The note’s been following me around since yesterday morning. When I woke up it was sitting on top of my coffee maker. When I got to work it was stuck to my computer screen. It was even sitting on the only unoccupied seat on the bus.
The date is old – June 29, 2013. 9:35am.
What does it mean?
It’s stuck to my tv screen now. It won’t come off.
I enjoy my nightly bath, okay? Sue me. I was determined on two accounts tonight though. First, I wouldn’t fall asleep in the tub, and second, if the phone rang I was going to answer it. I even had one of my remote phones in the bathroom right beside me. No problem, right?
Yyyeah.
I was in the tub for about two minutes when it started to ring. I dried my hand on the towel beside the bath and grabbed the phone. The “on” button wouldn’t work. So I jumped out of the tub, (there was no way I wasn’t answering the damned call. I wanted to know who was doing this to me) and ran to the bedroom to get the hardwired line.
I must have said, “hello” a dozen times. No one was at the other end. Just dead air. So I went back to my bath. This was stuck to the mirror:
Nothing on it this time. Just the date and time. One minute past the current time that was.
“Why the fuck are you doing this to me!”
If the neighbours heard me they must think I’m nutsoid. They know I’m always alone here.
I thought, Fuck it. I left the note there and sat back in the bath. When I looked up, the note was gone.
Part one of The Note is here: https://lindaghillfiction.wordpress.com/2013/12/08/the-note/
I thought it would be safe to take a bath. I got home at 5:56 just like usual, made dinner, enjoyed it in front of the tv with a glass of wine, and went for a soak.
I don’t usually fall asleep in the tub. Tonight was strange. It was the phone that woke me up.
Of course I remembered the note from yesterday. Of course I was tempted to rush out naked to answer it. But something told me I shouldn’t, even though my bath water had gone cold anyway.
I found it when I went back to my bedroom.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked the empty room.
The time on my alarm clock was 10:03. The note was written at 10 on the dot. I put the note down and went back to the bathroom to get my clothes. When I came back to the bedroom, the note was gone.
Start from the beginning: The Note
The note was weird, but I thought, okay, so I just wouldn’t take a bath last night. And yet it kept me awake all night. The date matched the day I found it, so I assumed the time was correct as well. But if someone had written it at 9:43 am, and I left home at 8:17am to go to work, how had the note ended up on my fridge before I got home at 5:56pm? I live alone.
When I got up this morning I looked for the note, where I had left it on the kitchen table. The note was gone. Nowhere to be found.
I assume it will be safe to take a bath tonight.
In a flash
You’re gone
I missed
You sped
away
from my sight
In the night
I dreamt
You stayed
I met you, and in five minutes you had wiped me right off the planet with your charm.
Now, a mere hour later, I am ashes in your wake.
It is clear as crystal.
As fine as the softest downy feather.
That you were meant
For a certain kind of hell.
How else can one like me, with nothing to my name but the clothes on my back,
describe the likes of you, with your mirages and mirrors?
You who takes and takes and gives back fire
to burn the skin from my bones
and leaves me smouldering by the side of the road.
But you love it.
You ache for it.
You, who deserves only to be exposed
to a certain kind of hell.
Previously posted on The Community Storyboard, retrieved with love…
I have in my mind
A cookie cardboard cut-out
Of a man-shaped you, in a tailored suit
Your eyes a-fire with the knowing
And your hands hiding their itch in your pockets
You find me where I am most susceptible
Knee deep in my life-mire
Gasping my final hope
And just the sip of your breath
Through your teeth as you realize
I’ve seen you before
In a dream and you, me
You offer me your hand
And obliging I scratch-grasp
Your smile makes me beautiful
The cloth of your suit against my burdened cheek
Smooths my thoughts
In my mind you take me
To heights unfathomed and to lows where I look up
and all I see is your hair-shadowed face
You bless-task me with your wit
You stroke my every need
Your breath shall be my be my conception
Your grace shall be my calm
Your laughter shall be my saviour
Your warmth shall be my pyre
Your love shall be my cradle
I’ve seen you before
In a dream and you,
If only
How crisp is this day? When the leaves rustle like castanets in the hands of a child, chilled to the bone from playing outside too long; and the green grass is tipped with glittering white specks of frozen dew.
Ah, the joy of coming winter. The sun sets before our sup and refuses to rise in the morning, appearing in the east slowly, like a stubborn teenager.
Christmas is but a bargain away, All Hallows Eve a pile of wrappers hidden under the sofa cushion.
And the days are crisp, the nights desirous of a fireplace.
The Ice Queen sat upon her throne and twiddled her thumbs. Her silver rings clicked together – the spectators could hear them in the back row, so quiet was it.
“You call that a performance?” she asked the man in the hat, who had just kissed a woman in a trenchcoat?
“I…I’m…” he stuttered.
“SILENCE!” She breathed through her nose. Someone in the back row coughed and with a flick of her wrist, off came the spectator’s head.
“Come here.” She curled a finger at the actor.
He staggered forward, the fear in his eyes all but thrummed.
“Kiss me,” the Ice Queen whispered. She puckered her lips.
The actor leaned forward… and vomited his dinner into the Ice Queen’s lap.
The Ice Queen screamed and the guards murdered the audience. Every last one of them. Only the Ice Queen, the actors and the guards were left standing.
She stood from her throne. She decreed that there should be a new audience.
The performance would be repeated the next night, as it had been every night for a year.
Tomorrow, perhaps the actor would get it right.
On the final evening of their honeymoon, they sat side by side on the beach and watched as the darkening ocean consumed the sun.
“Everything has a purpose,” she said, resting her head against her new husband’s shoulder.
“Yes,” he whispered. He placed his hand on the tight mound below her breasts.
His son.
Linda G. Hill 