Early Afternoon - Thu 4 Nov. 40 PY
Dear Diary,
Our road trip continues in the midst of the nowhere found north of Paradigm. We are headed back south. I am sitting at a booth of diner. I have coffee, while Roger shoots a friendly game of billards and drinks a bottle of Budwieser. He is smiling as he cracks jokes, and the rough farmers' sons laugh. He ate a massive grilled hamburger with all of the fixings and a heap of fries smothered in ketchup. Somehow he ate it all neatly. Was he like this when he worked with Dastun?
I felt a brief flash of annoyance when he asked me if I minded if he played a round or two of pool. I could tell that Roger would play no matter what I said. He asked if I wanted to join. I replied that no, I would not mind and that no, I had no interest in a game that I would obviously dominate.
He said. "Suit yourself."
I sit writing in my notebook on a linoleum tabletop. I sip my black and unadorned coffee.
This morning, I knocked on the bathroom door. He did not answer.
I opened the door and bumped his arm as he shaved. The blade bit into his skin. He let out a yelp of surprise and pain. Droplets of blood splattered red into the sink.
"I am sorry," I said.
"Hey, watch it," he replied testily with his froth covered face. "Don't you know it's rude to barge in?"
"You did not answer."
"Well, now you know why."
He pulled toilet paper from the dispenser and stuck it onto the wound.
"Is there a first aid kit in the cabinet or in the Griffen?"
"It's nothing, it'll stop in a moment," he replied. He paused for a moment. "What's with the concern?"
"Is is so unusual?"
"I guess not. Well, are you going to close the door? It's getting a little chilly."
I stepped into the steamy room and closed the door behind me.
"Well then," he said unperturbed.
He fell silent and picked up the straight razor again.
"Allow me," I said as I plucked the blade from his hand. He seemed surprised. I walked between him and the mirror. He backed up a step. A Memory emerged. Over the floral-printed paper on the wall, I see the Memory of a wall of mirrors.
Dorothy 0 caught a glimpse of herself in the wall of mirrors around the broad chest of a man. The back of the man was hairier and broader than Roger's. The mirror wall caught its own image in the cabinet mirror and reflected its way down to a blurry infinity.
I took Roger's face firmly in my left hand, as Dorothy 0 did in the Memory. The blade carressed the corner of his jaw. He locked his gaze onto to me. He steadily studied me. That was incongruous with the lovers from long ago. I continued to shave him. I kept my eyes on the blade. It was not easy. I felt the pull to look into Roger's eyes.
I stopped with the razor above his Adam's apple. I finally gave into the urge to look up and felt an unsettling surge of vertigo. Something that I have never felt before. I noticed that I was still in my nightgown. I noticed that he stood dressed only in his colorful boxer shorts; the purple striped ones that I had bought for him.
"What am I to you?" I asked him.
"An android with a blade to my throat," he said. The feeling faded with the word "android". The Memory sank back to where it had come from.
"I suppose that I am that," I said and I finished the rest of the shave quickly.
"You give a clean shave," he said as I handed the blade back to him.
"Dorothy Wayneright had done this before."
"I wonder who the lucky guy was," Roger said as packed away his toilet.
I did not answer, because I realized that the man's name had been Roger Smith.
However, Roger Smith is a common name, is it not?
R. Dorothy Wayneright
Night - Thu 4 Nov. 40 PY
Dear Diary,
Back home again. Yes, this small neat room is mine. And this large ex-hotel is my home. We made it back a little after nightfall. Norman waited with dinner ready. He asked Roger if he had enjoyed his vacation. Roger said yes. And you Dorothy? he asked. It was interesting, I replied.
After dinner, Norman handed me a cardboard box. Dastun had been by earlier and dropped it off. It was what remained of my father's estate after the Paradigm jackals (lawyers) had been through with it. Dastun surmised that they were after my father's notes. These items happened "slipped past the beancounters, somehow".
Will you be needing my help tonight? I asked Norman. No, he replied. You probably will want some time to unwind after your journey. I took the box back to my room after thanking Norman.
In the box was the brittle paperback copy of "Pygmalion" by George Benard Shaw. I saw that it had another title: "My Fair Lady". There were two other books. One was called "Haikus" and the other was a paperback about haikus. There were a few dresses that Father had bought for me and an old notebook.
The book "Haikus" is thin with a blue canvas and board cover. The ivory endsheet behind the front cover bears an inscription: "To my Father. Slow down and listen to the jumping frog. Your loving daughter, Dotty". The handwriting is familiar, I have almost written in it before. I do not have Dorothy 0's fully flourished loops. "Haikus" is in far better condition than the paperbacks. The paper has less acid. I flipped to a page marked with a folded corner.
old pond
a frog jumps in
the sound of water
- Basho
I will have to look more into this later. The notebook seems to be the journal of Dorothy Wayneright. A sepia photo floated out when I flipped through it. A handsome older man posed with a girl who I strongly resemble. "Dorothy and Roger Smith 2003" was written on the back of the photo.
I was going to start on the part of the story that Roger told me on the way back to Paradigm, but I think that this is enough for tonight.
Good night.
R. Dorothy Wayneright