The Others – Twenty Seven

Posted on November 13, 2015 by Helen

 

Image credit: Dimitro2009

Image credit: Dimitro2009

Part of what they propose?

“Go on,” I said, because I had nothing else to say at the time. Natalie had rested her head on my shoulder. It was so close to something completely impossible that I wanted anyway that I almost cried.

“All right, basically, amoral creature that I was and curious as to the limits of my abilities, I took to a bit of a life of crime. It wasn’t anything to do with needing money or drugs or any other such thing, you will appreciate that those were always at my disposal. It was to see what I could do by being ‘invisible’. It seemed risky at first, but if I was caught I planned to pull the ‘sad rich boy’ act and get off with a hand-slap and some therapy, and anyway I soon realised I was accomplished. I went from just taking things from people in small cafes or bars, through to following them into their homes and taking their belongings from right under their noses. As long as they hadn’t seen me before I started to follow them, and nothing outside of myself made me come into their consciousness, they just didn’t see me or what happened. They found it impossible to look at where I was, and so wherever I was became open season for the taking.

I often gave the stuff back, left it like a mystery in their backyards or in the middle of their lounge-room floors or whatever. I didn’t need it. But sometimes I also kept it, like keepsakes, it depended upon my mood. I’d like to say it depended upon their own wealth or lack thereof, that I returned to those more in need, but I’ve always been more quixotic than that..”

“Don Quixote’s eccentricity without the moral vision. Given that I don’t think the word means what you think it means,” I said dryly. Gabriel laughed. He seemed impossible to disturb or offend.

“Exactly! What I didn’t realize, of course, until you and your filmic discovery, was that my invisibility, and that of Natalie, was just as powerful on film. See, I’d never even guessed that. I’d never thought to test it out, it had never occurred to me at all. I thought if other people didn’t see me it was probably some form of telepathic control I had on their minds, not something that was actually physical, for want of a better word. So I never tried anything like my own building, nothing that would have security cameras, and it would never have occurred to me in a million years that the security cameras at your friend’s bar would have ‘lost’ me either, so I never did anything illegal anywhere were cameras were likely to be present. It was a bit of an impediment to me, but you showed me that under certain circumstances, I need not worry about that, as long as I am never seen by anyone from the very beginning of any crime, the film won’t see me either. If I cloak myself in my intent to be invisible well in advance of approaching the building in question, I’ll leave no filmic footprints of my presence at all. This was a wonderful thing to realize!”

“I’m gratified I could be so enlightening to you Gabriel,” I responded, sarcastic. I’m not sure why I thought I was in a position to inhabit the moral highground but I claimed it nevertheless.

“Oh Peter, don’t be so pedestrian, you know you’re beyond all that, just as we are.”

“Yes Peter,” said Natalie, suddenly seductive, touching my hand with a form of coquetry, “You’re no more like other people than we are and you know it! So let Gabriel finish!”

It was almost like a mother chastising her child, although it was a whole lot more sexual than that. I felt like a morsel trapped on a web shared by two irresistible spiders, awaiting my end, and wanting it.

“So,” Gabriel continued, amused at most by my reluctance to just acquiesce, and watching Natalie very closely because he clearly knew what she was doing and approved, “We’ve been testing the ability in places with cameras, mainly buildings around here, and this one. I don’t need to explain to you in detail, I’m sure, how we both managed to test that and then get access to the security camera film? You’d realize it was all part of the same process? We were very successful I must say. Sometimes we did it alone, sometimes together and both invisible sometimes having one distract while the other entered. We mixed it up a bit. It was fun.”

“It was!” Natalie agreed, glowing.

“And then we had this idea. How we could use this new-found talent and do something for you Peter. Something to say thank you, but also to demonstrate the many possibilities our abilities provide for us, and for any business venture.”

“A thank you for me?” I asked. I was at a loss to see how this could be achieved. Had they stolen some incredible piece of technology for me? Was that it? Why not just buy the bloody thing if they wanted to say thank you, then. Gabriel could afford it. Just showing off, that was all it was.

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t that at all.

“So, for you to see the gift, we need to show you a film we made. Watch this and it will all become clear.”

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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Schadenfreude – Nine

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: conejota

Image credit: conejota

Vlad: Did you like the show?
Schadenfreude: To all accounts you were very good.
Vlad: To all accounts? What does that mean?
Schadenfreude: Others say so, don’t you want to know that too? Do you only want my opinion?
Vlad: Yes, frankly!
Schadenfreude: That’s dangerous
Vlad: I think I might have representation
Schadenfreude: So I hear..
Vlad: Are you pretending and showing off or does news travel that fast?
Schadenfreude: This is the net..you have to ask if news travels fast?
Vlad: OK..I wanted to talk with you last night..I wanted us to meet..
Schadenfreude: I know
Vlad: You left!
Schadenfreude: I was not there to talk with you, that is correct..
Vlad: Why did you leave? Why weren’t you waiting at your table when I finished?
Schadenfreude: I couldn’t be there..it’s impossible..
Vlad: I want to meet you!
Schadenfreude: I know
Vlad: You’re very pretty
Schadenfreude: Am I? Thank you
Vlad: You look a bit like that girl Nina from Vampire Diaries
Schadenfreude: My goodness, I’m a pop culture reference!
Vlad: It was a compliment..when can we meet?
Schadenfreude: Hmm..do you know Claude’s, the alfresco bistro in Barrack Street?
Vlad: Yes!
Schadenfreude: I might be there tomorrow for lunch. I might be meeting a friend..or I might be alone
Vlad: OK, I might be there.
Schadenfreude: Then you might be the friend I might be meeting

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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The Others – Twenty Six

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: My Good Images

Image credit: My Good Images

“I should begin by explaining something” Gabriel said as he stood before his home entertainment unit, apparently ready to show me this mystery film to which he had referred both in the invitation, and on and off over the first few hours of our cocktail strewn celebration.

I nodded, indulgent, relaxing back in the extreme comfort of his leather lounge, my arm almost insouciantly draped around Natalie’s shoulders as though she belonged at least partly, also to me.

To my right Gabriel’s impressive windows and balcony displayed a Sydney skyline view that many realtors would kill for. On occasion my eyes were drawn to the lustrous beauty of Sydney city lights at night. I wished I had a view like that. For me, if I stood up on my bath’s rim and peered to the left from my bathroom window I could just see Bondi Beach. It was hardly the same thing, though when I’d first responded to the rental advertisement for the flat it had proclaimed ‘beach views’. Well, it was literally true I suppose.

But this night there was more to see within the flat than outside it. I’d noticed that Gabriel never really looked at the view himself, as though its ubiquity had removed its charm. And now he was very intent on us all watching something within, not without.

“You will recall,” he continued, “When I told you of my youth and learning about this ‘gift’ that I said I tested it, not always in ways that would be considered moral?”

“I do,” I said, quelling the dark suspicion I had felt for weeks now that Natalie had now been drawn into similar evils.

“Well, I suppose in truth, I’d have to say I’m rather amoral. Or, you can’t be ‘rather amoral’ can you, really, it’s an absolute, either you are or you aren’t. So, I must admit, I am amoral. I don’t know if it is part of me innately or if it developed because of what I can do, out of some sort of feeling that I was above the consequences of my actions on others because normal people, forgive me, do seem to me rather like an animal might to you. Charming, loyal sometimes, but inferior.”

I snorted and took a sip of my cocktail. I knew what he said was probably true but it was repellant, of course, to me. I chose to find the moment humorous rather than insulting.

“We don’t mean to offend you Peter,” Natalie said hurriedly. I looked at her, understanding it was now ‘we’, not Gabriel and Natalie singular, but unified. As Gabriel saw ‘normal’ people, so had she come to see them. I felt a bit sick.

“Not at all,” Gabriel said, “Indeed, we are indebted to you, and it is clear that since you had the talent to find us, to see the truth, you are by far ahead of your peers. Indeed, you may be in a class of your own.”

“Don’t flatter me!” I retorted, because that seemed worse than the offence. Was I to be beguiled by the compliment and so give some moral and intellectual value to their pretensions of glory? They had an odd gift, of course, but that just as easily made them mutants as it would gods. I was feeling very high-handed because I felt out-numbered and outclassed. I didn’t like the feeling at all.

“It’s not flattery, it’s true. None of this would have been possible without you. So, we’ve got a kind of thank you gift for that, which I’ll get to, but first, let me continue. Please understand we don’t see you like the others, we needed you and we need you, so we aren’t talking of you. I must stress that you will need to be able to differentiate yourself from them if you are to be part of what I will propose…”

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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Schadenfreude – Eight

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Coy_Creek

Image credit: Coy_Creek

It was also about time to go behind the makeshift curtain because the first couple of acts had almost finished – each, David thought with a sense of self-gratification, ignored by Andrew. Perhaps it was his night after all, in more ways than one. The point was, where was Schaden, if indeed she had come? It was theoretically easier to look out at the shadows in the back of the room when he was on stage, but the lighting would dim his clarity. So he took a moment, standing by the edge of the stage area, to look outside the focus of the stage lights.

He saw Andrew first, almost mythically large and dark like the lord of the underworld, looming to the right of the tables at the back. He was leaning back, watching the stage, a look of endurance on his face as the compere (if you could call the hack that ran the pub something as celebrated) threw out his tired jokes as fillers before introducing David.

But he wasn’t looking for Andrew, no matter how enticing their conversation had been. He was looking for a girl – he was sure of it – and there were a few to choose from at the tables. Only one, though, who seemed likely. Most were gathered in groups and David felt sure Schaden would have arrived on her own. So the one that sat to the far left, in the darkest part of the room, slowly sipping what looked like a cocktail, had to be her. It was Schaden’s type of place to sit. It was Schaden’s type of look – or what he’d imagined – very slim, rather angular in looks just like David was, very dark, with intense eyes. And there was what had to be the final proof. Those eyes, hawklike, glittering, steady, were looking back at him.

It was her all right. He could feel her wicked humour telegraph to him as clearly as it did over the internet.

David risked a smile in her direction but did not have time to see her response. The compere was calling out for him to go on stage.

He alighted adrenalized, hopeful, expectant. The lights in his eyes for once did not dazzle him. His patter for once went completely smoothly. Even in the haze before him he could at least see the signs of mirth and laugher in the audience and particularly in the hulking girth of Andrew. Schaden was harder to make out – she’d chosen her spot well, as though she knew with almost a professional performer’s eye, where to hide. Of course, she would. He wondered momentarily if she was actually a performer also, though he’d never seen her around the traps.

Nevermind, he thought. He was sure she was watching him. He felt it, like a glow that caressed him with approval and amusement.

His excitement was hard to contain. He reached the end of his ten minutes to sincere and enthusiastic applause and approval and bounded off the stage area.

‘Great show!’ the compere told him, and for once it didn’t seem to be the automatic and hollow rhetoric that it usually sounded like.

‘Very good,’ another voice said behind him, and he turned to see Andrew.

David didn’t want to stay to talk, he wanted to go and find Schaden, but he wasn’t going to walk away from Andrew. He had a profession to think about, and another – accountancy – to escape. This was definitely the nearest he had got to achieving that so far.

‘I want to talk with you,’ Andrew said, ‘Call me during the week. I can’t stay now. I have to go. Something’s come up at home..’

‘Oh,’ David said. Andrew shot him a look that said, what’s a guy to do? David nodded. They communed on a man to man level – guy to guy – both understanding the secret code about domestic affairs and their inhibiting effect on ‘their’ lives.

The man mountain turned and left him. David took a moment to calm himself, then headed out to the hotel tables in search of Schaden.

The balloon deflated in an instant, and suddenly even the promise of success seemed bitter on his tongue. He looked over to her table, expectant, eager.

And she was gone.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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The Others – Twenty Five

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Ryan Jorgenson

Image credit: Ryan Jorgenson

So, a great victory achieved, I had time to rest back on my laurels. And I’d survived the lunch intact, and as I sobered over time I realized that was a significant fact in itself.

Natalie was so grateful I almost started to hope she might return the affection and attraction I felt for her, but it became quite obvious in a relatively short space of time that she was more drawn to Gabriel. I suspected they had become lovers quite quickly but I never asked because frankly I didn’t want to know.

Having established their introduction it seemed I was dispensable, at least as a companion if they wanted to spend time together. The electrical field between them seem to have been nullified or neutralized by having met and spoken properly. I might have hoped I’d always need to be there, but like the first domino that falls to set off the cavalcade, it seemed I’d pretty much achieved my purpose at the very beginning.

It wasn’t that they avoided me, or ‘dumped’ me like some expendable lover. Both remained in contact with me and we met, sometimes all three together, and sometimes with each separately. Gabriel seemed to feel responsible for the dissolution of my filming experiment, or at least its distraction. He was very encouraging about looking past the phenomenon of Natalie and himself to what I originally wanted to achieve. I’d lost interest however. Nothing would be as exciting as that.

“Who am I kidding?” I said to him one day, “It was a long shot I’d get anything interesting anyway. I just didn’t have any other ideas, or not ones that I could afford at any rate.”

“Well, money need not be a problem anymore,” Gabriel said. I understood he was offering to be my benefactor. It was very tempting but I felt a bit concerned about owing him something. I liked that at this stage he owed me. It seemed like the only way to keep the power balance even remotely on my side. But, his money could allow me to pursue my real dream, an actual proper film.

And let’s face it, my project was pretty much down the toilet to all intents and purposes, as I said. Even George seemed to have tired over waiting for something illicit or sexy from me so I doubted he’d have encouraged me to continue endlessly. Gabriel’s offer was compelling therefore. I said I’d get back to him when I’d worked something out, buying time and desperately trying to discipline myself.

“Whatever you wish,” he conceded, but I think he knew my discomfort and its origin. I think he knew but didn’t really care.

Natalie was happy. I liked that. She said Gabriel was teaching her how to recognize her ‘talent’ as he called it and to control it. She said he sent her on experiments and tests and that she was doing well. She seemed finally to be reveling in something that had formerly shadowed her days at best.

But sometimes she took to speaking quite condescendingly of the people she ‘played’ as she called it. I’d remind her I was one of those types of people and she’d laugh and tell me I was silly. But it did disturb me. She seemed to be becoming more and more like Gabriel and I wasn’t sure this was a good thing. I would have preferred he had become more and more like her, but I suppose knowledge never becomes innocence, it’s always the other way round. He made me think of some roué, some licentious and dissolute creature teaching the virgin the ropes. It was disturbing, but then, I was jealous of him, so that colored my view. I am not so blind to myself that I didn’t recognize that.

That might have been an ending to it all, really – an ending to the most interesting story of my life – its narrative spent. But, I’m not the only person with ideas. It wasn’t the end at all.

In many senses, it was just a beginning, and the beginning of the beginning really started with a phone call and an invitation from Gabriel to a “mini-celebration for the three of us” at his apartment that night.

“I’ve got some film to show you,” he said, “Which I’m sure you’ll find most engaging. And after that, I’ve got a proposition to make. I do hope you will come.”

How could I resist?

“Of course I’ll come” I replied, “How could I say no to an intriguing invitation like that?”

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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Schadenfreude – Seven

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Nazarino

Image credit: Nazarino

Wednesday night he felt ill with anticipation. It wasn’t just the pre-stage nerves, though he routinely suffered from that affliction – one that could usually be remedied somewhat by a few stiff drinks before he stumbled on stage. It was more the anticipation that possibly Schaden could be there. In the shadows. Like she’d half-promised.

She didn’t promise at all Voice reminded him, she just said maybe, and you know what ‘maybe’ means from a woman.

The same as it does from a man he thought angrily in reply to Voice.

‘Hey Dave, you ready for the night?’

The jovial greeting came from Andrew, the manager of a number of well-known comedy acts and a regular ghost that haunted the amateur shows at the hotels and bars of the city. David turned to him, instantly overwhelmed as he always was by the sheer size of the man. David was rather delicate, with an angular face and body, more a lithe woodland creature than the big bear that was Andrew. He always thought it suited Andrew to manage. People had probably been doing whatever he said from the days in the playground. Not something that could be said of David.

‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ David replied, ‘You want a drink? I was just going to get another one before I go on stage.’

‘No thanks,’ said Andrew, ‘I’m here to check you all out, and I like to be clear-headed to do that. You got some new material?’

David felt instantly defensive.

‘Some,’ he said, ‘I’m constantly working it.’

Inside he thought, most of your ‘acts’ Andrew, re-cycle their material year after year with the avidity and fanaticism of the environmentally sound. Why was it always only the ‘unknowns’ that had to be original these days?

‘Good job,’ Andrew said, ‘I’ve liked your work of late. We might have to talk if you’re after representation.’

David felt like fainting. A brief vision of the horror of his daily work in the accountancy office rose before him and then seemed to fall away on a great tidal wave of hope.

‘Any time Andrew,’ he replied, suddenly warming to the monstrosity before him.

He smiled at Andrew, who smiled back at him. David thought to himself Andrew might even be attractive to some people after all – he was handsome in an intensely forbidding and blokey kind of way. And he was large, but it wasn’t fat, he clearly worked out, or he just had a giant for a father. Not David’s type when his desires were so inclined, but still…perhaps not as black as he had been painted.

Then Andrew nodded to him and patted him rather patronizingly on the shoulder.

‘See you after the show maybe,’ he said, ‘I’m off to watch the acts from up the back, and to watch over my girl.’

‘Your girl?’ David asked, ‘Your wife?’

Everyone knew Andrew was married. He wore a ring, he sometimes spoke affectionately of his ‘kids’, so why say ‘girl’? It seemed a strange term to use, and even stranger that she would be here at the hotel that night. He’d always thought comedy wasn’t reputed to be her ‘thing’.

Andrew smirked at him and winked, then shook his head, withdrawing.

Oh, I get it, thought David.

About time, thought Voice.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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The Others – Twenty Four

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: PathDoc

Image credit: PathDoc

Who’d have thought I’d belong with such as these? If, indeed, I did.

“And you Peter?” Gabriel said, once she had finished. We had finished our lunch and were left drinking champagne, feeling a bit light-headed and free, “How did you come to discover this?”

The drink had loosened my tongue and so I was a bit loquacious I must admit, and all my petty resentments came to the fore, as though to prove I had also suffered in life, if in no way as directly as Natalie. If I don’t think before I speak as a normal course of events, it’s probably far worse if I’m drunk. I talked a lot and I don’t remember much of what I said now – perhaps this is a blessing – but most of it was about my frustrations with getting anywhere with film and that led inevitably to the tedious and revolting and demeaning work at the home shopping channel.

“That prick Roger” I said, over and over. I followed each expletive by the indignities he had subjected me to, his lack of artistic understanding let alone integrity, and finally the ignominy of being fired by the bastard.

I didn’t even know till then how much I loathed him. I resented his money, his success. I probably resented everything about him in fact, and the casual injustice of a world that would raise one so relatively high. This seems to be a bit of an issue with me, I must admit, making being in the presence of these higher order beings something that was likely to be corrosive over time. But in the middle of my ranting I little realised or cared about such consequences. I just liked talking about it with a willing audience.

“He has a bigger apartment than this,” I spat at one stage, “And it is appallingly decorated, I can tell you, Roger, home shopping’s king of kitsch! And he’s done nothing of merit for it. He’s just a sniveling little salesman who had one good idea in his whole life and has worked and re-worked it ever since. Makes you sick.”

“It certainly does,” Gabriel agreed in measured tones, pouring me more champagne.

My invective knew no bounds. In my testimony Roger represented everything that was wrong in film today, in television, in mass marketing. He was more than a person to hear me tell it. He was a disease.

“It was the exact opposite thing I was looking for in my club filming project, which was something deeper, something more intimate but also more universal. I wanted a statement, a new thought, a new idea, something fresh! Something as far away from Roger’s insipid little universe as I could get” I announced, and then fell back on my chair, as though defeated, with only enough breath for one more statement, “And of course, I found it, in you two, and I can’t use it.”

“Of course you can’t” Gabriel agreed, “Not as film, anyway.”

“I wouldn’t!” I declared, sitting forward again, “I have principles! You are my friends.”

But were they, or was I just announcing this and my fealty because I desperately wanted it to be so? Somewhere in my champagne befuddled mind a little fear was speaking to me of what creatures like this might do about someone who knows their secret, has film of it in fact, after any initial gratitude had worn off. But I wasn’t listening. I was just bumbling on, making statements I wanted to be true, as though by simply saying them they were given the aura and impact of truth.

“Of course.” Gabriel agreed.

“Bastard of a turn of events though,” I allowed, “But that’s my life.”

“Perhaps,” Gabriel responded, watching me with an odd expression in his eye, “Though things sometimes have a habit of turning out differently to what you’d expect.”

He looked at Natalie. I noticed she looked back at him just as knowingly, as though these strange creatures now communed on some telepathic level. It was probably the champagne. I was well and truly wasted, so I can’t verify any impressions by that stage. It’s just what I remember now.

“Tell me about it!” I agreed, and laughed with them both. They had begun the laugh you see, so I wanted to be included, even though I wasn’t sure what the joke was, and I was just a little bit frightened it was me.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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Schadenfreude – Six

Posted on October 18, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: chanpipat

Image credit: chanpipat

Eventually, something in the tide seemed to turn, as inexplicable and sudden as her comings and goings had formerly been. David himself triggered it, based on her implied interest in his comedy, but even he was surprised when this seemed to bear fruit.

Vlad: If you’re afraid I’m some pervert you can come and watch me perform. I’m at Open Mic next Wednesday night at the Sandford Hotel..
Schadenfreude: Perhaps I will..
Vlad: Will you? It starts at about 10pm and I’ll probably be on third…
Schadenfreude: Perhaps..
Vlad: You’re not coming, are you?
Schadenfreude: I said..perhaps..I’ll see what I can arrange…
Vlad: Really? I mean, it would be good, you’ll see I’m not raving pedophile lunatic and perhaps then you’ll agree to actually meet…
Schadenfreude: I never said I was afraid you were a pedophile..
Vlad: Well..
Schadenfreude: I know you’re not..I know what you are David..and what you’re not..
Vlad: There you go, being all mysterious and portentous again..
Schadenfreude: LOL..I do not mean to be..I’m just being precise…but I may come and see you perform..if I do..I’ll be at the back of the room..in the shadows..
Vlad: LOL. Because you are so suited to the shadows..
Schadenfreude: As I am..as I am…

As she was. She didn’t even give him her real life name, ever. She joked that she didn’t have one. ‘I’m Schadenfreude’ she’d say over the net, ‘That is all and everything I am…’. Still, it was a start. While half of the girls on the net would probably want to kill Schaden on sight, he just wanted one sight of her.

She liked to be mysterious. Another time, another chat:

Vlad: You’re female aren’t you?
Schadenfreude: Do you want me to be?
Vlad: What does that mean, that you’re a guy?
Schadenfreude: I’m what I seem to be…that’s what I am..
Vlad: So you’re a girl..
Schadenfreude: You don’t like boys then, David?
Vlad: I like boys..sometimes..I prefer girls as a general rule..but that’s not the point.. you seem like a girl..and you say you are what you seem..are you lying?
Schadenfreude: I never lie David..
Vlad: Good, so you are a girl..
Schadenfreude: I am what I seem..

He’d never met anyone as funny in his life. He’d never met anybody he enjoyed so much. It seemed only fair to take it all to the next level. It seemed only right that they should meet. But if she wanted to play it all mysterious as usual, who was he to complain? She was very good at that, after all. And as she said, she was ever, and only, what she seemed.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015 All Rights Reserved

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The Others – Twenty-Three

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Yuliya Yafimik

Image credit: Yuliya Yafimik

I suppose this must have been an amazing moment for them. For all I knew neither of them had met another of their kind, even unrecognized, given how difficult it seemed. Beyond this, they might be the only ones of their kind. No matter how confident Gabriel seemed, it still must have been lonely, even for him. And he’d struggled for this contact, and he’d decided to trust an unknown – me – to bring it into being. And for Natalie, it goes beyond words. All those years of appearing insignificant, invisible, to finally be seen and seen as crucially important, as belonging. So it would have been incredible, and really, to even want a part of it was disgustingly greedy of me. But hey, I’m no saint. I didn’t want to be left out.

But Gabriel, as I would come to learn, is almost a social savant. He picks up nuances that would be lost on the rest of us. Maybe it’s from being able to invisibly watch others, see their secrets, when they think no-one’s looking, or maybe he’s just smarter than most of us. In either case, he’d given Natalie just what she wanted at the moment she needed it, then he turned and did the same for me.

“And we have you to thank Peter. And I do, very much.”

“You’re welcome,” I answered, rather amazed at his timing, but happy to be acknowledged. “It is an extraordinary thing though, once I saw it on film I had to see it through.”

“Nevertheless,” Gabriel said, saying it all, “Please, eat! Eat!”

We fell to companionable discussion. Just the three of us, as normal as can be, just friends sharing a lunch. Extraordinary.

Gabriel told us of his life, his travels and his education. He told us how he’d come to realize his ‘difference’ fairly young, but because he was an only child and a darling of his mother, it had never been a vexation. If this ability ran in the family, the bloodline, she either never knew or never spoke of it, and for Gabriel the concept that he could be unique never seemed something worthy of questioning.

Wrapped in love and unconditional attention when he needed it, in that home he would never have felt left out or overlooked. It wouldn’t have occurred to him. He just came to realize that he could do things other people couldn’t.

“I hadn’t so much felt invisible and left out as capable of hiding,” he said, “I suppose that was the key. So I played with it, and in doing so, became more and more aware. I wasn’t always what you would call moral about it, but it was like a science investigation, there are casualties to that. What I was always looking for, and have only just found of late in you Natalie, was someone like me. I was surprised how hard it was to make contact though. It showed me something else I hadn’t known about this state of being, and difficulties associated with it I hadn’t anticipated.”

Natalie responded by explaining how it had been to her, but that she had never realized what it meant. As she spoke I saw a real tenderness and understanding on Gabriel’s face, and I saw how she responded to that with a simple, childlike gratitude. That should have made me happier for her, but it somehow angered me slightly. He could commune on a level I never could, understanding her state in a way I never would. It made me a little jealous. But as she spoke, how could I begrudge her this little happiness this connection?

“I just thought I was uninteresting, unattractive, of no real consequence, like people didn’t see me because I wasn’t worth seeing.”

“You poor thing” Gabriel sympathized, “It’s not true, not true at all.”

“Yes!” she agreed, “I didn’t understand any of it until Peter showed me the film! I had no idea! I was just unhappy all the time, just alone, but even if I tried to tell friends to get them to see how it was, they never did. How could they, I suppose.”

She continued to sketch out her life story to Gabriel much as she had previously done for me. Again I was amazed how open these creatures of talented hiding were to each other and to me. I wanted to hug her as she told the tale, but as usual I felt unable to get that close. Gabriel watched her steadily, attentive, only occasionally glancing to me with a kind of knowing look. It wasn’t derisive or judgmental of her at all; instead it sought only to include me. I wasn’t sure if a master of the art was just beguiling me. By then I didn’t really care.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Serial Horror Stories, The Others | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Schadenfreude – Five

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Andresr

Image credit: Andresr

David loved it. They met in chat rooms when no-one else was around and talked about her exploits. She managed over a few weeks to break down some of the allegiances of months or years. She set one against the other. She slithered between friendships and paraded before the incensed group. She threw a bomb into an already paranoid and distrustful medium and stood back to watch it explode. David joined in sometimes, mostly anonymously. He had a fledgling career to protect. But he participated nevertheless. This was fun.

Once she typed to him:

Schadenfreude: It’s funny, sometimes I’m not just..vicious..sometimes I argue in defence of someone who is being unfairly attacked..in fact..I do that quite often really..
Vlad: I’ve noticed..
Schadenfreude: Have you? How gratifying. I find it interesting..amusing really..that the ones who are the biggest bullies squeal the most when they are similarly attacked.. have you noticed that?
Vlad: Indeed I have, especially since you’ve been around..
Schadenfreude: It is as though the minute you call them on something they immediately become a victim in their own minds, victimized simply by the fact that they were caught victimizing..it’s funny..they think you can’t bully a bully…
Vlad: Indeed it is, but you’re getting dangerously close Schaden to being that which you criticize..
Schadenfreude: Not at all..I don’t claim to be kind, and I’d never claim to be a victim..no matter what I was caught doing..I am what I say, I am what I seem..and that is all..

Some of the girls who were more sensitive eventually fled before the tide of Schaden’s apparent fury and judgment. Others stuck it out obstinately. The more stupid among them, like Lizzie, perpetually tried to attack her in a way that opened the door for reflection of all the criticisms right back into Lizzie’s more than substantial lap.

For a few days at a time she’d wreak havoc and then leave them to struggle to retain some sense of themselves in her wake as she’d disappear again for maybe a week, maybe a month. That was frustrating for David – her absences. She never explained them, she was utterly unpredictable, elusive. And she seemed incredibly reluctant to communicate more personally – via the telephone or in meeting, no matter how David would cajole her in the chat rooms whenever he happily found her present.

He even suggested they try the dreaded Skye option, and he honestly wasn’t sure if he was frustrated or relieved when she refused that option. Maybe a bit of both, and also a bit hopeful since she implied they may meet soon enough in real life, perhaps at a comedy gig. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about camera lens distortion in real life.

Yes, you need all the help you can get said Voice.

Schaden would also regularly tell David that he should expand his net horizons, that the playing fields were more widespread than he imagined. ‘It’s not just little girls that fight and scream and bitch’ she’d say, ‘You should see a bunch of academics going for it, or the would-be occultists that haunt certain sections of the web.’ David was in no mood to play, he resented her absences, and refused to be coaxed. He wanted to be the hunter, after all, and for her to be complicit in the hunt.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Schadenfreude, Serial Horror Stories | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments