Realization

   Norman had never really had any dreams, no real aspirations for life. He had gone through high school with pain, due to his lack of interest for most subjects, and went on to take six months off to decide what he was doing next. His parents agreed but only because he had really made an effort in his last year to get the best scores possible to get into a good college. They weren’t magnificent scores but they were certainly much better anyone had hoped him to have.

 He loved animals so he thought of becoming a veterinarian. But decided not to when he realized he would have to operate and see wounds and things like that. He wasn’t the best person in the presence of blood or any substances like that.

 Then he analyzed the possibility of becoming an architect. But he really sucked at mathematics and at drawing so it didn’t make much sense. Engineering was also out of the question as well as anything to do with math.

 He turned to the arts and put aside at once anything very plastic. He had never been good with his hands. Literature seemed interesting but he didn’t very much mind reading and cinema required him to work in a group. Which was very hard because he tended to like being alone.

 There was also law school, which he found very boring, and psychology, which he thought was garbage wrapped in trash. Philosophy never ended up anywhere and there wasn’t really anything else he could choose in the available colleges.

 The only thing he was good at was typing, like the secretaries in the fifties. He was really good and was capable of writing really fast although he had no idea what he was writing about. So he looked it up and decided it would be interesting to become a translator. It seemed easy, it was something everyone needed in due time, they got to travel and it just seemed right for him. Besides, he had learned two languages in school besides his own so at least he had already begun his studies, in a way.

 After two years of the career, Norman met Drake. He was a stunning man who happened to be very well known in the small world of high schools that compete against each other. When they first met in college, Norman was sure he had met Drake before. The thing was, he hadn’t but he had seen him several times when he and his classmates would attend football matches to support their school team.

 Drake was the star of one of the other high schools and everyone knew him because of his slight accent and his popularity with women. Norman had checked him out a lot back in the games but never really thought of anything. Later on, through a mutual acquaintance, they met in college and hit it off right away.

 They would speak for hours about their time in high school, their personal experiences there and also about their lives as college students. Drake was studying to become an architect and Norman soon saw with his own eyes that he was really good at drawing. When he did it, he was always very focused, as if he was alone somewhere. It was something really nice to see.

 They labeled their relationship as friendship. Norman went to Drake’s house often and vice versa. Sometimes Norman would judge Drake’s drawings and designs and would help him find things to make his ideas more appealing to the teachers. Drake also helped Norman by learning all the verbs and their forms for the frequent exams that he had. He also timed his typing skills and they always had fun with that.

 Although Drake had two girlfriends during their time in college, Norman barely saw any of them. They didn’t really talked about it. It wasn’t really a surprise when, in their last semester, Drake confessed he thought he was n love with Norman. And Norman realized he had been in love from the first moment they had begun their friendship.

 So shortly after they were done with college, they moved in together and promised each other to make it work. They found a small apartment midway between each other’s jobs and just lived a nice life for a long time until Drake proposed. He was one of those guys that like all the classic stuff. He wanted his life to have it all and Norman accepted because he was happy and wanted Drake to be as happy as he could. 

 They got married in a beautiful retreat by the mountains with friends and family and celebrated it by travelling to a faraway island where they were treated like gods. Besides, their relationship grew stronger and they felt they really had someone to trust and talk to whenever they wanted to. It was one of their shared dreams and they had achieved it.

 But then, some years later, Drake asked Norman if he would like to get a child, through adoption or insemination. Drake had entered those years in which men have a desire to leave their mark in the world and the ideal way to do that is to have a child. Norman had to think about it for a while because it wasn’t an easy decision. It was the life of some poor kid they were talking about and he didn’t wanted to make a mistake with that.

 Months later, they decided to go to an agency where they would offer a woman willing to carry their baby for the duration of the pregnancy. It had been Norman that made the decision, as he decided that if they were going to have a child, it was best of it looked like one of them. He felt bad for all the children up for adoption but he just thought it was the best choice for them.

 The pregnancy months were difficult because one of them had to help the woman they had chosen with all her pregnancy related issues and the one who was less busy was Norman. He took her to the doctor and to the dentist and to those classes were pregnant women learning how to breathe and how to stay strong. She was a very nice woman that just needed money and had already been a mother so she knew what it was all about. She was a single mom and her parents were not very happy with their decision but she didn’t care about that.

 Norman had some time to work, mainly online, with official documents but had to stop travelling to take care of the pregnancy. When the baby was born, the woman disappeared after being paid and they had new responsibilities. Drake tried to get some months off but due to fact that they were two men; they only gave him half the normal time. They sued but nothing came out of that. They enjoyed their time together, now three, and when he went back to work it was Norman who had to put almost everything about his career on hold.

 He got a break when the child was bigger and they had people they trusted to leave him off with like their parents or sisters or brothers who already had children. Being a baby, they didn’t feel good doing it but now that little Kevin as older; it didn’t seem much of a problem.

 One day, it the supermarket, Norman realized he was looking for a different cereal box for each one of them as well as their favorite snacks and meals. He knew how to cook the best burgers with mushrooms and he created Kevin’s favorite juice, a combination of three tropical fruits. In front of the freezers filled with frozen fish, he realized he had become a “house husband”. He had never really intended to and now he was doing all the things that the house needed to get done in order to work.

 He loved dressing Kevin up in Halloween and kissing Drake every morning and having sex in the most unexpected times.

 Then, Kevin was in school, Drake was successful in his job and now had a company of his own and he traveled from time to time to act as translator for some government officials or in other events. When he did that, it was fun but he had much more fun at home, when he was cooking or making the house look good. He had finally found what he loved.

 Maybe it wasn’t the most popular job of them all but he loved the look on his family when they appreciated his hard work. They didn’t teach any of that in college and he certainly had no use for those damn high scores and grades.

Dollhouse

   And then she found herself in front of a pretty neat table, with various forks and spoon and knives. The room was very bright and she could see the rest of the room was also very well taken care of. However, there was something that made her feel uneasy: she couldn’t move.

 Betty felt she was tied to the chair, arms and legs. She fought with it for a couple of minutes until she felt suddenly freed and fell to the ground. The chair also fell but instead of a loud noise it didn’t almost make a sound. Betty wondered why that was but she decided it was better to know where she was.

 The last thing she remembered before appearing in that strangely perfect room was thinking about her problems paying her tuition at college and paying the rent and paying every single thing she had to pay. She was in a lot of debt and didn’t know for how much time she would have to keep juggling it all. So that room she had suddenly appeared in, had nothing to do what the problems she had. In fact, she had never been there before.

 She realized that, despite the bright light, there didn’t seem to be anyone else there with her. She got near to one of the wall to hear if someone was coming from outside and discovered the wall were hollow, like made from plastic or something like that. That feeling made her nervous so she decided to try and not touch any of the stuff anymore. She put her hands on the back of her body, one hand holding the other and walked around the room to see if she recognized something.

 But there was nothing to recognize. Inside a big cupboard there were many cups for serving tea and coffee and also very cute plates with amazing floral and animal designs. She wanted to take them out and see them closely but remembered she promised herself not to touch anything. She just put her nose against the glass and saw every single little thing. Nothing. Nothing made a memory appear or made any connection to anything she knew.

 She kept looking at the small paintings depicting flowers and landscapes and realized the room was almost prepared for a dinner party of sorts but there was no food or other people there.

 Then, a clicking sound made her flinch for a moment. It had been the room’s door, which she hadn’t seen before, that had suddenly opened. Immediately, she walked towards it and pushed it. Again, there was a feeling that the door was not real, was something like a toy, a fake. She put her hands back to where she had kept them and slowly walked past the doorframe to the next room.

 It was really beautiful but it was then that she realized that something didn’t really make any sense. It was a ballroom, with what seemed like woodcarvings all around. It had been painted in pastel colors as well as some touches of gold and silver and bronze. It was beautiful and, for a moment, Betty forgot that she was scared and imagined that this room would have been were a beautiful princess would have danced with her lover whoever that may have been.

 She wanted to touch the perfect vases apparently made of glass and painted by hand; she wanted to get closer to the many mirrors surrounding the room. But she didn’t. She controlled herself and, instead, decided to just sit on the floor, in the middle of the room, and try to be objective. She really liked the place but Betty knew she didn’t belong there. She had never been in a palace like this. Every single house, mansion or palace with such rooms was many kilometers away from where she lived. How was it that she was suddenly there?

 Betty forced herself to remember. She crossed her legs and closed her eyes and tried to remember every single little thing she could. She had been worrying about money… But, what about it? Did she do something about it? Or was she waiting some kind of help or at least some clue to how to get away from all the problems she had?

 The fact was, she couldn’t remember. And suddenly, a strange thing happened. It was as if she felt compelled to stand up, open her eyes and dance around the room as if she had a big gown and was accompanied by the prince. But Betty didn’t want to dance: she wanted to remember. Yet, there she went, gliding gracefully all around the room, doing nice turns and beautiful gestures with her hands.

 But she didn’t want to, so she started crying and kept on dancing. It was a very awful thing to see, like a doll movie around without any will of her own. And then, in one of those turns, Betty saw that mirrors were very close and then she realized something she hadn’t really seen before: her image in the glass was different. She wasn’t looking her reflection but some deformed face. She screamed and moved away but then she tripped and felt backwards.

 She felt herself fall and fall. Betty didn’t open her eyes until it felt safe. When she finally did, she realized she had somehow arrived to the kitchen. But it wasn’t a modern kitchen like the ones she knew. It was a kitchen made for a house with ballroom full of mirrors and a dining room filled only with tiny cups and utensils no one was ever going to handle. It was scary.

 She stood up and decided to sit down in a small stool near a fireplace that seemed to be on but didn’t produce any heat. Betty suddenly felt very cold and then tried to remember, again, what it was that she was doing before she had arrived to this place. But her memory was blank, as if it had been erased by hand. She even tried remembering something else but she couldn’t. Betty only knew her name and random words and that was it.

 In a sudden move, she touched her throat. She had just realized she wasn’t able to speak. Everything she thought she had said out loud had simply not produced any sound. She had just thought about it. So Betty started crying because she felt miserable and was sure she didn’t belong to this place. After all, people belong to where other people are, right? Why weren’t there any other people around this place? Why was she the only one?

 Like an answer to her question, a door she had not seen by the cupboard had opened and a girl, maybe a bit younger than her, entered. She was wearing a dress that was a little bit more in tune with the room. She walked very slowly but did so towards Betty. When she was close enough, she sat down in another stool and just stayed there. She was very beautiful but sad. Betty wondered if she looked like her.

 Suddenly, she almost fell of the stool. She had heard a voice. She looked one way, then the other. And then towards the girl, who was looking at her with her big eyes. She then understood it was her who talked. Somehow, without moving their lips, they were having a conversation. The first thing Betty asked was if they could walk out of that place. But the other girl didn’t even answer.

 She only said her name was Norma and that she didn’t even remember there was somewhere else to be. She had also appeared there one day and, in time, she had gotten that outfit. She didn’t really moved anymore. It was hard for her to explain but, although she did walked all around the house, it wasn’t her who made her legs move.

 Betty got stuck on the word “house”. For a moment, she was master of her own body again, standing up and running towards a nearby window. But she suddenly tripped and fell hard to the ground. Her feet had stopped responding. She slowly got up and returned to the stool, with no will of her own.

-  What is this Norma? Where are we?

But Norma didn’t answer. It was a voice, coming from every single side, which answered: “This house is now your house”.

 Betty begged for all of it to be just a nightmare.

Simmer

   Just the sight of the stretch marks in his arms, close to his armpits, was enough to make him swim abruptly and very fast, further into the ocean. He could see the people and the beach getting away, he couldn’t feel the bottom anymore and, when he stopped, he noticed he had passed the border marked by the buoys. He swam towards one of them and rested there for a while. He was very agitated because of the effort, his chest going up and down. It seemed he was having problem breathing. Shortly after, a lifeguard boat appeared and offered him help. But he was able to say that he didn’t want any and then swam towards the beach.

 It took him a little more time getting there, making a few stops along the way. The salty water of the ocean mixed with the salty water from his tears, but no one knew that or noticed that in the beach. No one really had seen him going that far, everyone was minding their own business, not caring if a guy just swam like a mad man. When he got to the beach, he stood on the edge for a while, cleaning his face and letting the water drip from his body. Then he walked up to one of the showers by the walkway and showered thoroughly there, he had sand all over the place. When he finished he walked up to the parking lot and changed by his car. No one was there to watch.

 After that, he drove home and there he ate one of those salads, the kind you buy in the supermarket and are already done for you. He was hungrier than a salad but he didn’t want to go out again and eat something else. He instinctively gazed at his arm but he had a shirt on now and didn’t bother to yank up the sleeve or anything. He just finished his salad and then sat in front of the TV and put some silly documentary about aliens. They were always on, always with some crazy theory. They were the best shows for him to sleep to because he didn’t really care what they were all about. He only knew he was really tired.

 When he woke up, the room was in darkness. He looked at his watch and just sat down, covered his face and then stood up. It was time to go to the gym. Once he got there, he realized he was too tired. He tried several machines in a very short time but he just couldn’t do much on any of them. He didn’t know if he was tired from his earlier workout or if he was just not in the mood to do any exercise. Even though he clearly wanted to leave, he made himself stay at least an hour. He didn’t wanted to waste time, even if he preferred to be home reading or watching TV or doing whatever else felt more attractive than being in a gym, not being able to do much. Again, in that place no one really looked at him and he luckily wore a sleeve shirt too. Somehow he had never been a sleeveless shirt type of guy. He just wasn’t many things…

 When he finally came out of the gym, he intended to go and eat another salad in his home but he chose, instead, to go and walk around for a while. He was very close to home but he didn’t wanted to go there just yet. He wanted to think for a while or maybe not think at all. He just wanted to keep moving because when he stayed still he began torturing himself and he didn’t wanted that at all. He walked looking at the people going up and down the street, some were alone and others were in couples or even in groups. Some seemed happy and others not so much. Some were in a hurry and others just sat in the benches and just were there, not doing much more than looking at the cars and at the people, like him.

 He stopped to check out many store windows, some of them selling toys, others videogames or home appliances or even art. The street on which the gym was located, the same that passed near his house, was very commercial and active. And as the night progressed, more and more people popped all over the place, entering bar and restaurants, greeting people with hugs or only a cold handshake. It was Saturday night after all and everyone was out and about, no one wanted to be alone at home and he was certainly one of those. Normally he wouldn’t really care but this time was different. He felt he needed to stay outside for the remainder of the night because if he went back home he would do the same thing he did every time his thoughts cornered him.

  People never really watched, never really cared. They always excused themselves on a false sense of modesty or on a fake respect that no one ever asked of anyone. When he exercised in the gym the first few months he had a trainer. She was very strong and beautiful. He knew she saw the marks on his forearms, on his forehead. They were difficult not to look at if one really thought about it but she never mentioned anything and they saw each other everyday for at least three months. How could she not say anything? Did she really not mind or was she appealing to that false sense of respect that no one ever asked for? It’s not that he wanted to be asked but at the same time he did, he needed to be recognized.

 But no one had ever asked, no one had ever been interested. Besides he was very good at curing himself, he knew how to do it in order for anyone to miss the obvious marks. But nevertheless, they were obvious and anyone could have seen the problems, what was bubbling below his surface, that emotionless face and the stretch marked arms and the tired body. Everyone knew but no one cared. He was aware with that everywhere he went, even in that street, walking among people that seemed to be having an ice time with each other, that looked like they couldn’t care less about what happened beyond that place.

 He stopped at a small park and realized he had passed his home several blocks ago. He turned around but as he did, a voluptuous figure appeared in front of him. He didn’t really want to have that interaction, not then. It is common that the only people that see those in the shadows are people in the shadows themselves and these people really were. The police, the city officials and the neighbors all knew about it but no one really did anything to prevent it. Prostitutes had taken over and had taken the park as their place to work and get work. The lamps were not as bright as they could have been and some places were just very dark at night. Not only prostitutes hid in the shadows and he knew that well.

 Before she could offer him anything, he told her he wasn’t interested. She walked closer, in order to get in his way. She was very tall and had very strong legs and a wide chest and back. But she had the most luxurious head of hair he had ever seen on a prostitute. He repeated himself, told her he wasn’t interested. She then explained what she could do for him, what she liked to do and what he might like to do. She got neared but he took a step back. She smiled and he didn’t and she put a hand on his shoulder. It was a heavy hand and he felt as if he had sunken a couple of centimeters because of that hand. She assured they would have the best time ever and that she wouldn’t charge him too much. But the think her arm, pulled her hand off him and told her he wasn’t interested.

 This time he walked away and heard the prostitute insulting him and saying a bunch of derogatory terms, one after the other. She was like a machine of insults and, it had to be said, she was very creative about it. He tried not to hear any more that meant that he had a small penis and just walked home as fast as he could. It was late and the weather outside got very cold without him noticing. When he got home he took off his gym clothes and put on a pajama. Again, he turned on the TV and tried to watch some documentary about sharks, then a movie about some teenagers lost in an island and finally some cartoons. But the thought was already there and he couldn’t get the image out of his head. He had to do it, he had no option.

 Hours later, he was in his bed, head on the pillow looking up but with his eyes wide open. He was shaking and his arms were slightly opened, as if he was playing to be an angel of sorts in his own bed. But it wasn’t an angel one would have thought of when looking at the large blood stains in the blankets. They were rapidly expanding, forming the wings of the possible angel. But no real angel could have been found there. He closed his eyes to sleep and, this time, he cried again. He understood this was the day in which it finally got to him, in which he lost his grip on everything. He was finally lost and there was no one that could save him. Then again, there was no one at all.

Alone in the desert

   There was no wind. Only the heat and the sand that was very soft and in which her feet sunk deep, making every step very difficult to make. She had been holding her shoes on one hand but suddenly decided to drop them and let the sand claim them. She might never return to that beautiful hotel she had been staying in and even if she did, she had more shoes there, where they could actually be used.

 She stopped walking sometimes and tried to compose herself, looking in every direction; desperate to get any sign of life or of the person she had been following. Suddenly, she saw a scorpion come out of the sand and just ran the opposite way, not minding the heat, the sand and the fact that she had to climb a really big sand dune to escape the small creature.

 It was on top of that sand structure that she saw the oasis that the woman she had encountered in the market had told her about. Or at least it seemed to be it, because all of those water springs in the desert looked the same and she couldn’t forget that she might be imagining the whole thing, her mind already being affected by the heat and by having walked around a very still desert for at least an hour now.

 Once she made it to the oasis, she realized it was real and just when straight for the water. The small pool of liquid that was there was no good for swimming but good enough for her feet to relax and have a well deserved rest. She also took some water in her hands and drank, feeling how her body thanked her for it. As she drank, she looked around. Besides that small pond, there were only three palm trees, a few rocks and that was it. It was a very small island of life in the immensity of the desert.

 She started thinking that maybe she needed to go back but then she realized she had no idea what “back” meant as her senses of direction was not precisely on point. She had her cellphone with her but, obviously, it had no signal and the map feature wasn’t working. So she just there, here a soft breeze that brushed through those parts and moved the leaves of the palm trees.

 But the sound also moved something the woman had failed to see. Just in front of her there was the pond, and after that one of the palm trees but the wind made her notice some sort of fabric that was caught behind the palm tree. She stood up slowly and then realized she really needed to open her eyes better because what lay in front of her was not just fabric, it was a women dressed in a black gown, barefoot, apparently passed out, just there in the sand as if it was the most normal thing of Earth. She thought the woman looked beautiful but also a bit scary.

 Her body was very still. The other woman came closer and noticed she had a beautiful bracelet on her right arm and a necklace made also from gold. The bracelet had a name on it: Desi. She concluded that her companion’s name was Desi and that someone had left her there, because she was so perfectly put on the ground that it wouldn’t be possible that she had fainted and just assumed that very calm position.

 Desperate for human communication, the woman touched Desi’s face and caressed it a little bit too hard in order to wake her up but it didn’t work. She also tried shaking him by the elbow and the shoulder, even going to the extent of doing it really strongly, but without success. The last thing she tried was tickling her sleeping companion’s feet with her fingertips but the body didn’t even move a millimeter.

 So the woman just sat there besides her sleeping, or maybe dead, companion and just stared at the pond and the palm trees, secretly begging for an answer to this ridiculous situation. She even attempted to remember what it was that had drawn her out of her suite into the desert but the only thing she could remember was the voice of the woman in the market, telling her to find that oasis she was in right now, and wait for a revelation to occur. Maybe that was the place where she was destined to know a great truth but, being honest to herself, she didn’t want to know any truths if it meant being in the middle with nowhere with a dead body.

 She shook Desi violently this time but the body wouldn’t budge so she decided she didn’t care. Also, she decided to go back to her hotel and just hope that the same voice that brought her there was capable to get her back into a nice bed and a continental breakfast. She had been out of bed before dawn and she felt dusk was about to take place and she certainly didn’t want to spend a night in a place filled with scorpions.

 So she just stood up and started walking the way she thought her hotel was located in. Her steps were more secure now and the sand didn’t engulf her feet as it had been doing before. She almost floated over the sand and walked with much more grace than anyone else could in such an awful place. She reached a high dune and decided to look back; in order to give a last look to dead Desi but the oasis wasn’t there anymore. There was only sand.

 It was the first time that she felt scared and that feeling was accentuated by the fact that the sun was less and less bright, and she could already see the moon in the sky, very bright and all of her features visible. The moon seemed massive in the desert and she found herself looking at it for a long time before she remembered her wish to go back to the hotel.

 She walked and walked. But couldn’t reach any place. She was now thirsty and no oasis awaited her in the route she had chosen. She just had to keep on walking but she wasn’t walking as secure as she had been walking before. Her feet were starting to sink again and she felt very insecure about every single step she took. It was very sudden when fear took over her mind: she was sure she was going to die there, all alone, cold and with a thousand scorpions and other creatures of the desert poking her lifeless body, Her mouth would fill with sand before her whole body was to be covered by the desert, forgotten by the world there.

 It was a bright light that made these thoughts go away. But the light had been just a flash, just a moment in time that she never saw again. She kept walking and decided to travel only on the crests of the tall dunes in order to have a vantage point and not be surprised by death, if it came from beneath her. But it was there, the moon almost in the highest part of the sky, that she saw her again.

 She recognized the dress and her face and ever her feet, there in the dark. The moon illuminated Desi and that beautiful blue light bathed her in a strange aura that made the woman feel scared but also very calm. It was as if her mind was screaming but her body was incapable of acting on that fear. She was kind of paralyzed, also fascinated by the fact that the woman she had seen earlier was there, looking at her.

 But none of them moved. Not until Desi took off her necklace and let it fall into the sand. Then, a gust of gust covered her body and she was never seen again. She had been an illusion or maybe a dead person. That was why the lost woman had not been able to wake her up. She walked to the spot where she had been standing and grabbed the necklace from the sand. Just like the bracelet, it had a charm with a name. And the name was Florence.

 It was right then that she opened her eyes and realized the desert was there, just beyond the windows in her room. Her grandiose bedroom was there, all the complimentary beverages, the fruit basket that had been given to her as a gift and all of her clothes and shoes. Florence just touched her face and the rest of her body, trying to understand what had just happened. She stood up and went to the bathroom. She checked her eyes and her mouth. And then she just looked at her reflection.

 And as it happens often, she forgot Desi’s name, and the scorpions, and the body in the oasis. But she didn’t forget the fact that she had dropped some shoes in the desert, that she had found a necklace with her name on it or that a voice had called from beyond.

 She cleaned her face with cold water and decided to get some breakfast but, just as she walked in the space between the window and the bed, Florence stepped on a small mound of desert sand.