Die in Tune

Beep. A pack of frozen shrimps. Beep. Two bottles of water. Beep. A box of laundry detergent. Beep. A milk carton. Beep. A box of twelve eggs. Beep. A pack of six toilet paper rolls. Beep. And a new universal remote. Beep.

For the past few hours, I have been grabbing objects, passing them along this machine that would allow us to know that the object has been purchased, accepting money and handing change. And it was like that every other day. I worked an afternoon shift twice a week. Harriet was also working at a coffee shop. Not earning much, the money we were accumulating wasn’t even enough to pay half the debt.

She would joke around and tease me on my attitude about her own problems. She would say that I was exaggerating, always with a hint of nervousness to her voice. She would smile and say nothing would happen to us, her words transmitting doubt. A new mask she would put on her face, covering her own fears, to perish mine. Without any success.

Along with this, the articles I had to turn in every week were not leaving me with time for anything else. And my head could only focus on working, writing and deadlines. Nothing else.

“Kaleb, we have an article about the upcoming game, the final. It has to be turned in tomorrow by noon.” I’d write, read, edit and send. “Kaleb, there’s this article that we really need you to do…” They’d give me the topic and my fingers would flow over the keyboard as if I were a pianist playing the easiest composition ever written. So you must imagine my surprise when after getting used to this routine of being limited by deadlines and topics, I hear “We’re done for this issue. We have no more articles to write at the moment.” And it was my day off as well. For the first time in weeks, I had nothing to do. At all.

Even when I was busy during those weeks, I’d manage some time to visit Dr. Murphy, though there was never anything new. I’d sit there and stare at her carefully selected paintings that hung on the maroon walls and wonder what the artist who painted them were feeling. You might say I’m wasting my time, but I didn’t have anything in particular to talk about.

There was at least one particular painting that intrigued me. It was very simple: an abstract design in green and violet that started with soft, intricate swirls and strokes at the top and ended with violent, angled and harsh strokes with so much intensity that I was shocked at how he didn’t tear the canvas apart. Maybe what confused me the most of that painting was how, in the bottom right corner, the peaceful strokes had reappeared, only covering the tip of that corner. The artist responsible for that piece was probably happy at some point of his life, when he began the painting, and then got furious or sad toward the end, but before he finished the painting, he had found himself and gained inner peace.

In a way that represented how the Dr. Murphy’s clients were supposed to feel at the end: inner peace. They were supposed to expect that all their problems would be solved just by someone hearing them out and maybe prescribing them some pills. Or at least that’s what someone who saw the world through rose colored glasses would expect. Problems were never that easily solved.

“Who painted that?” My voice cracked the silence and sounded weird even to myself. My finger was stretched forward, pointing across the room, to the painting which I couldn’t take my eyes off. She turned her head to look at the piece of art in question and once she saw it she smiled to herself.

“My grandfather. He was a painter.” I smiled and continued to look at the painting. She looked like she wanted to explain the meaning behind it, but at the same time, she wanted me to make my own conclusions. After all, two people can look at the same painting and one can see chaos and the other can see serenity.

That was one of the last sessions I would have with Dr. Murphy. My parents had decided that I didn’t need anymore, but I would have to finish this month, because they had already paid it.

Now I had nothing to do. Nothing at all. And it felt great. I wanted to have some time to free myself of the work and the worry of the past weeks. I wanted to write about the world that had been imprisoned in my mind for what seemed like centuries, to spend time with Harriet, to…breathe.

As I left the school building, I felt the light spring breeze on my face. It was calming as I walked towards Harriet’s house. Since the time was passing and Harriet felt safe living in her house again, she had returned there, because I was busy and didn’t spend much at my house anyway. She had brought me there once, when it was raining so strong, my parents weren’t at home and her house was nearer. She was slightly worried about bringing me in. I didn’t know why. Her house was smaller than mine, but it was cozier. They had family pictures nearly everywhere they could manage to put: pictures of Harriet as a baby playing with those harmless little toys; of her and her mom when she was a kid… It was almost a documentary of her life.

I had wondered why a bunch of possibly embarrassing childhood photos would make Harriet not want me to go to her house. Then I realized it wasn’t because of her house. It was her mom she was nervous about. She loved her mother dearly, but not everyone did.

For the first time, since I met Harriet, I finally got to meet her mother. Before she arrived, I got to see some pictures. Harriet seemed to take more from her father’s side, because her mother was very different from her: icy blue eyes, light blonde hair and pale skin. Even the features were different. While Harriet had softer, rounder features, her mom had sharper, thinner features. There weren’t any pictures of her dad anywhere, so I couldn’t know for sure if Harriet did in fact look most like him or her mom.

Her mom had entered the house carrying some grocery bags and a cigarette stuck between her lips. Her forehead was creased in maybe stress or exhaustion, creating lines that added years to her otherwise young face. She was kind and very open minded, but I got why Harriet was nervous. Her mom was reckless and at times very stubborn.

Returning to my serene walk to her house that Thursday afternoon, I was thinking of places where we could go spend the rest of the day. I thought of the park, but then remembered the little kids that usually went there during the afternoons and would annoy us to no end if we even tried to play on the swings. Then I thought of the mall, but after working in retail for some time, I didn’t want to enter a store. I was running out of ideas when the most perfect one popped into my mind.

By the time I had decided the place, I was standing on her porch. I walked to her doorstep and knocked on her caramel colored door. A little more than a minute later, she opened the door. Her hair was up into a loose bun, she was wearing a large brown sweatshirt and some Batman pajama pants. She was holding a pack of chips in one hand and her other hand was at the door knob.

“You should’ve let me know that you were coming. I could’ve tried to make an effort to look more decent!” She faked an angry look and made a small frown. I didn’t know what she was talking about. I loved the fact that she was not like the other girls. And I loved her Batman pajamas.

“What are you talking about? A guy like me can’t resist a girl wearing pajamas like those…” I bit my lips. I usually never said lines like those, but Harriet had that effect on me. As always. She smirked as she opened the door slightly for me to enter than we went upstairs to her room. She laid the pack of chips on her desk and sat on her bed with her legs crossed Indian-style.

Her room was small and messy, but not with clothes. Books and DVDs covered almost every inch of her room. She had a slightly old, small television in her room that had an image of a blue eyed man, with subtitles beneath it. So she liked old, foreign films. “Didn’t you have a meeting with the journalism team?” She asked curiously turning off her television.

“I finally have a day off. I thought we could go somewhere…” She smiled and got up. I wrapped my arms around her waist and edged my head closer for a kiss. She gave in but pushed away right after.

“If you want to go somewhere, how can you expect me to change when we’re kissing?” I insisted that she looked fine but she pecked me on the lips fast, before pushing me playfully out of her room to get dressed. I went downstairs to her living room and decided to have a closer look at her pictures. I picked the first one I saw and it was Harriet when she was maybe five years old wearing a tiara, a pink tutu and a batman shirt. She just couldn’t resist, even in that age. I looked at more pictures and saw one where she was in a small swimming pool in a backyard, sticking her tongue out at the camera. Her wet hair was in pigtails, and her cheeks were pink, probably sun burnt.

As I looked at some more recent pictures, someone poked one finger on each side of my waist, making me jump in surprise. She knew I was ticklish. I turned around and she was wearing a green v-neck sweater and a pair of jeans. Her hair was down, but she wasn’t wearing any make up. I brushed my hand on her cheek and she placed both of her hands on it before leaning in for a kiss. I placed my other hand to her other cheek and deepened the kiss. Her hands left mine and trailed up to my face, tracing its features, not opening her eyes once.

She then opened her eyes and pulled her lips away from mine. “We should get going…” I agreed and we walked out of the house, my arm wrapped around her shoulder to bring her closer to me. She started humming to a song I recognized and we hummed together. “Where are we going?” She looked at my eyes, hers wide with curiosity.

“We’re going to get my car and then we’re going to this place I used to go when I was younger. It’s not that far from here…” My hometown was about three hours by car from where I lived now and the place I wanted to take Harriet to was a small lake on the way to my hometown. My parents had taken me there a couple of times for picnics and camping trips back when I was five or six.

When we were near my house, I began singing with my incredibly pitchy voice. She looked at me with a skeptical look. It was an old tune and I was trying to imitate Frank Sinatra’s voice, failing horribly by doing so. Harriet just laughed and continued walking. I was too happy to care if I was making a fool out of myself. I presented my hand waiting for her to take it and join me in a dance in the middle of the sidewalk. She placed her hand on mine and I started twirling along the sidewalk with her. She kept laughing as I sang a number from a musical I remember watching with Anita one time when my parents went on a business trip.

When I ran out of songs, Harriet began singing one I recognized as well. “Shall we dance, shall we dance…” Her voice sounded a lot better than mine, though it also wasn’t completely in tune, but maybe it was because of her giggles that would make her lose focus of the lyrics or the melody. People who were passing by us (not many, only an old couple, four little kids on bicycles and a lady walking a dog) would think we were crazy.

But we found ourselves in front of my car and I opened the door for her, then turned around and went into the driver’s seat. I knew how to go the place without a map, so we just headed on our way. Harriet started flipping through the different radio stations until she found one with a decent song playing. She started to pretend she was a lead singer and guitarist (air guitar) at a rock band and rocked out to the song. At the end, I tried my best to clap as my hands held the steering wheel and she lowered her head as if she were bowing.

The sun was almost setting when we finally arrived at the place, after about an hour of driving. A fresh wind blew bringing some chills up my spine. I had parked my car near the woods that surrounded the lake. Tall trees covered our view from the sky as we walked to the lakeside. We were walking by the lake and Harriet stopped and just let her eyes absorb the beautiful view. The sky was streaked in red, orange and blue. That mixed with the trees and the reflection on the lake, would truly be an award winning photograph, but the photograph wouldn’t do the view any justice.

I wrapped my arm around her shaking body and said “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She nodded and I started sitting on the ground, hinting her to sit between my legs. Taking my hint she smiled and sat in front of me lying down on my body. I brought one hand to intertwine with hers and placed the other one behind me for support so I wouldn’t fall back.

Her fingers were interlocked with mine as she whispered to me “I wish life could always be like this…Peaceful. No worries whatsoever…” I looked down at her face and saw a hint of sadness in her smile.

I turned my body a bit so I could face her and said, letting go of her hand and cupping her cheek in it instead, “What’s wrong?” Her eyes looked at mine, but looked away as soon as she read the worry in them. What happened to me? I used to be this repulsive, unreadable book. Nobody could read me…Harriet could. Nobody could understand me. Harriet could. And nobody seemed to like me much…Except Harriet. I used to adore solitude, until she conquered me with her annoying ways. Now, I couldn’t bear it.

Her stare wandered through the trees, the water, anything but my eyes. “It’s just that I’ve been having these nightmares where the same guy appears over and over and threatens to kill me over and over again… The exact same guy from the night of the party.” She paused and looked at me as she admitted “I’m scared...”

I sat up straight and wrapped both my arms around her tight. “They were just bad dreams.” But in reality, she was making me worried again. I felt my grip on her getting tighter and she understood that she had worried me.

“Kaleb,” She didn’t like giving me a nickname; she liked my name, just like I always called her Harriet “If someday anything happens, promise me you will not stop your life. Keep on writing and observing the world, and living life.” I didn’t want her to talk about that. I didn’t want her to be pessimistic. No one would hurt her. I would do my best to protect her. She saw how what she had said had upset me, so she added “You don’t have to be worried about me. I don’t want to ruin this day. Let us forget what I just said. Tomorrow we can worry, but today I want to clear my mind of everything but you.” I loosened my grip, looked at her eyes and smiled in agreement.

She turned her eyes away and looked at the lake, biting her bottom lip as she thought. I wondered what she was thinking about when suddenly, her lips unveiled her teeth in a smile. “Race you to the water.” She said and she started getting up.

“No fair!” I yelled when she began running with a head start. I got up and tried to win the race, but she won. She was in the water, her clothes glued to her body and her hair all matted against her face, when I was still getting ready to jump. When I was inside, she made fun of me, shoving her victory in my face, so I dived and grabbed her waist underwater, pulling her close to me for a kiss. An underwater kiss.

I had never done anything like that. It was amazing. But the water pulled us up and I felt the cold wind hitting my face. When we opened our eyes and parted from the kiss, I noticed that Harriet was stunned. She was also blushing a bit. I swam back to her and cupped her face in my hands. This time she couldn’t help herself and pressed her lips against mine with such desire and intensity. Her hands gripped my shoulders and her legs wrapped around my waist. And for the first time ever, I said those three powerful words to a girl, when my mouth went close to her ear: “I love you.”

“I love you too.” She replied out of breath, searching with her deep green irises into the depths of my eyes. And at that moment, I felt complete and utter bliss.

The dark sky above us was painted with gorgeous little starts. The trees were flying by us and the wind blew into the car through the open window on my side. We had dried ourselves up by the lake and left because it was getting late. I was keeping my eyes on the road, but decided to spare one minute of my concentration to look at her. She was sleeping peacefully on the passenger’s seat, her head rested on her window. Her hair was partially covering her face, hiding the smile she had on her face as she slept.

I let one of my hands leave the steering wheel, to push that strand away from her face, and she moved a bit, to feel more comfortable on the chair. I couldn’t help smiling to myself. Her hair felt soft under my touch, just like her skin.

Not having yet found the ideal moment to come clean about my past with her, I still hadn’t done so. I wanted so much to expose the only secret I had kept from her. But how would I know which was the right moment?

Her eyes flickered open and gazed up at mine. If I hadn’t suddenly remembered that I was driving, I probably would’ve got lost in her eyes and got ourselves in a car crash. She looked at the highway in front of her and asked like a little kid “Are we there yet?” She had just woken up, so her voice was a little rough and she covered her mouth with her hand as she yawned. I explained to her that we were very near and we would be at my house in no time.

She stretched her arms, her shirt going up and showing a strip of her belly, including her belly button. She then started bugging me on how I dared to drive without the radio turned on. I just laughed when she acted angry as she put the radio on the station we had been hearing on our way to the lake.

By the time we arrived at my driveway, our throats were sore from singing along to the songs playing on the radio. We exited my car and went inside my house where the sweet aroma of yet another mouth-watering meal attacked our sensitive noses, frenzying out hungry stomachs.


Place another paper on the photocopy machine, another copy comes out. And repeat. Repeat this simple step over and over until most of your day is filled. Stop only for coffee. That’s how work was for me in the witnesses’ territory. It was a boring job, but I managed to meet some people. Some were pretty young, about my age. They were very impatient as if they hoped for something amazing to happen in their lives, but the opportunity was never brought upon them.

Those were my target: those who seeked for something better.

I had begun claiming their interest by trying to act different then the rest: humming to tunes while I worked, acting cheerful, which wasn’t an easy task in a very boring job…But the riskiest thing I had to do without being caught, was singing a song in a very low tone, with lyrics about revolution and rebellion. That really caught some of their attention.

Then one day, the day before I had to go back to the rebellion’s headquarters to report the progress in my plan, three young employees meet me by the coffee machine and ask me nervously “Are you with the rebellion?” And all I can do is nod and smile. We have got ourselves some recruits. They were curios, but afraid to get caught, so I asked them to meet me in the woods near the barrier at midnight. There was a heavy mist that night which made it hard to go around the woods, but once I reached the spot closest to the barrier, where I had told the three guys to meet me, I saw them standing there waiting patiently for my arrival.

At a distance, they looked grown up and professional, but once we engaged in a conversation, they looked like little kids asking a million questions with wide eyes. They wanted to know everything, from the location of the rebellion’s base, to the plan, to how they could join. They also asked who I was and I had to explain that I used to be a murderer and joined the rebellion. I explained that we would have to get more recruits and that I would go to the base the following day to give a general report to Derek and Revaun. I’ve never seen people that curious and interested about anything before. They wouldn’t even let me stop to breathe with their questions.

Everything was running smoothly. All I needed now was their help to spread the message. They were beyond ready for it and started even telling me people who were dying to join the rebellion but didn’t know how. Apparently, stories about the rebellion had spread throughout the youth in the witnesses’ territory.

After their curiosities were satiated, I decided to ask some questions myself. I wanted their names. The shortest out of the three, who was probably the ‘leader’ in the trio, introduced them. His name was Craig and his two friends were Henry and Max. Max had been the most curious one, while Henry the quietest one.

And a few minutes later, we parted ways. I left them with the mission to recruit some people whilst I was away. They weren’t hesitant to accept it. This was their chance to escape their bland lifestyles. It was their one shot at adrenaline. They wouldn’t pass it off.

I woke up early that same day, just a couple of hours after I’d met with the three newest members of the rebellion. I had to bring more things this time. To be more prepared. I already knew what to expect and wasn’t so amateur this time around. On my way back to the rebellion’s base, I thought about Harriet, the one I once called ‘la femme incognita’, and how she was doing with her own mission. I missed her and hoped she would be at the base when I arrived.

My wish came true as I saw her sitting by Derek talking with a lot of energy, moving her arms and hands and making gestures as she spoke. Derek interrupted her when he saw me and she followed his glare. One minute I saw a smile forming on her lips and the next those very same lips were pressed against mine. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight. I couldn’t stay like that forever though. I wouldn’t even stay much time there. I let go of her, she looked at me and understood. She herself couldn’t stick around much. We would get our time together once we had the chance.

Derek was looking at me, his eyes gleaming with anticipation. I gave him a full report on the situation, explaining how I had finally found some recruits and how the youth in the witness territory was probably the best target when he wanted to find more recruits. Derek was nearly jumping of happiness, and I got the feeling this was the first time one of their plans was actually going as predicted. He gave me a report on his side. They were giving intense training to some of the rebels, the hones who hadn’t gotten the chance to train. And they also were going around the rest of the city, gathering murderers and screamers and finding the best strategic areas to attack when the day finally arrived.

Everything was coming along nicely. And only one week has passed.

When I was done talking to Derek, Harriet had already gone. I decided to ask Derek about her mission. He explained to me that she was almost getting some important information, but she had to become close to some of them to gain their trust and this was the hardest part. I understood and excused myself. I needed clothes for the rest of the week. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake and leave unprepared.

My room seemed empty, but it had always been. I hadn’t brought much, but Revaun had managed to provide me some pieces of clothing since when I arrived all I had were the clothes on my back. And that hat that had once belonged to my father. Speaking about the hat, I didn’t know where it was. I decided to look for it. The last time I had seen it, it was the day I arrived and placed it on my desk. I never really thought about it so it became forgotten. Now when I wanted it, I had no idea where it was.

I was running out of time, so I grabbed a dusty backpack from the top of the closet, it was probably Revaun who put it there for me the last time but I had forgotten it, wiped the dust off and put some clothes similar to the ones I had on into the bag. Ties, shirts, pants, sweater vests, belts… Clothes for an average male witness citizen, clothes you would find in huge quantities in every store on the other side of the wall.

And then, I was off again, only to return in a week.
Some hands covered my eyes, not allowing me to pursue any further on my story. A low laugh was triggered from behind me and I recognized immediately who it was. I rolled to my side so she would fall off my back where she had been lying down covering my eyes. She rolled off my back as I predicted and then complained to me “Hey! What’ya do that for?”

I laughed as I closed my notebook and turned to face her. She had watched me write and looked around my room, always with curiosity. Sometimes I wondered why I had been so afraid of loving. Sure I had done bad things in the past, but people change. Harriet was such a bright person. I wondered why she had gone to Dr. Murphy in the first place. She had left it already, because they didn’t have money to afford it anymore. She told me she didn’t need it anymore anyway.

She wrapped her arms around me and buried her laid her head on my chest. Her face was so warm even through the thin fabric of my shirt. I wrapped my arms around her too. She lifted her head up and her eyes gazed into mine. Whenever I looked back, I would get lost in them, lost in those vast green fields I would see whenever I looked into them. The yellowish brown bits of her eye resembled sunflowers. I would just look and pretend I was running freely through the field, her next to me, her hands in mine.

But my thoughts were broken when her lips met mine. And as I felt her unbuttoning the first button on my shirt, and as my hands went up her back, and as she unbuttoned the second, and as my hands got tangled in her hair, and as she unbuttoned the third, suddenly one memory I thought I had locked away in the long, forgotten past, resurfaced.

I love you, don’t you love me?

I knew her hand gestures were a result of lust. But this time I wouldn’t make the same mistake, I had made so many times in the past. So all I managed to mutter, as I broke the kiss, was “Are you sure?” And she nodded, her decision had been made.

Whistling as I put my things in my locker and waited for Harriet, I felt so happy. Even if Shawn and Brian suddenly showed up, though they hadn’t bothered me since I had showed my true colors to them, my mood wouldn’t go down. I felt someone tapping on my shoulder. I turned around and saw Eric.

“Oh, hey Eric,” I greeted. He also seemed happy, but more so, excited.

“I have good news for you,” he started “so Derek and I were talking and we decided that this month’s free-themed column on the school newspaper will be written by you.” Every article had a section on the newspaper where usually Derek or Eric or Anna wrote about something random. Mostly thoughts or opinions, but it was the most popular section in the newspaper probably. So that news made my day even brighter. “You can send in until the end of the month,” he smiled and said he was in a hurry, then waved goodbye, before running off. I had three weeks to write an article on whatever I wanted.

Brainstorming ideas, I walked away from my locker to go to the school entrance to meet Harriet. She was there, already waiting for me. When she saw me approaching, her lips curved into a smile. I wrapped my arm around her and we walked to my house, as I gave her my good news. Since last night we had become closer than we already were. She was going to stay at my house again this night.

She was more excited for me about the news. She teased “I’ll be your harshest critic. I’m not going soft on you.” Her opinion was probably one of the most important ones to me. And I would be with her when she read so I could know her full reaction.

The days were growing warmer hinting at the arrival of summer in a few weeks. And as the sun was setting I was sitting in front of Harriet writing and she was playing with my camera, taking pictures of herself and of me. At times it annoyed me and I would cover my face with my hand. She then asked for one picture together and I accepted in one condition “You’ll let me write without taking pictures of me.” She agreed and brought her head close to mine and snapped a picture. She showed the finished result to me: she came out great, as usual, I wasn’t so bad myself. My favorite feature had always been my eyes. They were clear blue, just like my mother’s.

Harriet smiled and sat back on the bed this time reading one of my comics. My attention fell on the notebook in on my lap. I read the last part I had written before continuing.


It’s been a week since I found my first recruits. I was now in the woods along with what looked like a hundred and fifty people. All of them around me concentrating on every word I spoke. I was suddenly nervous. I had never been great at speaking in public or at doing speeches.

I looked at every single face and every single one was different from the rest, yet all their minds were alienated, all their clothes identical. I recognized three faces in the crowd, which made me loosen up.

I began the speech I had rehearsed in front of the mirror “How many of you have ever left these walls?” I asked pointing at the tall walls that surrounded that vast area. No one raised their hand. “How many of you would like to see what lies outside of these walls that imprison you?” Every single hand went up, some more hesitant than others.

“As you probably already know, I’m from the rebellion. I have been sent here to recruit new members. For what, you may ask. Well, as you all know the Supreme Court is overwhelmed with their power and use it for the wrong purposes. They have alienated all of you. They have alienated all of us. But we, at the rebellion, know this and don’t like it one single bit. We also know that they are planning on conquering other cities and implementing their system on the other cities.

“We have to stop them before it’s too late. We have to show the City of Muoia Nell’ Aria the light that has been suppressed from them. We have to free its citizens from naivety and ignorance. Now, who wants to join?”

That was probably the first speech I had ever made where I didn’t stutter or mumble. I sounded so sure of myself. And one by one, the hands began clapping and they began cheering. I knew that meant they were all in. Now all I had to do was train them.

And the attack was getting closer and closer with every passing day.

I didn’t have time to write more, because I heard a beeping sound coming from Harriet’s backpack. Harriet snatched it and grabbed her mobile phone from the front pocket. She had received a text message and a sad and worried expression formed on her face.

“What happened?” She was replying to the text message. I wondered who had sent the message and what did it say, so I placed my notebook on the desk behind me and walked to her side. She hid her cell phone and responded.

“Nothing.” She forced a smile.

And once again, the mask that had been placed aside for a couple of days, returned to her face. And the peace and bliss we felt the previous night turned into chaos. Just like the painting in Dr. Murphy’s office.