Shadowing

(NOT TO BE TAKEN IN ACCOUNT AS PART OF MATILDE'S DIARIES)


I followed this one right down into 'The Void'. Blue, pink and black lights pulsating with the DJ’s beats. I saw she floated among the crowd, dancing. I went right after her as she entered the ladies’ room. But then, it happened. I passed out and I went there again. I saw Ursula’s black hair moving with the autumn wind. Her star headband. She was standing in front of trees as big as ten story buildings and red as crimson. I had been thinking of her a lot, God only knows why. This girl I followed, her black hair, her hips, tight as a wasp’s in a corset, dark as night, her nail polish, everything, just like Ursula. I don’t know how long I was unconscious, then I woke up.

“It happened again”, I told myself coming to. I got up slowly, my body was still a little numb as I tried to get back on my feet, leaning on the sink with clumsiness to finally stand up. I could see her legs on the floor, coming out underneath the bathroom’s door. I got closer, the hair standing in the back of my neck. My hands were shivering. I opened the door, and as I was doing it, I knew what awaited. I slapped my face, pictured me sitting in jail -I had been following this one for a couple of weeks-, while I was looking at her body just lying there, her face on the toilet, covered in spit and blood. But then, she was breathing! Thank God! I checked her pulse, her bleeding nose and her mouth. There was so much marching powder in her nose and mouth that some bits of her palate were actually falling out. I thought indeed there would be no tomorrow for her. Then she opened her eyes! I panicked and just took off.

“What’s wrong with me?”, my flash reflection as soon as I got in the car, right before racing through the city home. I went upstairs to our bedroom. Good thing the wife was dead asleep. Went back downstairs to the studio. I needed to clear my thoughts. It wasn’t just ‘Vicious Nina’, the girl I’d been after for the past two weeks. She wasn't the first one. Going over the mementos I’d kept from the houses I’ve broken into keep me going, just as much as remembering every story I’ve learned from the people I’ve analyzed in those homes. It had become an addiction.

I thought I could wipe out everything that happened the night before. The note I read from a text message on my cell made me think again, “I'll find you”.

I’ve been unemployed for almost a month. Haven't had the balls to tell the wife. I get up, breakfast together, “Have a good day at the office, honey”, all that, except after leaving home, which is when I take on my new routine: following people.

I keep a journal on the people I followed. Their habits, their routines, how they dress, how they smell, where they go to. It’s a good excuse to keep writing.

That morning I went into a diner to get some coffee. I thought of ‘Nina’ again, wondered what could have happened to her. The waitress takes my order. She was wearing a headband, also with a black star, just like Ursula. Black curly hair, too. I couldn’t help being struck by her smell of violets, musk and clove. That kind of scent in the morning seemed rare, at least to me. I wanted more. I wanted her.

I was afraid of talking to her straight away. That’s when an opportunity from the skies fell on my lap. “Jack, I’m just going to take care of that last customer, clean up a little bit and then I gotta run out the door”, she told the manager. I finished my black coffee and left the diner. I thought of waiting for her right outside but I ended up getting in a little bookshop in the opposite corner just to kill some time. I started leafing through some novels but only one held me there for longer than expected. Now matter how many times I’d read Thus spoke Zarathustra, every time I bump into that book I have to grab it and read some pages.

I got out and had only one idea in my head: the violets, the musk and the clove. I came back to the diner but she was gone. “Damn it!”, the adrenaline rush kicked in my guts and heart, beating like a hound-dog’s. I ran to the back alley, nothing. The main street, not a trace. Went back to the diner to ask another waiter. “Hey did you see…what’s her name? The waitress? Mmm… Black curly hair, tall, headband? I go to school with her and I’ve got her notes”, I sort of startled my stupid lie. “She’s gotta be taking the subway now, dude”, a friendly voice put a smile on my face. I got to the station in fourty six seconds. I was sweating like a junkie. There she was! I had one last chance to get her! I managed to get in and stay right behind her in the sub, without being noticed. No one else around. I sat five seats in the back. “God, her hair”, I sighed and kept trembling. I sat a little closer. She wasn’t wearing any rings. Her red coat, “Ursula's favorite color”. She pulled out a pack of nuts from her black purse, just as petit as her ballerina red shoes, and started eating them with no haste, grabbing one at a time, and after each bite, she kept her hands together, like praying, and then looking through the window. She took her time, just like “one must take the time when being seduced by good wine”, Ursula once said. Then, fade to black.

The trees as tall as skyscrapers and red as crimson. Her hair, not her face, again. The dream started to blur this time. When I came back, I saw the waitress unconscious, against the window. No blood this time. I didn't panic. And this time, I didn't stick around to find out if she was breathing or not. I got off on the next stop.

This one had really meant something more than just curiosity in me. But then again, it's just like everything else in my life, everything fades in a blink, and time has its way to destroy it all in a day's time. The only thing that I kept was her smell.

Next day. Same drill. Needed to find an excuse to keep shadowing, to keep writing about the emptiness of my life reflected on my new daily rituals.

“I'm closer than what you think”, a new text message on my cell.

“Something's different today”, I thought at every step. The past five blocks I felt like a cross-hair on the back of my neck. Someone was following me now. I started running. I got to an alley. It was at night. Then I started running faster at every second. I was almost at the end of the alley. I turned back. There was nobody there. I kept running to get to the corner and ask for help. Then! A flashing light blinded me and I felt something hit me in the back of my head. I couldn’t tell what was happening.

Everything went black. Somebody started to ask me questions but I couldn’t tell who that was. I couldn’t see a thing.

“Why were you looking for me?”

“Ursula?”

“When did your life became this? This thing you’re doing now? I feel responsible for it”

“Don’t. I’ve felt empty for so long I can’t even remember when it all began. These people I’ve been sneaking up on and their routines… They sort of filled in the void. Some of them were fascinating, like this guy, a stunt double in the morning, a taxi driver at night and an aspiring painter. Some of them were like me, trying to justify their existence with work and a marriage they actually ended up hating. And only a couple of them reminded me of you. I thought I’d see you again, be with you at last”.

“I thought you’d wait for me. You knew I’d come back for you”.

“Would you ever forgive me?”.

My vision starts getting clear now. I see the girl in my dreams. But only her back, again. And she’s not standing in front of trees now. We’re on the roof of a skyscraper. She’s standing at the edge.

“I thought we would grow old together”, she sighed.

She throws herself from the edge. I ran with my heart in my throat. The star on her headband flew off as she fell in slow motion. I got to the edge, only to grab the green headband star.

I wake up. I’m tied up and a nurse comes in.

“What am I doing here?”, I yelled and tried to release myself from the straps holding me down.

“I’m not in a good mood today, dear. You know where you are. This is where you’re supposed to be. You know we take care of you here”.

“Look, I don’t know what this place is, but I was with Ursula ten seconds ago. Where the hell is she?”

“No, you’re in a mental hospital, sir. You’ve been here for the past five years. And this is what I pretty much remind you every morning, so if we’re going to do it that way I’m going to have to call the warden”.

She gives me Thorazine and Haldol. My muscles and my arms start giving up. I stop clenching my right fist, revealing a green plastic star in my hand.