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.
