Hovering over my half completed crossword puzzle, I lifted my chewed pen to my dry mouth. Doing the crossword puzzle in pencil seemed too elementary for my advanced artistry. This one is a tough one. Peering up, I scoped through my spotless room. Organized piles of torn newspapers and magazines filled the cornered void. Removing the pen from my lips, I drilled my pen in the puzzle and made my way to my holy desk. My lamp was on at the lowest intensity. Staring into the reflection off the crossword, I felt my eyes drift back into my head and almost regretted giving up the sleeping pills. Depression they said. “He doesn’t sleep because he is depressed.” What a load of crock. Doctors deem an insomniac depressed to give parents something to focus on. They felt happy that they could pay fifty bucks a month for Prozac. Prozac was something they could make sense of. I threw those pills out too.
My room felt like an enclosed habitat for a nocturnal creature. The only difference was that no zookeepers came. A owl perched in a cage, looking for mice. To bad my head doesn’t rotate 340 degrees, it would give me something to do. I used to fly without the restraining bared walls. Escaping out my window, the night sky leading me to garbage picking doldrums or gazing through lighted windows, creepy, I know. One night I even fell on Jennifer Winston’s window, the peculiar brunette from English.
Hearing loud voices coming from her house, I assumed it was just a parental argument, or a shouting contest between siblings. A door slammed on the second floor and the lights had come on in one of the rooms. Her slender silhouette jammed against her door. Her dark brown hair framing her face. Her hair was never down when I saw it in school. She always had it in a tight bun on the back of her head, her glasses hiding her face. She began to brush through her thick hair that flowed down her back. Her hands lifting under her shirt, revealing her flat bare stomach. My eyes broke, realizing the nature of my thoughts. Looking down, looking away, looking up, my face turned hot. My eyes now fixed into a stare.
Five A.M, my room was a real mess. Clothes were piled up inside my opened closet; the smell of Doritos filled my habitat. During the evenings, my nocturnal instincts couldn’t escape the constant daydreaming. I tried to fathom the existence of man, the planetary rotations, and the life of owls and bats to keep myself from boredom. But my thoughts returned to that window, that brown hair.
Before my imprisonment and locked windows, I came back to her house most every night, perching myself on a park bench, no longer a caged bird. Some nights I sat for three hours, later realizing that she had already gone to bed. Most nights, her face lit up in the open window. Stalker and weirdo crossed my mind, but part of me rationalized, boredom, insomnia, what else to do but count bats. Even thinking of talking to her was unimaginable, I kept my distance. The thought tingled through my body. Sitting there, with my hands folded in my lap, I began to sweat. A light appeared out of the corner of my eye, headlights of the cops. The window rolled down. “Are you Kevin Weiten?” the passenger cop said. “Umm yes,” I said softly. He said, “Your parents called us.” His voice cut off, like he had ended a sentence. Why wasn’t I surprised? The one time they bothered to check on me, they call the cops. I shrugged my shoulders.
Later, lying in the middle of my bed, my eyes were barely open. I was tangled in her long brown hair. I stretched out my arms till my fingertips hit the ends of the bed. Closing my eyes completely. I saw clouds begin to hover over me and light drops of rain splashed on my clothes. Illumination appeared from the void, lighting a tunnel far in the distance. In the haze, Jennifer stood naked and motionless. Her brown silky hair barely covering her chest. Her eyes gazed back while her arms reached out for me….. “Oh my god!” I thought, my eyes jerking open. Wiping the drool from my mouth, I sat up half dazed. I didn't remember falling asleep, and I sure couldn’t remember the last time I had dreamt.
I couldn’t shake the feeling. I reached for the phone. The cold plastic shocked my face as I propped it up on my cheek. Hesitating, my limp finger dragged itself over the numbers. Waiting for it to dial itself, I sucked in my gut, and did it myself. Holding my breath, letting out a high pitched noise that surprisingly came out as words, "Yes directory assistance, umm the number for the last name, Winston in Wilmot please". Stammering my fingers on my desk I wondered if she was awake. Would she think I was a creep for calling? What would I say? I was feeling my dinner churn in my stomach, as the phone began to ring. Don’t hang up, don’t hang up, you have nothing to lose. Inhaling and exhaling the plastic rang for the third time….
"Hello." Sudden confidence sang through my bones and turned my woman voice into a burly brass instrument. "Hello, is this Jennifer?" I breathed.
"Yes it is, who is this?" her voice sounded sweet. "This is Kevin…from English; I sit in back of you in class?" I bit my lip and thought, oh yeah, and I accidentally saw you naked.