Gatsby and I

A talk and a strange occurrence

"Where are we going, Celestine?"

"To East Egg. You're staying with Darcy for the next three days."

"And why is that?"

"I suppose you don't want to stay anywhere downtown and get bored while I get discussing important design matters with some fellow landscape artists. It'll be a real big project. I'll likely earn heaps of money out of this. Do you see how big it is?"

"I see. But don't go through the valley of ash again. I don't want any more ashes in my eyes for the love of God."

"Fear not. The fastest way to East Egg isn't through there. It's down the Queensboro bridge."

"So," I smile with great enthusiasm, "we're going to go through Queens?"

"Yes, we are. But I don't like Queens as much as I like Harlem. You know, I might be a white. But I'm not the kind of a white who hates the coloureds. I think the coloureds are human, too. Do you agree or are you a supporter of the God damned Goddard?"

"I hate that people hate other people with another skin colour or religion or men who hate women or women who hate men. Same for children who hate adults or vice versa. All humans are equal and that's what I think."

"I perfectly agree with you. And I'm glad you think as I do."

"You should see what they think back in Nebraska. There, they hate you for just your face, let alone skin colour. It's downright barbaric there."

"Barbaric is right. But it's home to you."

"Well not exactly. Home as in 'where-your-uncle-thinks-his-younger-brother-died-because-of-you-being-a-bad-omen-home' isn't what I like to call home. Yes, it's my motherland, but this is one of the reasons I headed East."

And further on, we said nothing because as she drove across the Queensboro bridge, I felt like anything could take place in the Big Apple. Celestine could take place and Darcy Barnes could take place as well. But Jay? No, Jay Gatsby was different. He did not just take place: as Mr. Fitzgerald had stated, he could "happen" and not just plain old "take place". So a few things could happen, others could take place and me? Well, I could just "occur". I was something strange between "happening" and "taking place" - bigger than the latter, smaller than the first.

And Celestine, she was on the verge of happening. That exited me and turned "all my fancy into smiling" like the Raven had done with Edgar Poe on that "midnight dreary". But this was very different - instead of a curse, Celestine's breakthrough felt like a blessing to me.

But as I arrived at Darcy's, I thought nobody was there. When I went in, I heard the sound of a page turning from towards the living room. I went in there to trace the noise as I couldn't resist doing so. It turns out my susses were right.

From the bookcase on the left wall, a book was missing on a shelf. I turn around and see Darcy on the white leather couch, quite sunken in reading "The Moonstone" by Wilkie Collins. She had a rather elegant fashion of leaning slightly forward and tilting her head downwards into the book. But she seemed taken in by what she was reading, as if she were living the book itself. But then, she slowly turned a page, raised her head slightly and saw me. It's then that she made a dog ear on the page she had reached, put the book next to her on the couch and said:

"Clara! Hello there! Celestine told me you'd be comin' and had your stuff sent here last night. But I'm rather surprised to see you here still. I was just readin' 'The moonstone', honey. Have you read it?"

"I saw the title of your book as I walked in. And I've read it once before."

"Great! It's a mighty fine book. Anyone aughta read it, honey. At least once in a lifetime."

"I agree. But I've heard of somethin' strange about the pier in front of the old Buchanan house."

"Nah. Why honey, it's just three cases of some morons drownin' there near midnight. It might even be realted to that annoyingly powerful green light. Who makes those idiots touch that lamp? Nothing unusual about idiocy. 'The Moonstone' is far more unusual than this. But 'The Moonstone' is pure fiction and that's why I like it."

"Good..."

And we may have talked about different things that day, yet I couldn't sleep that night for some reasons. Not for the fact that those bodies were found. IO knew that they were going back where they came from and thus had to leave their current identities behind. But maybe it was because I just had to see for myself.

Midnight. For some reason I was outside, on the pier, looking at the stars like a distant chandelier in the sky. Then all of a sudden, who made me look right? Nobody. I swathe annoying green light and the silhouette of a woman on the pier. Well, it was a servant of Darcy's, one with long black hair. She moved near the light and touched the lamp. Then the light grew around her ans she vanished. Something was floating in the water. It was a body... It drifted a little closer. I got a little closer. It was her body. The hair on her head waved eerily about with the waves and I sighed with relief, glad it wasn't Celestine or Darcy.

This is when I went back inside, to my designated bedroom and slept as deeply as a sloth. I finally knew that the Librarian had not lied to me.