Way past the rabbit-hole

So came the faithful Friday. The birds were chipping; the crowds were dancing and I just couldn’t wait for my date with Alice. The anticipation was killing me. It is currently five pm an entire hour before our fated meeting and here I am impatiently waiting for her by the restaurant.

“What if she doesn’t like me? Do I look good? What do I say? What if I go off as awkward?”, all of my worries were interrupted by the thoughts, “she’s pretty” as soon as I saw her approach me. She was wearing a blue and white dress while her hair was tied with a white ribbon. “She is gorgeous,” I thought to myself while struggling to calm down in front of such an adherent beauty.

“Ah, you’re early,” she said in a though yet friendly tone.

Shocked, I replied with “I just couldn’t make a beauty such as yourself wait, could I?”

“I’m not a big fan of cheesy one-liners,” she interrupts.

“Right, sorry,” I respond while trying and miserably failing to keep myself from making an embarrassing stutter.

“shall we go in” she said while grabbing on to my forearm.

I open and hold the door for her as she enters, marking the beginning of our date. We sit down at the furthest table next to the big window overlooking the city. When the waiter comes, I order grilled rabbit while she gets some sort of pie and a bottle of red wine for both of us.

“So…” I stutter again, “how has life been treating you?” I reluctantly continue.

“Good, I’ve had my ups and downs.” She said, while sipping on the glass of wine. “The downs being, well, I’m sure you heard of what happened to Mal. He was a victim of some infamous lunatic.” She said in a disappointed tone.

“Yeah, I’ve heard. The reaper was it?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

“That disgusting pig, he slaughtered him. He cut out his tongue and vocal cords, starved him, dressed him up as if he was a homeless man and left him to bleed out right outside the hospital. You know, when you found that killer, I really thought that it was the reaper. I thought that he will finally get what he deserves. But that guy, it’s like he’s invisible. Every time we get a lead on him, it turns out to be just another distraction he threw at us to get away.” She said in a depressed and angry tone.

“So I’ve heard, killing 15 people and still being on the loose, he has to be exceptionally good at lying low,” I said without putting much thought into what kind of debate this might spark.

“Are you praising him?” she bursts out with frustration.

“No, I… Look, I mean give credit where credit is due. The guy seems to be pretty clever.” I say that in attempting to defuse the situation, honestly, I really didn’t think that. In my eyes, the so called “reaper” is just an emotional moron, a poor imitation.

“he killed our friend,” she uttered while breathing out the last bit of air she had in her lungs, filling the room with a sorrowful atmosphere. It seemed like the death of Mal really hit her hard. Too bad I had one last question to ask.

“The reaper, do you think it’s the same guy? From two years ago?”, I asked while feeling my expression beginning to shift into a childish smirk. I felt how intensely my saliva was accumulating, my heart was pounding. It was truly a delight.

“Not sure. The killings seem to deviate from previous cases, but you never know how this kind of sicko might change in 2 years.” She sighs and looks down at the table. I can’t let business spoil our date.

“Okay, enough of that. What about the ups?” I said in order to change the subject to something more upbeat.

She sighed and said, “well I’m a police investigator now. I have a stable source of income. I’m healthy I guess?”

“You’re not exactly an optimist, are you?” I said, while trying to suppress a smile.

“I guess not”, she replied while eating the last bite of her pie. “Well, something good did happen recently. I reunited with a long-lost friend of mine,” she continued while also trying to hide an obvious smile.

For some reason my heart started beating even faster, thoughts like: “does she mean that? Is she serious? Am I really cheering her on?” started filling up my noggin. I knew I needed to distract myself.

“So how’s Carl been doing?” I asked in order to do just that.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since the incident with the wolf,” she said while sipping on her wine. “By the way, I need to get something off my chest,” she said in a quiet tone.

“Go ahead,” I replied, with the impression that what she was about to say will have nothing to do with me.

“You’re a goddamn idiot, staying behind like that. What were you thinking? Did you have a death wish? If carl wasn’t there to save you, you would be dead now,” she outwardly screamed at me.

Honestly, I had no idea what to say to that, so I had to improvise: “Well, I couldn’t have let my first childhood crush get eaten by a wolf, could I?”

“Cut the crap,” she screamed out in anger. “I know that you had 19 suicide attempts during the past five years. I’ve had a peek at your record. I’ve seen the psychiatric analysis,” she concluded with an unyielding confidence to back up what she just said. “They described you as cunning, charismatic and incredibly manipulative, honestly I couldn’t believe it before I saw you myself.” She finished up her speech with an expression that screamed, “got you.”

Oh strings of fate, how beautiful you are,

and yet again you make me dance like I’m your play thing.

Oh, terrible, this tragedy that blooms its children onto us.

But If you wish to play, let’s play. My mind is done pretending…

“Listen, Alice, I don’t mean so scare you, but how would you feel If I told you I’m the reaper?”