Chronological Chaos

Wednesday arrived so hastily that the beginning of the work week seemed to pass by without much of a fuss. Everyone agreed that Mondays were the worst and Emit whole heartedly approved, but any day she had to see Jezebel’s face in that office struck the same chord in her heart that Monday did when it rolled along.

With newly found master skills of persuasion and a little bit of luck, Emit was able to get the day off. Though it was a day off with no pay that she would have to make up on Saturday, she concluded it was well worth it to accompany Gabriel to his first ever photo-shoot.

Emit was currently standing off to the side of the small waiting room adjacent to where the photo-shoot would be held. Through the wide archway that lead to the next room, she watched as the photography crew set up tripods, adjusted the lens on their cameras, and situated aluminum reflectors so quickly that Emit could hardly keep up with all that was going on. She was focused on their trained and swiftly moving hands that connected cables to machines like they had been doing it forever, so focused that she did not hear Gabriel call her name. It startled Emit when Gabriel tapped her shoulder after emerging from the dressing room so that he could ask her how he looked in his outfit look.

“You look cute. Really cute.” And he did, Emit concluded. He was wearing the most adorable, sky blue blazer that Emit had ever seen, coupled with a crisp and neatly ironed white dress shirt that was unbuttoned at the top. He also wore a pair of slate grey skinny jeans and extremely white and polished Oxfords that seemed to act as a mirror that reflected the ceiling above them. A pair of nerdy looking glasses sat upon his nose and his auburn hair was slicked back in a casual pompadour. She gave him a crooked smile that he returned before he was rushed off into the next room for his shoot.

Emit followed timidly, trying very hard to avoid getting in anyone’s way, and stood far behind the mass of cameras and cords that lined the floor. She had almost tripped and dislodged a few chords, but caught herself before she completely met the floor or disconnected anything. If someone were to ruin the photo-shoot, Emit wanted to make sure that she wasn’t the person who did it.

Someone went over to Gabriel to give him a bit of guidance on how to use the desk and chair that were set up as props in front of the green screen. Gabriel nodded at everything the woman said with a look of excited apprehension on his face. It was obvious that he was nervous, but Emit was sure that he would pull through and have an excellent photo-shoot. It was then she wished that she said something encouraging to him before he was whisked away from her and it was then that she shouted a ‘you’ll do great Gabe’ across the room. The director and a few of the camera crew glanced back at Emit with looks of slight annoyance, but quickly turned back to get on with their work for the day.

Gabriel gave Emit a reassuring smile and a timid wave as the woman moved out of the setup and the director began to throw around vague instructions on how Gabriel should move. He sat on the chair, slanting it away from the desk and a bit more towards the camera and leaned back while crossing his legs so that his right ankle rested on his left knee. He leaned forward and brought his right hand to rest just under his chin and looked at the camera in a way that made the blood rise to Emit’s cheeks.

“Too conventional,” the director shouted, waving his hands around like he wanted to get rid of a fly. “Try something else.”

It was apparent that Gabriel was a bit dumfounded; he clearly thought that he was doing everything right and that the cameras would start clicking away, but he had been wrong. The look of confusion on his face was soon erased though, and a look of great confidence overtook his features. He stood up from the chair and sat on the desk instead, positioning one foot on the seat of the chair and the other against the back of it, tilting the chair back just a bit and resting his hands on the desk. He sharply turned his head towards the camera and gave it a look so fierce that the director gave a yelp of approval.

“That’s more like it!”

Emit immediately understood what had just happened; sometimes one’s natural personality did not adjust correctly in some situations and it was necessary to pretend to be someone else for a short amount of time. The typically subtle Gabriel had transformed into a fierce one that wasn’t afraid to make a statement with his photos.

Not too long later, they had finished the first half of the two part photo-shoot. The brief intermission found Gabriel and Emit sipping coffee near the dressing room as a petite woman worked to retouch Gabriel’s makeup. He had yet to change into his second outfit for fear of spilling something on it and in his eagerness to tell Emit about how amazing his photo-shoot had gone, nearly spilled some of the dark liquid on the outfit he was wearing.

“I don’t think this could have gotten any more awesome! Did you hear how the director said ‘damn, that was good, kid’? I think that he thinks that I know exactly what I’m doing but I kind of just went with the flow. Imagine my first real photo-shoot.”

Emit had to laugh at how animated Gabriel was. His hands moved around as he spoke even though he had a cup of coffee in his hand that was threatening to spill. True, he usually was very vivacious but at that moment in time, he brought it to a whole other level.

Just then, the doors to the studio opened abruptly and in rushed a short woman with a worried demeanor and a tall lankly figure that glided behind her. Emit was about to turn back to answer a question that Gabriel had brought up until something caught her eye. As the tall figure walked closer and eventually past Emit, she could not help but feel a sense of familiarity exuding from him. He walked by so quickly that Emit did not get a chance to see his face, but she could not admit the notion that they had indeed met before.

“What are you looking at Emit? Are you alright?”

It took longer than it should for Emit to answer Gabriel, but it mainly because so many thoughts had been swarming in her head. It was only when Gabriel wave his hand in front of Emit that she was able to gain complete consciousness. She didn’t have time to answer though, because his makeup artist had finished her job and his stylists began to shove him into the dressing room so that he could change his outfit. He had been rushed away so hastily that Emit was left to stand and stare that the now closed door of the room that he had gone into.

A deep and sultry voice extracted Emit from her trance and she turned to look behind her for its origin. She was met with the man that had walked in just before Gabriel had gone into the dressing room. The smile on his face was contagious and Emit soon found herself smiling too, though it wasn’t as natural as the stranger’s.

“Excuse me, but do I know you from somewhere?” His voice was just like she remembered and it was easy to pinpoint exactly where she knew him from; he was the stranger she met on the plane that was supposed to whisk her away to Germany, away from all the ordinariness that made her tragically unhappy.

“I don’t think so,” Emit replied. Though she was fairly certain that he was the German model and singer she thought he was she was not particularly fond of being perceived as a lunatic. What would he think of her if she said that yes, she had met him in an alternate world that she had magically traveled to unwillingly, on a plane where all the passengers but her disappeared and had eventually sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

“That’s odd. I thought I recognized you from somewhere.” His voice trailed off a bit at the end and he lifted his hand so that it rested under his chin as he thought. The look in his eyes was far off and he had cocked his right eyebrow as he stared right at Emit. It made her a bit uneasy and she thoroughly avoided his gaze resorting to just looking at his appearance in general. He stood so still and in such a picturesque pose that to an outsider, it would look as if he was in the middle of a photo-shoot, posing and waiting to be photographed just as Gabriel had done not too long ago.

“By any chance, are you a model?” She knew her question was a tad off subject, but his answer –should it be a ‘yes’- would only confirm her suspicions about who he was.

“Why yes, I am. I’m here to do a photo-shoot actually. Speaking of which, I should be getting ready…”

“Emit. My name is Emit.”

“Well, I should be getting ready now, Emit. I’ll see you later then.” His arm elegantly extended forward from his side and he reached his slender fingers out to shake Emit’s hand. “By the way, my name is –”

When their hands connected, a cold sensation overcame Emit’s entire body and she struggled to continue to feel the model’s hand in her own. It wasn’t an unbearable, Artic, frostbite-inducing cold though. Instead it was rather refreshing – like having a sip of cold water after eating a mint- and it was welcomed. All Emit could focus on was the numbness that overcame her being, she couldn’t comprehend what was going on as all thought was erased from her mind. It was as if all of her senses had vanished, save for her sense of touch. She felt frozen and lost and utterly vacant; she didn’t know where she was or where she had been or where she was going. Perhaps she had died. That didn’t seem like a possibility however; how could something as simple as a handshake be the source of her death?

Just as quickly as the feeling of being frozen had overcome her, it was gone and a sensation of a comforting warmth wrapped around her like a thick duvet. She opened her eyes and was met with an expansive sight of a mundane cityscape.

It wasn’t beautiful to say the least; it wasn’t even the kind of filthy beautiful that New York City or the John F. Kennedy International Airport were. The buildings were in no way spectacular and the streets were completely devoid of people. Still, there was something about the scenery that was so obviously peculiar that Emit could not help but stare. Everything was clean. It wasn’t just clean for a metropolitan area where people had theoretically been walking all day, it was the kind of clean you found in the hospital.

The colors were jaunty and the image before her looked so perfect in its imperfection that it almost resembled a painting rather than real life.

It was strange when the landscape started shaking from left to right, and Emit thought she was losing her mind when she didn’t feel the ground vibrate like it would during an earthquake.

“Emit, darling. I painted this for you. I know it is memorizing, but you mustn’t look so leer, dear.” (German: vacant.)

Emit’s vision zoomed out from what she now knew was a watercolor painting and came face to face with the enigmatic stranger who had never given her his name.

“Guten Tag,” he said offering his hand to help Emit off the ground. (German: Hello, literally good day.)

Emit scoffed and decided that she could help herself off of the paved road. Once she did so, she turned to look at the man that had caused her so much stress since the first day that she had met him.

He looked crestfallen for a moment and there was something about his aura that conveyed a temperament other than the arrogant German man that Emit initially met. Still, Emit was weary of his changed demeanor. She had already established that he was not a trustworthy person and kept her eyes open for any sign that this was another trap.

Nevertheless, the humanistic side that Emit’s soul harbored provoked a feeling of pity deep inside Emit’s heart. She wondered what he did when she wasn’t around, who he spent his time with, if he ever got lonely.

“Is there something wrong?” Emit found herself asking. Honestly, she felt obligated to help in some way and that was the least she could do.

He avoided her question effortlessly and airily motioned toward the sprawling plains of bright avocado-green grass just to the left of the dusty road not taken by many.

Once he turned around and looked at Emit straight in the eye, she understood that he wanted her to follow him. She nodded and instantaneously a smirk spread across his face, but it wasn’t the kind of smirk that usually adorned his face. He looked inviting and all the negative thoughts that swarmed Emit’s mind floated away.

And so they wondered off the road and trampled on the vibrant grass so that they may get to their destination.

It didn’t take very long to get there at all and the ever so critical Emit made sure to keep a few steps behind the mysterious stranger. They arrived at a circular patch of deep green grass that was encompassed by a ring of trees that blocked out the light from the sun. It dimmed the place a little, but if anything, it made the scene even more striking.

“It’s beautiful is it not?” the stranger said as Emit just stood in the center of the ring and looked up at the thick canopy of the trees.

“No. I think magnificent is a better word to describe it.”

He didn’t say anything after that. Instead, he turned to walk toward one of the trees that closed off the circle and began to scrape the ground with his foot at the base of the tree. Eventually he reached down with his hands to brush some dirt away from an object that protruded from the ground before pulling it out from the earth’s grasp.

When he turned back around, Emit realized he was holding some sort of ornate treasure chest. She knew better than to ask about it least she received no answer.

He didn’t speak either as he gently carried the chest toward where Emit was standing. When the light hit the treasure chest at the perfect angle, it seemed to glow like a fire in the middle of a moonless night. Finally, Emit’s self-restraint was broken and she asked the question that had been stuck in her head since the first time she saw the stranger.

“Why are we here?”

He simply stared at Emit at first, his face still, clear of imperfection and clear of emotion.

“That, Emit, is a question that I cannot completely answer – which is quite surprising as I do know everything.”

“Well then tell me what you do know.” Emit worked to keep her voice free of any annoyance seeing as he was being his usual, boastful self, yet her curious mind wanted to get as much information from him as she could.

“I do know why I am here, but you are the one that has the answer as to why you are here.”

“Really now? So does this all have something to do with what’s in that treasure box or something? Aren’t you supposed to have all the answers?” Emit crossed her arms over her chest and shifted her weight to her left leg.

“No need to get exasperated now, Emit. Patience is virtue.” The stranger’s signature smirk adorned his face and Emit could feel her blood boil.

“And arrogance is a vice. Now what’s in the box?”

“Arrogance is a vice indeed, but are we being a little too demanding now? However, it is quite alright, I do like demanding women.”

Emit was infuriated, but she knew that her anger would get her nowhere. Instead, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath while she clenched and unclenched her fists. It was a technique her counselor had taught her when she was younger and her mother had sent her to see a therapist. Emit’s mother insisted that Emit talk to someone other than her “crazy friends” only a month after her father boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco at the Hartford-Brainard Airport. “I know you’re thinking about a lot of stuff and it’ll get that brain of yours all sorted out, honey,” she had told Emit.

She thought about a happy memory, the day that her father had taken her to see a ballet: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was step two of the ‘Relaxation Method’ her counselor had taught her – think of a happy time. Her father had always been entranced by Shakespeare’s works and Emit had always been captivated by the art of ballet, so Emit’s father thought it was a good idea to combine their two loves into a single outing. It was brilliant idea and it was one that Emit would never forget.

With a sigh, Emit asked “So, what’s your story?” She now understood that he was here because of something that happened in his past and she now knew that she was here for the same reason. But she couldn’t pinpoint any particular moment in her past that would lead her here, so she focused on the stranger’s purpose here instead.

“Stories are for children, Emit. What I have is a history.”

“You know, History was my favorite subject back in high school. I’m sure I could handle something that’s not in the books.”

“It may have been, but my history is more than just information used to pass a test; it’s who I am and it’s why I’m here.”

“So who are you?”

“That is what I am trying to discover, Emit. That is why I am here.”