In My Mind

I'm Not Complaining

We cannot abandon the rabbit hole.
It lives within us.
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His rich and raspy voice echoes in your ears like the one that has been stuck there for days.

Had been.

Where had he gone and why? How? How is he here physically? It doesn’t make any sense. And you're still physically or mentally tied to him!

Maybe your brain is sending signals to the wrong places. Are you still dreaming somehow? This ordeal doesn’t seem plausible. He’d found you like he said he would which means that he is just as real as you are. Flesh and blood.

“Keep me," you squint, wet hands dripping water to the floor.

“Keep you,” he confirms with no hesitation. “Can you do this with other people?”

It’s not an innocent question and although his expression gives nothing away, you feel a dark motive behind it.

“This has never happened before. I don’t know how it started or why, but I won’t abuse it.”

A brief chuckle escapes him. “I could convince you.”

You hadn’t seen his face before, always seeing what he saw, but looking at him today, you were sure he could. If not by sensual tactics then by terrorism and violence. You can feel Glenda and Lia’s ears on your conversation although they face away, fingers moving through client hair… like yours should be.

The water is still running in the shampoo bowl and his eyes are on you. Brushing him off, you finish washing his locs silently with a squeeze and release motion, conditioning for softness and once under the dryer he pulls out his phone, tapping away with both thumbs.

You sit in your chair, stealing glimpses. Anyone looking at him would think of him as a normal guy, maybe a model or a personal trainer. Maybe a young professor or a medical student. It’s true, you really can’t know a person’s story just by looking at them. He doesn’t wear the trauma. He has a quiet arrogance but also the wisdom to conceal it. Then again.. like most complicated people, there are layers. Dignity. Insecurity rooted in loss. Tenacity. Fleeting environments with faster fleeting people. Empathy. The ability to see monstrous souls hidden within human shells.

His phone lowers to his lap and his eyes fall closed. Suddenly everything around you swirls down into calm and quiet as you watch him, graceful and beautiful and still. His black lashes over hooded eyes. The clear brown of his skin reaching down in high definition. His cupid’s bow over thick trapezoid lips. The bountiful coarse hairs that coat his jaw and upper lip. You’re in limbo, balancing hazily between reality and fiction. He opens his eyes and the shop’s background noise turns up again to full volume as your body jolts itself fully awake. His smug smile tells you that he’s aware of what’s happened. You were dazed and it seems the proximity between you only deepens the psychic connection. He’s now openly testing the parameters of this newfound ability.

You glance at Lia and catch her as she turns away. How you’d explain all of this to her or anyone else you didn’t know. You couldn’t find the words.

Escaping outside, the air is hot, not comforting or refreshing, just hot!

“Damn this summer heat.”