The Misfortunates

ii

Jessalyn

She stepped out of the shelter her apartment building gave her and tightened the scarf around her neck. It was an irritatingly icy morning, it was cold enough that the cup of tea Jessalyn had in the morning froze into an ice cube in the shape of the mug she had used. She shivered. Bitter cold wrapped around Jessalyn in an unwanted embrace, she would have preferred to stay at home that day, but couldn’t; after all today she had enough errands to complete it would have taken her until midnight to finish.

She was early. Jessalyn woke up just after the sun had risen and painted the sky in colours. She couldn’t sleep. Her nerves were tense with worry about the outcome of the test paper she had done two days prior.

Jessalyn fixed the strap of her bookbag and positioned it across her shoulder, wincing once she passed the bruise on her arm that she had gotten after she rode her bike into a tree by accident. She took off in the direction of her university, her bag, an ever pain in the butt and shoulder, bounced as she pushed past the pedestrians who streamed into the cross section.

She sighed and scolded herself. She should have woken up earlier, now she was stuck in the morning crowd surrounding by the sounds of people constantly bickering through their phones. Was there any reason Jessalyn had to know that a man’s brother impregnated a girl so early in the morning?

Annoyance invaded her consciousness when a pounding headache rose at the side of her head, she wondered if there was an imaginary builder stood right by her, and with the aid of a little imaginary hammer, he knocked on her head repeatedly, over and over again, until the ache turned into a numb throb that was easy to ignore.

There was a whirl of colours, red and green stood out among them and Jessalyn found herself sprawled on the ground with her book bag on her lap. She was dazed and blinked to clear the confusion away. The same expression was returned to her by another girl, fallen onto the ground in front of Jessalyn, but instead of a book bag by her side, she had a laptop clutched to her chest and dozens of sheets of paper surrounded her.

Bright red hair, tied up loosely in a bun with a pencil stuck through it, the girl shook her head and babbled apologies while she helped Jessalyn up. The girl fixed Jessalyn’s book back and gave her a weak smile.

“I am so sorry!” The girl exclaimed. “I didn’t see you there, I’m sorry, oh whoops.”

A stack of paper were in Jessalyn’s hands, she had picked them up while the girl rambled on before she passed them into the girl’s left hand while her right held the laptop protectively.

“It’s no problem,” Jessalyn said.

“Oh thank you, again, I’m sorry - “

“You don’t need to-”

“I was just in a hurry, you’re alright, right?” The girl pressed on. “No injuries or cuts or anything that I would have to pay your hospital bills for?”

Jessalyn blinked dumbly, mouth hanging open slightly. Where was this girl from? Was she actually human or Martian? Was this really how a person acted? Jessalyn wasn’t too sure, she kept herself well distanced from any relationships or acquaintances.

“I am so sor-”

“You don’t need to apologise,” Jessalyn rushed out, worried the girl wouldn’t let her speak a full sentence. “Really, I’m fine, and I believe this belongs to you?”

Jessalyn held up a small purse that was the lightest shade of pink. The girl took it with an embarrassed nod. With another apology, the girl rushed off in another direction leaving Jessalyn to the eruption of sounds all around her.

She couldn’t ignore the noise, alas, she had to wait with it. Jessalyn always hated that part of her day, the time when she couldn’t have any peace or quiet and the time when she wished she could run off to a desolate island in the Bahamas or Hawaii. Screams, grunts and yells rose in crescendo as if they followed the instructions from a music instructor.

It brought back scrambles of memories, memories Jessalyn tried hard enough to keep hidden and locked away in an asylum within her mind. Never to scorch the surface of Earth with it’s raging flames. She shook her head in hopes it would shake off the past, but that was a fool’s hope.

Memories cannot be washed away or hidden, but they can be kept and ignored. It was then that Jessalyn tuned in on the orchestra of noise around her and rubbed her temples. Bothered by the impending headache, but grateful for the clearance of her mind. Her memories went back to their cages like the wild beasts they were. The orchestra was still there though the memories weren’t.

Jessalyn didn’t like music.