Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Thin white line Chapter 7

In less time than it takes Jane to look around the room ~ she invaritably decides that the current situation is already more than she thought that she could handle. It seemed so easy and straightforward when she and Lennie first discussed it.

Yes, when they went over the plan for Jane to travel back into the mind of her younger counterpart and do what needed to be done the conceptas exciliarating and novel and romantic and terribly exciting. Yes they were building off the adrenalized moment that occured as they discovered their first shared memory and therefore their first chance at actually travelling back to specific point in their joint pasts where she would be able to do something for the man she loved.

According to Lennie it was a beautiful little girl who had pulled him - semi-conscious from his Uncle's burning fifth floor bachelor apartment when he was a little boy.

The problems that Jane now saw in the reality of the moment were quickly disolving any of the previous excitement and romance. First off she is still incredibly high: so much so that her ears are still ringing and she is very, very aware of the tracers that the flickering lights from the fire are making within her peripheral vision. The body she now finds herself inhabiting is very familiar but much, much smaller and weaker than she remembered herself being. She looks at her hands in disbelief and sees the hands of a four4 year old girl. Jane turbns them over and flexes them open and shut. They look even smaller in the strange smoky light. The lights are flickering and the smoke from the fire in the adjoining kitchen is already building to an uncomfortable level.

"Cough! Ackrrr! Cough!" she gasps though her small, smoke filled lungs and she rubs her eyes with the curve of her hands, trying to get her vision to clear up a bit more. Its still a bit fuzzy, her guess is, from hthe jump across time into the mind of her past self.

She can still taste the cocaine and resulting blood from the incredibly potent hit that precipitated the trip. Her ears are still ringing but the tracers are begining to fade now and if Lennie were here and if things were not as hopeless or intense or even as fiery as they seemed, she might even joke she could hear a fly fart on the other side of the world with super hearing like this.

Lennie is not here though and Jane knows that if she does not find a way out of this burning apartment and into that of Lennie's Uncle across the hall - then this trip into the past will be a total waste of time. She forces herself to take a step and sees that all she is wearing is a slight flannel nitegown and a cute pair of bunny-ear slippers she vaguely remembered getting for christmas one year when she was very very young.

"I guess I know how young", Jane mutters to herself as she moves slowly but surely to the apartment door that leads out to the main hallway. She needs to get out of this apartment, get into the unit across the hall, pull Lennie out of his bed and back into the hall so that some fleeing neighbour-lady will see Lennie's small sleeping form curled up on the tattered carpeting, pick him up and carry him outside to safety. This is based on Lennie's vague but strangely familiar childhood memory

No comments: