03 - What Are You Doing, Courtney?

Courtney tries to warn Narrie about Edgar. Narrie has a vivid nightmare.

          After dinner, I went in my room and read for about an hour and a half when Courtney joined me, but not to read; I could tell there was something on her mind. I respectfully closed my book and put it away as she sat next to me on my bed. It went silent. I could perfectly hear my inhale and her exhale. I could perfectly feel a pulsing pressure building under my forehead. I could perfectly see Courtney becoming unusually tense (her state of norm is pretty up tight, but this was something different). My first thought was that she had somehow become aware that she was a figment of my imagination, as well as everything else, and reality would collapse in three, two, one. But nothing happened. The situation was too awkward and strange to be normal, so the next thing I thought of was that she had become aware (somehow) that we had all been given fake lives and been carefully selected because of something unknown. She might confront me about it, or she might be a sort of agent designed to help me cope. But, alas, this could not be true, mainly because the silence lasted a mere two seconds.

          “Narrie” she boldly started. I did not expect her to say, ”sweetheart” or, “dear” as (thank goodness) she never called me those types of coddling names. Yet, she somehow made it sound like she was using a coddling name. Almost, but not quite derogatory.

          “Yeah, Mom” I said in a forcedly casual voice.

          “Edgar is...” she unnecessarily trailed off. Whatever she was trying to get to, she was making it harder than it needed to be. “Your friend.” she concluded. Oh, no this is not going to be one of those times when she accuses me of having too many 'friends' of the 'male gender.'

          “Yes, he's my friend!” I retorted with extra clarifying emphasis on the 'friend'; he's a good friend, nothing more, she needs to know that.

          “No,” She started, meaning, 'no, that's not what I meant' or, 'you misunderstood my intentions', so with that in mind, I allowed her to continue. “It's just...” she started twiddling her thumbs; how annoying it is to not get to the point already! “Have you noticed anything different about him lately?”

          “Like what?” I asked nonchalantly. I then started to pick at my fingernails, found there were one or two that I needed to trim. I wanted to give the impression that I was pretty indifferent, and hadn't really noticed anything out of the ordinary...which I hadn't, but now that I think about it, Edgar was giving sort of a weird vibe when he first came over.

          “Oh, I don't know.” she started, and dragged out the 'O' sound in know for too long, and making a strange face, like I wasn't getting something she was trying to make real obvious. I thought I'd better say something, at least guess what she's trying to say.

          “I know Edgar's odd, mom. He's overly polite, accepting and self conscious. I know that. I know him! He's really smart too, so I think it's good that we're going to work on this project together, with K-Catta. But -” then a horrible thought occurred to me. Was she trying to give me a talk?! What the heck? Where'd that come from? How dare she! We've been friends for forever and we will always be friends. We will always be friends. We will always be friends. This tangent being not said aloud, I didn't really know how to complete my thought, so I turned my head away so Courtney would not see my face.

          “Oh, sweetie, no...” she started, and somehow the coddling name was welcomed...not welcomed, no! But not rejected. Not rejected at all. She continued, “He seemed...off today”

          “He...” I had no idea how to respond to that. “That's...well, I...” I don't know why I'm taking this so personally, she needs to say something, and I need to help her phrase it right, apparently. How can I do that without offending her or Edgar? I figured the best thing to say would be, “and?” meaning and what do you mean? Why does that matter? Why are you telling me this?

          “And I'm worried.” Worried? What?

          “I don't quite see what you mean.” was the politest thing I could think of saying. Then, I added, “and Edgar's always...off, like spacey? Why does that worry you?” that's who he is! He's my friend, deal with it!

          “He seemed...I can't quite put my finger on it, but different. I'm concerned. I want you to watch out for him, and...” Oh, I did not expect this. I thought...all wrong. She's not trying to insult me or my friend, not even passively; she's being sentimental...concerned...caring? “and... watch out for yourself.”

          I thought it over intensely until late that night, and decided to talk to Edgar as soon as I could. I didn't quite know what I'd say, but... I needed to say something. This captured my mind and did not allow it to think of anything else. Once I'd finally decided that this amount of over-analyzing was ridiculous, and I needed to get to sleep, I couldn't because my brain was still focused on Edgar. Was he really acting weirdly? Was I only thinking that because of the power of suggestion? Is there something wrong? What could he possibly be hiding, why? Could he possibly hold possession of knowledge of... why I feel like I don't belong? That would be too good to be true. And suppose he did know? What would he do? Suddenly blurt out, “Hey, Narrie, I've come to the conclusion that we live in and are a part of a dream-like imaginary illusion! Do you agree?” No, he would never do that. So, what would he do? What would I do? How could I tell him what I know, and ask him if he thinks the same, and not let anyone else know what we're talking about?!

           At this point in my thought process, I fell asleep. My dream was haunting. I was sitting with Courtney and she was distorted. Her ears were abnormally small. Her hair was pulled back so tightly that it looked like it might tear her scalp. Her nose and chin were lengthily stretched to gross proportions, and her her pupils were so dilated, there was no color in her eyes but black and white. I had a strange mixture of sensations in that this woman could never resemble a motherly like figure to me, but I felt so comfortable and protected by her side. She opened her mouth slightly to reveal tiny black bugs that swarmed her head and told me the words she wished to say, because, for whatever reason, she could not speak. The bugs crawled out of her mouth like drool up her face into her eyes making her pupils even larger. The message given by the bugs was was, “Look at me. Join me.” they kept repeating “Look at me. Join me.” until there was no white left in her eyes, only black. And from there, the message became a chant, “Look at me. Join me.” and went faster and faster and the black spread like poison in her veins all across her face. Her entire face morphed into a thick dense spider web sort of cocoon that was pulling me in, trying to change me. The scariest part was that I was perfectly okay with this. I knew what was going on, and didn't have a problem with it. I allowed myself to be fully caught up in face-cocoon. It was more than okay, I felt comforted. I knew it shouldn't feel good, but it did. I didn't struggle, not even hesitate, to climb in the face-cocoon, and see all light forever disappear as it shut.

Author's Note

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