To My Dearest Roseanne

Chapter 1

In all chaos, there is a cosmos. In all order, a secret order. ~ Carl Jung

March, 2024

It was a cold wintery evening. Roseanne adjusted the red beret on her head, but it served as little to no protection from the swirling wind engulfing her silhouette in darkness. She felt lost and her only objective at that moment was to return home. The main street was completely empty with no living soul in sight, so she turned into a dark alley because she spotted a large neon sign of a hotel in the distance. The girl hoped that she would be able to make a phone call from a hotel to get a taxi, or at least let her folks know about her whereabouts.

However, as soon as she stepped into a dark alley, she instantly felt that something was definitely amiss. The wind ceased blowing through the area, and the deafening stillness of the night was disrupted by a new set of sounds: loud measured footsteps of someone walking behind Roseanne, of someone taking out a blade from a belt-strapped sheath, and swinging it through the dark air. Roseanne felt instant panic. She sprang up and ran towards the hotel as fast as she possibly could.

She kept running and running, but the hotel sign on top of a building didn't get any larger. However, the deadly sounds were indeed getting louder. Roseanne was getting weaker. She felt out of breath but had to keep on running. What other choice did she have? She mustered up enough mental stamina to keep going no matter what. Yes, she had developed a routine that allowed her to withstand the most exhausting PE lessons under the watchful eye of her drill instructor. Hah! No Michael Myers-wannabe was a match for Roseanne Juzynski, the second-grade military-profile class student, not even in dreams.

"In dreams?!" Roseanne asked in surprise.

"In dreams," Roy Orbison responded calmly.

"Get out of here!"

***

Before she knew it, Roseanne opened her eyes widely. She was in her room, the same plain old space in which she had spent the last 16 years... It was her entire existence (so far). Her heart was beating with the intensity of a Rover V8 engine, not from dream-induced anxiety, however, but disappointment.

Turns out, it wasn't a good idea after all to hold a personal horror movie marathon to celebrate the end of winter break. All the different cases of monster classics, popular blockbusters, and questionable C-class shlock were lying stacked unorderly on a DVD player hooked up to a tiny TV set that was still switched on.

"Oh, come on..." Roseanne rolled out of her bed and turned off the screen, the sides of which were covered in fluorescent My Little Pony stickers.

It was still dark outside, but Roseanne didn't feel like coming back to sleep. She picked up her phone, which was charging, from a bedside table and checked the hour.

"What?!" She almost let out a loud scream, "I'm in the ass... again!"

Even though the phrase "I'm in the ass" was all sorts of wrong in English, Roseanne loved to use it as a swear word. She actually appropriated it from the native language of her parents, so the correct meaning of what she means by that questionable phrase is not that she is actually, physically inside someone's back passage, but that she got herself in a whole lot of trouble.

And what was the source of trouble? you might ask. Well, Roseanne was so exhausted after her movie night that she overslept. She already missed her 6 am bus to school.

"I'm really in the ass. There is no doubt about that."

Roseanne nearly matched the superhero speed of the Flash while putting on a uniform and getting herself into a presentable state before going out. The corners of her dark, brown eyes were visibly swollen, her forehead was unusually elevated today, and her red dyed hair (originally brown) was a mess, but a traditional, thick, single braid did the trick in a matter of seconds.

The military student put on her polished, heavy-duty boots, and prepared a backpack, but before leaving, she stopped by the kitchen to do one more thing.

Roseanne's mom was sleeping soundly in her bedroom. The daughter gently leaned over from behind a door and observed her mother's body which was consumed by white sheets and pillows. Her head was the only visible marker of flesh in this haystack of cotton and polyester. Roseanne quietly placed a cup of tea on a bedside table and swiftly leaned back into a corridor, closing the door.

Just before heading off, her loyal friend, a German Shepherd would jump onto her backpack with no intention of letting it go.

"Stop it, Enzo. Bad dog, bad dog!"

After a little wrestling back and forth, the dog eventually relented when he was given a snack, and Roseanne was finally able to leave the house.