CHOOSE YOUR OWN MINDFUCK: A Night in Eighth Block Tower (A46)
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You’ve chosen to take a left down the hallway…
You walk towards the woman who’s standing in her pajamas at the end of the hallway. Her face is buried in her hands. She’s crying, but there isn’t any obvious reason as to why. Her dirty blonde hair is a mess—choppy, as if she cuts and styles it herself–and when she leans forward, strands of it cling to the wetness of her face.
As you approach her, you think of what you might say, but your mind is a total blank. The words never come, so you decide to say nothing and just walk right on past.
She hears you coming, so she lifts her head and wipes the tears from her face. You assume she’s playing it cool, pretending she’s not overcome by her emotions at the moment, but immediately you realize that isn’t the case at all. You attempt to walk past her, but she grabs you by the collar of your shirt and pulls you violently toward her.
“Mister, you gotta help me,” she says, pulling you even closer. Her clothes smell like cat food. As she talks, she refuses to make eye contact with you. Instead, her big beautiful green eyes stare only at the floor. She has thick dark eyebrows that don’t match the color of her hair, and cheekbones that look like the ones airbrushed on models in magazines, except hers are real. She’s gorgeous… a total mess, but gorgeous nonetheless. She lets go of your collar and digs the tips of her fingers into her mouth to chew on her fingernails. She’s troubled and worried… something isn’t right.
“Sorry,” she says. “I’m being pushy. You probably don’t like being jerked around, do you? People don’t like people like me… pushy, bold, aggressive.”
You stand up straight and assess the damage done to your t-shirt. The collar is stretched beyond repair. You wouldn’t mind so much if it wasn’t the only shirt you owned. Unfortunately… it is.
“I have a little problem,” she continues, seemingly not taking notice that you haven’t uttered a single word this entire time. “You’ve gotta help me. I can’t do it without you. The salt…” She looks around at the debris collected on the hallway floor. You notice the piles of salt collected there only after she mentions it—there are many of them, extending to each end of the hallway. You’re not sure how you missed it before. She breaks down into tears again and shouts, “Please! I can’t! Not with all the salt!”
The way she’s speaking is so unbelievably dramatic you almost laugh. The lines seem rehearsed, as if she’s spoken them to every person who’s walked past her apartment for the last few years. She almost seems bored delivering them now.
You remain silent, just taking her in for a moment, trying to figure her out. Finally, she looks up at you and the emerald green of her eyes bore a hole right through to your soul. You feel intoxicated.
“Hi,” you say, then introduce yourself.
It takes her a moment to respond. She looks down at the floor and sheepishly pushes her hair over her face, as if to hide from you. “Oh, um… hi,” she mumbles, still looking at the floor. She tugs nervously on the ends of her hair, then finally, she smiles, and the smile is just as exaggerated as the manner in which she speaks. It was the kind of smile that looks as if she has twice as many teeth as a normal mouth. Like a wolf.
“Sorry. I always forget that part,” she says, looking up at you once again. Her cheeks flush from embarrassment. “My name is Lynda. Lynda with a ‘y.’”
“Nice to meet you, Lynda with a ‘y,’” you say, hoping it’ll bring a genuine smile, but it doesn’t. She’s still smiling that same awkward fake smile as before. “Can we start over? Are you in some kind of trouble or something?”
She immediately shakes her head. “No, silly. I’m fine. Are you in trouble or something?”
You don’t answer. She’s clearly fucking with you. You’re not in the mood to deal with these psychotic mind games, so you roll your eyes and walk away.
But again she grabs you by the collar and pulls you back.
“What the hell is your problem, lady?” you shout. Your heartbeat quickens and your blood pressure rises to the point that you begin sweating.
“I have a message for you,” she says, as if she forgot what script she was working from tonight. “It’s urgent. You must know right away!”
“A message?” you ask, confused. “Do you even know me?” Her eyes dart around when you speak, as if she’s using them to block your words from coming through.
Something shifts within her. She’s visibly uncomfortable with the question you just asked, despite it being the only reasonable response. She never answers your question. Instead, her face droops into a look of sadness again. She turns and her eyes roll into the back of her head, as if she’s lost inside some deep thought. You try to move into her line of sight, to perhaps snap her out of her flashback—or whatever it is—but she’s completely unaware of her surroundings now.
When she finally comes to, a minute or so later, she looks up at you and smiles again, as if nothing had ever happened. The tears are beginning to dry on her face. Watching her go through this cycle of emotions is exhausting. You can only imagine how it makes her feel.
“You say you have a message for me?” you repeat, but now she’s the one who looks confused.
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“You said you have an urgent message for me,” you say, but she just steps back to put some distance between the two of you. She seems bothered by your presence now and somehow you feel as if you’re the one harassing her, and not the other way around.
“Look, mister… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says. “But I can’t talk right now. My cat… she’s missing. I keep calling for her, but I guess she can’t hear me. She’s out there somewhere, lost. Out there, beyond the salt…” Her eyes are welling with tears again. You throw up your hands hoping to throw her out of her cycle of madness before it all starts over again.
Her eyes roll back in her head again, seemingly reliving some nightmare from long ago. The woman needs help, but you’re not sure you can do anything for her. You’re not a doctor. Far from it.
However, if her cat really is missing, you suppose you could help her with that. Knowing her beloved pet is safe at home once again might bring temporary relief from all she has going on, even if only for the night.
But… this really isn’t your problem. Besides, the cat probably hasn’t gone too far anyway. Surely it’ll come back on its own volition. Cats are known for wandering off every now and then.
So, what do you do?
— To help Lynda, click here.
— To walk away, click here.