Some Go Mad

Rose Jackson had never been a dreamer, never a believer. When she was little, she had no ambition to be an astronaut or a fire fighter or even a teacher. She wouldn’t plan out her wedding day like every other little girl or dream of being a princess. Her parents never had to tell her to take down the fort and go to bed.

And Rose Jackson most certainly did not believe in aliens.

At least not until she turned seventeen.

There was enough city smoke in the air to convince even London’s citizens that it was near dusk. In reality, the day was barely a few hours young. Even so, it was far too late for Rose’s liking.

Her feet smacked against the damp concrete of one of the few abandoned streets that crisscrossed in front of her small home. Her mind was in a panic as her heart pounded both from the exertion of her flat out run and from the dread pumping through her veins. She was going to be late. She was going to be late to one of the most important job interviews of her young life. She had been interviewed a million times by a million different employers in the past few months. Restaurants, markets, stores. She would often go to bed late at night with a pain in her hand from the amount of applications she had filled out. Her signature could now be done before you could snap your fingers. But this appointment was just a mark more professional than all of the other ones. With the help of her mother, Elizabeth Jackson, the young girl had gotten an interview for the position of secretary to the boss of one of the larger business companies in London. Mr. Jacob Hammond had expected Rose at exactly ten o’ clock that very morning. She had four minutes to run an eight minute walk. It wasn’t a very encouraging thought. She picked up her speed, seeming to run faster than she ever had before.

Starting off as The Girl Who Was Late, Rose thought, would surely mean she had no chance of getting the job and, in disastrous effect, an equally hopeless chance at moving out of her parents’ house when the time came.

Just as she glanced the building she was heading for and was given new hope, Rose slammed into a solid object that sent her sprawling to the ground, the hard street digging ugly red marks across her knees and the palms of her hands. A cry of both pain and frustration left her mouth. Not only were lines of bloody cuts decorating her skin, but there was now a ragged tear running down the long skirt she had borrowed from her mother’s closet. How could she go into an interview for a major business company looking like this?

“I’m terribly sorry about that. My fault,”

For the first time, Rose acknowledged the something – the someone – that had sent her tumbling. She looked up, her immediate reaction to snap at the man dissipating at the sincere look in his dark eyes.

“No, it was my fault. I was just in a hurry and I wasn’t paying attention at all. I’m sorry,”

Rose’s mother had always taught her to be the polite one. “Never accept an apology if it wasn’t their fault, Rosy.” Elizabeth would tell her young daughter.

Trying to dust her hands off, but only wincing when the cuts stung sharply and left red lines on her skirt, Rose stood shakily and examined the damage that had been done.

“Are you alright?” she looked up again at the man. Wearing a white dress shirt and dark dress pants and looking just a little more ruffled than the usual Londoner, Rose wondered just where this man had been before bumping into her. In sharp contrast to his physical appearance, he held a relaxed position, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

“Yeah. Are…are you alright?” Rose mimicked in a less-than-stable voice, her eyes scanning over his figure and finding what looked like a patch of burnt hair in the golden locks on the left side of his head. The man only grinned in return and laughed. Rose couldn’t help but smile in return.

When his laughing stopped, his eyes fell on her. Rose had a chilling feeling that he was watching her knowingly. His eyes held too many things.

“Do you believe in the extraordinary?” he asked suddenly, childish grin strengthening against its own fading demeanor.

Rose, having forgotten completely about her rushed journey, raised an eyebrow at the out of place question. Feeling her usual shyness creeping up in the presence of this easily outgoing person, Rose brushed her long brown hair behind her ears. It was a nervous habit she would never learn to abandon.

The man waved his hands at the empty air in great enthusiasm before returning them to his pockets. “Aliens,” he clarified. His smile grew at the astonished look that crossed Rose’s face.

“Aliens? That’s preposterous.” Her shyness was creeping away very slowly. Her hands dropped back to her sides.

It was the man’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “If I’m not mistaken, London has had its fair share of Encounters.”

“Hoaxes,” Rose shot back as if offended by the sense of importance the man was placing on his last word.

“Contact in 2008?”

“Saxon was off his rocker,”

He laughed again.

“He always has been,”

Rose frowned.

“Your hands,” the man stated as if to distract her thoughts. It worked. She lifted her hands in examination, suddenly remembering with a literal sting her scraped up state.

A look like sudden realization dawned on the man’s face. He dug a hand deeper into one of his pockets. When he removed the hand, he was holding a small, opaque bottle. He shook it from side to side as if testing to make sure it wasn’t empty. Both heard a faint sloshing sound. “Good, there’s still plenty left. Of course, there would have to be, wouldn’t there? I wonder how that works. You would have to run out eventually, wouldn’t you? Time is a funny thing.” As he spoke, the strange man tenderly grabbed hold of both of Rose’s hands and opened the bottle, his eyes trained completely on his work. Rose felt a little shaken at the gentleness he used with handling her small injuries.

“You’ve always been impossible, Rose Jackson.”

Rose now stared at him in open astonishment. She barely even noticed the stinging sensation as he poured a few more drops of the white liquid on the cuts that covered her hands and rubbed it in.

“How do you know my name?” His brown eyes met hers. He looked serious now.

“You’ll be telling me in a few moments.”

“I’ll – what?”

He shook his head dismissively and twisted the cap back on the bottle. He tossed the bottle between his hands a few times, eyes never leaving it, contemplation clear on his young face. Misty sunlight hit its glass surface allowing a clear view of its content for just a few moments before the illusion stopped. “Keep it.” Rose barely had time to react, but her hands wrapped around the airborne bottle just before it slipped past her reach.

A look of sadness suddenly surrounded the stranger and emanated in a thick cloud around his body. “Do me a favor, Rose. Remember just how brilliant you are and…don’t ever hesitate on anything. You’re an extraordinary girl, Rose Jackson, and I’m going to miss you.” His voice was growing thick as if a blockade had materialized somewhere in his throat.

But sympathy was far from Rose’s mind.

Her jaw had fallen slack. Confusion was covering her in a thick fog, rivaling the moisture that hung above London in thick blankets. She had only just met this man minutes before, neither had introduced themselves, and she had never said a word about herself to him. Yet, here he stood, talking to her in an affectionate tone, fixing her bruises, his dark eyes growing moist like he was saying goodbye to a close friend. She had the sense that her father stood before her instead of this odd man. But that was impossible, of course. Marshall Jackson had left for his own job before the sun had even risen.

Job.

“The interview!” Rose suddenly gasped. Without a second glance at the man, she ran again in the direction of the towering building that was her initial destination. Taking a glance at her cheap digital watch, she saw that she was officially fifteen minutes late.

Behind her, the blonde man watched her run with a hesitant smile. It didn’t stick. Furious with himself, he wiped at his watery eyes. Turning in the opposite direction of the girl, he strode down the street, his destination set on a particularly dark alley set between a bakery and a pizza shop.

He had made his choice. He just hoped that it hadn’t been the selfish one. Of course, he knew that he would never be at rest with his decision. But then again, he never was one to forgive himself.