NOBODY'S HOME
Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do
I'm half crazy, all for the love of you,
It won't be a stylish marriage,
I can't afford a carriage,
But you'd look sweet upon the seat
of a bicycle built for two.
She took a small sip of the tepid water, her small hands cupping the glass gently. Everything she did was with great deliberation and exaggeration, giving her a serene, almost floating appearance. The delicate bones in her shoulders and throat fluttered when she swallowed and to Commissioner Gordon, she looked like a fragile little bird. A sheaf of blonde hair fell into her eyes and she brushed it away automatically.
In all honesty, as he sat there noting her appearance, she was very pretty. This would not go into any police report and it was not the kind of prettiness to be featured on a fashion magazine; not even enough prettiness to make someone take a second look. She wouldn't break no necks, as his crude but often effective father would say.
His detail-oriented cop gaze fell over her once again. Slender. Petite. She was medium sized, perhaps on the tall side of average—five six, five seven. It was hard to judge while she was sitting and even more difficult because her proportions were long and would have suited a much taller woman. Maybe a hundred and fifteen pounds: she was a small woman. She had soft little hands with shaped nails, and aside from the horrible bruising on each wrist, she looked relatively unharmed.
"Thank you," she said quietly. Her voice was lower than to be expected from such a fragile seeming girl. Those bright eyes, rimmed with red, stared above his head as though there were something wonderful floating just above him. "It's a little warm, though."
"Sorry about that," Commissioner Gordon said, and leaned back in his chair. "How are you feeling?"
She smiled at the spot above his head, tremulous and wry. "How do you think?"
He offered a dry, one-note laugh that was more an expulsion of breath. "Sorry."
"No, it's okay, it's…" she took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. Am I under arrest?"
"Absolutely not," he assured her. "We just need to answer a few questions."
"Do I need a lawyer?" she persisted.
He hesitated for a moment. "If you want one, we can't stop you," Gordon said slowly, "but I can tell you that the process gets a whole lot messier and more complicated once lawyers are involved."
She toyed with the glass cup. "And this situation is already pretty complicated, don't you think?"
"Yeah."
"You sound good," she said, leaning forward, her gaze shifting down until it was staring uncomfortably at his midsection. "I mean, you sound like a good person. I know this is probably being recorded. I want…I want to help, but you see, it's difficult, it's just a very awkward position for me."
She made it sound as though she were trying to graciously turn down a dinner invitation. "Anything you say can be a help," Gordon encouraged. "Even something small. You've…you've had more contact with him than anyone else we currently know of."
"Yes, but you see, I'm not positive we're thinking of the same person." She smiled again, but it faded as though she tasted something dusty. "I mean…I'm blind. So I wouldn't know. But it…I mean, my friend is very odd, certainly, and probably not mentally well, definitely. But he can't be…he can't be this person you're thinking of."
Gordon fell silent. After a long moment, he said tiredly, "We're pretty sure we know. Please, if you would just start at the beginning."
She toyed with the glass again and then swallowed. The bones in her throat jumped again, and he thought how frail she seemed. Especially in her situation. It was like seeing a perfectly unharmed china doll siting in the open maw of a lion.
"The beginning. Um. Well, if we go all the way back to the beginning…I should start off with by saying that my name is Daisy Barlow. And I'm blind."
My name is Daisy Barlow. I'm blind.
This doesn't bother me too much. It used to, when I was a kid and it first happened. See, I was out Christmas shopping with my father when I was nine. It was snowing, all gray cloudy skies, and we were trying to hurry home so we could watch a movie together as a family. He was going too fast for the weather, hit a patch of ice wrong, and wham! Right into a tree.
I was lucky. My father died in that accident. I don't remember anything except the rehabilitation afterwards, but what happened is that I went through the windshield head first. The doctors said it was a miracle I didn't die. But I got a very bad skull fracture, spent two months in a coma, and when I woke up, I was blind. They said it was because the fracture caused brain swelling and it severed my optic nerves.
It's been about fourteen years since then. I'm twenty two, I live in Gotham with my mother, my sister, and my dog, Sally. She's my guide dog and probably my best friend. That's sad, that a dog is my best friend, but she really is—I used a cane for many years and then I had a guide dog named Max for, oh, about three years. Then he retired and I got Sally right out of training. She's wonderful.
I hope it's not a surprise to you that I'm not a very social person. I wasn't even before the accident, and I'm even less social now. I like staying home, with my books on tape and my music and my dog. It's a simple life. Sometimes I think I could be a poet, but every time I sit down at my computer and try to write the words escape me.
Nothing very interesting ever happens to me. Aside from that terrible accident, which, admittedly, is not something happens to a lot of people. It was very tragic but I don't remember a lot of it—either through trauma or simple forgetfulness, I don't have that many memories of my father, either.
My mother is understandably overprotective, so she encourages me staying inside and out of trouble. But I'm allowed one or two little excursions, provided I'm with Sally and I always have my phone with me. Gotham is a big, dangerous city for someone with all of their sensory functions intact, and I imagine it must look like a world full of swords to the mother of a blind girl. I'm more self-sufficient than she realizes but I let her have her little delusions. She's getting older, after all, and I don't like upsetting people.
One of my little excursions that I'm allowed is to go to the library. Gotham Public Library, the big one downtown, is only two miles from where we live. That means it's an all-day adventure for me, and a long day of work for Sally, but I think we both enjoy it. My mother twists herself into knots the while time we're gone but I insisted a long time ago that I want to take these walks by myself.
It was during our walk to the library that I met him, actually.
Whenever I go out I have to wear my big glasses and have Mom put the vest on Sally. I read the raised lettering on the vest once, and it says SERVICE DOG FOR THE BLIND PLEASE DO NOT PET. Which is a shame for the rest of the world really, because Sally is a very friendly Golden Retriever and loves getting patted.
My one mistake—if even it could be considered a mistake—was deviating from our usual route for a hot dog. I know our usual route by heart, but I also know safe little places where I can step off the path for a minute or two. I smelled a hot dog cart somewhere by, and judging by the way Sally's tail was wagging, she smelled it too. We took a left and Sally led me straight to the cart, pulling a little because I know she wanted a bite of whatever I got.
I bought a 'dog, giving exact change, and ignoring the way the Greek man enunciated every word especially hard. I mean, I'm blind, not deaf, but plenty of people forget this and shout at me anyway. Sally and I sat on a bench and ate the hot dog together, with her enjoying a bite of the bun and most of the relish, since pickles wasn't really my thing.
The bench creaked and I felt someone sitting next to me. I got a sharp whiff of something stale and flat, like old cigarettes or gasoline. I thought it was a homeless man, but I could feel Sally tense next to me, and her fur went up beneath my fingers. She wasn't a barker or a growler but she sort of whuffed low in her chest, a little moue of impatience and perhaps fright.
"Sally," I chided her, "be nice."
I could feel the person sitting next to me turn their head.
"She's usually very polite," I apologized.
There was a long pause and I thought for a little while I was being ignored, except I could feel them looking at me. Do you know that feeling? It never goes away, it only intensifies after you lose your sight, and I usually had a pretty good idea of when people were looking at me.
Sally whuffed again and this time the person stirred. "She's, ah, cuuute."
I verified instantly that it was a man. Probably an older man. He had a deep, gravelly voice that seemed sort of sing-song. It was…unsettling, to say the least, the way his words quirked up into a higher register at the end. Was her nervous? I tended to make a lot of people nervous. He flicked the sharp syllables and those three words painted me a very quick picture. A man, probably in his thirties, tall, and probably unshaven. He seemed like the type.
"She is," I agreed, "Her name is Sally."
"Welllllll, hellllooo, Sally," he crooned, and he shifted. Probably holding out an arm for her to sniff. Sally backed away from him and whuffed a little more seriously this time, edging closer to an actual bark. I could hear the tone in that half-bark; it was a warning. She was trained to sense danger and communicate this to me, and there was something about this man she didn't like. When it came to instincts, I trusted the one with eyes first, even if that someone was a dog.
"And what's your name?" he asked, rolling the R's in a way I didn't quite like. It sent a little shiver up my spine and the picture completed itself a little more, like a paint-by-numbers picture. Unshaven, probably crooked teeth, probably receding hairline. I gave him baggy jeans and a holey tank top to complete the ensemble.
I stood up and Sally stood up immediately. She pulled away from my side, just a little, trying to pull me away. "I'm nobody," I said quietly, and turned to go.
Then he surprised me.
"Who aaare you?" He breathed, and then laughed. No. Giggled. A hushed, delighted giggle, like a small child. "Are you, ah, nobody too?"
Emily Dickens. A stranger—a threatening stranger—was quoting Emily Dickens to me.
"Then there's a pair of us…don't tell!" I added, my excitement rising. "They'd banish us, you know."
Things like this only happened in books and in movies. It didn't happen in real life. And it was happening to me, of all people. I quickly scrapped my mental image of him—a toothless vandal didn't know Dickens. I gave him an untucked shirt, long hair, and jeans, but kept the intimidating eyes. Dickens or no, he was giving me the shivers and Sally the creeps, but now I was being reckless. I wanted to be reckless. Just a little bit. Safely reckless.
"Oh, they'd do a lot more than, uh, banish us," he said, and I could hear his grin. He was done quoting the poem and I was a little disappointed—it could have turned into a whole performance, despite only being one more stanza of the poem.
"Probably. People can be hateful in that respect." I smiled at him. "They don't appreciate the nobodies."
He sounded delighted with me, as though discovering something he'd been looking for a very long time. "They don't, dooo they?" Then he giggled again, that breathy, shivering giggle that sent trails of unease down my spine.
I smiled at him, a little wider this time. "Thank you for knowing Dickens. The world needs a little more poetry, don't you think? It was nice meeting you."
Then I left. It was a remarkable experience and I would retell it to my mother and sister later that day, adding just a few embellishments here and there and omitting certain parts. I wouldn't say that Sally had gotten a bad vibe or that he had a very unappealing chuckle, but I did say that he smelled like cigarettes and gasoline. "He sounds like an educated bum," my sister Aileen had said dryly.
"Probably," I admitted.
And that was that.
But it is, as they say, where it all began.
The world does neeeeed more poetry.
Beautiful chaos in spirals swirls
craaazy
splashes and smashes and PAINTING WITH BLOOD and beautiful things like thaaaat. See Four and explosives and pretty pretty flames that licked over buildings like starving HUNGRY aaaanimals
was she blind was that a disguise no she really WAS fucking blind she had the glasses and eeeeeverythiiiing…
I'm NOBODY who are youuu are you NOBODY too? she asks all the riiiight questions and she had that
nice little
smiiile
and she didn't wear a mask like so many other FUCKING BORING PEOPLE
but he could wear masks if he wanted, if he really really triiiiiied…
Maybe he'd wear a NICE mask for once. She smelled so nice and it was almost like not being SO FUCKING BORED all the time, maybe he would see her again.
Maybe he'd rob a bank yeah yeah yeaaaahhh maybe he'd dress up and pull out a gun and really GO TO TOWN.
Maybe Batty would finally notice him because he was the preeeettiest girl at the prom ANYWAY. Not even so much as a thank you note for all that he's done for that UNGRATEFUL BITCH. how else could he get his attention how else…he'd dress up and rob a bank maybe, yeah…
he liked dressing up it was like putting on new flesh and sliding into someone's life.
yeaaahhh
he could follow her home and wait until she left that stupid dog inside and then talk to her, just talk, nobody dies from just talking, riiiiight?
nobody dies from just
taaalking. . .
Um…I don't quite know where this came from? I saw a story idea similar to this a long time ago and I thought I'd write the first chapter. I don't know if I'll even continue it really, I'm super excited about my other story but I figured I might as well get this one down on paper too. As always, any thoughts/critiques/comments/reviews/advice/letters by carrier pigeon are greatly appreciated! xoxo, Sassy Bigfoot