One Weird Day

One Weird Day - Part 1

She opened her eyes.

Sunshine filled the room, illuminating the perfectly clean writing desk, the shining floor, the spotless bedside table. She turned onto her side, reached out and adjusted the small mirror standing in the middle of it. Then she tucked the bottle of sleeping pills into the upper drawer. She hadn't needed them last night.

She sat up and lowered her feet to the floor, fitting them straight into her slippers, and stretched. Things didn't seem so bad in the morning.

Then she heard the sound of a toilet being flushed.

She froze. The sound in itself wasn't scary, but added to the fact that she had been living alone for more than a year now, it certainly deserved attention.

She sprang out of the bed. Someone was in the apartment. That wasn't supposed to be. That was wrong. She had no clear plan for this scenario.

Police, she thought. You call the police when there's an intruder in your house.

She darted out of the room, aiming to reach the telephone, and at the same time, the bathroom door at the other end of the corridor opened. A man came out, wearing only his underwear, a folded newspaper sticking from under his arm.

"Oh," he said. "Morning."

"Jeff?" She breathed out, her fear draining away and her annoyance rising as if they occupied two interconnected vessels. "What are you doing here?"

"Uhm," he said. "Whatever people usually do in the toilets, you know?" He shrugged and headed to the dining room. She followed, gawking at him in disbelief.

"I don't mean that! What are you doing in my flat?"

He frowned at her. "Like, I live here. Did you have a bad dream or something? You look out of sync."

"No," she said. "I didn't have a bad dream, and no, you don't live here!"

"Are you joking?" His frown deepened. He took the newspaper from under his arm and let it fall on her spotless coffee table. The look of it there made her wince.

"Get your freaking paper off the table," she hissed. "How dare you?"

"What's wrong?" He raised one hand in a placating gesture and picked the paper back up. "You're really not yourself today. Go get more sleep."

He turned and went into the kitchen. She saw him taking a cup from the middle of her neatly arranged line of coffee cups, and it made her wince again. He had to take one from the side, she'd fought hard to teach him that, back when they were still married, but there he was now, not only breaking into her house, but taking a cup out of the middle of the line. This was intolerable.

"Put it back," she hissed. "Put it back and get out!"

"Cool down, okay?" he said, not looking at her. "I know you got your rules, but I live here, too, and you have to respect that."

"You don't live here! Not since our divorce last year – remember?"

"What are you talking about?" He opened the fridge. "We've never divorced."

"Yes, we did," she said. "And put that tuna back, I only eat it on Fridays."

"Well, I eat it whenever I want," he said. "And what's that talk about divorce? Did you go off your head?"

She took a deep breath. "Are you on drugs?" she said. "Do you really think that you live here and we are still married?"

"Of course not," he said. "We were never married."

"What?" She gaped at him.

"I mean, I'm your brother, so how could we be married?" He closed the fridge door and then turned to her, as if he'd had a sudden inspiration. "Wait – maybe you are on drugs?"

"You're not my brother!" she said. "I never even had a brother!"

He looked at her, holding a tuna can in one hand, scratching the place where his chest hair stuck out from the neck of his tee shirt with the other. His green eyes expressed such genuine confusion that for a second a doubt crawled into her mind. She shook her head. This was ridiculous.

"Look, I don't know what's your problem," she said. "But I'll call the police if you don't leave right away. I don't like this game. And put the tuna back."

"It's peanut butter." He waved the container at her.

"It's tuna."

"Don't be silly." He reached for the bread bin. "You really need to consider some treatment for your issues. You're getting truly weird."

"All right," she said, and marched straight to the telephone.

It took three rings before a gleeful female voice answered.

"Barton's flower shop."

"I was calling the police," Pauline said.

"It's a mistake, then," the woman said and hung up.

Pauline checked the number she'd just dialed. It was the police number all right.

"What's going on?" she muttered. "Jeff?"

"My name is Gary," he said from the kitchen.

"Since when?"

"Since forever?"

She slowly put the phone down.

She'd been working for years to make everything in her life clear, structured and organized. There were times in the past they'd almost made her believe that she had been wrong about that. Jeff would make her do spontaneous things sometimes, which could be kind of fun. She'd had friends and she'd gone out.

But as the years passed by, she'd come to realize they hadn't been her friends after all. They had all been just selfish people, who couldn't maintain their life in a proper order, and had only been trying to reduce her to their level. And there was no place in her life for unorganized people.

This morning, however, proved to be anything but organized. It was a mess, and she had to cling to whatever structure she had left, if she wanted to handle the situation. Perhaps the effect of whatever drugs Jeff must have taken would wear off soon, and he'd be out of her apartment and her life once again. For now, she had to remain calm and composed.

"I'm going to work," she said. "When I'm back, I hope you won't be here."

"Sure," he said, chewing on his tuna sandwich.

She got dressed quickly, applied some mascara and just enough makeup to conceal the circles under her eyes. Then she brushed her hair into a ponytail and picked up her handbag.

"I'm out," she called, not daring to look into the kitchen, sure he'd messed it up.

"Have a nice day, sis," he answered, and then she heard a porcelain cup fall on the floor, smashing into pieces. "Shit!" he cried.

She clenched her teeth and stormed out.

To be continued...