Chapter 7
Alexander looked at the apparition with nothing less than complete astonishment. His eyes drifted down to the sticky spreading remains of what was to have been his breakfast. He was not quite sure what to focus his attention on first. On balance the image of the ghostly woman was the most compelling. He felt sure that his mental state was getting worse and blinked his eyes in order to realign his vision with what he understood to be reality. She was still there... even so what he was seeing in front of his eyes was not, could not possibly be, a reflection of the reality of the situation. He looked at the woman intently. For an instant, as he studied the vague features, there was the thought, the hope even, that it was somehow Jane standing there smiling at him. But really he knew it could not be. If his wife was there, he would have no doubt of it; his sense of her was still too strong. Whatever the apparition was it was nothing to do with Jane. His wife was sadly gone forever; existing only in his fond memories. This woman was unknown to him, her form was vague, she appeared to be wearing no clothing but her appearance was almost sexless and merely suggestive of a real woman. But so strongly suggestive that he could not ignore what he was seeing.
"Hello I hope you are making yourself at home in my cottage." She said in a soft almost ethereal voice.
The words were clear enough and oddly seemed to come not from Alexander's thoughts, but from the girl as if she really existed independently of his imagination. The words were clearer than her image which seemed to shimmer be a like coalescence of dust in the air, caught in the light and made coherent by some unknown force.
Emily looked at her visitor with curiosity; he seemed stunned by her sudden appearance.
"I didn't mean to frighten you." she said, and then added as if the encounter were perfectly normal. "Don't you think you should clean up the mess?"
Alexander should have been reduce to some form of panic but strangely he remained calm. Whatever it was that was talking to him in such a matter of fact manner, did so with no trace of malevolence.
"I suppose so..." He said looking again at the oozing eggs. "If you don't mind me asking... Who exactly are you?"
Alexander picked up a cloth from the sink and turning his back on the strange young woman, began to wipe and scoop up the eggs. Emily pondered his question as she watched him and found that she could not quite answer such a specific question. In truth she was not yet sure who she was, not exactly.
"This is my cottage." Was all she could think of to counter his question.
"I don't think so, I have it on good authority that the owner is away at the moment and I am paying rent... You, on the other hand must be just a figment of my imagination. Which at best would make it our cottage."
"I most certainly am not a figment of your imagination." Emily replied with indignation. But the suggestion had suddenly toppled her self-confidence – could she be the figment of another's imagination?. The idea was no more strange than any of her other hypothesis.
"Why do you say that? I know I'm real, I've been here long before you came and invaded my cottage."
"If that's the case then you would know all about the cottage, know more than I do."
"Yes of course."
"So tell me something that I could not possibly know."
It was a reasonable thing to ask. If Emily was not a creation of the stranger's mind, she would know things that he did not. But her memory which was starting to return was still a confused mixture of vague images with no lucid thread running through.
"I do know things that you don't, I'm certain, but I just can't bring then to mind at the moment."
"Well that sounds pretty conclusive then, of course you can't remember anything; that just proves my point."
"No not at all, if I'm a figment of your imagination, then you could simply make me disappear... Go ahead try it." Emily suddenly regretted the challenge she had issued because this stranger may well have the power to make her disappear for all she knew."
Alexander snapped his fingers like a stage magician.
"By all I know of the reality of the universe... Be gone."
Emily blinked. Alexander watched... She was still there as insubstantial as ever.
"OK touché, but that proves nothing." Alexander suddenly felt foolish arguing out loud with a woman that his mind had created out of thin air.
Emily was hardly more able to cope with the argument, her mind was not clear enough. The situation was beyond her understanding so attempting to defend her position with logic when there was no logic was simply too difficult. She retreated into the garden to ponder the encounter, turning just briefly with a wave and a subtle smile on her semi-transparent lips.
Alexander watched her go and felt a mild disappointment; he hoped she might be back soon. Whatever magic she wove, he was already starting to be entranced by it. His rational side however knew that she could be nothing less than the manifestation of the early stages of a complete mental break down.
After the encounter, Alexander was left a little unsettled; he just could not concentrate well enough to work on his novel. The sudden appearance of the woman was there at the back of his mind, it worried him like the niggling of a mild toothache that you feared would develop into something more serious. Instead of working, he dressed in layers and took his bike out into the autumn air for a ride to see if a fresh breeze would wash the apparition from his thoughts. He cycled along the narrow lane that wound down towards the coast passing a well presented riding stables with a broad gravelled entry and a glimpse of horses lazily grazing in the watery morning sun. He followed the line of leafless trees, their branches clawing at the sky already expectant of the distant spring renewal. Alexander continued over the dunes following the road and stopped to admire what lay before him: the silvery hill road with the beach at the bottom, and the sea that caressed the edge of the sandy beach. The tide was high and the smell of the brine was strong; he could taste the salt in the air, feel the bite of wind against his face. He rested for a while to enjoy the tranquillity, to watch the crash of the waves and the clouds rolling across the sky. He blew warm breath on his chilled fingers to bring back the feeling. Out here everything was normal, no apparitions to disturb his sense of balance. The earth was still under his feet and the sky still lay above his head. But no matter how he tried, his thoughts were drawn relentlessly back to the young woman. It was true that she did appear to have an existence separate from his own; he had no control over her. She certainly had an independence of disposition. But if she were not a manifestation of his own mind, then what was she? Alexander had no answer, he had never believed in ghosts... Until now.
The road started to climb and leave the coast so Alexander decided to turn back and retrace his path to the cottage, to home. When he got back inside he was welcomed by the usual warm atmosphere but there was no woman sitting impishly on the table; ghost or otherwise. He felt another twinge of disappointment; maybe it was relief, he was no longer sure.
Emily had spent the time trying to come to terms with her own existence. Until she had spoken with the stranger, she had taken her existence for granted; she could think, she could react to things, she had memories of a sort. There was no question that she existed. She was no figment. Satisfied that her little existential crisis was over she felt the need to sleep. There was still much to understand about her situation as her fractured memories swirled just out of grasp. But all that could wait... There was no hurry. She looked towards the strange membrane, that was where the answers would be found she thought as her eyes closed and her universe disappeared.
Comatose Page 17
