by Max Parrott
Professor Keller was in his usual posture as the students filtered in, reclining in the wing-backed monstrosity he used in place of a normal desk chair, his feet up on an ancient, threadbare ottoman and a razor thin, modern laptop perched on his skinny legs. His legs were crossed at the ankles, and he seemed to be as comfortable as any man had ever managed to get. There was a small microphone taped to his lapel; a huge profusion of notes had already been written out on the board, starting with numbered instructions which the students followed. They sat and, in near silence, took out their books and turned to the right page.
"Another note taking session," Charles complained. "When are we actually going to learn something in this class?"
It was that moment when another young man, sitting in the very next row, looked back and gave Charles a friendly smile. Jasmine had seen this boy around. He seemed nice. She thought his name was Oliver. But the sight of him seemed to have an effect on Charles that was similar to that of being immersed in a vat of cold slime. He shivered from head to toe, and made a disgusted noise.
"That rat," he said as he took his seat. "That absolute waste of skin!"
"What's wrong with him?" Jasmine asked.
Alicia leaned over. "That's Oliver Bridges, the one who took the position Charles was after."
Jasmine shrugged. Obviously it would be annoying to lose out on a position you wanted, but Charles's reaction seemed quite over the top. Then again, everything about Charles seemed over the top. She put it out of her mind and refocused her attention on the front of the room as Dr. Keller cleared his throat and began the lecture from the comfort of his armchair.
"It may not seem like it," he said. "But language is both the finest tool and the deadliest weapon available to us. It can cause unimagined destruction and bountiful growth, depending on mere inflection..."
"Oh, we'll find out about the power of language," Charles grumbled. "We'll find out very soon."
Chapter 2
Jasmine entered the dining hall having forgotten all about Charles and his anger. She hadn't eaten since the banana she quickly scarfed that morning before leaving on her six-mile run. And neither had Luffy. Right now, her dog and her stomach were both competing to see who could be the loudest and the most annoying.
"I'm wasting away to nothing, here!" Luffy said. "What are you standing around for? Let's go eat! Smells like chicken! Oh, there's some pizza!"
As they made their way through the hall, Luffy darted slightly from side to side, thrusting his nose in the air to get a whiff off everyone's tray as he passed. He was drooling by the time they reached the food line.
"I swear, Jasmine," he said. "If you get me plain ground beef and a hardboiled egg again, I'll pee on your favorite running shoes."
Jasmine chuckled, grabbing a tray and then pulling the food bowl out of her pack. "Don't worry. Today's a special treat!"
"Well, maybe you can give me the egg," Luffy added.
"What, and smell your farts all night again?" Jasmine asked, lowering her voice so no one would hear her over the hum of the crowd.
"Yeah, they are pretty bad," Luffy said. "If you give me two, I think I'll be able to make Charles run out of class tomorrow."
"Shh," Jasmine warned. "You're lucky I don't just give you kibble."
She piled her tray with all the healthiest option she could find. Steamed fish, broccoli, a salad loaded with greens. Then, just for balance, she threw on a bread roll and a small piece of cake. Much to Luffy's disappointment, it was chocolate and thus he would not be allowed to lick the frosting off her fork after.
It was true, Jasmine thought, that she had friends. She and Alicia always sat close to each other in classes they shared. And Charles, as insufferable as he could be, was inexplicably interesting to her. She liked having him around, for his entertaining anecdotes and outbursts if for no other reason.
But these things did not behold her to sit at any one dining table. She often wandered around, picking spots at random. Sometimes she would sit alone, or near to some person she had never met.
Today, as she was walking along with Luffy nearby, his eyes glued to the food tray and his tongue moving incessantly over his chops, she spotted Oliver. At first she didn't recognize him in his reading glasses. And she almost missed him entirely, for he was nearly obscured by the huge thick book that was propped on the table in front of him. Every few moment his hand would wander idly to the side. Without looking, and with mixed success, he would stab a bite of food and bring it toward his mouth. His eyes never seemed to leave the page.
As Jasmine approached him, her legs carrying her automatically, she bent her head slightly to read the title of the book on the spine. It was Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant. She had heard of the writer himself, but had not come across a single volume of his work in all her years.
"Philosophy?" she asked, taking the seat across from him and plunking down her food tray. She lifted Luffy's bowl to the floor and, without complaint, he dug into the carrots and shredded chicken she had provided.
For a long moment silence reigned at the table. Other than the chomping, slurping, swallowing sounds from below, nothing happened. The wall of the book remained upright. The only thing that seemed to change was the color of the fingers gripping it on either side. They went from olive-tanned to white as their grip tightened.
Finally, like a cautious turtle, Oliver stretched up his seat to glance at her over the top of the tome. He was wearing a small, awkward smile.
"Yes," he said simply, before sinking back down.
"Is that what you're studying?" Jasmine asked.
"Yes," he replied, this time without bothering to look at her.
"Cool. There weren't many philosophy books where I came from. Mostly just novels and self-help books."
"Huh," Oliver said.
Luffy paused from wolfing down his lunch to glance up at her. "Why don't you leave the kid alone? Obviously he doesn't want to be bothered with a book that size sitting in front of him!"
Ordinarily, Jasmine would have agreed. She didn't know why she was here, or why she was asking these questions, just like she didn't know why her legs had decided to carry her this way without a single approval from her mind. It seemed right. It seemed like the thing to do. And over the past few months, she had learned to trust her feelings.
"Would you mind reading to me a little bit?" she asked.
The head came up again. Oliver grinned at her, looking embarrassed.
"I don't know," he said.
"Just a short little bit. I'm curious."
"Well..." His head sunk back down, and he cleared his throat before continuing. "'Now on this persistence there is also grounded a correction of the concept of alteration. Arising and perishing are not alterations of that which arises or perishes. Alteration is a way of existing that succeeds another way of existing of the very same object. Hence everything that is altered is lasting, and only its state changes.'"
"Was that even English?" Luffy asked.
"Huh," Jasmine said in return. "I guess now I know why I didn't go in for philosophy."
Oliver seemed to shrug from behind his literary wall. "It's simpler than it sounds. You're missing the whole context."
Jasmine nodded. "I guess it sounds like he's just trying to say that stuff never goes away. It just changes."
"That is an interpretation," said Oliver.
"So, if you die, you aren't actually gone. You're just in a different state."
"I suppose," he replied.
Jasmine laughed. "That's a long book. Are you reading it for class or just enjoyment?"
Finally, Oliver gave up and laid the book down on its back. His face was revealed, along with the stains on his shirt where his fumbling method of eating was apparent.
"For class, obviously," he said. "We don't even have to read the whole thing, just selected parts. But I thought it would be better if I went through all of it. And it isn't as long as it looks. The first quarter of the dang thing is jus
t introductions and prefaces."
"Did you bother reading those?"
"No. No one does. So what are you in for?" he asked.
"Murder," Jasmine said without hesitation, letting her eyes go wide and crazy.
Oliver chuckled, averting his gaze. "Oh... um, I see."
"But that's just my minor," Jasmine went on. "I'm here for an English degree. Yeah, I know what you're going to say. The same thing my aunt used to ask me. What in the world are you going to do with an English degree, wash dishes?"
"Well, what are you going to do?" Oliver asked.
"Follow my dreams. The same thing everyone should do. I want to be the editor of my own magazine one day. Maybe I'm just picky, but I think half the stuff that gets published is kind of..."
"Crap?" Oliver offered.
She laughed. "Maybe. I just think I'd like to throw my hat in the ring, publish the kind of stuff I really like to read. I think it would be cool."
Oliver nodded. "Yeah, that actually does sound pretty cool."
He shifted a bit in his seat, looking uncomfortable. Jasmine knew the posture well. He had something he wanted to say or ask, but was either too shy or too embarrassed to come out with it.
"Go on," she said.
"Well... I was kind of surprised when I saw you in LnL at the start of the semester. I thought someone like you might, I dunno, try and get into law enforcement. We don't really have any programs like that at Wildwood."
"So, you know all about that stuff, huh?" Jasmine asked.
Oliver shrugged. "I think pretty much everyone does. Maybe you could have flown under the radar if it was just you. But..."
He gestured under the table.
"Huh?" Luffy said, lifting his head from his nearly empty dish. "You got a treat for me?"
Jasmine laughed. "He does kind of give it away, doesn't he?"
"I think it's cool that you're here," Oliver said quickly. "I was just surprised, that's all."
"Don't worry about it. All that stuff... it was just something I kind of fell into. It felt like something I needed to do at the time. And then, there was that rest area by the state line. That was kind of a fluke. Bad luck, or good luck, or whatever you want to call it. I don't really plan on making a life out of solving murders."
"Good," Oliver replied. "I was really hoping you wouldn't have to bust out your skills here at Wildwood. It's always been a safe place and, well... some people have been saying you're bad luck. Not me," he added, seeing her face. "Just some other idiots."
"Bad luck?" Luffy asked. "Tell me who said that and I'll go bite 'em! My girl Jasmine is the best luck anyone could ask for. She's got a one hundred percent success rate against murderers!"
"It's OK," Jasmine said, reaching down to scratch his ears. "People will say all kinds of things. Doesn't make them true."
***
"You really ought to get your own car," Charles said. "I suppose you could probably afford something Japanese made. Or at least American. But my father says the upkeep on American cars is a killer. They end up in the shop for half the time you own them."
Jasmine shifted on the leather seat. She was in the back, holding Luffy between her knees. Keeping him still. She knew he would behave, and not scratch anything, but Charles insisted that he be sequestered. The dog looked up at Jasmine with misery in his eyes.
"Anyways, just a thought," said Charles, glancing in the mirror. "Not very talkative today, are we?"
"Just tired," Jasmine said. It was true. The run, followed by a string of mentally draining classes, had left her feeling like a helium balloon that had been run over; once light and buoyant, now flattened and crushed. To top it all off, she had a shift at work tonight. And an essay to finish.
"Unfortunately," Charles went on in his droning voice as he patted the dash of the car, "I'll probably have to let go of my baby soon. Father won't want to make the extra payments. My post-college career is now anything but assured."
Jasmine barely heard him. She was looking out the window at a familiar figure who was coming down the path toward the college. She didn't know who the man was. He was generally too old to be a student, and she never saw him in any classes, but he wasn't one of the school staff either. However, it was rare not to see him around the grounds of an early evening.
"So, what are your plans for the evening?" Charles asked. "I think I'll shut myself in my room and lie naked in front of a fan. When it's this hot in spring, you know you're in for a bad summer."
"I have to work," Jasmine replied. "And thanks for the visual."
"Any time. Work, did you say? I thought you had saved up enough?"
"For tuition," she said. "I've been saving up since I was little. All from the tooth fairy, birthday and Christmas money. But I still need to pay rent and utilities. My parents help out with half of it, but..."
"But New Market is not a cheap place to live," Charles replied.
He turned the steering wheel ever so slightly right. The finely tuned machine responded, magnifying his movement into a lovely curving turn. They coasted around a bend in the road, the tires sticking to the asphalt like they were covered in glue.
Six miles was quite far when you were on foot. But in a car, especially one driven by a young man from a wealthy family who was not worried about getting a speeding ticket, it was very fast indeed. Before they knew it they were sweeping out of the wilderness and into New Market, a town of almost twenty thousand people. She had heard both Charles and Alicia referring to it as "small," but neither of them had seen Blackwood Cove. Compared to her home town, Jasmine saw New Market as a sprawling metropolis.
Not that she had seen most of it. She lived neared the edge of town, and had her small segment she liked to stick to. There was a triangle in which she travelled; home, grocery store, work. Or perhaps the shape was more like a kite, and the string dangling off the bottom was the route she took to Wildwood. She kept meaning to get and explore the town one of these days, but she just hadn't gotten around to it.
The first time Charles had given Jasmine a ride home, he had made fun of her choice in apartment. As if there was any choice at all. After seeing how much it hurt her, Charles had learned to shut up. A rare skill from him. The car was silent as they swept up the crumbling driveway of the apartment complex.
Lockwood Village, despite its fanciful name, was basically one step above a shanty town. Due to her refusal to have a roommate, Jasmine had no choice but to move in here. Luckily it was home to more ailing retirees than anything else. It was quiet. It was peaceful. And it was ugly as all get out. Smelly, too. Not that Luffy minded; the stink just gave him plenty of opportunities to mark his territory.
Charles pulled the car to a stop, looking around all antsy the way he always did. As though expected to be held up at gun point.
"Well," he said quickly. "Until next time."
Jasmine opened the door, letting Luffy jump out ahead of her before she climbed to her feet. "Thanks, Charles."
She shut the door, and watched him zoom away. He broke the speed limit once again in his haste to be out of here. Maybe he was afraid that every minute spent in Lockwood Village would cause another spot of rust to spontaneously appear on his "baby."
"I don't really like that guy," Luffy said. "Sure, he pets me sometimes, but..."
"He just doesn't understand, that's all," Jasmine replied. "Life hasn't given him a chance to understand."
She pulled her keys out of her pocket, and the jingling sound immediately stole Luffy's attention.
"Ooh, can we check the mail?" he asked, jumping up on his hind legs. "Can we, can we?"
"That's what I was going to do," she said with a smile.
They ventured through Lockwood Village together, passing cars that couldn't possibly be street legal and pickup trucks that surely wouldn't pass any recent emissions test. The mailboxes were as far from Jasmine's building as they could possibly be, a fact which had frustrated her as much as it excited Luffy.
Stepping along a crum
bling asphalt drive past patches of overgrown weeds where playground equipment used to be, they finally reached the mailboxes. Jasmine opened her locker up and pulled out a handful of papers.
"Trash, trash, trash," she said, sorting through them as they started walking back. "Oh, look, coupons for a fast food place we don't even have in New Market. Makes sense! What a waste of paper."
"Has anyone ever told you that you complain too much?" Luffy asked.
"No, because it isn't true. I complain exactly the right amount. And what about you, huh? Last night you were whining thirty seconds after we came inside."
"I just had to pee all of a sudden," he replied. "You can't always predict that sort of thing, Jasmine. And there was a smell I wanted to check out too."
"Was it that dead raccoon by the dumpsters?" she asked.
"Could have been," he replied. "Who's to say? It's a mystery."
She laughed. "Maybe that should be our next case. Jaz and Luffy solve the mystery of the bloated animal corpse!"
"Come on, don't be ridiculous. No one would want to read that one."
Suddenly, Luffy's ears perked up and he turned back to face her. She felt it coming as well. She was getting better now, after being through enough of these episodes, at sensing them beforehand.
Looking both ways down the drive, she crossed quickly to the other side and let herself fall down in the shade of a pine tree. Needles crunched under her, poking her butt as she leaned against the sappy trunk and closed her eyes.
Luffy was there waiting when she opened them again a few seconds later. Unlike after her very first visions, she felt more lucid this time. There was none of the confusion, the dreamlike surreal feeling that had marked the first couple of experiences. She was back to reality in an instant, with the image as clear in her head as if she had just watched it on TV.
