crème glacée [the fate of coincidences 1]

20: Jade

09.17.13 05:26AM

The loud ringing of her phone brought Jade out of the depths of unconscious with a start. She blindly grabbed for her phone, which was under her pillow.

"Jade?!" Glen's voice was entirely too loud and panicked, considering the sun hadn't even risen yet .

"Mmmpf," Jade gave as a reply instead of actual words. Her eyelids felt like they were glued closed.

"The cat pissed all over my bed!" Glen said (or more like shouted).

Jade rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and tried to sit up.

"Then clean it?" she replied. Her voice sounded like car wheels on gravel.

"My pillow is soaked in cat piss!" Glen continued, too hysterical to listen to reason.

"Glen, it's too early--"

"What do I do?!"

Jade yawned, eyes watering, and scratched the back of her head. "Okay, listen carefully. Are you listening? It's important."

"Yes, I'm listening," he replied eagerly.

"Take the pillow." She yawned again. "Did you take it?"

There were sounds of shuffling. "Yes. What next?"

"Throw it away."

"Okay-- Wait, what?" Hysteria was creeping back into his voice. "You want me to throw away my favorite pillow."

"I know it's painful," she replied in monotone. "But it's gone. You need to deal with the reality here, Glen. Throw away the favorite pillow."

"...Okay." He sounded pretty miserable. "And then?"

"And then..." She paused for another yawn. "Go back to sleep."

"What? But what if she does it again? I can't just go back to sleep."

Jade's eyes closed again as she listened to his panicked voice.

"I'm not ready for this," he said. "I'm not ready to take care of another living being. This was a mistake, you should have just given me a thank you card instead."

The phone slipped out of Jade's hand and her head leaned back onto the pillow unconsciously. She was still trying to hang on to reality, but everything in her brain was swimming.

"Jade? Jade..."

His voice was distorted and he slowly turned into a little red dragon from Mulan, climbing out of the screen of her phone.

"Did you fall asleep on me? Jade..."

"No... No, I'm awake."

The dragon was facing her directly and everything around her turned into green trees. "Let's hurry, then. You need to save the world from the evil potatoes." Jade nodded at his words. "But first you need to brush your teeth..."

09.18.13 9:15PM

It was raining again and Jade had just settled into a cocoon of blankets on her couch after taking a shower. She was clicking through her recently watched shows on Netflix when her phone rang from the dining room table. With a despairing groan, she stumbled off the couch, still wrapped in half the blankets. The caller ID showed up as Glen and she brought it up to her ear as she ambled back to the couch.

"What's up?"

"Hey." There was suppressed panic in his voice. "So I wanted to ask you something."