Untitled, Unfinished, pt1

1
I must be some kind of huge fucking idiot. My name is Jack Dubfeister and exactly one month ago those were my thoughts. What the hell was I doing? Well, I was crouched down in nothing but my striped pink-and-blues right next to the ol’ sitting post (also known as my window ledge which sits prettily alongside one hundred fifty-three other identical window ledges) preparing to erase the black hole that had become my all-too-predictable life. That was on a Saturday. This morning, a Monday, I woke up soaking wet and in the bottom of what I presume is a very deep well. There were termites, somehow.
I really can’t remember the first thing that I did upon waking. Nor can I recall the very first thing that I screamed. It might have been something like, “ THE FUCK ARE ALL THESE TERMITES COMING FROM AND WHY DO THEY LOOK TEN TIMES BIGGER THAN THE AVERAGE TERMITE!” Or it may have been sounded a bit like, “I, JACK DUBFEISTER THE EIGHTH, DESCENDENT OF THE VERY FIRST JACK DUBFEISTER, WHO WAS A VERY IMPORTANT MAN, DEMAND TO KNOW JUST WHAT THE SHIT IS GOING ON. SO WHAT THE SHIT IS GOING ON.”
Or perhaps I didn’t say anything like that at all. Regardless of what I shouted that night, I did not end up knowing anything about the shit that went on until four weeks later when the shit itself arrived in its very own package on nothing other than my very own window ledge. It was Christmas so I suppose I shouldn’t have been alarmed. Save for the fact that a package had somehow broken into my place of residence and perched itself upon the same surface that I had one month heretofore tried to end my entire pathetic existence on. And it said “Urgent But Not At All Fragile.” Whatever that meant. I guess I had nothing to worry about if I decided to chuck it back out into the world (wherever the fudge it came from) by sending it on an express route to the friendly neighborhood dumpster.
But first I had to open it. Judging by the size of the package it was probably a bomb. Or maybe it was just an innocuous gift sent to me by one of my disgusting relatives. No. It was obviously a very dangerous and sophisticated bomb meant to end my life once and for all.

2
It was not the bomb I hoped it would be. It was, in fact, just a small, thin, crisp piece of paper. It ranked about number one as the most ordinary thing I had ever seen. I picked it up anyway in hopes of it turning into something spectacular or at least halfway valuable. No damage to the phalanges. Must not be comprised of acidic material. I sniffed it. Then I put it back down. Then I sniffed it again. Then I decided to burn it but I noticed that it had a few words on it which might have been important so I read them. I must admit they were terribly disappointing. So much so that I wish I had simply tossed the package into my neighbor’s pool or placed it in his dog’s dog food bowl that always sits in front of his dog’s doghouse. It turns out, I make horrible decisions. I kept the most ordinary thing I had ever seen safely secured with nails and string underneath my pillow for a very long time after that. Here is what it said:

Please exit to your immediately left.
Now.

My “immediate left” was indeed an exit. It was indeed an exit. Chuckling, I ignored the absurdity of the order and went into my kitchen to make my longtime favourite beverage, an Aspirin soda with vodka substituting as water and plenty of Aspirin. You see, as you may have guessed, my immediate left was in fact my living room window which sits rather prettily at some ninety-five feet above the rest of the city. This package was either a joke or a gift sent to me by a psychic enemy with a fine sense of humour. In my opinion, neither idea was particularly tasteful. Or, in my state of mind, welcome.
The soda was relaxing. A few minutes later I was out cold.

3
“I guess it’s just kind of scary, wanting to die. I mean, it’s not something the average person wakes up and ponders over after their morning coffee, right? “I was in my psychiatrist’s office. Herman G. Welsh, certainly the worst excuse for a college graduate that I had ever met. Slightly balding, tortoise-shell-rimmed glasses, slacks that could have used a wife to tell him that he had grown out of them two years before, and an outstanding mustache, Herman looked like the poster man for psychiatry gone very wrong. Or maybe just very mediocre. Whatever the case, I suffered through hour-long sessions with him every Saturday, recounting drab episodes of my boring life, trying to make sense of how everything could have gone so wrong, while Herman chewed on some drool and dreamt of places that he would probably actually visit someday. Like Fiji. And that was that. Suicidal Saturdays and Fiji were how ol’ Herman and I spent our time together. Sometimes, when I was positive that he was making mental laps in the Caribbean Sea, I would get on his computer and play Solitaire.
Yes, my life was the epitome of the average Joe. The only difference was that I occasionally received curious packages in the mail giving me very direct orders to carry out morbid tasks, which I always ignored anyway, and so didn’t affect me. Or did they? I suppose they didn’t harm me in any direct way. I kept them in neat stacks in my closet and whenever anyone would ask me about them I would simply explain them away. “Oh, those? Those are just my diary entries. I don’t like notebooks. Too constricting. I like to feel limitless when I write, no boundaries for me, ha ha.” After which I would smile. Guiltily. Eventually, I began to meet women and after a time, they began to want to know things about me. What did I do for a living? What did I like to eat? Who did I like the best out of the Beatles? I tried to answer all of their questions as honestly as I could. I’m a painter, I like to eat angel-hair pasta, Lennon. Inevitably, the inquiries became stranger as time went on. What’s my favourite brand of olive oil? How many times had I ever kissed myself in the mirror? Do I have a foot fetish? Ever the open book, I told them the truth. Castella d’Ana, four, I am afraid of toenails, isn’t that odd?
Not once did anyone ever ask me about the mile-high stack of now-yellowed pages that took up all of the floor space in my closet. Until Carolina.

4
Carolina literally popped into my life. It was a Saturday and I was on my way to see Herman for a short follow-up session after a rather scary event involving iced tea and the rudest waiter in the world. Standing outside of a very crowded bus station, I stood about one foot away from the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.
She was not attractive in the traditional or classic sense but she gave off an ethereal glow in her own way. Her hair was dark red and just wavy enough to be considered curly, and reached down past her shoulders. All of her facial features were angular save for her lips, which were small and red and freckled like the rest of her. On her head rested a pale yellow beret which matched her dress. In her hands was a book, but I could not see the cover. She seemed entirely too good for this world. I was decidedly intimidated.
Suddenly, a loud thud echoed into my ear canal and I quickly realized that it was the sound of someone popping their bubblegum. I looked around. The crowd was thick. It could be anybody. But it was too close to be just anybody so I scanned the mouths around me, searching for the telltale wad of pink. And that’s when our eyes met.
I cleared my throat and looked away, pretending as if I were still looking for something.
“I like your glasses.”
She had spoken. To me? Did I remember to wear my glasses today? I touched my face.
“Oh. Yeah. They’re pretty cool. Um, thanks.”
She smiled and went back to reading her book. When she shifted, I could see that it was called Pobby And Dingan.
“What a curious…” I began to mutter.
“What did you say?” She looked up from her book. I noticed that her eyes appeared to be very wet, like a dog’s. Only her eyes were the shade of peach leaves and very pretty so I felt bad for the comparison.
“Oh, nothing, I was just thinking that the title of your book is kind of odd. Pobby and Dingan, ha. What curious names. What’s it about, anyway?”
“Imaginary friends.” She gave me a tiny smile and resumed reading.
My cheeks flushed. Somehow, in the span of less than five minutes she had given me a feeling unlike any I had ever felt before. She must have spoken less than ten words. What was wrong with me? I heard the pop again. Staring at her mouth, it became evident that she was the culprit. Then she spoke again.
“What’s your name?”
“Uh, it’s Dubfeister.”
“Dubfeister?” She said it like it was a bug spray.
“Oh, no, I meant. It’s Jack. My name is Jack Dubfeister. And I’m somewhat of an idiot.”
She laughed. “You don’t look like an idiot to me. My name,” she blew a bubble and sucked it back into her mouth. “Is Carolina.”
She stuck out her hand, looking me in the eyes, dimples turning my insides into glue.
“Hello, Carolina.”
“Hello, Jack.”

And that was how I met the only person who ever saved my life.

5
Carolina, I would come to find out, was a rarity. For one thing, she never told a lie.
“Carolina, have you seen my green and yellow dinosaur boxers?”
“Ah, those.”
“Those?” I gulped.
“Yeah, I’ve seen them. They sold faster than I anticipated.” She popped a strawberry into her mouth.
“Sold?”
“Mhm.” Taking another strawberry, she flashed me her signature grin. If there was ever a saving grace that kept Carolina from being murdered by me when she pulled stunts like this, it had to be her dimples. In spite of myself, I melted. Always.
Months went by. My packages continued to arrive in the most precarious of places. In my underwear drawer. Hanging round my shower nozzle by an assortment of string. In my freezer, behind my lasagna. Underneath the hood of my car. I was beginning to wonder if I needed medication. Was there really someone out there who wanted me to die badly enough to devise elaborate steps just to see that I met my demise? What did I do? Who had I angered?
I didn’t tell Carolina about my obvious misfortune. It was my only secret. After a time, she moved into my apartment. And after a time, I noticed how much she liked talking in her sleep. She would mumble things that didn’t make sense, fragments of wisps of hints of thoughts.

This orchestra shall snap under the swerving stairway.
Your leaf is the region. Don’t fill them. You might confuse the cupboards.
Comfort under friction. Where are we spreading?
The disciple needed to uncouple someone and when you arrive during every season,
have four inner elements changed?
How were you gathering?

6
I had never heard anyone talk in their sleep as much as Carolina. I began to record her thought-streams in notebooks. I filled ten notebooks in one week. This too, I kept from her, afraid she would become confused, upset with me. Finally, the notebooks had to be squared away in a separate room that I usually kept for my art supplies. I had told Carolina never to go in that particular room the first time she ever set foot in my apartment due to how finicky I was about my supplies. Nobody touched my paint, that was my only rule. And so weeks went by. I, the pretender of sleep, she, the oracle of balderdash. There wasn’t a single night that passed in which I did not record her nonsensical utterings. It fascinated me. But most of all, she fascinated me. I was completely captivated by this nocturnal Carolina, this mysterious long-winded beauty who groaned in the night.
Sometimes I liked to believe her a great poet. Over time, and quite accidentally, I would begin to rearrange her words into real verse. It happened on an otherwise unexceptional night, a Wednesday. I’d say it was around four in the morning when she just abruptly stopped talking.
I looked over at her. Nothing peculiar as far as I could tell. I whispered her name.
“Carolina.”
Nothing.
“Carolina. Is there something wrong?”
Obviously there was not. She was still breathing deeply and in her usual soft, steady rhythm. I looked down at the page I had been writing on. My eyes had stopped in the middle on a sentence that didn’t stand out from any of the others, but which moved me to pair it with the next sentence I happened to look at.

An underhanded mess…shall blur your crying August.

And that was how it began. I was never confident in the actual process, knowing that my efforts were only a parlor game, a mere distraction, meant to comfort my own mind into submission, before I too, went insane. Was that it? Did I want Carolina to be as crazy as I must have been?
But I continued. Filling them was the easy part. It was the filing them away in their perfect little stacks and rows behind closed doors that was so bothersome. What if she were to find them? What if a great wind hurried through the room and managed to send the notebooks flying out of the window and into the city streets where just anyone, anyone could read their contents?

7
I stopped worrying so much. I stopped worrying so much that a year passed and I finally fell asleep one night. As fate would have it, or maybe just my horrible luck, it was a miracle that I didn’t get to enjoy for very long. Soon after I felt my body relax and the last remnants of consciousness fade away, I immediately awoke to Carolina. Sobbing.
“What’s going on, what happened?” I took her in my arms. She took herself back out.
She stopped crying. Sniffed.
“Um, here, let me go get you some water, then you can-“
“I don’t want any water, Jack.”
I swallowed. Audibly.
“You don’t? Well, then tell me what’s wrong, why are you so… did someone say something to you, do I need to-”
“You.”
My stomach screamed.
“Me?”
“You.”
“Wh…uh…what do you m-“
“How long have you been keeping them?”
Oh no. “Them…” I was going to be something I was very good at. A bumbling idiot.
“Please don’t pretend you don’t know.” She sighed and looked at me, held my gaze for a moment and closed her eyes again. “The notebooks. Jack. How long have you been keeping the notebooks.” She said them so quietly, as if they were her final words before being executed.
I didn’t know how to explain. I just told her the truth. “I’ve been writing in them for about a year. I really didn’t mean to cause any harm with them, I was just, I was just going to, to keep them in the closet and…” I trailed off when she looked up at me with the most harmless gaze a person could possibly give.
“What are they?”
And so I told her everything.

8
It wasn’t long before Carolina got curious about the rest of the house. Inevitably, she too began to find my packages. The only thing about that was, she didn’t let me know until another year had passed. I think it was her way of paying me back for keeping the notebooks a secret.
“Oh, Jaa-aack!”
When she came home from grocery shopping that Saturday, I was busy making friends with the Grim Reaper, balancing my stupid self on the edge of my window ledge, contemplating the end.
She found me sitting there in my pink and blue-striped boxers, staring down into the endless mass of colour and motion, into the streets that suddenly looked all too welcoming.
“What the fuck are you doing.”
She stood there in my living room, stock-still.
I was staring at the traffic lights, spellbound.

What am I doing? I’m jumping off this building.
I’m making like Superman. I’m playing it vertigo.
I’m saving the best for last, baby.
I must be on top of the world.
I must be some kind of rare new breed of exotic bird.

Carolina called someone but I wasn’t alert enough to figure out who it was. I was in my zone. The next thing that happened was that I woke up in the well. With termites galore. Scratching my head, I attempted to move my legs first. I must have struck a puddle because my right leg was suddenly soaked in something cool and wet. Squinting my eyes didn’t make anything even remotely brighter and I was getting more depressed as each minute ticked by.
There had to be something I could grab on to. I ran my hand up the nearest wall. Slick as a summer slug. Where the fuck did they bring me? Who were they? How long had I been down here? Was this hell for suicidal idiots?
Then a crash.
I was suddenly very aware of the fact that I may never get out of this huge black hole and that if I didn’t, I would never ever see Carolina again and if that happened, I…
“Um, helloooo!” I yelled up as loud as I could to the noise.
And then.
“Yes?” A thin, old voice rattled back down.
At last. A ray of light. A beam of hope. A way out, a lifeli-
“Did you need something or are you just testing out the vocal chords?” the voice broke in.
“I need something. I mean… well, I’d kind of like to get out of… here. I’m not even sure how I got down here or who you are or even who I am or… I’m not sure about anything anymore to be honest. Maybe I’m naïve and stupid but I was hoping you could. You know. Uh.”
“You were hoping I could rescue you.”
He sounded amused. And much closer. I wondered if he could see how terrified I was.
I shifted to get out of the light.
The voice chuckled.
“Why are you laughing at me?” Fear turned into anger faster than I had expected.
“Listen, kid. Before you go running around asking people to save you from your own self-inflicted path of pain, maybe you should ask yourself how you got there.”
“But,” I frowned up at him. “I don’t know how I got here!” I screamed. “I mean, for all I know, you… you put me down here! With your… ” I scratched my head. “Rope.”
“I ain’t got no rope, kid. Do you see a rope down there?”
“I can’t see anything at all.”
“That’s ‘cuz there ain’t one. Why don’t you just spend some time with yourself, ask some important questions, getcherself some answers. I’ll be here when you finally decide to figure things out.”
He shut the door.
That was all? Figure things out? Get myself some answers? I may as well drown myself in one of these delightful little puddles for all he cared. Didn’t he know there were termites down here ready to eat me alive? Since when did termites inhabit wells?
Not to mention, I was getting hungry. How was I supposed to think about paths of pain and all of that hogwash when my stomach was doing all of the asking?
I curled up in a ball near the driest part of the floor I could find.
I was asleep within two minutes.

9
“Jack.”
A very familiar voice was whispering my name. I was now so hungry and confused that, for all I knew, or cared, the voice could have been my stomach.
“Ugh, what.” I rolled over.
“Wake up.” The clink of metal. “I made you some waffles.”
Was it possible to have a mirage in hell?
I opened my eyes. Then shut them. It was too good to be true. I opened them again.
Carolina and a tall stack of waffles were staring at me.
“I’m….a little.”
“Just eat.” The dimples. The peach leaf eyes.
I took the fork. I would have to ask the questions later. Exhaustion didn’t mix well with my digestives.
The next few days were a blur. Carolina filled the holes in my memory while I listened, mouth open, to how she called her father for help the day I nearly jumped to my death, how he took things a little too far and stuck me down a well in his own back yard to teach me a lesson, how Carolina found me, crumpled and shaking and wet.
I told her about the termites.
She kissed me. Stopped.
“Termites?”
“Yeah, there were loads of them down there. They were huge.”
She stared at me. For some reason, we both began to laugh. After we caught our breath she got very quiet.
“Jack?”
“Mm.”
“Did he give you anything to eat? While you…”
“I had a spook for breakfast.”
“A spook?”
“Oh, yes. I know what you’re thinking, they ran out years ago, but they’re quite common in my mind.”
She thought for a moment. “Well. Was he good at least?”
“I’m not sure if it was a he. If it was, the bastard tasted like marbles.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
And then she fell asleep in my lap.

10
My father called me on the phone a week later.
“Your mother died in a plane crash on her way to Paris.”
“What?”
“She had it coming.”
And hung up.

Carolina brought home a garden snake the next day.
“What the hell are you doing with that thing?”
“She isn’t a thing. Her name is Francesca.”
“Where in the world did you find her?” I blinked.
“She was peeking at me through your bushes.”
“I didn’t know I had bushes.”
“Yes you did. I planted them there last spring. Roses.”
“I didn’t know you planted roses last spring.” I had no idea.
“Well, I did.”
I watched with horror as she twirled the snake around and around in the air, smiling like she had just brought it home from the hospital.
This was ridiculous.
“And where,” I began, as slowly as I could, “Do you plan on uh,” I cleared my throat. “Putting that.”
She stopped twirling. Shrugged.
“In the bathroom. I figured that would be the safest place. It’s the only room in the house that has a lock.”
I cleared my throat, louder this time.
“So it is.”

And so, until the day that wretched green thing died, she got the royal pleasure of observing me carry out my most manly duties. Carolina grew to love her as I couldn’t. In a way that only friendship with no double standards could grow.

11
Time kept sticking me into places that I could no longer run away from. I was waiting on something. And although I didn’t know what it was, I decided not to give up on it. Instead, I tried to figure out just what it was that I was waiting on.
True love? A dog? Cancer of the testes? My mother to leap out of the airplane, healthy and alive?
And then it came.
“Jack, tell me why you believe someone wants to kill you.”
I was sitting on the leather couch in Herman’s office. The maroon one with brass buttons on the side, the one that I hated because it reminded me of ruined cranberry sauce. I was staring at the gold letters on the plaque that read “Herman G. Welsh, 54, plays tuba, single, white mocha latte, 3811 S. Millard Ave.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“Is what supposed to be a joke?”
I couldn’t help myself. “Is that how you snag the lady-friends?” I pointed at his plaque, grinned. “What a charming alternative. I’m sure that’s got them wrapped around your finger. ‘Herman, the fifty-four year-old single white mocha-latte who plays the tuba.’”
“Ah. The plaque. That was made a very long time ago by a dear friend. You see, I was once a lot like you, Jack. I didn’t know who I was. When I needed it the most, a man who saw what I see in you made that for me. It keeps me from forgetting myself.”
“If it was made so long ago, why does it say you’re fifty-four?
“I like to keep it up to date.” He smiled.
I coughed. “And the mocha-latte?”
“Why, that’s just about my favourite drink in the world, didn’t you know that?”
“Uh, no. I don’t believe we’ve discussed it before today.”
“No, no, perhaps you’re right.” Looking out of his window, he looked as if he were in the middle of some revolutionary daydream that could solve world hunger or something equally mind-blowing.
I raised an eyebrow. “So um. Where were we?”
“Oh, yes. We were discussing your most current…” He touched his mustache. “Problem.”
“My most current problem, is of course, already known to you.”
“Tell me more about it.”
“I’ve already told you.”
“Please.” He gestured. “Tell me again. I think I can help you this time.”
“Oh? Have you developed some new form of psychotherapy? Are you going to give me shocks? Wake my brain up a little bit? Is that what I need? I think that’s what I need, don’t you?”
“No, Jack. I will not give you shocks.”
“That’s mildly disappointing.”
I closed my eyes. Sighed.
“My most current problem are these blasted packages that never fail to scare the wits out of me at the most odd times.”
“Why do they scare you?” he was doing his scribbly notepad thing that annoyed me.
“Because they always pop up in impossible places.”