CHAPTER 18:-
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“What?” I was flabbergasted by the girl’s claim.
“Yes, I’m your girlfriend. You don’t remember me, your beloved Roxy?” she searched my confused eyes for a flicker of recognition.
The entire conference room came to a standstill. A numbing silence followed the girl’s statement.
Conflicting emotions were flooding through me. On one hand, there was an immense sense of relief that here was someone at last who knew me, and was my girlfriend no less; but on the other hand, the complete absence of any recognition whatsoever was really aggravating. Here was someone claiming to be my girlfriend and I didn’t recognize her at all. No part of me felt a great sense of happiness on seeing Roxanne Stewart- my purported girlfriend.
My memories were playing truant with me again.
I just keep hoping that all the mysteries would get solved as the ticker of my present life ran on along its predestined course. But at the rate they keep cropping up, I am not sure if there is any clarity at all in the equation- the whole scheme of things.
Someone up there is perhaps allergic to my happiness, well-being, interests- whatever one might call the same. This was a particularly bad case. Such a pretty girl was claiming to be my girlfriend and I couldn’t even recollect her face. The emotional connect was missing.
I wanted to shout and scream just one line- It’s so bloody unfair!
Roxanne kissed me twice on the lips without batting an eyelash before I could disengage her arms from round my neck. She tried to kiss me again, but I held her tight at arm’s length.
“Um, Roxanne? I know you’re very happy to see me safe and sound, and I’m absolutely thrilled and relieved to see you; but the thing is, I’ve kinda gone amnesiac. I don’t remember you or anybody else. So as long as I don’t regain some of my memory, I don’t think I’ll be comfortable with you kissing me,” I said haltingly. “But.....but,” I continued, palms facing forwards, “you should know that it’s hard for me, when at the moment I simply crave for someone near and dear, someone familiar to hold, speak and listen to.”
“Is that all, honey? Oh, I’ve been so afraid all this time, thought I had lost you. But now you’re here, I’m the happiest girl in the world!” exclaimed Roxanne, stroking my cheek. “I’m here for you, baby, and together we’ll get over this loss of memory. Don’t you worry, Roxy’s here to help you get back your memories.”
She sat me down back on the mat and plonked herself beside me. The curious refugees crowded in, eagerly awaiting my story from Roxanne, my cutie-pie ‘girlfriend’. There seemed to be a lot of interest about me among them, wanting to know who this late-comer was, where I lived and how I had managed to survive out there in hostile conditions all this time. Jason sat cross-legged in front of me- a child hoping for a fabulous story.
“Your name is William Robert Anderson. Your father is Col. Robert Anderson of the U.S. Marines. Joanna Anderson’s your mother. You’ve a sister, Brianna. She’s your twin.” I thought I detected a faint scowl on her pretty face when she spoke of my sister. “You’ve been living on Grosvenor Street since you’re twelve years old after your father was transferred here from Florida. He worked at the Jefferson Research centre on some government-sanctioned job. I never got it right about what his actual job was and you never knew yourself. Moving on, we grew up together...,”
One of the doors at the end of the conference hall banged open. A plump guy wearing aviation goggles and a bulky contraption strapped to his back burst into the hall as if he had been tossed in.
"Watch out!" shouted another guy running in behind the first guy. People in his path scattered like nine pins bowled over.
The first guy pressed a red button on a panel attached to the belt-strap around his waist. There was a rumble and bluish flames burst out through the nozzles of the four silver canisters at the base of the machine.
He rose up several feet in the air and hovered, much to the delight and spirited cheers of the children around the room, and disapproval and annoyance of the adults.
The flames sputtered, sending the hovering guy into a series of intermittent roller-coaster spirals, dips and rises.
Jessica grabbed the blond obese troublemaker's leg and positioned herself to smash him against a wall like a fisherman bangs a caught fish on stone to stun it.
"Whoa, whoa, lady, take it easy," said the other guy, a chestnut-haired lanky person in his late twenties. He spoke with a British accent. Again, how I could know that escaped me. "What's your problem?"
"My problems are you three," replied Jessica, her eyes flashing with ancient anger. "Warnings don't seem to have any effect on you."
A short scrawny oriental guy with a goatie and hair tied in a pigtail, wire-rimmed glasses framing his pasty face, had come to stand beside the chestnut guy. He was clad in ridiculously loose clothes, his jeans falling way down his behind exposing his red and blue Spiderman boxers.
"You might be older than my grand-maw, but you don't have the right to scold us," said the oriental.
"Oh, you're beyond scolding. You need a good beating to straighten you up."
"Like a spanking? That's kinky!" purred the plump guy, wiggling his eyebrows at Jessica. "I could be a fireman or a cop...or even a school teacher. But I'd prefer you to be a school girl."
“That’s such a disgusting thing to say,” said Jessica, wrinkling her nose. “That’s it, I’m gonna thrash you now.”
I jumped up and hurried over to the fiery vampiress. “Just put him down, Jessica; he’s just having some fun. Guys, you better scoot from here, and return this...this machine...oh, shit, is it a jet-pack?”
The well-rounded rider of the jet-pack rolled his eyes at me. “Duh, took you long enough, Einstein. It’s a 460 horse-power quad nitro booster Silver Blaze.”
A thrill shook my finger tips as I touched the machine. It was rusty and looked very old. “It’s from the 80s...judging by the engine model...and also the date ‘1984’ inscribed at the base,” said the guy, his eyes gleaming with fascination.
“Say, you new here? We haven’t seen you before?” asked the plump guy, all of a sudden his beady eyes focussed entirely on me. “Duh, of course you are,” he answered himself, rolling his eyes. He pulled out a hand-held mirror from his jacket pocket and rolled his eyes at his image.
I couldn’t help laughing at his idiosyncrasy. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Never mind him, Mr. Newcomer. I am Kenneth Dissamer,” said the guy with the chestnut mop, thrusting out his hand at me. As I shook hands and introduced myself, Jessica scoffed and tossed her would-be ‘victim’ down like a bag of manure. Jason came to stand beside me as Kenneth continued his introductions.
“This is Augustus Finley,” he said, indicating the plump guy who was still shaking his head and rolling his eyes at his image in the mirror. “And this is Lee Ting,” he gestured towards the oriental guy, who bowed slightly.
“Here it comes,” said Jason, shaking his head.
“Huh?”
Augustus jumped up from the ground, brushed himself furiously and pulled off the jet-pack with Lee’s help. They both stood beside Kenneth.
“Together, we are Dis-Gus-Ting!” he exclaimed, spreading out his hands, a moronic smile on his face.
“Yes, you are,” murmured Jessica as she passed me.
“We heard that, sexy granny,” Augustus called out after her. She flipped them a finger.
“You mean to declare or state that you’re disgusting?” I asked, confused.
“No, no, my good friend, we are the band ‘Dis-Gus-Ting’! Get it? Our names...Dis...Dissamer, Gus...Augustus and Ting...Ting?”
“Ah, yes, well, that’s...that’s wonderful, very, um, imaginative,” I said. Now I wanted to roll my eyes at them.
“We’re a rock band, very modern. Wanna hear one of our songs?” asked Augustus.
“No!” snapped Jason, somewhat sounding alarmed.
The trio continued nevertheless:
“Rumbling earth...
Like bad eggs cracking up;
Raging volcanoes...
Spewing molten hot lava;
Thundering skies...
Like spazzing girls tearing up;
Brainless programmers...
Still stuck with freakin’ java!
Lava, lava, what’s the deal with java?
Lava, lava, what’s the deal with java?”
The three wannabe rockstars played frenetic air-guitar, banged and crashed imaginary drums, rolled their heads and pranced around like rabbits on steroids.
“Wow,” I murmured, speechless for a while. Jason was muttering death threats under his breath beside me. Only an old couple clapped enthusiastically at the end of the performance.
“Thank you guys, you’re the best!” cried Augustus, bowing to the bemused ‘audience’ and wiping off a theatrical tear.
“So, William, did you like our performance?” asked Kenneth, coming up to me.
I stared at this quirky guy and his equally quirky friends. Obviously nobody had told them they sucked, or if anybody had, then they had not taken them seriously. I could see they were proud of their brand of music. But it was un-musical- simple noise was far better. The beats were jarring and they couldn’t sing a proper note for their life. They had to be told.
“It was awesome!” I exclaimed.
I wanted to pinch myself- it was so wrong. I should be discouraging them and telling them to do something they were better off doing, not trying to be a band that neither packed a punch nor did it enrapture anybody. False praise did more harm than good.
“No, it wasn’t,” said Jason, surprised and outraged.
“Hombre, buzz off!” said Augustus, making shooing motions at Jason.
“Thanks, mate! You’re awesome, too!” gushed Kenneth gratefully. “Tell us where you have been hiding all these days...you can’t have come from out of town- it’s like a fortress out there!”
I repeated my story from the beginning. How I woke up in an alley with no recollection of who I was or where I was...right up to my rescue and subsequent arrival at this hideout in the mountains.
Kenneth, Augustus and Lee exchanged startled glances. A realization had dawned upon them.
“It was you we saw that night!” murmured Kenneth, his eyes bulging.
* Yeah, so I uploaded another chapter.