The students filed in between the open mahogany doors into a sanitary white tomblike room. The females were clumped between the boys, talking quietly to each other, intermittently; giggles would protrude from their pursed lips. They all had their clipboards for notes, some clutched to their chests, some held haphazardly at their side. All the students were curious about the sight they were to see. The professor had promised them that it would be a real adventure.
There was this person in the corner of the room. She could not have been older than twenty-four. Her hair was a mess. She was crouched in a fashion that looked disturbingly uncomfortable to all present. She was not a happy looking figure. Her white dress showed the blood marks like crimson pattern of swirls and fireworks that ornamented the frock with a cheerless splendor. The professor introduced the class to this woman. The students gawked and stared with curiosity at the girl.
“Do you know where you are Kayla? Kayla, will you tell me your story again?” asked the professor in a calm fluid tone. He touched her shoulder, and almost as he had turned on a toy, she in turn turned to face the wall and animated.
“The sky was cerulean, the air was arid and hot, and I was wearing that lovely blue sundress with the little flouncing ruffles on the hem. Yes, that was the dress, that joyous dress. We had just gotten off the plane in Cairo. He was holding my hand; well in reality, I was strangling his because I was overcome with excitement and nervousness. I never wanted to let go. What did we do now? What did we do? Ah yes, we got our suitcases, no we only had carry-ons. This is more complicated than I originally thought,” she started.
The students were avidly scribbling on their uniform clipboards, though they were slightly confused by the purpose of her narrative. The only noise other than Kayla’s sweet childish voice was the buzzing cadence of the fluorescent lights that created a sterile air about the cell.
“That day seems as if it were eternally long ago. It could not have been though, could it? This is extraordinarily exasperating. I do declare. I will start yet again, not as if I have anything else better to do. I was wearing the blue dress. Yes, I have established that, I was wearing the blue dress with the ruffle; he was wearing that idiotic floral shirt with those khakis we purchased in the airport because he spilled pop all over his right before we left. Those khakis must have been six inches too large at the waist. We looked like sightseers undeniably. However, it was not intended. Okay, so we get off the plane and, we, we go to the, the, oh what is that thing called? It had the sign, navy lettering, and yellow background, oh of course. We went to customs to verify on the itinerary that we had arrived. Our parents made us give it to all of the American Embassies. I remember they thought that it would be just in case they needed to reach us about my sister's baby. Who would have known that those itineraries would have been the most important thing we had done in planning that trip. I was so silly to think that I had fought Mom over them for months while we were planning the trip. Ok, so we are at Customs. We are at Customs. Frank and I leave Customs and we do what?”
She paused. She looked around and seemed as if she did not know where she was. She never addressed the audience of ogling academics. She moved her hair, pushing her messy brown locks with her imaginarily bound hands that moved with spasmodic tremors. The scholars started to move back towards the door as if the show was over. The entire time the professor’s emotions were jumping all around, twangs of joy and sadness waltzed in his head and heart as she told her tale, even though his demeanor was stone cold and apathetic. The professor with a movement of his solemn hand, gathered the students around the girl once more.
“We, well, we do something,” she stammered in a quivering voice that sounded like an angel being held by their neck from a cloud. Kayla shifted position in the self-made prison she had made for herself.
“It is so difficult to remember. This place, an everlasting punishment, makes me go insane. I do not know how it can make me go insane because insanity is a legal term not a state of mind, but still, it is the only word that comes to mind when I think of my state of being now. My mind is skewed from the absence of food, light, or comforts of any sort. I feel drained of my soul, but that is what they want; they want to break me down.
“Okay we leave customs, and we one way or another find the park.”
Kayla started rocking. Her hands, still clasped by the imaginary bonds, ran through the mop of brown mousy curls, which cascaded down her back. She was an animal trapped in the chains of her own making. She went on her saga to herself.
“Did we walk? Yes, we must have walked because we would not have been on the street otherwise. Wait, were we on the road? We must have. Where else did we meet Alex and Phoebe? No, we met them on the street, but wait, it was at the vendor we stopped at. He was courteous. He was missing his teeth though. I remember how uncomfortable that made Frank. I could tell by his expression that he wanted to say something, but was restraining. It was the same demeanor I saw when I left him. I could tell he just wanted to strangle them.” With this last line, she started perspiring and shaking even more than before.
“Nevertheless, anyways, we were at the vendor. It was warm and sunny. I miss the sun! What were we there for in the first place? I cannot remember. I cannot remember. Why is this so difficult? I remember that we were with Alex and Phoebe. They were translating for us. That language is so queer. The syllables are very strange, so foreign, and largely bizarre. It was so convenient that I was able to meet them there, or else I would have most likely have dragged myself into the realm of looking like a complete ignoramus in a foreign city. I despise tacky people who are pompous in alien lands. I hate them. All stupid people should die!”
The last exclamation seemed to take a lot of energy that seemed almost to calm her. She sighed; her beautiful face blindly stared forward, directly at her attentive spectators. She did not even grimace, nor see to notice the crowd analyzing every utterance and twitch. She then turned again, so her body was wedged into the corner of the white walled room as if she was putting herself on display like a decrepit icon in an alcove of a church.
“We were asking the street vendor for something, what was it? Oh, of course that nice man, Frank bought me a headscarf because my scalp was burning. That sun was bright. I miss the sun. But, how did I burn in the sun! I, I was a lobster on the first sunny day of every season. That is another thing I fought my mom on: sunscreen. Well that and she wanted me to be carrying a water bottle. Anyways, after the street vendor we went to the park. No, we went to the hostel.
“Yes, backpacking through the Euro-Asian-African continents was supposed to be so much fun. We were supposed to stay at hostels all over. It would have been quite the escapade indubitably. I must concentrate. That quaint hostel was surprisingly clean, not like the ones we heard horror stories about. The director was so pleasant and charming with his accented English. He had that amusing grey mustache that Frank threatened to imitate. It reminded me of what Colonel Mustard would have had if he were real, and not from a board game. Wait, was Colonel Mustard an actual person? I feel so delusional for forgetting the simplest of trivia. So, we are at the hostel, then we say farewell to Alex and Phoebe, and we were settling in. I think we were settled in. Yes, that would make sense. It would make the most sense that we would have done that. Okay, so we are settled in and now I draw a blank.”
She put her unsettling expression on her face into a newer sadness, reeking with frustration and desperation. Her body language enthralled the other students because she was a wonderful specimen. Her eerie voice would haunt them for eons. A cool chilliness came over the room. She began yet again.
“If I continue to talk to myself like this, I will surely go more nuts then if I do not try to go bonkers. I am making myself coo-coo by trying not to do this. How in the world is this logical? Well, nothing seems to be logical in this place it seems. Like, who in the right mind would take Frank and me hostage? For goodness sakes, we are not even very important. We are not soldiers. We are not celebrities. We are no-nothing newlyweds from the heart of nowhere U.S.A. I am flabbergasted that they even wanted to take us. It is all quite hilarious. I would laugh, but I think they would reprimand me for being loud, or just because the thought of a person sitting in a room by herself in the dark laughing at nothing but her own insanity is just plain weird. I must always be conscience of my captors. They might barge in at any minute. I need to stay alert, and not fall into the welcoming hands of sleep. This shadowy, dank place they have me in is irrefutably exasperating.”
The students became aware of how she understood her life. She seemed to them as a detached person, who was at one time sane. A group of girls would periodically stare at each other with a common dread of their own future. They were afraid to become her. They needed assurance of their own stability. They saw aspects in Kayla that they held into themselves deep inside and consciously hid from all others. The professor anxiously stood a few feet away from the girl, and he was engrossed in her saga. They were shocked from their self-indulgence with the commencement of Kayla’s recital. Their attention returned embarrassedly to their clipboards and notes.
“I would think it was bizarre if I saw a woman in a closet bound up and just laughing. I would personally call for an exorcism. I know I am not possessed, but I could deceive anyone else I am convinced. I abhor it; I have lost all the feeling in my hands. There is not much room in this little room in which they have me locked. I wonder how long I have been in here. I wonder how Frank is. I truly hope he is safe. He did not even want to travel abroad. He wanted to have a pleasant, calm getaway on the beach in Florida or something to that extent. I was the one who wanted to go traipsing around the eastern hemisphere for six months. Who knows how much time has passed. There is no distinguishing between day and night in this nightmarish room. For all I know it could be a day or so that has passed, or six months. I want to see Frank again. I miss him. I miss him so very much. The first thing I want to do when I somehow find my way out of this mess is see Frank. That, and take a shower, I feel horridly scummy. I am nauseated by my own stench in these tight corners. I, I think that I might just, maybe, just pass, just, pass out.”
With that, Kayla fell onto herself, her head leaning on the pristine white wall. Her hair fell onto her face and her hands fell to her sides. This serenity was interpreted as sleeping by the students. He dismissed the spellbound-broken students with a reminder about an upcoming assignment.
Nevertheless, the professor knew better, he knew that that Kayla had died. He wished that she were still the vibrant woman he had once known. However, like the Phoenix, she would raise again in a new form. Next time she would tell a new story. This lovely girl was so dear to his heart. It was heartbreaking for Frank to hear his wife’s recurring tales of adventures they never had, the places they had never been, and people they never knew. He held her in his arms while he looked at the photo on the wall of them on their wedding day. Her blue dress stood in high contrast against the beige stone courthouse. He shed silent tears into her brown messy hair and held her closer so at least their heartbeats could be synchronized even if their minds could not be.
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