The Watchers Wake

Chapter 4 - Reality Bites

CHAPTER 4 - Reality Bites

I woke up sprawled over my bed.

Damn, was that a dream?  What a dream!  I mean I have always dreamed visual and sensual images and lately even more so.  But they were nothing like this dream, nothing as real as that and certainly nothing as frustrating or as annoying.

I ground my teeth remembering my depiction of the black-hair guy.   I probably imagined his personality that conceited as a result of his comment about me needing a white shirt when we were under the sprinklers on the oval yesterday.  But why I would my mind create the fiction of me needing a soul mate? I was an independent woman.  I didn’t need a man let along a mythical soul mate, how ridiculous!   Love at first sight and mystical perfectly matched partners were things of fairytales not reality.  Why I would have dreamed that was beyond me. 

I turned to look at my clock.  Damn!  I was really late! I really had no time to psychoanalyse.  I just threw some clothes on and ran out the door plaiting my hair on the way.

The rest of the morning I fielded speculation as to yesterday’s chain of events.  Given my investigative journalistic ambition and my reputation, many came to bounce their theories off me to see if I would bite and let something slip.  Many suspected I was involved directly and most were certain that I at least knew who was to blame.  I spent the whole time looking vaguely uninterested and not giving anything away.  By lunch time the student body was buzzing with everything from the bizarre to the sensational, nothing remotely close to the truth.  But everyone was waiting with baited breath to see what the afternoon brought. 

They would be disappointed.  Practical Jokers Handbook rule one – never try to recreate.  Firstly if attempted in rapid succession there was a high probability that you would get caught.  Secondly anticipation was the death of a good practical joke.  And thirdly, why bother?  My point was made.

Kirsty cornered me at Lunch time to make her opinion known but I couldn’t concentrate on her words I was too busy noticing her appearance.  Her eyes were slightly bloodshot and tired looking, her hair wasn’t as perfectly styled, she had a number of blotchy bruises on her neck, her manicured nails were less than perfect this morning and her lips were puffy.  I looked at her blonde hair and for one moment I wondered?  Without thinking I glanced over to where the new black-haired guy was sitting. He smiled broadly to me and nodded.  I blinked back at him and stared shocked as I questioned my sanity.

“What are you looking at my new boyfriend for Nobody?  He’s mine so you can keep your geeky eyes off him.” She smirked at me and strode away before I could reply, which was lucky really because I had no reply to that, no witty retort, nothing.

 My next reflex was to laugh, no surely not, she wasn’t the blonde spoken about in the dream, no.  I took my seat at my usual table and watched. 

“Shh, watch this,” My eyes fully occupied, my hand instead nervously jittered at Geoff as he dropped his tray and went to sit next to me. 

Kirsty was just swinging herself into the chair next to black-haired guy.  As I watched his eyes came up to mine with clear humour in them.  He turned to Kirsty and murmured something with an expression on his face that I couldn’t read, before picking up his things and leaving.  Her mouth hung open and she looked astonished.

 I quickly covered my mouth as I tried to smoother the laugh that was impossible to deny.  She picked up her things to move back to her usual seat at the Jock table but as she approached Scott slid the vacant chair next to him away with one hard thrust.  The chair skid across the linoleum floor squealing as it went until in collided with the next table.  This caused all talking to cease and the entire cafeteria went silent as all eyes watched Kirsty teeter on the balls of her feet.  Scott turned his back to her.  She had no alternative but to stalk off to another table of lesser Jocks.  There were many sniggers from the shaded side of the room.