Maybe I should get you started and change up your face.” I broke the bottle I was holding on a table and shoved it at him.
I still don’t know how the sequence of events that occurred got started. I agreed to go over to her place for dinner. But when I got there, there was no dinner party. It was just us. I’d been working on a nasty bug that day and hadn’t gotten much of a chance to talk to anyone. If I had, I would have realized no one else was really going. I should have asked. But, I didn’t. Correct that in the next life, perhaps.
I hadn’t been paying attention. I did it again. I made the same mistake again. Over and over and over. Due diligence. I always thought, “next time, I’ll get it right.” “Next time ..”, “Next time, … “ But it never happens that way. There’s never enough time. Circumstances never work out the way I’d planned for. To change the effect, you have to identify the cause, stop it before it happens. By the time I got to her house, it was already too late.
Maybe his name wasn’t Jamie. Maybe it was Joe, or John. Or Sanford. His name wasn’t important. Names are never important.
I’m not sure what happened. I went after him but didn’t quite make it. Correct that in the next life, perhaps. I stumbled, sharp pains everywhere, going black, can’t see, can’t stand. Nothing but darkness. I woke up still in a coma in the hospital.
I stepped off the train. “You’re on your way, son. That started things off nicely.”
“Good. Now what.”
“Take this. It’ll get you to where we need you to go next.” He handed me a purple gumball. “I’ll be around when you get there. No worries.”
Everything turned black, blurry, darkness again. Orange flashes in my vision, sideways glances not landing on anything distinct. Finally, I was somewhere else. I was in a field. Darkness. Something was not right here. Headlights came speeding towards me. I was not in a field. I was in the middle of a park. I stumbled over and sat on a bench until my head cleared.
Things were wrong. Things were off. The air was clearer, brighter. Just different somehow. I walked a block or two. It was deserted.
Finally, I happened upon a newspaper stand. Impossible. Those were long gone. I pressed my head up against the glass.
January 1, 2008.
My eighth birthday.
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