One Small Fly

There's a fly on my computer.

One small fly.  It's even small by fly standards.

Why I see the images I see in my mind....  I see the fly flying into my mouth.  Not that I have to open my mouth wide to let it in.  Not that I even try to close my mouth to keep it out.  Not that I gulp it down or spit it out with a grimace.

The fly just flew in and out of my mouth just the same as if it were flying in and out of the house, through the sliding glass door in the dining room.  It was no big deal to the fly and it was no big deal to me.  I just kept on -- talking maybe -- like nothing was going on.

Of course, others would be disgusted by this.  But not me.

I was not talking.  Somehow, my hands were still working at the keyboard, typing the experience as it happened.  But my head was dead.  My mouth hung open and did not move - rigor mortise and all.  Somehow my eyes could still see.

So, my head was dead.  My face was dead.  My eyes could still see.  My mind could still think.  My hands could still type.  But the fly went in and out of the mouth on my dead face.  Landing on one corner of my mouth and walking around a bit.  Inside my lips.  Outside my lips.  Then buzzing around my dead mouth again.

No big deal to the fly.  No big deal to me.

Dreaming

Previous scene: "All Moved In"


The morning sun shining through the wood blinds, sliced the room into pieces.  Arms behind her head, Eva lay in the quiet, watching the dust float in the beams of light.  Breathing.  The dreams of the previous night swam in her head.  She couldn’t remember much.  A purple person who wasn't a person.  It was like a person but it was also like a liquid, a highly viscous liquid.  Eva was herself in her dream, looking through her own eyes at the being while the being looked at her.  That's all she remembered.

Through the door, Eva heard the familiar ting-ting of coffee cups jostling again each other.  The cupboard clapped shut.  The shhhh of water streaming from the faucet.  Lynn is a coffee junky and attends to that craving each morning before she does anything else.  Eva stayed in bed.  The gurgle of the coffee pot as it finished brewing.  Eva waited to hear Lynn pour her first cup of coffee.  Then, and only then, would Eva venture out to say good morning to her friend.  Greeting Lynn before said cup of coffee would only elicit a growl and a sharp remark.

Ah, there's it is.  The knock on the wooden table indicating that Lynn had her coffee and the coast was clear for Eva to go and enjoy a cup of coffee herself. She flipped the comforter off her bare legs and walked barefoot from the bedroom to the kitchen. Sophia padded quietly behind her, the jingle of tiny bells on her collar the only clue that the fat cat was following Eva through the house.

"Morning.”

"Morning." Lynn responded with the standard sleepy statement.

"How'd you sleep?" Eva asked the typical first thing in the morning question.

"OK, I guess.  I kept dreaming."

"Me, too," Eva said.  "What did you dream about?"

"I'm not sure.  I don't remember much.” Lynn sipped her coffee.  “There was an almost human-looking figure hovering in front of me.  It was dark, so I couldn't make out any features.  It seemed to be looking at me, though.  It made me nervous.  I asked it what its name was and it said 'Amethyst'."

"Lynn, I dreamed that something was looking at me, too." In a taut voice, Eva described her own dream.

Lynn sang, "Do-do-do-do, Do-do-do-do" in the creepiest voice she could manage.  "I love coincidences like that!"

"Coincidences like what?" Natalie walked into the kitchen.  She lived down the street, but dropped in to have coffee with Eva and Lynn each day after her morning jog.

"Oh, nothing really." Lynn waved her hand dismissing the question as nothing significant.  "We were just sharing our dreams."

"Interesting," Natalie drew the word out slowly as she poured herself a cup of coffee. She settled into a chair at the table.  "You know, I had an odd dream last night myself.  I was alone in a dark void expect for one other thing.  The thing was some kind of entity, but I don’t mean like an alien.  It wasn't saying anything, but it was looking at me.  What a creepy feeling! That someone is watching you, you know.  So, I told it, 'I can see you.’  It splashed into lots of droplets in the air and a sweet female voice said 'And now you can't.'  Then the droplets fell to the floor and disappeared. It was gone."

Eva and Lynn sat in stunned silence at the table, staring wide-eyed at each other.

“There’s no way,” Eva said.

“Coincidence?” Lynn offered.

“No, no, no. No way Lynn.” She shook her head.

"What?" Natalie asked. “No way what?”

"Natalie, umm, how to tell you this…." Eva started.

Lynn finished the thought, "We all had the same dream last night."

All Moved In

Previous scene: "Where It Starts"


"One more."  Lynn carried the last box into the house from the one-car garage. Eva scooped Sophia, their overweight orange tabby cat, out of Lynn’s path.

"Finally," Eva sighed.  Lynn dropped the box onto the kitchen table and Eva set Sophia gently on the floor.

"We've been here a year," Lynn said shaking her head, "and we've only just now gotten to this last box."

Eva pointed at the calendar hanging over the microwave. “No, yesterday was our own-our-own-home one-year anniversary.” Eva poured herself and Lynn a second cup of coffee each.

“A year and a day.” Lynn slurped her coffee.  "Oh!  Oh!."  She breathed across the hot liquid in her mouth and fanned her mouth as if that would help it cool down faster.  "That's gotta cool down."  <Lynn's not one to sit around and wait.  She'd rather be doing something than nothing.>  She set her coffee on the counter nearby and picked at the packing tape holding the box closed.

"Wait!" Eva popped, "Natalie will be here soon.” She glanced at the clock on the wall above the door. “Thirty minutes. Let's wait 'till she arrives to open it."

"Ugh.” Lynn plopped into the kitchen chair and hung her head over the back of it.  “Why?  Don't you want to be done with this?"  <Lynn was eager to fold up that last cardboard box and leave it in the recycle.>

"Come on. Natalie has been helping us get moved in this whole time. This is a mile-stone moment and she’s earned the right to part of it. Besides, she’s my best friend."  Eva pleaded with puppy dog eyes and pouting lips that made Lynn smile.

"Ok. ok.  You win.  I can't resist that face.  I’ve waited this long.  I guess can wait another thirty minutes."

A cup of coffee later, Natalie walked through the front door.

"Hey, Nettie!  We were just talking about you."  Eva announced.

"Good things I hope."

"Of course," Eva spoke in her most innocent sounding voice.

"Seriously," Lynn broke in, "You see this box?" pointing at the obvious box resting on the kitchen table.  "This, my friend, is the last box before Eva and I are officially moved it."

"Nice," Natalie replied.  "Let's see what's in it."

Lynn grabbed the kitchen shears from the butcher block on the counter.

“Want to do the honors?” She offered the shears to Eva who sliced through the old tape holding the box shut.  She pulled the halves of the lid open.  The crumpled newspaper protecting the box’s precious contents held its shape.

Eva, Lynn, and Natalie each grabbed at the wads of newspaper, carefully unwrapping the treasures hidden within them.  Trinkets, ribbons won at competition, a mishmash of mementoes from more childish days.  Peeking through the newspaper, Natalie spied the cassette-tape case turned planchette she and Eva made back when they were in high school.  She gasped as she pulled it from the box.

Eva’s eyes grew wide. "I forgot I put that in here,” she said as she dug deeper through the newspaper to fish the homemade Ouija board off the bottom of the box.

"I kinda figured it got thrown into a fire someplace," Natalie said.

"So," Lynn drew the word out slowly, "What's the story?"


Next scene: "Dreaming"

Where It Starts

"Nope.  She won't take us to the store to get one."  The back door closed with a thud behind Eva as she walked through the small dining room and into the living room.  She stopped with her hands on her hips near her friend Natalie who was sitting cross-legged on the floor.

"Ugh.  My parents aren't going to help either."  Natalie was frustrated.

"Why not?" Eva asked, "Have you asked them?" 

"Seriously?"  Natalie asked sarcastically.  "She thinks they’re evil - like having the devil on speed dial."

Eva rolled her eyes, like only teenagers can do.

"I have an idea!"  Eva sprang to her feet and started rummaging through drawers and cabinets.  "We'll just have to make one."  She pulled a pen from a drawer and held it up triumphantly.  "Now I need paper."

Natalie grabbed her backpack and tore a sheet of loose leaf paper from her binder.

"Uh, no."  Eva grimaced.  "Pull a paper from my sketchbook.  It's nicer.  Heavier."

Natalie obliged her and handed her the nicer paper.

As Natalie described the phrases, letters, and symbols, Eva created a homemade Ouija board.  The letters of the alphabet, in a gentle arc centered on the page, spanned the entire width of the page.  "Yes" went into one corner and "No" into the opposite.  "Hello" and "Goodbye" occupied the remaining corners and the numbers 0 to 9 were spaced evenly across the bottom of the make-shift Ouija board.

"Hey, that doesn't look half bad," Eva remarked on her handiwork.  "It's not as nice as the kind you can buy from one of those big-box toy stores, but this will definitely do."

"It looks great, Eva," Natalie smirked.  "We need a pointer thingy still."

"A planchette?"  Eva asked the rhetorical question.

"Yeah," Natalie laughed at her own ignorance, a little embarrassed.  "whatever you call those things that usually look kinda like arrow heads with windows cut through the middle of them."

Eva scratched her head and looked slowly around the room.  After a moment, she leaned over and pulled open one of several junk drawers in the house.  She fished around in the back of the drawer before pulling out an old, empty cassette tape case.  Grabbing another sheet of sketchpad paper, Eva swiftly measured the case and cut the paper just right to neatly fit inside the cassette case.  Satisfied with the fit, she cut, in the middle of the paper, a hole that was just the right size to read the letters through.

"Viola!"  Eva placed the homemade planchette onto the homemade Ouija board.


Next scene: "All Moved In"