This is the short story that was accepted for publication by The Outlet Magazine
He
came to with a feeling of nausea and disorientation. The room was
dark and small, and everything about it sent shivers of déjà vu
through him. He couldn’t remember how he got there. When he tried
to remember, a sharp headache struck him, so intense that he nearly
fainted. He made to stand up and found to his surprise he was already
standing. That, he reasoned, was decidedly weird.
The
only light in the room spilled in through a window right by a
bedside, dimly illuminating the figure of the girl asleep on the bed.
The light was from a streetlamp somewhere in the night without, and
though it was wan, it was just enough to make out the girl’s
features. He felt a thrill as he looked on her face: she was the most
beautiful girl imaginable. Her hair gathered like a halo around her
head on her pillow, framing her heart-shaped face in blonde locks.
Her breath escaped her plump lips in slow, relaxed rhythm.
“Alice,”
he cooed softly, drawing nearer to her. A smile split his face. It
was Alice. How did he know her?
The
headache intensified. He hissed in pain and sat on the bed, massaging
his temples. Nothing was as it should be. He was not supposed to be
where he was, and he couldn’t remember how he had come to be there.
He knew this girl, and very well, but he couldn’t recall how.
Something was very wrong.
Perhaps
if he could recall where he had been before showing up here?
More
pain. Much more pain. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed all the
harder.
Nothing
to jog his memory. The closest thing to a memory that he could
conjure up was a blank, white void. The harder he tried to remember,
the worse the headache became. With a sigh, he gave up and let
himself relax.
“Alice,”
he said again, and she stirred. Inside of him, something bubbled and
fluttered. He turned to look at her again. A sweet warmth spread from
just beneath his sternum, and engulfed him. She shivered a little
bit. It was a little bit chilly in the room, and her blanket had
bunched around her legs. He moved to draw it over her body.
“Don’t
touch her,” a voice demanded from behind him.
His
heart nearly exploded. He spun around and saw with terror who had
spoken. Her voice was distinctly female, which was the only way he
knew that she was a she: her face was shrouded by a black gossamer
veil over a white mask with painted lips and black eye-holes. Apart
from the odd head-wear, she wore a thick, chequered covering like a
funeral shroud, fastened shut by a row of double-breasted buttons
from her collar down to the floor. A shiver crept up through him, and
he recoiled at the sight of her.
“Who
are you?” he said, trying to sound as calm as possible. “What are
you doing here?”
“I
should ask the same of you,” she returned. “I imagine you would
not be able to answer.”
“I
don’t know why I’m here,” he confessed, “Or who I am,
exactly. But who are you?”
“You’re
wholly unqualified to question my identity until you have one
yourself. Let me help you in that regard.” She walked around the
bed and reached toward Alice. He tried to leap to his feet — he had
to protect her, and he didn’t like this newcomer one bit — but he
couldn’t budge. His muscles didn’t respond. He struggled
fruitlessly, but the woman-person was already away from the bed,
bearing a piece of paper in one gloved hand, which protruded from a
slit in her covering. She offered it to him. He made to receive it,
and this time his body allowed him.
“Read
this,” she said, handing to to him.
Though
the room was dark, letters were visible on the paper, as if they were
made of tendrils of ember.
It
was a love poem. It was addressed to My Dear Drake, someone
who was, to judge from the poem, the most incredible person to have
been born on this Earth, free of any fault and owning every virtue.
He admitted internally that it wasn’t a very good poem — the
rhyming scheme was amateurish at best, and a few malapropisms caused
him to wonder if the writer was even a native English speaker — but
it was sweet and ever so heartfelt.
“What
does it have to do with me?”
“That
is you.” said the woman-person.
“This?”
he laughed. “This is a piece of paper.”
It
was like a slap to the face, only pleasant. It was so clear, he felt
stupid for having not made the connection before.
“She
wrote this poem about me!” He said excitedly. He was stupid to have
not realized that earlier. “That means she loves me back, then,
doesn’t it?”
“After
a fashion,” said the woman-person, “She loves a boy named Drake.
She wrote a poem about him. Around the time she finished writing is
when you came into existence. You are her poem.”
There
was a very awkward pause.
“I
am her poem,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
In
his vague understanding of everything, he didn’t really think too
much of poems as living, breathing things like himself. He held up
the paper.
“Isn’t
this her poem?” he asked.
“No,”
said the woman/person, “That is a piece of paper with ink sloppily
arranged on it. You are what that piece of paper represents.”
“I
don’t quite follow.”
“I
don’t expect you to. Alice described you as smart, not a
metaphysicist.”
“So,
if I’m her poem, then who are you? How do you know so much about
it?”
“Knowledge
is power,” she said, “and the tomes that represents me are hidden
away somewhere safe, forgotten to the world. No one person should
have that much power.”
“You’re
that powerful?” he asked out of curiosity rather than cheekiness,
though her mask regarded him coolly at this.
“I
am in charge of this world,” she said. “There are many like you,
Drake. I am chief among them. There is one thing you must never do,
and you nearly did it: you must never, under any circumstances, touch
her, or speak to her, or make contact in any way with the human
world. Your life is a blessing and a curse: she created you, and now
you are here.” She sighed. “Some poems are better left
unwritten.”
“I
can’t touch Alice? Or talk to her?” he asked.
“No.”
“But
I love her! What kind of rule is that? What’s the point of her
creating me if I serve no purpose?”
“What,
indeed,” she answered dispassionately.
“And
what if I decide not to obey your rule?”
She
reached across the room.
Her
arms were far too long.
One
stretched from where she stood over to the window, which shattered at
her touch. The other stretched toward the door of the room, which her
gloved hand opened, and continued stretching beyond it. She grew
terribly tall as well, her masked head looming over him, until it
reached the ceiling. Her back curled at the ceiling as continued she
stretching, her head bowed and leering ever nearer to Drake’s face.
Her mask was an inch from his face, and her veil touched his face.
“I’m
very fond of you, Drake,” she said, “But don’t test my limits.
I have few.”
Her
mask retracted away, and she shrank down to her previous height. Her
arms retracted to back within her covering, and the shattered window
reassembled itself. There was nowhere to hide, no place to run, no
way to escape her, so he sat dumbfounded.
“Humility
aside, however,” she said in a lighter tone, “you are the newest
addition to my realm. I just thought I’d welcome you personally
before I left you to your own devices.”
“Very
much obliged,” he forced the words out.
“Yes,”
she agreed, “you are. Remember: you can go anywhere and do anything
so long as it does not involve the humans.”
Her
head tilted like a curious dog cocking his head.
“You
look exhausted. Coming into existence is difficult work. Sleep now,
and tomorrow your life can begin in earnest.” Involuntarily, he
relaxed, and found himself overwhelmed with sleepiness. Waves of
exhaustion lapped at his eyelids and the base of his neck, and he
sank into such a blissful ocean of peace and tranquility that he
toppled gently to the floor. The last thing he saw before the
darkness took him was the fuzzy image of Alice’s empty room.
The
light was intense. Drake’s eyes opened to the blinding world of
what was probably daylight. He didn’t have much experience to go
by, so he had to make assumptions.
The
room was artfully painted in electric blue and black; she had
probably painted it herself. A really quite large chest of drawers
lay opposite the four-poster bed upon which Alice had been sleeping,
and it was open, clothes spilling out of it. Across the room was a
massive mirror, in front of which was than Alice. She turned around,
and began to leave the room, taking no notice of Drake.
She
was even more beautiful awake. Her hair now fell in shimmering locks
about her shoulders, and her smoky green eyes shone with a sparkle
that sent a thrill down Drake’s spine. Even her hideous nose-ring
could be forgotten in the ensemble. Her rosy perfume filled his
nostrils as she disappeared out the door.
Out
the door.
Away
from him.
He
leapt to his feet and ran after her with one thought on his mind —
she must be protected! And so it was he found his way to her high
school.
The
place was altogether dodgy. It was dirty, the cement ground cracked
and covered in old gum. The buildings were concrete and cinder-block
structures, bleak and cold. The lockers were scratched and dented,
some apparently relics of a more ancient time. It was hardly a place
where someone like Alice could fit in. The sea of people closed in
all around, but Alice flitted through the crowds with no trouble. No
one could see Drake, but Alice didn’t seem to escape anyone’s
notice. Everywhere she went, a pack of girls called out to her (in
their ear-piercing shrill tones), or a boy with a look of ill intent
(to say nothing of fashion sense) would greet her. To all she would
smile with bared teeth and wave her slender hand. Every wave was like
a slap to Drake’s face.
This
was so unfair. She had written her poem about him, not these people!
Especially not the one with the stupid hair! Not like he could really
pass judgment — he had quickly discovered that he couldn’t see
himself in mirrors; he could look much worse than they, and in any
event, he didn’t exist yesterday, so what did his opinion really
count? — but if Alice’s poem were any indication of the sort of
men she liked, what was she doing with these idiots?
“Can’t
you see that these guys are all horrible?” he yelled at her. To his
surprise, she frowned and inclined her head in his direction. Could
she hear him?
“Alice!”
He cried, “Alice, it’s me, Drake!”
She
looked straight through him, her face vacant.
“What’s
up, Alice?” one of the losers asked her. “You okay?” Drake
couldn’t stand the sight of him. He wore a tiny little beard just
under his lower lip, and his short, spiky hair was a shade of orange
that seemed incredibly unnatural even to someone whose reckoning of
the world dated less than twenty-four hours back. His white shirt
looked very comfortable and clean, and his jeans were tight around
his skinny legs. He gave off a sickly sweet, musty smell.
“Yeah,
I’m fine,” she said in her glimmering voice, “I just thought
someone was calling my name.”
“I
am calling you!” Drake shouted as loud as he could. At this
point, he wasn’t worked up about her not noticing him; he was very
worked up about the possibility that she might be able to. She shook
her head and turned back to her friends.
“I
could have sworn someone yelled my name.”
“You’re
just paranoid,” said the boy.
“You’re
just a jerk,” she said with a grin and made to punch him playfully.
He
grabbed her arm.
Drake’s
breath caught in his throat.
The
boy pulled her in closer to him. She kissed him.
No.
Why would she kiss him? Drake’s heart was trying to wrestle its way
out of his chest.
The
boy kissed her back.
Drake
raised one shaking fist, and let it fly.
The
boy reeled from the blow and let out a yelp. So Drake could interfere
with the world after all! He was trembling all over, but now it was
from excitement. The boy’s spectacularly white shirt now shone red
from his bleeding nose.
“Drake,
what happened?” shrieked Alice. Drake?
Was
this Drake? This couldn’t be Drake.
“Drake,
what happened?” came a voice over his shoulder. He spun around to
see the masked woman-person directly behind him, towering over him.
“Did you just harm a human being?”
“But
he —”
“We
do not interfere with their world.”
“Really?
I just found out we can.”
She
was twenty feet tall. Her hands stretched down and grabbed him,
drawing him up to her eye level. The empty eye-holes regarded him
coolly while the voice that addressed him was anything but cool.
“At
what cost, Drake? Did it feel good, dipping your finger into the
fabric of reality?” The voice howled, tore, wailed, falling on him
like a tempest . “You take a deadly risk by disobeying me. My rule
does not exist for my sake, but for yours! Did that occur to you?
Look at your hand, and see what I mean.”
A
third hand emerged from her covering, grabbed his right arm brought
it before his face. He had no right hand. The flesh ended in a clean
stump at his wrist.
“You
can’t survive in the real world, Drake.” Her voice was softer.
“Your existence is locked up in this girl’s mind.”
“So
if I ever touch or talk to her, I disappear?” he spat. “Just like
that?”
“I
barely saved you from much worse,” she said. She set him down. She
was his height. “Even if I had been by your side the whole time you
hit him, I couldn’t have protected you for very long in the human
world. Do not attempt to interfere again.”
Alice
escorted Real Drake to a place that smelled oddly clean, for a school
like this one, with pale-green tiles and newer-looking paint. Drake
watched as a woman in white took Real Drake away into another room
behind the desk. Alice took a seat in one of the many chairs that
lined the walls, and plugged buds into her ears, while she tinkered
with what he knew, somewhere inside of himself, to be a phone. Drake
sat down next to her and watched her intently. He was calmer now, but
he couldn’t rid himself of the sense of betrayal. But really, he
reasoned, whom had she betrayed? Not him, certainly. It was only
because of Real Drake he even existed. Still, he wanted to be the one
to protect her, to care for her. He reached a hand out toward her,
and it was all he could do not to let it rest on her free hand.
Of
course she didn’t notice him sitting there.
He
pulled from his pocket (he realized now he was wearing the same tight
jeans as Real Drake) the original Poem.
Strong,
it said. Caring. Kind. Chivalrous, respectful, and loving. That was
what Real Drake was to Alice. And what was he, Drake the Perhaps Not
So Real? The longing he felt was pretty real to him. Still, Alice had
written her poem about the Real Drake. He alone could make her feel
so safe and loved. He, Drake the Perhaps Not So Real, could not. Even
after all that thinking (he was quite good at thinking by now; there
was little else he could really do), he still felt betrayed. She
didn’t even know he was there, and still he felt like she had
tossed him aside. But then of course he would feel that way. The Poem
said he was faithful and protective (and maybe a little bit jealous).
Just like Real Drake, about whom it had been written. Perhaps he had
misjudged Real Drake.
Real
Drake emerged from the door behind the desk, a bandage on his nose
and cotton balls in his nostrils. His expression was cold. Alice
popped the buds out of her ears, her beautiful smile in place.
“How
is it?” asked Alice.
“It
sucks,” Real Drake glowered. “Nose is broke.”
“Broken,”
Drake instinctively corrected. He frowned; surely Real Drake would
know the difference between a preterite verb conjugation and an
adjective. Neither of them seemed to have heard him.
“I’m
so sorry!” said Alice.
“Wasn’t
your fault.”
“Are
you going to be okay?”
“Yeah.
I’m going home, actually. Going to take it easy.”
“Okay,”
Alice said, though she looked dismayed. “I’ll miss you in class.”
“Sorry,”
Real Drake replied in a flat voice. He headed for the door.
“I’ll
see you tomorrow!” she said. He paused and regarded her, and walked
over to her. He kissed her again. Drake clenched his fist, but kept
himself under control. Well, he tried, anyway. Something about Real
Drake really did bother him, the more he watched him.
Alice
kissed him back, and Real Drake was out the door. Alice sat back
down, replacing the buds in her ears. Back to the phone.
“Are
you feeling unwell?” asked the lady in white from behind the desk
in a loud, pointed tone.
“You
have no idea,” muttered Drake.
“I’m
really tired,” said Alice, not looking up from her phone. “I need
to rest a bit.” The woman sighed, and sat down, busying herself
with whatever it is women in white are always busy with at desks.
Drake
considered what to do next. It was very likely Alice was going to be
true to her word, and stay here for a while. He still wanted to
protect her, in the absence of Real Drake, but it was just that:
something about Real Drake was not as it should be. He stood up and
peered out the door and down the hallway. Real Drake was still
visible at the end of the corridor. Drake looked back at Alice, and
then began to follow Real Drake. Perhaps the best way to protect
Alice would be to find out more about Real Drake.
“Hey,
Drake!” came a girl’s voice from the other side of the road. Real
Drake stopped where he was, and smiled broadly at the girl. She was
pretty (Drake supposed), but she could not compare with Alice.
“Hey,
Amanda,” Real Drake said. Amanda crossed the street and gave Real
Drake a hug. They clung together for a moment too long.
“Oh,
gosh! Your nose!” She squealed.
“Yeah,
broke. I don’t know what happened. It’s just broke.”
“Broken,
broken!” Drake corrected under his breath.
“I’m
just headed to school,” Amanda said. “I slept through my alarm,
but I have a Spanish test fourth period. Can’t miss it.”
“Yo
sento.”
“Lo
siento!” She corrected,
giggling.
“See,
you’ll do fine. Hey, come by my place after school,” Real Drake
said, “We need to hang out again.”
“Isn’t
Alice going to be there?”
“Nah.
I’ll tell her I’m sick.”
“Okay,
then! I’ll bring the Coke I owe you.”
“You
better.”
Their
heads came together, and their lips met, bloodied nostril cotton
balls notwithstanding. Drake stood dumbfounded. This was not him.
“Bye,
Drake!”
“See
you later,” Real Drake said, resuming his slouching gait home.
No.
This could not be Real Drake.
There
came a buzzing from Real Drake’s pocket. He pulled out his phone,
looked at the message it received, and stuffed it back into his
pocket with a huff.
“Yeah,
miss you, too.” His tone was not dripping with sincerity.
Drake
felt like he might throw up, if he had ever eaten anything before.
Alice had been wrong about him—so nauseatingly, awfully wrong.
Disgusted, Drake left Real Drake to mosey on home on his own. He’d
seen enough.
He
found Alice in her room, laying on her bed. She was writing something
in a notebook, earbuds firmly in place. A buzz from her phone gave
her a start. She pulled it out and smiled.
She
hopped out of bed, taking her notebook with her. Her walk was
half-dance, gliding on the balls of her feet toward the kitchen,
making hardly a sound with each footfall. Her rosy scent hovered in
the air behind her, and Drake let out a sigh. He followed her and
watched as she removed a tray of chocolate chip cookies from the
oven, placing them gently on the counter to cool. As they did, she
finished what she had been writing, and pulled it from the notebook,
leaving it on the table as she placed the cookies on a plate. Drake
stepped in to investigate.
On
the paper was the Poem, with “Get Well!” written at the bottom.
“Drake,”
came the voice of the woman-person.
He
turned, and there she was. She did not stretch to the ceiling and her
arms lay hidden beneath her covering. Her black-veiled mask peered
emptily at him, waiting for him to fill the silence.
“What
am I?” he asked her.
“You
really have lost your spark.”
“Well,
can you really blame me?”
“I
really can’t,” she said.
Alice
was wrapping the cookies in plastic wrap.
“Who
am I?” asked Drake.
“Why
do you ask?”
“Because
the person the Poem was written about is so different from me. I’m
not him. Who am I, then?”
“But
you are him,” the woman-person said. “To Alice, he is everything
you are.”
“He’s
nothing like me!” he yelled. Alice looked up, a bit startled. She
had just taped the “Get Well!” note to the wrapping over the
cookies. “He’s treacherous, cold, unloving ...”
“Yes,
he is.”
“Well,
why can’t I be something else, too? If Drake isn’t what he should
be, why do I have to pick up his slack? What if I don’t want to be
some teenaged girl’s poem?”
The
masked face regarded him coolly, but the woman-person did not
respond, so he continued,
“What
if I want to be more than this? I don’t want to be some silent,
doting spectre that follows around a girl because he’s too helpless
to do anything else!”
“We
can’t change what we are any more than the humans can,”
said the woman-person. “But we can change who we are.”
“Then
why don’t you? Why don’t you change? How do you watch everything
around you burn to ashes, and do nothing to stop it? How do you do
it?”
“I
can hardly bear it.” Her voice was choked. “But without me, what
would become of people like you? Where would you be without me? You’d
have disappeared into the void from whence you came, never even
knowing your name. That which makes me be gives me power and wisdom;
without me, our kind wouldn’t last long at all. We’d flare up and
then extinguish, like sparks on a cold night. I can’t shake this
world by the shoulders, but I can give our kind a chance to live for
longer than a few seconds. That is how I have taken what I am and
used it to change who I am.”
He
stared at Alice as she looked for her shoes.
“You
said you couldn’t protect me for long in the human world,” he
said.
“Not
for very long at all, no.”
“How
long is that?”
“Why
are you asking me this?”
“How
long?”
“Ten
minutes.”
She
had her shoes on, and was donning her sweater.
“I
need to tell her who the real Drake is.”
“Are
you aware of what will happen if you do?”
“I’ll
cease to exist?”
“Sort
of.”
It
was strangest thing to imagine not existing. What is it like to not
think, touch, know, see, hear, or want anything?
“Will
I ever see her again?”
“I’m
a collection of all humanity’s wisdom and knowledge,” she said,
“But nowhere in my pages is there proof of any of it. I have a
hundred different answers to your question, but I couldn’t tell you
which is correct.”
He
didn’t try to fully understand what she said. Alice tested one of
the spare cookies.
“Will
it hurt?”
“I
don’t know about you, but I can promise it will hurt her.”
This
would be the only time he would ever spend with her, he realized. And
he would spend it telling her that her boyfriend was nothing she
believed he was. He would spend that time breaking her heart, and the
last thing he would see before fading into oblivion would be her
tear-streaked face.
Or
he could live forever knowing he could have saved her from a worse
fate.
He
took a deep breath, trying to shove away the headaches that were
already coming back. He hid his hand-less arm behind his back.
“Let
her see me.”
“Drake!”
Alice squeaked. “How did you get in here? I didn’t even hear you
come in!”
Drake
didn’t answer her. He only drew her into the first and last embrace
he would ever feel, and held her. She was soft and delicate to his
feel, and he held her as if she were made of glass. Her perfume
filled him with a tart sweetness, and the touch of her skin sent
trills and tingles throughout him. She was taken aback, and didn’t
seem to know how to react. She held him back, awkwardly, like she was
very unused to this sort of thing. She probably was.
He
began to feel very weak, and his head began to swim. He hadn’t much
time. He drew back and looked Alice in the face. Her liquid green
eyes stared into his, her eyebrows arched inquisitively; a smile
graced her lips.
“What
is it?” she asked.
“Alice,”
he said, a smile curving his lips. She was listening to him! Finally
he could speak to her—he only wished he had something pleasant to
tell her. “I’m not who you think I am.”
“What?”
she frowned. He pulled the poem from his pocket and showed it to her.
She blushed.
“Yeah,”
she ventured nervously, “I wrote that for you.”
“I
know.”
“Kind
of dumb, huh?”
“Alice,
this is not Drake.” He pointed to the words on the page. Loving.
Strong. In short, perfect. “This isn’t anyone you’ve met.”
“Drake,
you’re amazing!” she cried. “I’ve never had a boyfriend like
you before. Heck,” she laughed, “I’ve never had a boyfriend
before!”
“Drake
is anything but amazing.”
“Why
are you talking about yourself like that?”
“Alice,
do you love me?”
She
withdrew a little bit.
“Drake,
you’re scaring me.” This was getting to be too much. There was a
gnawing in the pit of his stomach. His knees began to shake, and his
vision blurred around the edges.
“If
you love me, let me see your phone.” She did as she was asked,
handing him her bright red cell phone. He took it with his good hand
and looked through the contacts until he found Drake.
“Is
this my number?” he asked her. She nodded. He called it and put it
on speaker phone. After a few rings, he heard his own voice answer
flatly,
“Hey,
girl, what’s up?” Alice shrieked and jumped away from him. She
stared at him with huge, frightened eyes.
“Hey
Drake, this is Drake,” he said, his voice as acidic as he could
make it. “How’s it going with Amanda over there?”
“Who
the freak are you?” Real Drake yelled.
“I
told you, I’m Drake.”
“I
don’t know anyone called Drake.”
“Wish
I didn’t either. So, I’ve got your girlfriend on the line. One of
them, anyway.”
“I
don’t know what you’re talking about, man,” Real Drake said.
“Alice
saw you with Amanda after you went home,” Drake lied. “I thought
maybe you’d like to explain to her what that’s all about.”
For
several seconds, no one said anything. Finally, Real Drake piped up,
“Well,
she should really mind her own business. What are you, her new
boyfriend?”
“Wish
I were.” he barely forced the words out; his voice was growing as
weak as his body.
“You
know what? Fine. I’ll just keep Amanda. Tell Alice to—”
Drake
hung up. Alice’s arms hid her face as she sobbed silently, sunken
in a seat at the table. Drake sat down beside her — he could barely
stand, as it was. He couldn’t see the woman-person now, but he knew
she must be reaching the end of her strength. He was too weak to
talk, and so he rested his stump of an arm on Alice’s back, until
the lights around him began to flicker, and one by one, they each
winked out.
