Dreams then. Nude judo atop a skydome, with Jimmy Carter haranguing us from below about our depletion of natural resources.
Awaking then. Black silk sheets; brass bedframe; by myself. No Lynnette in the loft. No Lynnette in the bath—
—the airshaft! Scrambling out her window onto the empty sill to peer into the void. Couldn't be absolutely certain, but no body seemed to be at the shaftbottom. Nor any sign of one having been fished out of it. (At least not recently.)
Relieved exhalation. Followed by momentary shock at the sight of my own magic casement open opposite. Reflecting half my workbench, half the tool caddy, half the drafting stool. None of my cot, though, still on the far side of the room—
—the roof! If she was thinking of jumping or about to jump or had done so already, obviously it would be from there. I jumped into my jockeys and T-shirt and ran up the spiral staircase, its treads disagreeable under my bare feet as were the roof's pebbles but never mind them, no time to lose, run pell-mell around that damned parapet straining your eyes—
Again a blank. Perfectly ordinary Saturday morning in mid-September. No broken almond cookie on the sidewalk; no chalk outline or police barricade or coroner's entourage. Nothing out of place except one tenderfooted idiot in his underwear, who crept back through the trapdoor and tidied up #517 like an obedient houseboy. Snuffed the candles, changed the sheets, mopped the upchuck, plungered the commode.
Wiping the whole place down for fingerprints as I went.
What next? Wait there till she chose to return? Or go hide out in my own loft?Advantage had been taken: plain and simple. Not that objections had been raised: rather the opposite. But a woman under the influence: I was in for it now. Would have to face the music. Take my medicine. Kowtow to bromides. Hole up by my telephone the rest of that day and that night, and all the next day and into the next night as well. Entire weekend spent awaiting fallout, consequences, repercussions. I moved my cot back over to the window, rousing myself every few hours to check for signs of life. Time after time there was nothing to see but darkness, a deserted hole in the wall.
Report her as missing, then? Or just leave blame well alone?
Sunday night I could wait no longer and had to hit the hay. Where I dreamt of chiseling my nose to splice my fate. And awoke to find that task begun by a paper plane that had sailed through the window and landed up my nostril.
In the re-electrified airshaft was a re-illuminated casement, bright enough for me to
read by. Assuming I could coolly calmly unfold this origami jet and behold the word(s):
LAWN DRY?
Pounding on her door. Which opened to reveal a perfectly ordinary Cranky Lynnette in bombazine pajamas, sleepmask on her brow, toothbrush in her mouth. "Ah dinmee yadda dewt rye nah," she said before leaping back out of my reach. "Ay! wuhyew hinker dewee? Gih ommee, Hummuh!"
"I was worried about you!"
She took my hand, turned it palm upward, and spat a mouthful of paste into it. "F'yer that worried, take this—" (a heavy bag of hamper contents) "—'n' be sure the deli cuts git done on cold."
Back in her mouth went the brush; back in my face closed the door; back in the jamb shot its bolt. Leaving me with a sudden hunger for sliced ham and turkey.
P. S. Ehrlich is the author-in-progress of the Skeeter Kitefly books and website (www.skeeterkitefly.com). Recent selections have appeared in The Sidewalk's End, Ten Thousand Monkeys, The Shadowshow, Entropic Desires, Rhapsoidia, and The Year of the Theif from Theives' Jargon Press. P. S. himself is employed by the University of Washington (not necessarily as an instructor) and lives outside Seattle. Though associated with no graduate writing programs, P. S. Ehrlich was once reading Jitterbug Perfume in a public cafeteria when Tom Robbins walked by. "Hey!" he said to P.S., "is that a good book?"