A g*****a

PUZZLE

ANDREE:

I saw myself in my old room, the room that I stayed for the entirety of my childhood as far as I could remember.

I was just at the center of the room; I felt the surroundings spinning. I was able to grab the study desk and tried to maintain my equilibrium as much as possible or else I would have collapsed. I closed my eyes thinking that I would be able to stop seeing the wall spinning, but instead, I started seeing images and sort of scenes or video clips? They were all around me, regardless of if I have my eyes opened or closed, I could still see them, there was no difference.

One scene that caught my attention was the one where I saw someone writing “Noir” unto something. That name was personal for me, plus the hand that was writing it down, that was not mine. I had my left hand still grabbing the desk tight and the other hand tried to reach out to that certain scene due to curiosity, The scenario was like, I was reaching for the TV.

As soon as I touched it, I saw myself sitting in front of my study desk and there was this sort of a notebook, but somehow looked like a hard bound book that was lying in front of me.

I saw myself holding a pen, and the ring that I used to wear when I was in high school, I was wearing it, I knew I had lost it and I was certain that I was not wearing any ring when I attended the party.

I tried to look around me while still sitting in the chair in front of my desk, images and scenes were not any more visible, I saw my room as what it was back during high school, no changes at all.

I happened to look in the direction of the mirror inside the room, what I saw left me confounded.

I saw my reflection; it was the high school male version of me that I saw in the mirror. I slapped the face; I pinched the arm and leg, and I felt all that, one thing was certain, that was indeed me, but the "other me".

I was trying to wake up thinking that maybe this was another one of my dreams, I paused for a moment , right that moment, I knew I was in a dream, a dream that was triggered by what happened in the garden. the last thing I remembered in real world was I had my clothes for laudry servuce and I took a solo hotel room to have rest with no one to disturb me.

I was optimistic that I could pull myself out of it anytime, but it seemed like waking up did not happen.

I suddenly remembered the lady in the dress at the garden, to my anger I called her names. At the back of my mind, I had a suspicion that she was responsible for what was happening to me, but on the other hand, I refuse to believe.

“I knew it, she would cause a trouble.” I uttered, sighing deeply.

I have a lot of things on my mind that time, was I drugged? Was this caused by a party pill as what they call it?

I then had a recollection of the kiss, the kiss might be the reason I was in that moment, it might have caused me to have these hallucinations, things that I knew and things that are unknown to me.

“Note to myself, never kiss a stranger in a party!” I said in a loud voice.

I was annoyed, I clinched both my hands then I felt a pen, I was holding in my right hand. I looked at it and thought of something, I turned my gaze at the table and saw the book was still there, I picked it up, and opened it, then checked the pages. I found out that it was a notebook with some blank pages on it and there were also pages with writings on it.

I closed the notebook and I tried to stand up, but something strange happened,

“Darn it! Here we go again! enough please, I'm getting dizzy” I said in a loud voice.

Images and scenes were back again. This time they were not only circling around me, but they were also now getting closer and closer towards me, then suddenly - I was like in the movie the jumper, I kept on popping in from one place to another.

It started at school, high school; it was at the classroom, I sat on my classroom desk, then at the Library, at the canteen, I also found myself at the park, I was even walking together with my high school friends like we used to.

There was this scene where I was about to get a bite of my favorite ice cream, "mamang sorbetero", then at a blink of an eye, I found myself again sitting in front of my study desk at home, so there goes my ice cream, gone.

I was waiting for a different place, but I think that was the last place that I would pop-in.

While sitting and still feeling sad about the ice cream, I had a vision, I saw myself writing on a notebook, it was a lot of writing, but I could not recall anything related to that, all I could remember was that I wrote scripts for our stage plays at school for graded stage performance, but those were not written in notebooks but in bond papers.

Everything seemed to be real, with all those spinning walls, images, and scenes, I got lost at it, I have forgotten that It was just a dream.

It just crossed my mind that I was just dreaming when I saw again the ring around my finger. I started to have hope.

Yes. I have this ability that when dreaming, this kind of vivid dream, I could control some scenes, I could move, walk, run, swim, roll over just as how I could do those things when awake with no slow-motion effect. I can even fly without any difficulty.

Given what I could do, I thought maybe I could find anything on my desk that may give me some other details. What I felt that time was that I was like I was on a puzzle game.

I saw a pile of notebooks on the top of the desk, I tend to check them one by one. I opened one notebook, when I read it, what was written was all about high school editorials and articles. I was already on the 4rth notebook when I realized that all those 3 notebooks, I have read was all written under the pen name “EN”.

An idea came up which was to look for anything written under the pen name “Noir” I scanned the 5th, the 6th notebook and to my dismay, all of them were written under the pen name “EN”. I was about to give up, but I saw that there were still 2 notebooks left so I grabbed the chance to read them. I was still being hopeful and all, so I took my chances, I picked up the 2nd to the last notebook and scanned the pages, I saw one paragraph written by Noir, it says,

“Maybe I’ll just dream of you tonight and if into my dream you’ll come and touch me once again I’ll keep on dreaming until my heartache ends.”

“This line is familiar. It is from a song written by Vehnee Saturno and sung by Ella May Saison.” I blurted out and smiled feeling nostalgic.

I suddenly remembered the first book that I saw, I grabbed the chance to read it. When I opened It, my eyes widened with gladness because of what I saw.