The Scenic Life

Chapter 9

                          •°•

In my dream, I sit in khatns cabin. It's my first day at Behrouz. I can feel myself smiling, shaking her hand, getting welcomed. I walk through the hallway towards the design department, getting congratulated on the job. It’s a homely feeling. I decorate my board, I make friends. They introduce me to everybody. Its what I imagined my first day to be like.

In my nightmares, I find myself sitting In Khan's cabin again. But this time its not joyous, I'm crying, my hands are shaking. One of the producers yells, I do too. I'm warned to, argued with, and then forced to. It’s not my idea of a good day. It's like a nightmare, I think.

When I get out the cabin, the hate starts, like a fire spreading through  a forest, fast and scarily. From orange to red, in a second. From love to hate in a minute.

I wake up with sweat on my face, tears streaming down my face.

My face feels hot as fuck, my whole body is shaking like a tremor through land during an earthquake. Like the waves before the wrath of the tsunami, I retreat back towards the head of the bed, curling into a ball. I let out a silent cry in the dead of the night. In this magnificent room, I don’t feel magnificent.

I take my phone from over the tabletop, the phone reads 5:17. Its no use going back to sleep, thus I go and swing on the swing in the balcony. I think about calling Viki, but she'll come here to kill me if I woke her up this soon. But I haven’t talked to her since the girls night, and it just doesn’t settle well with me that I haven't seen her face in so many days.

I click on the video call button next to her name, and wait. A few rings go by, she still doesn’t pick up. I give up and think that its just better if I call her at night. I get comfortable against the two pillows I've stacked behind me, and look at the rising sun, and its rays coming down on everything. I notice how the crickets have finally stopped chirping, but their place have taken by some birds living in the hanging bird nests. I notice how the water in the swimming pool glistens like condensation on the side of a wine glass. Mornings like these, where my head Is trying to overcome all the dark thoughts in my brain, I try to concentrate on my surroundings. It helps me calm down.

The water looks really pretty, it would feel glorious to swim right now. Then I realise, that I can actually go down and swim, that there are no rules. That instantly helps to pick up my mood. I quickly go through my bag and find that one swimsuit I had packed. Donning it on, I go down with towels in my hand.

I'm about to jump in the pool like a cannonball on fire, but then a figure pops out of water like the squirrel in the bop me! game. I'm so startled that I almost slip, a squeak escaping through my mouth.

The stranger looks up at me with concern, “Oh shit! You okay?”

This stranger is the hottest stranger I have ever seen in my life. He has light brown hair, broad shoulders and greek god features embedded on his face. I question my attire, my lack of makeup and my existence all at once.

“Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Don’t worry.”

My voice is a whisper, a soft carress against the low sounds of the waves crashing against the corners of the pool as he comes out of it.

Snap out of it! do not ogle! I repeat do not ogle!

“You sure you okay? You look a bit dazed,”