Eight
“Morning, Jean.”
“Hold up, you haven’t slept again, right?”
“How many times I’ve told you. It is okay to love your job, but you have to take a rest”.
Quickly, I turned my face to where that soft voice came from. There was Ellen, a perfectly balanced girl. It was 8 A.M, but she had stood in front of my room door. She lived 100 meters away from my place, so she always came to my place to wake me up, reminded me to eat, or just visited me I knew her since we were in junior high school. When I first met her, she gave me butterfly in the stomach and I had a crush on her until now. Back then when we were still in high school, she came to my place to do homework together. She was not really smart, but she wanted to ask me or someone else about what she didn’t know. Unfortunately, I had to move to a city after graduate. It made her sad, so she came to visit me last month, and chose to move into the same neighborhood. I didn’t even know what crossing in her mind, but it made me happy, she lived near me. Don’t even think too far, we live separately.
“Ellen, don’t worry. I just finish my job. Anyway, shall we have a breakfast now?”
“Do you remember last time you passed out? If you don’t get an enough rest, you will get sick, if you are sick, you can do your job, and if you can’t do your job, you can’t earn money.”
“You always make me worry, Jean” Ellen continued her words.
“Ellen, it’s okay. Now let’s have a breakfast. You are hungry, right?” I tried to calm her.
My room was on the second floor so we walked down to the kitchen pass through the corridor, I hung all photos in the corridor. White titanium wall decorated with several simple-black-framed photographs, my mother told me that it looks too plain, but I don’t care. That day menu was Omelette, a simple dish for us, but enough to make me full. Ellen chose to quietly sit in the dining room while playing her smart phone while I cooked for us. Sometimes, I looked at her just to adore how really fine, she was, and I smiled like a fool. On that day, she wore her favorite purple sweater that I bought for her and blue-ripped jeans; as usual she also let her long hair loose, I thought that really fitted with her image, tying her hair is troublesome for her. She focused on her smart-phone, scrolled through her SNS timeline, read random facts, and then said something absurd, such as.
“Hey Jean, you know what? Butterfly doesn’t look like butter at all.”
“Huh, what? First of all, what th-.“ I didn’t know how to react with this kind of question even I’ve known her for so long
“Well, at least they fly. All make sense now.” She cleared her own stupid argument.
“I remember something about it. People assumed the witches used to make butterflies themselves. They will then hunt down and drink dairy products such as butter.”
“So they are wit-“
“Breakfast is ready, Ellen. Now let us have a breakfast.” I stopped her question as soon as possible before I got crazy because of her run-free thoughts.
I asked Ellen to turn on the television so I knew what the weather forecast for that day. I wanted to be looked as perfect as possible and I didn’t want rain ruining my day. If you are asking why, I had to meet a really important client on that day, which I had to look convincing in front of him. My supervisor said that my work performance had decreased since last month, and it would affect salary. He said that he felt sorry for what have happened to me, but work is work; company don’t want to mind your problem, do your job, then get paid. Well, I know I could be relied on, but after all, I am a human too.
“I told you to turn on the TV, right?”
Ellen didn’t stand from the chair and chose to ignore me. Whatever, I turned on the TV by myself and went to news channel to look the weather forecast. They said that it would be clear, all day long. It made me relieved; I didn’t need a lot of belongings. I watched the TV while eating the breakfast — then I realized I put too much salt in the Omelette– the weather forecast section was over and back to news section.
“Back to the news, last night, a car accident happened at Westlake road. There is one casualty in the accident, the other driver is having a bad injury and now has been hospitalized at St. Mary Hospital. The hospitalized driver was presumed being drunk while driv-.”
I turned off the TV as soon as I hear the driver was drunk. I just couldn’t stand with that kind of person. In my eye, driving while you are drunk is the most ignorant and egoist act. If I were one of the casualty family members, I didn’t hesitate to punch them right on their face, and I knew it would not bring back the dead person. I tried to control my breath and calm my mind. Breath, breath, breath, and breath were only what coming at my head that time. Dr. Henry, my personal psychiatrist, also said that something like this would come, so I did his tips to manage this kind of situation.
“Jean, are you alright?” Ellen worried about me, but what coming to my mind was only Dr. Henry word.
On the last therapy session, Dr. Henry said to me
“It would be hard for you now, Jean. However, I believe, if you could manage when it is coming, you are going to get used to your trauma and it would not be a trauma again. Eat the red pills if you can’t handle the situation and want to calm yourself. Eat the blue pills if you have been ready and on the acceptance stages.”
The emotion, I overflowed with the emotions. Anger, grief, panic, pain− I didn’t know, I couldn’t explain it. My mind was overwhelmed by images, frame by frame, run freely through my head. Red blood, purple, and butterfly −Who was that? A girl lay on the ground beside a crashed car, shattered glass around her body, fresh blood run through her lips, she looked breathless, whose vision is this and where it comes, I wonder. On the outside, I looked like a statue, no single word and action coming from me, while my head was wildly processing. Finally, I could not hold it anymore.
I grabbed a bottle of pills that I kept in my pocket. I took the red one and immediately drank water. I never thought that the situation would turn like that Dr. Henry gave those are with a reason. I tried to control my breath slowly, taking a deep breath and let it out. I repeated it for 5 times, and, great, I became calmer. Suddenly, I just realized that I had a breakfast, and I had been late to go to work. I immediately took the plates and put them in the dishwasher. I rushed my steps to go to my room and prepared all my stuffs. I picked the best clothes that I have in the closet. I looked so handsome in the mirror −white long sleeve shirts with red tie and light brown trousers− absolutely suited for me. Anyway, I just realized something, why did I put two plates in the dishwasher? Does something happen? I felt a presence but I completely couldn’t remember ‘what is that’ or ‘who is that’. People say “If it is not important then it means nothing”. I hoped it was a really important thing because I wanted to remember it.
