The Dreamer

The shrill static noise of the alarm clock rung in the air as the arms hit six-thirty on the yellow frame. The entire two bedroom first floor of the house was in silence except for the annoying ringing. It went on for one minute before a muffled groan escaped from the owner whose face was buried deep on the old, not-so-fluffy pillow. Her hand slapped the top button to stop the maniacal cry and once again the place was in complete silence. Just as she thought about the peaceful sleep she had moments ago, Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror sprang to life from her two years old mobile phone.

“Urgh! I give up!” her eyelids fluttered open as she forced her body to a sitting position. She snatched her phone from the bedside table and stole a glimpse of the screen – six thirty-three – and clicked off the alarm. She tossed the phone on the bed and stared at it in the dimly lit room. It was a daily ritual, sitting in the dark except for the sun waiting to gain more strength to burst through the closed curtains.

“Okay. Today’s plans: go to the movie set, work, have to ask Kevin to show me how the camera works. Then, come back and work on the documents and back to work at the book store,” she recited. She inhaled sharply, held her breath before exhaling. “Let’s go!” she put on a smile and jumped out of bed. She followed through her ritual of taking a nice, hot shower, brushed her teeth, and had her breakfast which consisted of only a cup of 3-in-1 regular Nescafe coffee. She also packed her lunch which was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich plus a green apple.

The outfit she had picked out from the night before consisted of a casual black t-shirt with the word Champion on it and a pair of semi-skinny jeans. She made sure her hair was combed and no split ends were sticking out from the top of her head. Satisfied, she wrote a quick note to her housemate/ best friend since high school.

I’m working tonight.
So you have to fix dinner for yourself.
Take care.
Xo

She stuck the note on the bedroom door next to hers and left. The morning was still young and the sun had risen already. The neighborhood looked peaceful in the mornings. The only people who were up were the dog-walkers, those who had to drive to work at this hour, and the ones who love to fuss with their gardens. It was quite a lovely neighborhood.

She stood by the bus stop and waited. With earphones plugged securely, the morning radio was blasted into her ears. It was also another quirky habit of hers. She had to listen to the radio in the morning. It basically predicts the rest of her day. It if played a song she liked, and then it would be a fine day. If otherwise then it would probably be a bad day which asked for more precautions. Today it was an oldie – Journey’s I Can’t Fight This Feeling – which was a personal favorite of our protagonist.

The bus arrived within five minutes and she got into it and patiently waited for her stop. This part of the day was one of her favorites – staring at the view outside. Houses, shops, people with their own daily rituals. It was a source of inspiration. She had made a point to go around one morning with her camera for photography but it seemed to have been delayed.

The ride was half an hour long, then she had to walk for another ten minutes to get to the studios. It wasn’t her thing to walk but she had to or else no work which ultimately meant, no income. The insides of the studio were already bustling. Everyone on set was busy with their work even the coffee girl had to start early which was her job.

“Morning, Elise,” she chirped and unlocked her locker and dropped everything inside.

“Morning, Maddie,” Elise, one of the set designers greeted her with a toothy smile. She not only had a great smile but she also had a great sense of fashion which Maddie would come to ask for help now and then. Today, Elise had on a fashionable branded yellow top and a pair of dark-washed jeans.

“Another day of hard labor, huh?” Elise joked as she closed her locker. “Yeah,” Maddie replied, applying her cherry lip balm and closed her own locker. Maddie was the one usually labeled as a fashion disaster and the one hopeless with make-up. She grew up believing in inner beauty was more important than outer.

She nodded to Elise and left for the cafeteria where the coffee would be. The studio was pretty huge and it was easy to get lost with all the different sections. Some of the big-shot actors actually travelled from one set to the other with golf buggies. It was a wonder why she wanted so badly to make it in this industry. It wasn’t as glamorous as the world thought it was. It wasn’t all about the bling-bling but those weren’t the reasons why she wanted to get into this sector. It was because she had been chasing after a dream she had longed for since she was fourteen.

Lord of the Rings’ director, Peter Jackson was the reason for it. He had inspired her to want to be a director just like him. So, she too could entertain others and hopefully, inspire them as well. Although, this was stopped when her parents disagreed with the idea of their daughter slaving in such a cut-throat industry and tried to convince their precious daughter that this was all unrealistic and naïve which she would grow out of eventually. A fool’s dream was what they called it. This in turn explained her degree of law from Brown. She slaved through those years and buried herself with mountains of information she did not want to know in the first place. However, she managed to get high scores for her papers and was in fact one of the top students in her class but none of that made her happy. So, once she graduated, the first thought that came to mind was to find a job. It wouldn’t be difficult finding a place in a law firm but did she really want a typical nine to five job? A question she had been asking herself for the past years. And every time the answer was no. Without any second thoughts, she decided to go against the odds and lied to her parents about the job she had found in a mediocre law firm and started on her Hollywood dream. She had been an intern and worked as various small positions on movie sets and TV show sets just so she could get one step closer and learned more about the operations of the industry. And here she was on another day of a random small pay job.

“Morning, Maddie,” Kevin, the cameraman had a wide smile on as he greeted the daydreaming coffee girl.

“Morning, Kevin!” she replied with equal enthusiasm. She got up quickly and fixed his usual cup of coffee. Pure black.

“Thanks,” he took the steaming hot cup from her and blew across the top surface before taking a small sip from it. “What scene are you shooting today?” Maddie asked curiously. He chuckled at her daily questions. He admired her determination and enthusiasm which was almost a rare breed these days. “Today’s gonna be exciting. There’s a gunshot scene involved and quite a bit of stunt work,” he replied with a wider grin.

“Awesome!” she exclaimed. “And do you mind showing me more of how the camera works?”

“Sure.”

The day went by in slow motion as she handed one cup of coffee after another to random people on the set. Kevin did as he promised and showed her a few more tricks of the camera. By the time it was three in the evening, the cast and crew were done with the day’s work and Maddie quickly cleaned her station and packed her things before taking the bus home. The house was empty as usual at this time of the day. She logged onto her laptop and after checking her emails, she started on translating the documents which was sent by her best friend’s parents. They ran a large company which was in charge of building tanks and submarines for various governments and were kind enough to hire Maddie as a translator for them. They were also the owners of the house she stayed in with their daughter.

Four-sixteen. Maddie switched off her laptop and ran to the bathroom to get a quick shower and a small snack as dinner. When she hit the road, took the bus and got to the bookstore in Hollywood Boulevard, she was five minutes earlier than her shift. She let out a sigh of relief and greeted her boss (Desmond, a forty-something man) with a nod and left her things under the counter. Today she was on a one-man-show shift. It was a weekday and the store was only packed on the weekends, so Desmond was on his cut-cost scheme since the recession hit and only hired one person to take care of the store on weekdays and two to three for the weekends. Maddie went to the store room to check whether there were any new books arrived via the courier from the publishers today and found two huge boxes on the floor waiting for her.

She blocked out the horrible thoughts of ‘Why am I doing this?’ and began stacking the boxes on a cart before wheeling them out of the room and towards the counter. She had to barcode them first, enter the data into the system, made a spot for the books then load them on the respective shelves. All this took her almost two hours since there were only a few interruptions from three customers.

At exactly seven, Desmond said his farewell and left her alone to take care of the store. It wasn’t a big one and she had been working there for six months now, so he pretty much trusted her with locking up the place. Immediately, she changed the sixties CD with one of The Beatles CD and cranked up the volume a little. Satisfied and not so bored, she wheeled the boxes to the shelves and started to sort them.

Halfway through the second box, the small bell hung above the door rung and Maddie’s attention swung towards the customer. She couldn’t really take a good look of him/her since there were two other shelves blocking her view but all she could spot was he/she was about six feet tall and was wearing a black baseball cap and an old white t-shirt. He/she looked suspicious to her as he/she peered around the counter. Was the stranger deciding to rob the store? Just as she was climbing down from the small wooden ladder, she accidentally knocked over the third row of books which undoubtedly caused a loud crash.

“Fuck!” she swore under her breath and was now not only worried about the suspicious stranger but also the row of books which fell onto the floor. She prayed she didn’t cause any damage on them. Just like everything else that had happened for the past few seconds, the next was equally unexpected.

“Hello!” a deep voice said suddenly. Maddie’s heart jumped at the sound and turned her sight towards the source of the voice. As caught off guard as she was already, she found herself staring at one of the rising Hollywood young stars of today. Her mouth opened but the only words that came out were “Shit!”

The actor chuckled at her flustered state and was about to post a question when she started to climb down the ladder and slipped a step. She started to fall backwards, her heart racing at a 100 mph and all she could think of was how she was never going to be a director. Right when she thought she landed on the concrete linoleum floor and her legs were a gone case, she heard a loud ‘Oomph!' as she felt something softer than the floor. She turned to see the actor lay right underneath her, his face screwed in agony. Now, she was worried she had hurt an A-List Hollywood actor and was about to get sued.

Without warning, the pain on his face transformed into one of pure shock as he shouted, “Fuck!” Maddie turned her head towards what he was staring at and realized the heavy ladder was falling towards their direction. She let out a shriek and found her body paralyzed at a moment where she hoped to sprint up and get out of. She closed her eyes and waited for the worse pain she thought was possible from such an object. She waited and waited.

“Erm… can you maybe get off me?” a quivering voice asked.

Maddie’s eyes shot opened to find the ladder floating above her. Well, it wasn’t exactly floating since it was held by a pair of shaky arms. In a flash, she rolled away from it and got up with her trembling feet before helping the actor by pulling the ladder with the only strength she could now find and left it propped against the wall nearby. She let out a loud sigh and realized not only her feet were trembling, her whole body was. She gulped and tried to calm herself down.

“Are you alright?”

Maddie spun around as she remembered she wasn’t the only one who was scared shitless for the past few minutes. The man was standing in the same spot where they were moments ago and was brushing off his t-shirt and grey washed-out jeans. Maddie embraced herself for what was about to come. Could she be sued?

He glanced up to her for the first time and she found herself even more nervous by the penetrating hazel eyes. “Are you alright?” he repeated, slightly unnerved by her speechlessness. She nodded slowly and hid her hands behind her since they started to shake even harder than before.

His face softened after she responded and a small smile crept to his face. “Okay, let’s start over again.”