A small glass jar under the seat is blueeyedboy’s contribution. The rest is all from Midnight Blue: for he is the one who turns up the sound; turns on the heater; drives home in his usual way, by his usual route, at his usual speed. Inside the open jar, a single wasp makes its way sluggishly towards freedom.
A wasp, you say? At this time of year? They are not impossible to find. Under the roof there are often nests, left over from summer, in which the insects lie dormant, waiting for the temperature to rise. Not so hard to climb up there, to ease one out of its padded cell, to transfer it into a glass jar and wait —
The car begins to warm up. Slowly the insect comes to life in an amplified burr of synths and guitars. It crawls towards the source of heat; its stinger begins to pump in time to the rhythm of the bass and drums. Midnight Blue does not hear it. Nor does he see it crawling up the back of the car seat and on to the window, where it slowly unfolds its wings and begins to stutter against the glass —
Two minutes later, the wasp is alert. A combination of music, warmth and light has fully awakened it at last. It takes flight for a moment, hits the glass, rebounds and stubbornly tries again. And then it flies into the windscreen, just at the moment when Midnight Blue approaches the junction, driving with his usual impatience, cursing the other road users, the road, tapping out his frustration on the padded dashboard —
He sees the wasp. It’s instinctive. He raises a hand towards his face. The insect, sensing the movement, veers a little closer. Midnight Blue strikes out, keeping one hand on the steering wheel. But the wasp has nowhere to go. It flies back into the windscreen, where it buzzes balefully. Midnight Blue, panicked now, fumbles for the window controls. He misses, and hits the volume instead, bumping up the sound and —
Wham! The volume kicks up from merely loud to an ear-buzzing burst of decibels; a sudden cataclysm of sound that shocks the steering wheel from his hand, sends it jerking spastically, and as Midnight Blue fights for control he slams right across the two lanes, his car tyres squealing soundlessly across the hard shoulder to hell, to the sound of a wailing wall of guitars —
I like to think he thought of me. Right at that moment, when his head smashed through the windscreen, I like to think he saw something more than just a cartoon trail of stars or the shadow of the Reaper. I’d like to think he saw a familiar face, that he knew in that flashgun moment of death who had murdered him, and why.
Then again, maybe he didn’t. These things are so ephemeral. And Midnight Blue died instantly, or at least within seconds of impact, as the car turned into a fireball, consuming everything inside.
Well — maybe the wasp made it out alive.
It didn’t even sting the guy.
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blueeyedboy: Albertine? Is that you?
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blueeyedboy: Albertine?
7
You are viewing the webjournal of Albertine.
Posted at: 22:46 on Friday, February 15
Status: restricted
Mood: awake
It’s only fiction, he protests. He never murdered anyone. And yet, there they are — his confessions in fic. Too close to be lies, too vile to be real; Valentines from the other side, picture postcards from the dead.
It is only fiction, isn’t it? How could it possibly be anything else? This virtual life is so nicely secure, battened against reality. These virtual friends, too, are safely confined behind this screen, this mouse mat. No one expects to encounter the truth in these worlds we build for ourselves. No one expects to feel it this way, through a glass, darkly.
But blueeyedboy has a special way of shaping the truth to his purpose. He does the same with people, too: winds them up like clockwork toys and sends them crashing into . . .
Walls? Articulated lorries on a busy main road?
Reader, I killed him. What dangerous words. What am I meant to do with them? Does he believe what he’s telling me, or is he just trying to mess with my mind? Nigel drove a black Toyota. And I know the style in which he drove, and his fear of wasps, and his favourite tracks, and the CD deck under the dashboard. Most of all, I remember how much that letter troubled him, and how he set off to his mother’s house to deal with his brother once and for all . . .
Blueeyedboy has been trying to reach me all day. There are five unopened e-mails from him waiting in my inbox. I wonder what he wants from me. Confessions? Lies? Declarations of love?
Well, this time I won’t react. I refuse. Because that’s what he wants. A dialogue. He’s played this game so many times. He admits that he is manipulative. I’ve watched him do it with Chryssie and Clair. He likes to subject them to mind games, to push them into declaring themselves. Thus, Chryssie is besotted with him; Clair thinks she can heal him; Cap wants to be him, and as for myself . . .
What do you want of me, blueeyedboy? What kind of reaction do you expect? Anger? Scorn? Confusion? Distress? Or could this be something more than that, some declaration of your own? Could it be that, after watching the world through a glass for so long, you finally, desperately want to be seen?
At ten o’clock the Zebra shuts. I’m always the last one out of the door. I found him waiting for me outside, under the shelter of the trees.
‘Walk you home?’ said blueeyedboy.
I ignored him. He followed me. I could hear his footsteps behind me, as I’ve heard them so many times.
‘I’m sorry, Albertine,’ he said. ‘Obviously I shouldn’t have posted that fic. But you wouldn’t answer my e-mails, and—’
‘I don’t care what you write,’ I said.
‘That’s the spirit, Albertine.’
We walked in silence for a while.
‘Did I tell you I collect orchids?’
‘No.’
‘I’d like to show them to you some day. The Zygopetala are particularly fragrant. Their scent can fill a whole room. Perhaps I could offer you one as a gift. By way of an apology—’
I shrugged. ‘My house plants never survive.’
‘Neither do your friends,’ he said.
‘Nigel’s death was an accident.’
‘Of course it was. Like Dr Peacock’s and Eleanor Vine’s—’
I felt my heart give a sick lurch.
‘You didn’t know?’ He sounded surprised. ‘She passed away the other night. Passed away. What a strange expression. Makes her sound like a parcel. Anyway, she’s dead meat. Poor Terri will be inconsolable.’
We walked in silence after that, crossing Mill Road by the traffic lights, listening as the trees came alive over our heads in the rising wind. No snow this year — in fact it is unusually mild, and the air has a milky quality, as if a storm were coming. We passed by the silent nursery school; the shuttered and empty bakery; the Jacadees’ house, with its scent of fried garlic and yams and roasting chillies.