Die in Tune

Beep. Three cans of diet soda. Beep. Worry. Beep. A stuffed toy of a teddy bear. Beep. Possibility of Danger. Beep. A bottle of shampoo. Beep. What the hell is Harriet hiding from me? Beep.

Those are my thoughts as clients with their trolleys and their items enter and leave the store holding bags filled with your run-of-the-mill household objects. All this throughout the few hours I spend there.

Harriet had been receiving and replying to messages of a person I had no knowledge about. For all I knew, it could be the same guy from the night of the party and she could be in danger and didn’t want me to be more worried than I already am. She didn’t like it when we treated her like some frail damsel in distress like in the movies. She was brave, a quality of hers. A quality that sometimes worked against me.

The reality of the situation had struck me hard in the beginning of the week: the money we’re making is still not enough. Since then I had become paranoid and began asking her endless questions about the person who was sending her messages. I didn’t want to leave her alone. To me, it was as if danger was lurking in some hidden place, ready to attack.

Beep. A pack of sugar free chewing gum. Beep. A question. Beep. Three cans of beans. Beep. A fight. Beep. Two boxes of cereals. Beep. A door being slammed shut. Beep.

The last time I had seen her hadn’t gone well. One random thought had popped into my mind. The week of the party, she hadn’t showed up in school. I asked her about it. She said “It’s not a big deal. I got up late those days and decided to skip school.” I don’t even know what got into me, but maybe it was because of the way I had been acting those days and because of the thought that had struck me that I started giving her sermons on how she should be more cautious and all that and she got angry because I was being to authorative. I denied her accusation and it made her even madder.

Neither of us wanted to accept the other was right. Neither of us wanted to accept that we were wrong. Stubborn as we were, we kept throwing argument after argument at each other. The arguments turned to shouts. The shouts ended with her going out of my house and slamming the door hard. That was just before I had to go to work. I was going to her house to apologize. I didn’t want us to be angry at each other.

And my shift was over.

The air was dry and hot outside. Summer was already a month away. I jogged my way to her house, not wanting to arrive too late. The sun was almost setting and some adults were returning to their homes from work. Kids were playing in the front lawns, absorbing the last rays of the sunlight.

I had never had a fight with someone like that and I had never asked for someone’s forgiveness, so I had to admit I was nervous. My feet got heavier as I approached the doorstep. It had been my fault. I had been too controlling I realized that afternoon, but I couldn’t help being that way when I was worried.

My finger met her doorbell. My feet over a doormat that says in faded letters “Welcome”. More like ‘Unwelcome’, I thought. And suddenly the door opening in front of me and Harriet’s eyes meeting mine. Her gaze cold and blank. Our words trapped within the silence. Usually I would’ve tried using sarcasm or some witty phrase to end this confrontation, but at that moment, nothing came to mind.

I couldn’t escape. I had to say it.

“Harriet, I’m sorry.” I couldn’t utter the words I had planned in my mind: ‘I shouldn’t have been so bossy’ or ‘I shouldn’t have been so controlling’. They just got stuck in my throat, not wanting to come out. I guess pride still got the best of me. Yet the simplistic nature of those three words seemed enough to express how sorry I was.

She stood at the door looking at me for a while. I was still nervous. The only other time I had to ask forgiveness, I never really did and ran away. Then her serious expression turned into a forgiving smile. “I’m sorry too. I guess I probably have part of the blame for making you worried for no reason with all the enigmatic life questions I asked.” She laughed a bit and wrapped her arms around me.

The moment was ruined, at least for me, when her mobile phone in her pocket blasted with a loud message alarm. Harriet didn’t acknowledge the sound though and just kept her arms around me. I pretended to ignore it too, because I knew that she didn’t want to talk about it.

She invited me inside as if everything was normal. Her bed was warm and inviting as we shared the comforter and filled out mouth with chips, finishing watching our favorite classic comedy film. Everything was back to normal. Everything pretended to be normal. Everything wasn’t normal. Yet the cuddles we shared, and the laughs we had could fool anyone to believe that nothing was worrying us, a careless young pair of romantics.

“Harriet,” I decided to just try to bring one piece of reality to the moment “I promise I won’t overreact like last time, but I want you to know that everything will be okay. It won’t be long until we have all the money…” She nodded believing me, but she didn’t meet my eyes to assure that everything really was going to be alright.

She turned her attention back to the television screen, but when she noticed how the laughs became forced and the silence between us awkward, she said, each word another evidence of her nervous state.

“He’s been impatient.”

Impatient. Everyone in the rebellion has been impatient. They want a revolution. They want it badly. Yet they don’t understand the preparation needed to achieve success. The time is coming, it is very close and we are not yet prepared. More people just joined, more amateurs, more people to learn, more people unprepared. We need more time.

The locations have been picked; the plan was ready.

All we had left to do was train those new rebels to fight against the higher authority. According to Harriet, the Supreme Court had a strong army, ready to fight in case of attack. Even if they were outnumbered, we would never know if we would come out of this all victorious. This army was somewhat reminiscent of the French musketeers who were loyal to their sovereigns and devoted to their missions. Harriet informed that even with all their sources and informants, the secret army doesn’t suspect about a possible riot.

Harriet. Oh, Harriet. Our encounters had been brief, yet pleasant. Very pleasant. More than just pleasant actually, I think amazing would be a better adjective to define the moments I had spent with her. She was still herself; almost unchanged by her mission, except she held some uncertainty within her once very confident eyes, but she could hide that doubt through her posture and her words. I guess she always held a bit of her old persona, La Femme Incognita. You never truly knew what was going through her mind.

She also was hiding secrets from me and from the rest of us, secrets of the Supreme Court that she couldn’t reveal to anyone. She said they were irrelevant for our plan, but they were secrets nonetheless. I had a feeling that these secrets trapped within the confines of her mind were stealing away some of the spark from her eyes.

Derek had made it clear multiple times that he didn’t want to let Revaun down yet another time, thus pressuring me more and granting me less time to spend with Harriet. Time was a constant worry. Everything went by too fast. We lived in a world trapped by time.

Revaun on the other hand would assure me that even if something went wrong that at least we tried. He was becoming the person I looked up to the most. The one I would go up to for advice. One of the few who actually understood me sometimes almost as well as Harriet. He didn’t take life too seriously, he loved life. And he was optimistic, very optimistic. In his heart, he truly believed that everything would turn alright in the end.

Some people could question his authority, because he, in fact, trusted me and Derek to lead with an experimental plan, but his role in the plan was merely like a king, just to allow us to proceed or deny any further progress in a strategy. But he was more a leader because everyone respected him, and he was like an older brother to everyone, someone who could motivate them and have faith in them through all the victories and mistakes.

Derek was now sitting before me, his green eyes wide with excitement as I narrated the details of the situation back in witness territory. He had dark circles under his eyes, probably due to lack of sleep, making him look slightly older than his age. He was still probably the youngest rebel, yet he was one of the strongest. Which struck me: I had never had a duel with him. He was too anxious for the revolution. Impatient just like the rest. This would be something new to everyone. Something that never happened. Revolutionary. Historical. Epic.

“Could I have a duel with you?” I stuttered slightly as I asked. I was nervous because he had defeated Revaun, and Revaun hadn’t gone easy on him on the last three times. Derek’s enthusiasm just got bigger, like of a kid who just received an amazing present from his parents. He didn’t give in so easily. He pretended to consider the options, though the grin on his face made it obvious that he didn’t even hesitate to make his decision.

“Yes, sure.” Of course, this was like a board game for him. Or like a simple game you played as a kid, like tag or hide and seek. Just a game. That was one thing I still hadn’t quite processed since I was in the rebellion. I always felt like it was the real deal. Maybe because it was a lot like the real thing, except in this game, nobody died.

I knew it was hard to ignore the fact that people, our people, would most likely die in this attack. We didn’t know if it would be me, or Derek, or Revaun, or Harriet, or anyone else. Any loss would be missed. Any loss would be another stab at my guilty conscience. Because if it all went down the drain, they would’ve died for a lost cause.

Derek sprung up and was on his way to the training area. I was still sitting in my spot watching him walk away, when he turned to me and asked “Aren’t we going to fight?” I nodded and got up. I wasn’t expecting it to be at that moment, but then again, who knew if there was going to be a next meeting. The training was almost over.

He tossed me one sword and picked one for himself. Mine was about twenty inches long, while his was a bit smaller than mine. I held onto its cold handle and put myself in a defense position: blade in front of me protecting my face and torso, my grip steady and my legs slightly bent, ready to dodge any unwanted attack.

He didn’t even wait to jab his sword at my knee missing by just an inch and I defended by maneuvering my sword and blocking his. He was so agile he just kept on attacking, and I kept on dodging and blocking his attacks. I tried a couple of attacks, but I concluded that my position was mostly defensive. I was agile, just not as much as him. It was late already, so nobody was there to watch our duel, no one to cheer us on. The area was empty and silent, with the exception of the sound of the blades colliding.

We carried on and on, for what seemed like hours, thrusting our swords forwards or jumping back in defense. Sweat coated our forehead, some drops going down to our chins and falling on the ground. We were too concentrated in our duel that everything else was blurred out.

It was nobody’s victory. Nobody’s defeat.

Suddenly we hear a pair of hands clapping.

Getting louder. And louder.

And out of the shadows appeared a figure. A slender and elegant figure: Harriet. “Boys, you do know that you should be saving your efforts for the real battle. We all know this battle will never end…” She had a smirk plastered on her thin lips. She was wearing a big coat with a hood, covering her facial features with a dark shadow. The whole attire had “murderer” written all over it. It was subtle and humble, yet mysterious.

We both dropped our arms and shook our hands, knowing damn well that Harriet was right. We were both strong in different ways. He was fast and strong, better at attacking. I was strategic and patient, better at defending.

I walked to Harriet and pressed my lips to hers. Her hands went up to my shoulders and she said “The time has almost come…This is almost over.” I smiled as she pressed her lips against mine again. This was the only attack I wouldn’t defend myself from. We stopped and faced Derek to finish the meeting before we could all go back to our own routines. “So how many days more until the training is over?” She asked. According to her, any moment in that week would be the best moment to attack.

“Give us two more days. I think we’re ready.” And with that Derek smirked, left the area and retreated to his room without further exchange of words or even a mere “Goodnight”. He probably got the hint that the fight wouldn’t be able to resume because one of the opponents had some business to deal with.

He was indeed right. Harriet and I had plans. This would be one of our careless days or, in this case, nights. We left the rebellion headquarters and ran inconspicuously to the woods outside of the city. I had seen it from the lookout, but didn’t think we could go there. We were going to test the city’s limits that very night: a thrilling, yet dangerous adventure.

The fresh evening breeze gave me goosebumps on my almost bare arms. I pulled my long sleeves down and ran after Harriet who was already ahead of me. She had sprinted forward as soon as we touched murderer territory. Using the shadows always to our advantage, we made it safely to the border that separated us, from the rest of the world, a place completely foreign to us.

I looked at Harriet and put my hands together to hoist her up and over the border. She didn’t need help though. She found some rough bits on the wall and used them to climb it and go over it. I was never too fond of climbing tall surfaces, but once I got the hang of it, it wasn’t such a hard task.

The woods that surrounded the city were dense and savage. There were many different sounds, all peaceful contrasting the violent angles in which the trees stuck out. I felt something warm connecting with my hands. I looked down to see her hand holding mine. We smiled at each other and wandered through the woods, not letting go of each other.

There was no human made path. Everything was dark and in a way, slightly scary. It seemed unreal, like something you would hear in a myth but not believe. Or something from an abstract painting. This was all new to us. Or maybe ancient, but civilization was so advanced to the point that nature was already unknown to some. The different tones of green in which the leaves were painted fascinated me, just like the nocturnal sounds that traveled with the wind.

We didn’t know where we were going. Our destination was wherever our feet lead us. The wind helped us walk with more ease because it wasn’t going against us, but with us. Harriet suddenly nudged me. “Can you hear that?” I tried to find any distinct sound, but all I heard was the same sounds I had heard until there, so I shook my head.

“It’s water,” she said before dragging me after her following the sound she had heard. I could faintly hear it as we got closer, the sound echoing off the trees’ branches louder and louder with every pacing step. The sound remained a mystery until we saw a clear pale reflection of the moon on the peaceful surface of what looked like a small lake. It was truly stunning.

The moonlight hit her face making her shine in the darkness. Her eyes turned to mine and no words had to be uttered for that moment to be perfect: me behind her, my arms wrapped around her waist, her in front of me, her hands in mine and her eyes looking deep into mine. This was the definition of perfection. Her eyes closing as I pressed warm kisses on her clavicle. Nothing would ruin that moment. Right there, right then: we were in utter bliss.

I was in Dr. Murphy’s office writing that. I wasn’t doing much there anymore, just finishing the month. I could feel her glance upon me. She still insisted on taking notes, even though I didn’t really need to attend these sessions anymore.

The previous night, we sat on the rooftop of her house just gazing at the stars. Various thoughts in our minds were evacuated for that little moment we spent together and alone. Her head on my shoulder; my arm around her body. For a single moment we had put all our worries in a jar and left it back to enjoy the simple splendor a night sky had to offer us. Nothing more; nothing less.

Before that, Harriet had told me everything. Instead of releasing all of my emotions once I heard the news, I decided to write in Dr. Murphy’s in exchange for the calmness I felt around Harriet. She felt like I was avoiding talking about it on purpose, but respected my decision. She had told me that she had been contacted by the guy through different numbers, every time getting more impatient. He had promised Harriet that as long as she had the money, he wouldn’t harm her or her mother. After telling me all that, I still felt like she was hiding something from me, and that is what was making me so worried.

“Anything you’d like to talk about, Kaleb?” Dr. Murphy’s sudden interruption to my thoughts actually brought me back to reality. What the hell were we doing? Why weren’t we calling the police? Getting real help, not trying to get ourselves into deeper shit! I shut my notebook and thought about those questions. Questions I had, oddly, never pondered upon.

“Nothing,” that’s all that came out of my mouth.

She sighed a bit and I knew she had given up. I felt kind of bad for being uncooperative almost every session, but that thought faded as fast as I surged. My attention returned to my closed notebook, which I opened to read what I had written. I could imagine the notes Dr. Murphy was writing about me now:

He is hiding behind his insecurity and worry.
He is keeping things to himself instead of opening himself up to people.
He seems to trust his notebook more than certain people.
He can’t stop writing. Someday his story will take over his life!

Okay, maybe not the last note. But that’s how I imagined her notes being.

The time was nearly over anyway, so after reading just a couple of paragraphs, my time was up. Only one more session after this one and I would not have to sit on that couch, bored and silent, anymore. At least in the meantime.

I thanked Dr. Murphy for her time, as I always did. She smiled and then, as I was leaving, she called my name. “Kaleb,” I faced her “I think you don’t have any real issues, you just have to correct the mistakes you’ve done in the past. You already have moved on…” I wondered how she knew all that about me. I thanked her and walked out of her office thinking about the words she told me. Maybe I’m not the unreadable book I always thought I was.

Walking to my house, I was going to drop some things off, then go to Harriet’s house and maybe watch a comedy movie or hang out. The sun was still up in the sky, brightening up even the darkest alleys, evidence of the end of spring and the beginning of summer. School was almost over as well, only a couple of weeks and tests left. It wasn’t really much of a challenge for me, it never has been. I absorbed a lot in class so I didn’t have to study much at all.

Time was going too fast for my taste, too fast for me to grasp onto those moments I wish I could freeze like a photograph keeps a memory eternally. But like most things we wish for, we rarely get them.

My hands were in my pockets as I was nearing her house, but, for some reason, my fingers suddenly felt this tingling sensation. The same feeling I get when I have too much inspiration to contain within me. I wanted to write. Right there. In the middle of the street.

I clenched my fists, trying to keep the urge to write inside me, at least until I returned home. The urge got even bigger when I planted my feet on top of the “Welcome” matt on her doorstep.

Maybe when I saw her, my urge to write would disappear.

I rang the doorbell and waited. Looking around the neighborhood, I saw little girls playing with a jumping rope as they sang nursery rhymes in the front lawn of house across the street; a lady was watering her daisies and petunias and a bunch of other flowers I didn’t recognize; a guy was running to the beat of whatever song he was listening to, though from the constant and persistent beat, I was leaning towards a song of an electronic or techno nature… But what caught my eye were the people in the car that passed directly in front of me.

A bunch of strange faces that seemed so familiar.

When I looked closer, I saw the faces of the individuals fading and transforming into faces of my past, faces of my old friends. They were laughing and talking about girls and the next party. The music in the stereo was blasting, heard by everyone who was at a twenty meter radius from the car. As I stared to the person who was driving the car, who seemed like the most outgoing and most confident of them, I saw my own face, but not me. I wasn’t that confident, or that cold, or that careless anymore.

That was a reflection of my past.

The past that, as much as I can deny, I was still emotionally attached to. I still hadn’t fully moved on, because I hadn’t resolved all the issues in my past like I thought, when I confronted my old friends. I ran away from other issues I convinced myself to forget. Only once I solved them, I would be able to detach myself from my old town and everything in it. That’s what Dr. Murphy meant with her last sentence.

The first thing I would do though was coming clean with Harriet about everything. She had told me her secrets and now it was my turn. It was my turn to lift all this weight off my shoulders.

She was taking longer than usual to open the door. Normally, a knock on the door and the door would swing open in a flash revealing my dazzling princess free herself from the trenches of darkness. Actually this is just me exaggerating and using dark metaphors. She probably would just press the “pause” button in the movie she was watching (her love, for bizarre and foreign movies, was infinite), dash downstairs and greet me with a huge, cute grin on her face.

I rang the doorbell again. And again. And again.

Nobody answered.

I put my hand on the knob and noticed that the door was unlocked. Harriet and her mother never left the door unlocked. Ever. I opened the door and everything inside was just how it always was: perfectly normal. For some reason I instinctively reached for my mobile phone. It had turned off without my knowledge. As I climbed the stairs to her bedroom, waiting for my cell phone to turn on, I noticed the silence in the house. Nobody was inside.

Once my cell phone was on, I saw that I had one voice message. I played it as I opened her bedroom door. “Hey Kaleb! It’s Harriet.” A familiar song was playing in the background.

“Listen, I didn’t want to tell you this, but I’m going to meet him. Don’t worry, it’s all under control.”Nervousness tainted her voice. “I have some of the money with me, but he wanted some detailed knowledge on how we were handling the money issue, and he didn’t want to talk over the phone.”She sighed at her last statement. The background music was loud.

“Anyway, I think he’s arriving soon and my time in this message is almost up. You’re probably in my room now, so that’s why you’re listening to this message, because you found out I wasn’t at home and that your mobile phone was turned off. I tried to call your house so I’m sure you aren’t there either... Okay, I'll finish this message now. I love you.” And the line was silent.

And everything just turned chaos. All my little inner peace and control faded. The words weren’t writing themselves, they were playing in my mind like a narrator of my life. The narrator was me. Well not me, but the alter ego I had in me. Words I had in me to write sooner or later were being read out loud in my head. And I couldn’t control it.

My art, my reality.


And that day she left to go on her last moments of infiltration before we would attack. She would go with the Supreme Court to the location of the attack to join us and fight along with us. It was a risky choice because if the Supreme Court suspected even a little bit of her, she was dead. But I couldn’t stop her. She was brave and stubborn and wouldn’t let people talk her out of things.

The words she spoke made her seem certain; her eyes gave away her anxiety and fear. Two days had passed so fast. The last moment I had with her was by the lake, gazing at the stars as they shined over our interlocked bodies. The last words she whispered to me were “I love you”. Those words repeated in my mind as I tried to focus on my mission.

I tried to think of anything that could lead me to her location. Anything at all. She was calling from her mobile phone. If she had called from some restaurant phone, maybe, just maybe, I would recognize the number and the location, but even that was a long shot. But I had to find her. I felt like something bad was going to happen. And I wanted to be there before it happened. Think, Kaleb,Think! I thought.


From the lookout I could see the murderers, witnesses and screamers living their normal daily lives. The witnesses were like robots or clones from a distance. Almost every adult wore a business suit, and had a briefcase or coffee in her hands; the younger ones preferring the local recreational activities.

The screamers were attacking murderer rookies, who didn’t know a single thing about precise and fatal incisions and all the anatomic stuff you needed to know to kill a person with just one strike, begging them to be murdered. They must’ve been really desperate.

The murderers were wandering around, lurking in the darkest shadows mostly, and wearing discreet outfits. What caught my eye was a little boy - I presume he was a screamer because he was in screamer territory– playing with a wooden box. He opened the box and a song began playing.

A song, the one playing in the background during the voice message. I repeated the voice message trying to recognize the familiar melody. It was an old fashioned song, with slow, harmonious beats, high pitched vocals and mellow guitar riffs that people rarely heard nowadays. There was only one place that played it almost all the time: the dinner where Harriet worked before. She had to be there or near it. And I had to hurry.

The dinner wasn’t very far. If I ran at a fairly fast pace, I could be there in less than ten minutes. And that’s exactly what I did: ran as fast as I could. I didn’t know what I would do once I got there. I just knew I had to be there for Harriet in case she needed some defense.

Various questions filled my mind. The same ones I had asked myself in Dr. Murphy’s office. At this point it seemed useless, but why didn’t we call any local authority in the beginning? Why did we keep it to ourselves, believing that by earning the necessary amount of money we would be off the hook?

As my feet pounded onto the concrete ground, repeating that simple, repetitive movement, among the many things that popped into my head, one was more enigmatic then the rest: was my story just writing itself in my mind? Maybe the fictional note I had pictured Dr. Murphy writing back in her office was right. Maybe destiny was being written by me. Maybe my life was imitating my story. All these are uncertainties, but they make me question more and more how much power do I have as a writer over my story.

That was one question I was going to put on hold, for there were bigger and riskier issues to be dealt with. Perhaps I wasn’t exaggerating much with that metaphor I made earlier about her being the princess, and technically me being her prince charming and her savior from darkness.

Let’s just see if this prince charming arrives on time.