#geneticscramble

Inspired by http://writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com/post/166541059480/in-a-world-where-people-can-actually-die-of

I had been watching him for a few days. With what I’ve observed and the information my contact gave me, I’m good to go.

This guy should be easy, I use to wonder why no one did it themselves. After a few jobs it became clear, no one wanted to be connected to it. Alex Koan had an interview at the nearby coffee shop. It was clear that he becomes nervous in situations that may have an impact in his future. A messy interview will be easy.

This place held interviews at a table among other customers. I entered the building and sat at a table pretending to wait for someone. Alex came in a little after me. I relaxed, relieved that the interview wasn’t rescheduled. He conveniently sat near me, my suspicion has been lowered as a suspect. The more choices he makes, the less they think it was planned.

I went back to waiting for me “date”. Alex is visibly nervous so I turn to him, “You waiting for a date too?” He jumps at the sound of my voice.

“Oh, no. I don’t have a date. It’s an interview.” He looks around for the employer, “Is is that obvious that I’m scared?” I simply nod my head, just to raise his anxiety. No one heard our conversation, they won’t know what I did.

“I might as well get a drink, I swear this place is the spot to be turned down.” I stand after speaking and head to the counter.

During that time a professional looking woman enters the ares through an employee’s only door. She looks around until she spotted Alex Koan. They started the interview before I’d returned with my coffee. I mouthed “good luck” at him as I passed their table to sit at mine.

From a distance, the interview would appear to be going well, for the most part it was. It was clear though, that he was not getting the job. They didn’t talk for more than a half hour, Alex shook the woman's hand whom I learned their name was Jeanette by listening in. Jeanette returned behind the employee’s only door.

once the door shut Alex turned to me, “I’m guessing you could hear some of it, how did I do?”

I sipped my coffee and asked, “Do you have a family?”

Alex looked confused but shook his head. “Girlfriend, I’m gonna call her to let her know if I got the job.”

Now I’m not sure how soon his embarrassment will kick in. It could be right after the bitter truth has left my mouth. he could cause an accident thinking about it on the way home, or in bed late at night alone with his thoughts replaying every mistake in his head. This is the risk no one wants, to have him break out now and drop at their feet, making them the prime suspect.

“Truthfully, tell your girlfriend you didn’t get the job.” Alex’s face dropped. “You stuttered like a broken car and your hands were under the table the entire time.”

Alex looks at his hand, “Is there anything else?” He was clearly trying to cover his shame.

“Yes, you vomit words and share way too much.”

Alex Koan stands, “Thank you” and he walks out of the building.

~~~

A week later I had a woman, Elizabeth Ryne, enter my office. She looked around at the news paper articles on my wall.

I’d read this story already. You know the super scary one with the humanoid thing that convinces you it’s friendly with ease only to be discovered as the exact opposite. Our class had been assigned to reading this story and analyzing it, and by analyzing I meant studying how descriptive words are used. Mostly for a refresher, I read the story a second time.

No matter how many times I read a story, it engulfs me entirely. The moment I finish the first sentence, everything plays out before me and the world around me disappears. This is where is starts sounding cliché, right there, with the whole becoming a part of the story. I realized that years ago when I tried to explain that I actually become part of the story. Everyone I spoke to told me that it was normal, I thought that we were seeing eye to eye and that everyone did this. I cannot emphasize enough how wrong I was. In my own defense I was very young when I had all of these talks. To my dismay, as a teenager saying these things to people I either sound like I just came from woodstock or everyone thinks I am a very creative girl.

I hate describing things in my stories now. Whenever I review them everything starts to feel hypnagogic. Reading my own stories is worse than déjá vu on an acid trip, not that I know what one is like.

As soon as I laid eyes on the story everything seemed to melt away. My body could not physically move but my mind did all of that for me, so we took a look around. This story started in a empty street, in which the sun was setting, almost perfectly aligned with one end of the road that disappeared into what had been described as a horizon. A man strolled down the street. He had on an ironed, navy blue suit with a black shirt underneath. He called it his interview suit and was confident in every step with a new title to his name. He was…

A woman caught his eye across the street walking more quickly. The woman’s thick brown curls bounced like feathers in a basket with every step she took. The steps drew no sound from her red wedged heels. Her hips, oh those woman’s hips, swayed only a little as she moved. He shook his head. I wanted to shake mine as well. Get it together Matthias.

Matthias continued to watch the woman from his side of the road. She was beyond gorgeous. This woman seemed to move with the most perfect precision so that her movement flowed more smoothly than the wind. Matthias, being the confident man he was today, decided he would take a shot. What’s the worst that could happen? Even if the woman were to flat out reject him, he had still gotten a very nice job that would win him a woman just as beautiful. Matthias adjusted the black tie around his neck like any man would before approaching a beautiful woman, and began to cross the street.

“Excuse me, miss!” he said with a full voice. The woman stopped to look back at him as he-

The knock on my door caused my entire vision to shatter into tiny glass pieces. I squeeze my eyes shut and cover my ears to close out the shriek that always followed a disruption. My sister never spoke when it was time for dinner. She only knocked three times, our little code. I put away the story and begin to reorient myself.

This is my room. The queen sized bed with lime green bedding is my current sitting place. The walls around me are only slightly darker than maroon. The walls are not very close and it is dark outside. I can tell through my window across the room that forest green curtains parted to display the stars outside. This is the real world and it is time for dinner with my family.

My feet find the hardwood floor and begin their march to the bedroom door. Upon my unmotivated request, my parents replaced the original door of the room with one of mahogany. I am currently trying to find the reason behind such a desire, but I followed it.

As I make my way to the stairway I looked at the years of family pictures on the wall.

~~~

Leah is my best friend. She is my creative writing teacher but she is also very kind and understanding. I’m spending my lunch time with her, she’ll let me read a paper from another student if she thinks it is really good. Most of the stories aren’t that great, when you can see it all around you it is easy to see many flaws.

I look up to Leah after finishing another story. This one was almost as if a game had glitches, staticky and unclear. As I watch her read I begin to wonder what goes through her mind when she reads all of these papers. How does someone who can’t read like me see a story this bad as good?

I study her face as my mind wanders, the way her eyes narrow occasionally and how her right hand picks at her earlobe. I can only guess that she has seen a severe mistake when he forehead wrinkles and her eyebrows come together

~~~

There he is. I’d followed him all day waiting for him to check out that book I had recommended. Mason chose a park bench by the walkway paved for jogging and biking to read his book. I plopped down on a park swing just far enough away for him not to see me watching him like this.

I waited for him to get comfortable. I’d been practicing for so long. This whole thing is so selfish, but I can’t help myself. He opened the book and began to read. After a few seconds I begin to read too.

I decided to write the scenery around us to make things easier for both of us. Mason did not notice the change such as the disappearance of everything around us. I decided it was time for him to put the book down beside him and stand up. He had always had an amazing grace in his movement. His posture always unwavering, his movement fluid and confident.

At this moment his confusion was visible on his face. It was time for a young woman to approach him on the walkway, me. The bounce of my brown curls had been exaggerated for the sake of the scene. Mason turned to see me, I hadn’t given him words to speak yet.

“L-laTrease, it is nice to see you”. I had almost written a frown on my face, Mason was fighting this, he is supposed to be fluid and graceful. I smiled and stood directly in front of him.

“Welcome to my world, Mason. Obviously you are confused, I’ll explain, but first,” Suddenly Mason and LaTrease were sitting across from each other at a coffee table, two cups of hot tea already poured between them. “This should be more comfortable.”

His mind was in the most italicized font one could imagine; I can write my own story but I can’t write a mind. I wish there was a way to calm the alarms ringing in his head, I can read it too.

“I have a special ability, if it hasn’t been made obvious already. I can read anything, for the most part. People are the easiest to properly understand since I am one, animals come next.” I picked up the cup of tea before me and blew on it four times to cool it down.

I had sacrificed many hours of my sanity each day to write this script so that everything would follow through as it should. I couldn’t tell reality from fantasy for days, even now it may take several minutes on the park swing to gather myself when this is done. I am, after all, rewriting my own story from memory.

I made Mason relax his body into the black love seat on his side of the table.

“I thought you would be someone I could finally show this to, it’s hard coming to terms with what i have. I also learned that it is easier to start a story while someone is reading, their mind is already there.” His brain processed my words and a flurry of thoughts flew through his head in panic.

“I understand that it is strange not truly having control of yourself here, I give you the freedom of your thoughts since I cannot and do not want to control them anyway.” He sat upright only to take a sip of his tea, set it down, and relax again. “Since I am writing everything that happens here I can not give you free will, hopefully I may figure that out in the future.”

We sat in a chilling silence to allow him to reminisce over what I have said. I can see why he’d want to believe this is an acid trip, but his mind kept running back to it. Time froze as I honed in on reading his thoughts between the lines of my story.

“What in god’s name is happening? Is my medication laced? It can’t be! The container was properly sealed. Could there have been something in my food? No, I didn’t taste anything. Maybe it was a new drug. Why can’t I move, ugh. What is with this psycho, whatever it is she isn’t safe, geez!” His mind rambled on about similar things.

“I can end the story here” I said interrupting his train of thought, the thought that he might die was the caboose. “No, that does not mean I will kill you. It means you will be back on the park bench reading that book of short stories I had suggested.”

We closed our eyes and opened them to find ourselves back at the park. Standing beside the walkway.

“I recommend you sit for a while and reorient yourself, remind yourself of the reality around you before you move around.” His mind grew slightly calm after my words, but one thought screamed loud and clear.

“I need to tell Melissa”

I can’t have him running around making this difficult.

I let out a chuckle, “Oh dear, I may have given you the freedom of your mind, but this freedom does not come with privacy. I’m shocked you haven’t realized.”

Every blade of grass in sight dried and browned. The tree immediately became engulfed in flames, the fire running out of fuel seconds after to expose charred wood surrounding us. Chains shot from the ground and bound Mason’s wrists, once fastened they pulled him to the ground. My will made him look up to me.

“I should have known this would never be like the fairy tales, it’s hard to understand that when I literally live them when you read them.” I allowed the panic in his head to show through his eyes, they seemed as if they were ready to burst.

Time froze once again as I took the time to think, not so much about what I was doing but more so about whether I really should do this. I had prepared myself for every outcome, I knew that I could take control of the situation in a second. If I finished this, there would be no one to believe Mason, just as I had endured. I can’t have anyone believing him, he’d only make it harder for me.

“Turn me into the authorities, I dare you.” I had unfroze time with these words and allowed clowns of all sizes to come from behind the trees and plant kisses on his face. Diamonds pushed out of the pores of his skin, one at a time. I allowed Mason to scream all he wanted, the real world would not hear him.

“I spent all my years of reading trying to show someone what was really happening.” I mumbled more so to myself than to the shrieking Mason on the ground. “It’s amounted to almost nothing now.”

The story finished there, on a cliff hanger.

I open my eyes just in time to see Mason shaking as he drops his book on the ground. He turns his head in the direction I had come from in the story, he then stands and walks in the direction.

Mason did not need to go far to finally see me. He did not have to think twice before he breaks out in a sprint, startling the mother nearby with her son. He dove at me on the swing, knocking me off onto the wood chips beneath us.

“What did you just do!” He screams, his hands going for my throat. “Let me go! Let me go!” He lifts my head and slams me against the wood chips over and over. I feel blood drip from the back of my head due to the splinters.

It took only a few seconds for a park ranger to rip him off of me. A young boy around age 9 helps me sit up and calls his mother to him

“My mom is a doctor, she can help you. She even carries a small first aid kit in her purse.” His mother came rushing towards us putting on latex gloves immediately. She began picking splinters out of my head while I watched the ranger cuff Mason.

Another police vehicle arrived to finish taking him away, an ambulance arrived right after for me. The boy and his mother helped me into the back of the ambulance.

On the ride to the hospital I spoke with the 9 year old whose name turned out to be Linus, he told me a lot about his mother, Maria, who was still treating the back of my head.

“I hope he isn’t bothering you too much darling,” Maria said behind me, “He loves to talk about books.”

“No it’s fine.” I wanted to laugh, she doesn’t even know. “He’s got quite the imagination.”

Linus frowned at me and opened his mouth in protest.

The story began at the top of a grassy hill in the middle of nowhere.

“I already know Linus, I believe you.” I winked at him.

Linus looked around him in awe, his eyes shined bright as he read the scene before him.

“I can read it all!” he exclaimed clapping his hands then turning to me. “Are you writing this?” I only nodded and prepared to end the story.

“Don’t try telling Maria, she won’t believe you.” Linus rolled his eyes at my words, he already knew that. “One day you will write like this.”

He grinned ear to ear as the world dissolved back into the ambulance as it pulled up to the hospital.

~~~

I received a letter a week before the battery case with Mason, two letters actually. The first one dating three days ago, stating that Mason’s mental state was not healthy enough to be put in a case, that he would be sent to an asylum instead. The second letter also dating three days ago stating that Mason had clawed at his throat until he ripped it open and died. The time given for the time of death was minutes before he was said to be picked up to be transferred to the asylum in the first letter.