Title: My Beloved Monster
Author: Bananas in Pajamas
Chapter 1: No Weddings and a Funeral
You know what the trouble about real life is? There's no danger music.
- Jim Carrey
Routine.
Such a lovely, reassuring word. It's the security of knowing that every day won't stray from the ordinary, the real, the believable. Or so Moira Lazos thought. Moira was the type of person who needed a routine for her sanity; however, she was not a person who planned her life to the very hundredth of a second. She simply got uncomfortable without a routine of sorts, though she hadn't always lacked that joie de vive that graced most people her age.
In college she had partied a little and had gone out with friends to interesting places, like Pike Place Street Market and the pier, and done interesting things, like feeding the seagulls at Ivar's. She even had a few dates with some guy named Tony. But when she applied for a job at Renton High School, she hadn't expected to be accepted, and now, four years later, a part of her wished that she hadn't.
She was the youngest employee, the next being five years her senior at thirty-one. It wasn't that her fellow teachers were cruel or malicious, they just ignored her. Moira took this personally, though that was a large mistake on her part. Most of the older teachers felt threatened by the presence of such young blood in such a confident, likeable teacher. Had they seen through Moira's bravado, perhaps they would have been a bit kinder. As it was, she was acquainted with most of the faculty in the strictest of terms – names, faces, and departments. Anything beyond that was uncharted territory that she was too shy to explore and other teachers were too withholding to willingly share.
Her students liked her because she was funny, didn't give too many papers, and rarely allowed her students to fail – and only then had failure been the last option. As Moira jogged with her breath coming in short gasps, she ruminated on the upcoming year. She was going to teach the AP English Literature class. It was a daunting task, and a part of her couldn't help but wonder if it was a way of testing her skills. She had sent out a summer reading list and she had several ideas to make the year interesting and informative, but she would have to check the budget before anything was final.
A stinging drop of sweat dripped into her eye, jerking her from her workaholic tendencies. Her thoughts soon drifted home to Ulysses, her graceless Burmese cat, and her routine shower and breakfast which always followed her jog. Ah, yes. Do not forget the word, 'routine'. As Moira thought of what she had planned out for the day, she began to wonder when she had become such an "anal-retentive, obsessive compulsive, second-counting, first rate lunatic", in the less than delicate phrasing of her younger brother, Marcos.
Perhaps the lack of peers at work had something to do with her current hermit impersonation. Maybe it was the fact that none of her friends, with the exception of Carl, had kept in touch after college. It could have been that only she, Marcos and his wife and child, and Alexandros lived in Seattle; the rest of the family – Momma and Papa Lazos, Matthias, Nikolaos, and Theodoros – lived in Spokane. Whatever the reason for Moira's reclusive inclinations, she sadly acknowledged the fact that her social life was certainly rotting six feet under.
However, the wild part of her (the one that got her those tattoos one night – we'll come to those later, reader) wondered if she would be able to pull a Dr. Frankenstein and resurrect the corpse of her social life. Her rational side balked somewhat; 'We have to set an example for our students, and that doesn't include coming to school with a hangover or with another tattoo.' A long ignored side, her spontaneous side, felt that it was time to move on to another city or go on a road trip – Seattle didn't have much to offer her anymore (or so Spontaneous thought).
Moira stopped jogging, closed her eyes, and gripped her head. "Dear Lord, I'm becoming Sybil Dorsett," she joked, recalling the disturbing story of a young woman with multiple personalities that she had read for a psychology class that she taken. Since it was Seattle, she wasn't surprised by the chilly breeze that had slowly been picking up in the grey hours of the early morning, nor was she shocked when she felt a few icy drops on her bare shoulders and arms. What did surprise Moira was what she saw when she opened her eyes. No more than thirty feet from her, a black form was slumped against a trash can. She would have passed the person by without a second glance – as homeless people often spent the night in this particular park – had it not been for the fact that ten seconds before, the person had not been on the ground and seemingly dead.
When Erik appeared in front of God again with his choice, the Almighty looked at His Rolex wrist watch (what? Were you expecting a Casio?). Thirty years, give or take. He must have spent some time thinking about the choices to spend the equivalent of thirty years on Earth. Hang on. Thirty – odd years… something was nagging God in the back of His mind. Pulling out date book #1839235 and flipping to the year – 1915 to be exact – He now realized why Erik shouldn't go back just yet. The Lord would have slapped His forehead, had Erik not been there. How could He forget World War I? He gulped. Time to stall.
"So, Erik...do you have a middle name?"
"You should know that."
"Right then, that's a no. How about your decision?"
"I want to go back and take the third choice, becoming handsome."
"Yeah, um, that's the thing. You really shouldn't go back yet. Trust me on that one."
"So, what do we do then?"
"Do you like ping pong?"
Moira weighed her options. She could help the person, or run in the other direction and get help. The former would be dangerous since there weren't many joggers out that morning, but the latter would take too long. Mentally injecting her spinal cord with steel, she sprinted over to the person – a man – and checked him for signs of breathing, but she found none.
The oddest thing happened then – his eyes shot open, revealing the most shocking green and amber eyes she had ever seen. Moira once again checked for a pulse, which was now strong and steady, and she heard him taking deep breaths. She sat back on her heels and looked at him. The right side of his face was covered in what looked like a white porcelain mask, but his left side was left uncovered. 'Andrew Lloyd Webber, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways,' she chortled to herself. With this in mind, she grinned at the man in front of her.
"How much did Alexandros pay you?" she said, standing up and stretching out the leg muscles that would undoubtedly cramp in the now inclement weather. The look on the actor's face was priceless. "You know, my brother, Alexandros? What did he pay you to dress up like the Phantom of the Opera? I mean, yeah, my life may be less than exciting and my brothers have been trying to make my life interesting, but honestly. Couldn't they come up with something a little more original? Maybe George of the Jungle or Spiderman would have been a better choice…"
"I assure you, mademoiselle, that I am no actor, but you are correct. I am the Phantom of the Opera," a silken voice intervened, "Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me what year it is?"
"It's 2005," she said, warily watching the tall man unfold himself from his slumped position to one that towered over her five feet, three inch frame. 'Of all the days not to have my Mace,' she grumbled to herself.
"So, Erik," she said, noting the shock on his face…well…the visible half anyway, "Oh! I take it that Alexandros didn't tell you I'm a literature major? No? It means I know all about you – your name, the Grasshopper and the Scorpion, and the ventriloquism. Too bad you're only a character from a book, and therefore, do not exist."
"Who told you my name, woman?" he growled, gripping her upper arms tightly, his leathered hands warming the chilled skin beneath them.
Two things alone kept Moira from making another smart comment – one, there was a hunted, scared look in the man's eyes that made her wonder briefly if he might actually be who he said he was, and two, she was being held an inch or so off the ground effortlessly. Moira was not the most perceptive of people, as you will later see, but that she had been able to read his eyes in that moment had been a little of God's doing. After all, who do you think put Erik in front of her?
"Let go of me. Please."
The gentle plea wormed through the veil of anger that had slipped over his eyes and affected his brain. Slowly, Erik placed the small woman back on solid ground, wincing inwardly at the faint bruises that he knew were only going to get darker. 'Is this how a gentleman treats a lady?' his inner voice taunted, 'Is this how Christine would want you to act?' Erik's heart constricted painfully inside his chest, as though someone had tied his catgut friend around his delicate heart and pulled too tightly.
'He's crazier than Napoleon when he died, and he died because of advanced syphilis…turned his brain into Swiss cheese,' she thought, 'I need a plan and fast. I don't think I could outrun him…outsmart him, perhaps.' If this tale were a cartoon, instead of the highly stylized, well written story that it is, a light bulb would have illuminated above her head.
"I know where you can find Christine," she said, relying on the hallucinations of this obviously delusional man to help her make her escape.
Hitting the rewind button of Time, I would like to bring you, my dear reader, to Erik's demolished home in the fifth cellar of the Opera Populaire in Paris, France of 1871.
Erik is no more.
The obituary called Christine and Raoul back to the cavern under the Opera Populaire to fulfill Christine's promise. The sight of Erik's body, with its sliced hands, paler than pale skin, and clumps of hair that were lying around the once immaculate grotto brought tears to the young woman's eyes. She may have loved Raoul and wanted to marry him, but she loved Erik too. I do not mean she loved him as a wife loves her husband, but as a daughter who loves her father. Erik had come to her when she needed the protection and guidance of a father, and to her young mind, he had filled that role.
She had always felt a connection to him, a tie that had bound a small part of their souls together. It had become apparent the night that Erik had taken her to his home, invading her senses with his haunting songs. After seeing the wedding dress and knowing his intentions for her, Christine had been overcome with feelings of fear and betrayal. She wondered how a man that she had seen as an angel sent from her father and who she came to regard as an adopted father, could want to marry her. The thought alone was revolting.
It was because of their special bond that she had been able to sense him. She could still feel him, as though her mind and heart refused to accept the fact that Erik was dead and that he was never coming back. With this thought in mind, she tearfully turned to Raoul, her pillar of strength, and buried her face into the soft folds of his cravat. She knew without a doubt that she would not be able to marry Raoul as long as she was tied to Erik. She wanted to give Raoul her entire body, heart, and soul, and she felt that she couldn't do that as long as the ghost of the Opera Ghost haunted her. Long engagements were popular and they were still young. Besides, it shouldn't take more than a few months to exorcise her own personal demon, the voice in the back of her head that told her Raoul only noticed her when she was in the spotlight and didn't truly love her.
If Moira had known what events her seven words to the stranger had set in motion (for those of you who forgot, the words were "I know where you can find Christine."), she might have been a little more believing and a little less suspicious. As it is, life doesn't come with erasers. Just apologies.
A Note to the Readers: Sybil Dorsett actually existed, but the name was changed to protect the woman it was about. There have been debates over whether or not she truly had Multiple Personality Disorder, as her case was so severe. The book itself is a gruesome story of the abuse that a schizophrenic mother rained upon her daughter (Sybil), and how it later affected Sybil. You should not read this if you have suffered abuse, and even if you haven't, it is very hard to read through certain parts. You have been warned. The movie version, with Sally Field, was possibly one of the best movies I had ever seen, despite the horrors it revealed.
A Second Note the Readers: Advanced syphilis causes the cerebral cortex to melt, if I'm not mistaken. Either way, Napoleon went crazy because of it, and it later caused his death. I assure you though, he was nutty.
A Third and Final Note (these seem to be like Steven Segal movies - they just never stop coming): I apologize for being remiss in bringing you this chapter. The second one is on its way and should arrive by late Saturday night if I am lucky. I work 38 hours a week and I come home smelling like chlorine (I work at a pool) and exhausted, since I work evenings. Forgive me for letting this take far too long.