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Jennifer Mulligan reclined comfortably against the hard surface, the lines around her eyes making it clear she hadn't slept properly for days. She lay
on her back, her hands behind her head, and her knees slightly bent. The portable phone rested on her stomach while images from the television played across her face in the dark room. Brandon
Lee's The Crow repeated endlessly on the DVD player without sound. The audio experience at the moment was Metallica's Master of Puppets
and her "racuous metal collection" on infiniute repeat on the Sony mini-disk stereo system. The music roared so loud it was bugging the neighbor's dog.
The phone vibrated against her
stomach. Jennifer creased her brow and the volume of the stereo dropped to a more manageable level so she could hear the answering machine pick up.
"Hey, Jenn! This is Bill L.
I got worried when you called in sick for the third day in a row. That's not like you Jenn. You're a tough girl and still our lucky charm! Uh, look, whatever you going through, you know,
you don't have to do it alone. There are people who can help you. It's not your fault. Talk to somebody. Uh, just take care of yourself, OK?" |
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Jennifer sighed. Somewhere beyond her feet came a puzzled "Mrrrow?"
"Hi Ghost, baby," she replied. "You know,"
she continued speaking to puzzled cat, "Bill may be an idiot, but just once in a long while he actually makes sense." She lifted her arms with slow deliberate movements and rubbed her bleary eyes.
"I can do this," she told herself, "I'm strong and I can handle this." She lifted the phone from her stomach and dialed a number. It was the middle of the night, and she wasn't surprised
when the answering machine picked up. "Yeah, hi Josh? This is Jennifer Mulligan the paramedic. Please give me a call? Ah, look, something really weird happened to me recently and I really
need to talk to someone who might possibly understand." She left her number and hung up.
 She held the phone in her hand for just second longer, then
impulsively let go of it. It flew abruptly in a straight line in the direction of her feet. With a gentle movement, her leg blocked it. The phone bounced slightly before rolling down
her thigh to rest on her stomach again. Ghost bolted from the room, his claws scrabbling against the carpet. "I can handle this," she said again to herself with a deep
breath. She creased her brow. Sitting by itself in the middle of the living room floor was the remote control. A purplish halo formed around it and the
volume increase button slowly sank in its housing until the blaring volume of the stereo again annoyed the neighbor's dog. From its mount in the wall, the big screen television cast its images across the room
illuminating Jennifer Mulligan where she lay comfortably flat on her back in the middle of the opposite wall. |
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Jennifer could feel the dawn coming, but she wasn't ready to rest. Too many thoughts still filled her head. Too many dreams she was not ready to face.
As The Crow restarted automatically for the third time, and AC/DC's Back in Black
played for the fifth time, Jennifer closed her eyes "just for a second." Her body ignored her mind, and the dreams came by themselves. |
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