Unseen Presence

Julian

My poor hamster-human was a comedic relief of a nervous wreck who seemed to spiral so easily toward utter insanity. Day upon day, week upon entertaining week, there was always something that made her grateful for a single uneventful hour. Sometimes I granted it, and it paid off well, because the longer the time spanned between spurts of bad luck, the more nervous she would become.

Over the time that I had observed this Elisa, I took note of how she acted with her good friend, and often I found my tricks to be just punishment for what I could see to be unrequited respect. But why did I even care about that? These were a couple of humans, well below my own standard of respect. Yet, I was addicted to causing her duress, and then convinced myself that I looked forward to accompanying her to her friend to see the results of my tinkering. But to a small degree, I knew that seeing her friend calmed something so deep in me that I ventured no further to understand it.

Elisa had often complained that her hair was unmanageably thick and now it seemed it was becoming more manageable. Everyone was beginning to notice the changes in her, except her parents, who were off on some business-related trip, their daughter tended to by the non-English speaking housekeeper. The conversations in that household were less than interesting if at all existent. June also noticed something was off (and had been progressively so for weeks now). Elisa was visiting her again, and like the previous time, they were in June's room, Elisa was seated by her feet at the foot of her bed, supposedly watching the television contraption. This had been the only activity they had spent together doing, and from the visible, distraught state of Elisa, her eyes practically bulging from her head, there was nothing much else they could have been doing.

Indeed I had done many frightful things to her; Elisa was now terribly afraid of the dark, slept on the floor (from her fear of her bed) and banished all round things from her room (which tended to start rolling all by their innocent selves).

Her friend was trying to soothe her by brushing her hair, but stopped when she realized a lot of her hair was staying on the brush.

For a moment she sat frozen, looking from her hand full of dark curls, and seemed unsure how to bring up the subject.

"What is it?" Sensing the tension, Elisa frantically swirled around quickly as though she could feel a creepy crawly making its way up her back. I knew all too well what her reaction to that was since it was done.

June made no effort to hide the large ball of hair she had pulled from the brush.

"I know, I'm going to bald soon, aren't I?" Elisa said softly, not at all concerned. "I don't care… that's how bad it is."

June's usually lovely features contorted into one of utter concern.

"How bad what is?" June asked, perhaps pretending nothing was amiss. But that's not what she meant, "What's been happening to you? I see you less and less – and now…I'm sorry, but you seem…off your rocker somehow."

I couldn't help but snort at June's lack of delicacy.

"I know."

Silence interrupted the girls, and June was looking around the room as though she was listening to the wheels in her head turning. Elisa stared for a moment and asked her what was wrong.

"I thought I heard something…someone. Did you-?"

"No… and that's not a good sign; maybe my lunacy is rubbing off on you…"

Another silence followed, during which June glanced about the room, wondering to herself about something, and her friend's face grew dark.

" I should go."

"But-"

"I have a lot of things to think about… and I need to call my parents…I… think I might be losing my mind," she stood by the door, with her bag and coat, ready to depart. "I'm afraid to be alone with my own thoughts…"

"Elisa-"

"I'll call you later."

June sighed when her friend turned to leave, and shut the door behind her. It must have been from the realization that nothing she said was going to convince her to stay. Again, she sighed, more out of resignation and sat onto the edge of her bed. She sat this way for a while, appearing to be in deep thought. Before I could see for myself what lay in her head, her eyes shot up to look through me, though once again, it felt as though it was straight at me.

It was quite disturbing the way her hazel eyes seared through me. This had happened quite often and it was now that I realized I was looking forward to when June took notice of my unseen presence. I had also taken enjoyment is seeing her worry about her friend, how faithful, how kind she was, no matter how impatient her friend was behaving, or how rudely.

Another idea was brewing in me, but I didn't quite know what it was yet, as I watched June go to her school bag and take out the same textbook as the last time I was here many nights previous, though she turned to a page closer to the end, sighing disappointedly. When she opened her notebook I was standing directly beside her, and watched over her shoulder as she began to draw another cloaked shape into her notebook, this one holding a lantern, standing next to a boat. I realized there were a lot of similarities between her little drawing and the sporadic posters that were taped to some spots on her wall. They were all titled the same, bearing the same, elusively cloaked human. A part of me recognized my own mode of dress, apart from the contrasting white half-mask on the posters. What also occurred to me then, as never before, was that many things in her room had the same theme.

The Phantom of the Opera.

Perhaps, I would stop bothering her friend until she got better. Why not temporarily switch my target and find a different kind of amusement? The dark glare she shot me in that moment encouraged me further, while I was able to convince myself that there was no more fun to be had for now, where her friend was concerned.