Globusz^® Publishing 

Rachel managed eight hours or so of sleep that wasn’t interrupted too much. Around mid morning she began to wake up. The sun was strong enough to light up her room through the curtains. Her eyes flickered open. And she gradually awoke finding herself spread out diagonally across the bed. And the bed sheet wasn’t on top of her. It was more wrapped around one leg and under her body. In these disorientating moments of just waking up there was a moment or two where Rachel was thinking that she was awaking after a night out. And she was expecting a headache to kick in soon. Instead, as soon as her head cleared, her memories came flooding back – these horrible memories about the phone call, about the bombs, about the mad man with a gun, about the witnessing someone being shot, and just the overriding feeling of having her privacy sickeningly invaded.

She motivated herself to get out of bed with the promise of having a bath. Her long, hot bath was not close to being as relaxing as usual. As she lay in there with some music playing quietly, Rachel just couldn’t get the images of the last few days out of her head. After some token breakfast Rachel decided there was only one thing for it to take her mind off recent events and that was to go shopping.

Sitting in the taxi on the way into the City center Rachel went through the messages on her cellular phone. Eight missed calls and twelve new text messages. All from her girlie night out buddies, apart from one voice message from her boss at work telling her that missing Monday at work was bad enough, but if she missed today as well then he might have to fire her. She saved him that decision by phoning up and resigning. Rachel had missed a Saturday night out, without telling any of her friends that had never happened before. So they were all concerned. Hoping that they had assumed she had got lucky with some guy, Rachel decided to use that as her cover story. She didn’t want to tell them that she hadn’t been able to reply for fear it might be the death of her. Or to tell them that her phone’s battery needed to be recharged before being locked away in a room by a murderous psycho. The same murderous psycho that she was currently mulling over the idea of being part of a plan to kill him.

As she got out of the taxi one of her friends phoned her.

“Hello Cindy.”

“Hey stranger. Are you free to talk?”

“Yeah.”

“So tell me all about him”– Cindy said and Rachel could clearly picture the excited look that would be on Cindy’s face as she spoke.

“Well, really, wasn’t that good a story in the end? I met this guy. I had an amazing weekend with him back at my place. He wakes up Monday morning and tells me he’s married. And that’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, he said that he was just looking for one wild weekend.”

“That’s awful.”

“Oh I’ll get over it. It is not like I want to get married any time soon, or anything. It was a fun wild weekend. I just wish he told me from the start that was all it was going to be.”

“Honesty is too much to ask of most guys. Are you going out with us on Friday, then?”

“Err, well, yeah. I don’t see why not. Sorry, I got to go, my boss is coming.”

Rachel hung up quickly before Cindy could say anything else and put her phone on silent.

She started her shopping trip by sitting down with a cup of coffee in her favorite café. As she drank and looked out the window, and watched the world go by, Rachel’s mind began to wander to the unhappy thoughts. Watching the masses of people walk past the window she started to wonder just how many of them were capable of the sort of evil act that she had been caught up in. This time last week she probably wouldn’t have believed that anybody could be that evil. But bitter experience had changed her beliefs. Now she was casting a suspicious eye on almost every face that caught her attention. She managed to catch her thoughts before it became too depressing. And she convinced herself that some retail therapy was what was needed.

      The first few shops she went into, she barely looked at anything. She touched the odd piece of clothing as it hung, she felt it’s texture but she wasn’t really looking at anything at all. Shop assistants would ask if she wanted any help, but Rachel barely acknowledged them. Eventually when she got to one of her favorite shops, Rachel made herself go and try on a dress that she really liked, in an attempt to snap herself out of the trance-like state she was in. In the changing cubicle she was just about to slip the dress on when the door was gently pushed open. Rachel literally jumped and her heart felt like it almost burst out of her and started racing.

“Oh sorry”– the lady who’d opened the door said, slightly flustered as she looked at Rachel then quickly moved on.

Rachel couldn’t muster a verbal response. Instead just shut the door, remembering to lock it this time and backed up against the wall and slid down it just as she had done back in the mansion. Not as many tears this time but a few shivers. Never did actually get round to trying the dress on. As soon as she got out of the changing cubicle she put the dress back on the rack and went out of the shop. She walked down the busy street, gentle bumping shoulders with other people every now and again. She didn’t know where she was heading. She was just walking. As she waited to cross a round Rachel felt a tap on her shoulder from behind her. She turned around, jumped a little and put her right hand to her heart all in one motion.

“Oh I’m sorry, didn’t mean to startle you”– the man said to her.

“That’s all right. I’m just a little jumpy today for some reason”– Rachel replied. The man went on to ask her for directions. With her mind racing Rachel didn’t even hear where he wanted to get to.

“I’m sorry I don’t know. I’m not from round here”– Rachel said then crossed the road. She hailed a cab to take her home.

Back home she closed all the curtains. She brought a blanket into her living room and curled up on the sofa under that blanket. Stocked up the table next to the sofa with plenty of drinks and sugary snacks. She always wanted a straight forward life. And until the last few days Rachel had been very good at keeping her life simple and stress free. She knew she wasn’t the biggest achiever in the world or an as impressive person as she could be. But she liked her life. Now all of a sudden, her life had become very complicated and extremely stressful. Longing for a time when life was at its most simple, Rachel just wanted to drift off into a magical world. Films can be described, as comforters and Rachel needed movies right then to transport her away. ‘Ghostbusters’, ‘Back to the Future’ and ‘The Goonies’ were the movies that served this purpose very well and even brought the occasional smile on Rachel’s face.