[LolitaBonanza]: 762.ElephantsinTweed

Elephants in Tweed

“Flying backwards?”
“The birds.”
“The birds were…”
“Backwards.”
“Flying?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Short didn’t seem to understand this response. He rummaged carefully through the mass of stuff piled on his desk. When he returned his attention to his patient--this time armed with pen and paper--his face was contorted with confusion.
“The birds were flying backwards?”
Nicole’s response was a slow, curt, “Yes.”
Another pause. Then, “Huh.”
“Huh?”
“That’s just weird.”
A slightly different reaction would’ve been more appropriate for a therapist, Nicole thought. It almost seemed like he was taking her seriously. Even Nicole didn’t take Nicole seriously.
“And when did all this start?” Dr. Short scribbled another something down.
“Two days ago.”
“Tell me everything that happened, starting two days ago.”
Nicole’s eyes gravitated to the floor. Her mind knew what to say, but her mouth was reluctant to share the details with the good doctor.
“Nicole?” Dr. Short’s voice tried to lure the words out. “It’s going to be okay.”
Nicole’s eyes breached, coming to level with Dr. Shorts. A smile snuck its way onto her face. “You shouldn’t get my hopes up.” A slow sigh. Then, “I’d had a bad dream that night.”
+
She’d been at work, stuffed in her cubicle, which had shrunk to the size of a small pantry. A whistle had sounded. It meant she could go home. But there was no door; she was trapped in her cubicle, which was slowly filling with icy water. There had been little fishes that bore striking resemblance to her coworkers: Donna Fish, with her inconceivably thick glasses, Patrick Fish with his comb over, and Laura Fish, who was getting busy with a sea urchin from the mailroom. They watched as the cubicle filled, as the water forced the air out of her lungs. Her body thrashed against the walls, desperately trying to knock them down. When she realized there was no way out, Nicole went for the fish, deciding that at least she would take one of them down with her. But before she could squeeze the life out of Donna Fish’s scaly body, her own slipped away. The pain in her lungs disappeared. Everything disappeared.
And she died. 
Nicole had told Robert about it. He’d attributed the dream to stress at work. “No shit,” Nicole had whispered into her coffee.
+
“Robert?”
“My boyfriend.”
“Ah.” More scribbling. “Sorry. Please, continue.”
“Well, then I left for work. I went through the park…”
+
Nicole took the longer route through Central Park. She was in no rush to get to work. Thoughts of fish carrying memos through an office building version of Water World and her body floating limply next to the air cooler still tormented her mind.
It was a good day for a depressed walk through the park. The sun gently warmed Nicole’s bare neck. A breeze tossed her hair playfully around. She stopped briefly to watch a wrinkled old woman chuck sunflower seeds to a gang of pigeons. It was while she was watching the pigeons greedily gobble up the seeds that Nicole noticed the tree. It was an oak tree, she thought, but she couldn’t be sure. Whatever kind of tree it was, it was undoubtedly impressive. It stood a good fifteen feet higher than its neighbors, its branches running into and intertwining with the smaller, younger trees. It almost seemed like it was reaching out and giving them hugs, Nicole had thought. Nicole had been cheered up by the sight of this tree hugging tree, had enjoyed the green tinged shade it cast.
+
“Anyway, it waved at me.”
“Pardon?”
“I said, ‘It waved at me.’”
“Oh. Like in a breeze.”
“No. Like one of its branches reached straight up and moved from side to side.”
“Oh. So…like a gesture of greeting.”
“Yes.”
“Did you wave back?”
“Yeah, then we sat down for tea and talked about philosophy. No, I didn’t wave back. I thought I’d imagined it.”
“Oh.” Dr. Short stopped writing abruptly and crossed something out. Nicole couldn’t believe he’d actually written down that she’d taken tea with a tree. “Did you imagine it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Mm. Then what?”
“Then I went to work. I couldn’t really concentrate. I felt…a little unnerved. But nothing happened. Not until I went home. That’s when I saw those birds.”
+
Deciding against going through the park, Nicole took the more direct route down Fifth Avenue to get home. It had been at an intersection when she noticed a large flock of birds. Something seemed wrong with them…
Then Nicole realized what it was.
A flock of geese, soaring majestically through the air, tail feathers first.
+
“It was only a moment before they were gone. I asked someone else what they thought was wrong with the birds. He just looked at me and said, ‘What birds?’ When I told him, he laughed.”
“Did anyone else see the birds?”
“Yeah. A homeless man. I think he was drunk.”
“Hm. What happened after that?”
“Then I went home.”
+
Nicole stumbled into her apartment. She struggled with her stilettos until they finally relinquished her aching feet. Her briefcase thumped onto the floor as Nicole casually collapsed into the couch. Robert wasn’t home yet. He told her he’d be working late this week, but Nicole knew that that was a metaphor for screwing a hooker in a dirty hotel room. She didn’t really care that Robert was cheating on her. As far as Nicole was concerned, if Robert was paying for coitus every night, she didn’t have to fake an orgasm once a week. It was a good investment for all parties concerned.
Exhaustion took over. Nicole’s brain slowed down; thoughts came like molasses. Her eyelids drooped down, and she drifted into slumber.
Hours later, Nicole woke up. A heavy plaid blanket had been draped over her sleeping frame. She smiled, thinking it awfully sweet of her cheating boyfriend to make sure she didn’t freeze to death in a heated apartment. Wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, she stood up, her hair matted together like shag carpet on one side. She turned on a light and went into the kitchen, her stomach growling menacingly for food. As she reached for the door of the fridge, deciding on left over takeout, she heard a cough. Nicole turned around, expecting to see Robert with flowers or some other pathetic gesture of pity. But there was no Robert to be found. Just the countertop. With a mental shrug, Nicole returned her attention to food. Her hand had barely moved when her ears were again greeted with a cough. She turned around too quickly, she realized, as her hair whipped her heavily in the face. Spitting a few strands out of her mouth, Nicole observed that, again, she was alone. She whispered a tentative, “Hello?”
“Hi.”
There was nothing tentative about Nicole’s scream.
“Calm down! I don’t bite.”
“You…talk?!”
“Not usually. You’re probably just having a nervous breakdown and imagining that I’m talking.” There was something unsettling about a toaster’s laugh. It was too metallic to sound earthly.
+
“Then Robert came in and calmed me down. He said I’d had a bad dream, that I’d been sleepwalking or something. I didn’t believe him.”
Dr. Short’s pen was scribbling double time. It was a blur of movement; a speeding unidentified object leaving legible writing in its wake. Suddenly, the writing ceased. He just stared at the paper, his eyes as motionless as his pen. She assumed that he assumed that she was crazy and didn’t know how to tell her delicately. It surprised Nicole when he asked, “Then what?”
“Haven’t I provided you with enough evidence of my insanity yet?” Nicole’s laugh didn’t help Dr. Short appreciate the joke. He just stared at her, waiting.
“Then…I didn’t want to go to work, so I called in sick. I decided to go uptown for lunch. I couldn’t stay in that apartment any longer.”
+
Nicole just knew that that toaster was staring at her whenever she walked through the kitchen. She needed to go outside and get away from the damn thing. She decided to take the subway to the Upper East Side and have some lunch at one of the overpriced bistros, despite the fact that she hadn’t felt the slightest pang of hunger since the previous night. On some subconscious level, she’d begun to associate food with her obnoxious talking toaster.
The city air relaxed Nicole’s tense body. She felt more relaxed and found herself enjoying the mobs of tourists and the shrill shriek of sirens. Two blocks later, she’d completely convinced herself that the talking toaster had simply been a bad dream.
Nicole entered the subway feeling good. She bought her ticket and worked her way to the platform. She found an empty bench and planted her backside into it to await the train.
Then she heard a cough.
Every muscle in Nicole’s body clenched. The fucking toaster followed her, she’d thought.
Another cough.
Slowly, against her better judgement, her torso turned to the right, prepared to see a grinning appliance whipping its power chord at her.
Relief washed over her as she saw an old man coughing into his sleeve. His nose was red and his eyes were puffy. He looked like he had a bad cold. Laughing a little bit at her paranoia, Nicole turned back where she came face to face with an elephant.
She froze. The blood drained from her face. She wanted to scream, but her voice had abandoned its post, possibly to comfort her lurching stomach. Instead, Nicole kept staring at the elephant’s face. It was wrinkled and leathery. He (she assumed it was a he) was wearing a brown tweed suit with a matching hat and carrying a briefcase. His glasses were enormous.
Nicole glanced from side to side. No one was panicking. She was the only one who noticed. When he spoke, her body leapt half a foot off the bench.
“May I sit here?” His deep voiced boomed and echoed off the walls. No one even looked up. Nicole nodded stiffly and scooted to the far end of the bench.
“Thanks.”
His gigantic elephant ass slowly wedged itself into the seat. The entire bench creaked, threatening to snap like a brittle twig. It held. The elephant, settled, hummed a tune Nicole couldn’t name, then snapped open his briefcase and rummaged through it until he found something that smelled strongly of tuna wrapped up in a paper bag.
“Would you care for some?” Nicole shook her head. She was deciding whether she should run screaming off the platform and back onto the street, or whether she should casually ask someone if they, too, see the elephant in the business suit. She chose the former.
+
“And…that’s it.”
“That’s everything?”
“Yes.”
“I see…” Dr. Short plunged his hand into a desk drawer. “Hold on…” His head disappeared behind a pile of papers. Nicole felt the same way some do after they purge the last lone bit of food from their aching bellies: horrible, but too spent to care.
Then, above the rooftops, a flock of birds flew by. Backwards. The same birds.
“Dr. Short…!”
“What is it, Nicole?”
“The birds, the…”
“Backwards?!”
“Yes!”
“Where?”
“Over…”
Nicole’s voice died. Behind the desk, wearing the same suit and the same face as Dr. Short sat Dr. Short. Only it couldn’t be Dr. Short, Nicole thought, since Dr. Short hadn’t been sporting a pair of rather pronounced tusks a minute ago. They jutted over the desk, looming dangerously near the mountains of clutter. Nicole’s legs began moving her towards the door, away from those gleaming rods of ivory…
“Nicole, what’s wrong?”
She could only shake her head.
“Nicole…I’m not going to hurt you.” Her back pressed against the wall, her escape only a few inches from her outstretched hand. Dr. Short stood up, and Nicole noticed his nose getting gray and lumpy. The nostrils migrated north, spreading, growing. A serpent of wrinkled flesh erupted from the face of her therapist; a long trunk hung limply where a human nose once sat. Her body went numb. The flock of birds flew by the window, much closer this time. Nicole pointed dumbly, and Dr. Short turned his elephantine head.
“I know, Nicole. I know about the birds. They don’t concern me right now. All I’m worried about is you. You can’t leave, Nicole.” His impossible trunk rose and trumpeted. Before the call had died, Nicole had already run out of the room. By the time Dr. Short rushed outside, Nicole was just a small speck on the horizon. And by the time the police found her, Nicole was blue, bloated, and motionless.