Just the Ticket
Copyright 2014 F. B. B
It was a bright warm day as she made her way down the busy city street. She stopped by her usual cafe and after ordering a coffee, walked over to the large shop window framing the street beyond the glass. Her eyes swept over the scene to a figure standing still across the road. A man with his face fixed on her. Despite the passing traffic, the noise, the shuffling of people and objects, the man was transfixed on her. She couldn’t quite focus on his face, but after a few seconds he nodded, turned on his heal and walked away down the street. Just then her mobile phone rang.
“Hello?” There was no answer, just silence.
“Hello?” She waited a moment, then disconnected. The barista called her name. She collected her coffee and left.
She worked at a large city bookshop. On this afternoon she arrived and dropped her bag down behind the counter. Just then the phone on the front desk rang.
“Hello. This is the bookshop,” she answered cheerfully.
But there was no sound, no voice.
“Hello?” She asked again, but the caller hung up.
She pinned her badge to her shirt and walked to the back of the store to unpack a new arrival of books. As she pulled the cardboard seams apart a customer walked up to her wanting help with a book.
“It should be downstairs,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’ll go and check.”
She took the stairs to the lower level. Walking deep into the high rows of books, she began scanning. A flash of movement caught her eye. She walked around the row to see who was there. The figure darted away to the next row and she stepped over to look. Again the figure moved and then she thought she heard her name softly whispered, before swift footsteps on the stairs and up to the main floor. She followed.
When she arrived at the counter she saw the customer waiting for his book.
“Did you see someone go past from downstairs, just then?” She asked.
He looked at the stairs and then the door.
“Just then?”
She nodded.
“No,” he said. “Did you find the atlas?”
“Ah... no. Sorry.”
She returned to the back of the shop, brushing off the episode.
That night, after switching the lights off and locking the doors, she wanted to linger a little, and so walked to the local cafe. As she reached the cafe doors a group of young people came bounding out, shoving their arms into jackets and talking loudly. She took a seat in the corner of the cafe, still unsure about why she was there. A band was playing an upbeat set when she sat down, but, after a while the singer leaned into the microphone saying, “this one’s for the lady in blue here tonight”.
Feeling conspicuous in her blue dress, she looked across the room for some sign of someone looking back at her. The song was a slow love ballad.
“I’ve been watching you baby,” he started. “I see you looking for someone, for something...”
She couldn’t help but listen.
“I’m here trying to break into your world...”
She studied the singer, then the other band members. Feeling frozen, but pretending nothing was wrong. All the time her mind flipping about like a fish caught in a net. The music took a crescendo and the singer finished, “let’s meet again... I’ll be seeing you again soon...”
After the song finished, the band began to pack up and she joined the handful of people who emptied out into the night.
Climbing onto her bike, she began to ride home, reflecting on the chain of events. There was nothing to clasp except how she felt - viewed. It was silly. And it seemed reasonable to deny anything beyond that.
The house was dark when she arrived. As she began to unlock the door the phone in the hall began to ring. She let it finish, feeling cornered.
You are standing at the bus stop with two large suitcases waiting for the bus, although you can’t remember where you are going. Someone is beside you, but as you look up to see who it is they turn their head.
She woke to the radio and lay in bed. As it played it skipped over words like “hello” and “see you”. It skipped a few more times over similar words. She grabbed her towel for the shower.
When she came back into the room she pressed the button for another station but before she could the lyrics played, “don’t ignore me baby...” She walked over to the radio and turned it off.
A few hours later as she lay on the couch reading a blast of sound came from next door. She stood up and put her ear against the wall. Through muffled words it was the same familiar tune from the cafe. She walked out the front door, turned into the next front gate and walked up the path through the overgrown yard to the front door. Wooden boards covered the front windows; she knocked loud and hard anyway and waited. No answer. The music was still blaring out from the back of the house. She walked down the side of the house but her access was denied by a locked metal gate. The place had looked deserted since moving in several years ago.
When she returned to her own front gate she saw the man from the street again. He had a shopping trolley full of bits and pieces and a black dog that thumped its tail. He stood under the tree beside the path.
“Just taking a break from the rain,” he said, his face covered by shadow.
“Do you have a glass of water?” he asked
“Yes. Yes.” She said. "I’ll bring it out to you." A minute later she walked out the front door holding the glass of water, but he was gone.
Back in her house, she picked up the book and re-read the same page a few times, but couldn’t focus. She noticed a page turned down near the back and reread the first line, ‘you know it, but you don’t realise you know it. I am here with you reading along too...’
At work that night she passed the large front window framing the street and looked out across the dark road. The headlights of a car beamed back directly at her from a car park across the road. They didn’t draw away. The car must be waiting, she thought, but for a moment they seemed like eyes. She walked back to the counter brushing off the idea. Collecting a new package of books with her, she took the steps down to the basement floor, waded deep into the rows of books and began filing each book according to subject.
After returning to the main floor she wandered past the front window. The headlights were still there. She turned and walked away, but as she did she saw the man again, seated in the reading lounge with a book folded in his lap. She quickly looked away, kept walking. But somewhere inside a small voice of protest was rising – wildly circling every possibility, looking for the cracks.
She walked over in between the tall shelves of New Fiction. With so much unreliable information coming in from the outside world she couldn’t be sure of anything anymore, as if her world was simply fictionalising around her.
After composing herself she returned to the counter and dialled the local medical centre. She took the details for an appointment and wondered if she was doing the right thing.
Riding her bike home that evening she took sudden turns off her regular route, doubled back, stopped at a red post-box and pretended to post a letter. Was she being followed? No-one stood out. No-thing seemed out of place. She stopped by the cafe again as if to the gateway of a new dimension, where she was only skirting its edge. It was closed.
The road was empty as she continued along and passed under a street light. It went out. It’s only coincidence, she told herself. Just then the pedal jammed. The chain had slipped off the front derailleur. She stood by the road wondering what to do next.
After locking the bike to the street light she walked back to the house. Every second or third street light dimmed as she passed. Random and dark. She bounded up her front steps and in the front door, flicking on the lights.
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“Surprise!” She said to herself quietly. The room was empty. Still. Maybe she had it wrong. But if she had this wrong, then everything was open to new interpretation.
You are walking through the house and notice people standing like statues but none of them are familiar.
That morning in the bathroom she watched her reflection in the mirror while brushing her teeth. Life seemed to be draining away with her on stage every moment and no exit in the script. She looked at herself again and the parallel world beyond. She needed proof. To touch truth. There was no future except verification that she wasn’t going crazy. Her whole sense of self rested on the hope that life would grant her a moment of revelation.
Outside, the clouds gathered as she walked to the bus stop staring at the path ahead – the question mark still following. She’d been walking through the tangle of days looking for someone looking at