Lucid Waking

Archive for December 3rd, 2006

The SSPD

Originally published on March 30, 2006

            Sharon sat down in the office chair across from the older woman. The nameplate on her desk read “S. Janine Smith.” She had dyed-red hair and brown eyes with still a trace of youth in her flawless face and freckles. Janine opened up a file on the computer that Sharon couldn’t see. Sharon wrung her hands nervously under the lip of the desk and looked out the window behind Janine’s chair. Seconds ticked by like years before Janine turned and smiled at Sharon.
            “So,” Janine said getting up to close the door. “What made you look for work here at the Secret Service Police Department?”
            “I’ve been searching for something different, something risky and new that I’ve never done before.”
            Janine sat down at her desk and looked Sharon in the eyes. “I’m going to start out with the usual speech: you know that this is not a typical job and is not to be taken lightly as child’s play. We work with life and death here and one mistake can mean the difference between your life and someone else’s. Perfection is a priority and we see it in the highest regard. If you are chosen for this job you may not even go out on the field for another couple months, if you’re lucky. Any questions?”
            Sharon shook her head and took a deep breath as Janine continued:
            “Based on your past employee record as a—stunt double?” she paused and looked up from the computer screen.
            “Yes,” Sharon said looking her employer in the eyes. “Fifteen years.”
            Janine shook her head and faced the computer screen again. “You seem more than qualified to take the job as a forward. According to your records you also went to Harvard’s law school and have quite a record in public speaking, which would qualify you for a defense.” She minimized the window on the screen and turned back to face Sharon. “I suppose the best thing is to give you a couple tests and see how well you do.”
            Sharon breathed a small sigh of relief and started to get up.
            “Not, yet. We need you to answer a couple of questions first. Though your eagerness to start is encouraging.” Janine pulled out a green form from the file cabinet in her desk and pulled out a pen from the upper drawer. “So, number one. How did you hear about us?”
            Sharon raised one eyebrow. “Everyone knows about the SSPD. But I know someone who works the tech; he just told me he hacks computers for a living and recommended that I should come here after I stopped getting movie contracts.”
            “Any criminal records?”
            “No.”
            “Health issues?”
            “Well, not to be rude or anything, but couldn’t you check my records?” Sharon said impatiently. Her knees were starting to shake and she had a feeling of needing to go pee she was trying to repress. She wanted nothing more to get the interview over with and leave the office.
            “That information is not allowed to us until you are an employee,” Janice said without even looking up from the form.
            “I’m deathly allergic to fish,” Sharon said quietly, glancing over the other woman’s head somewhat embarrassed.
            Janine glanced up from the paper to give Sharon a somewhat surprised look before glancing back down quickly.
            “Education?”
            “Masters in Law and Anatomy. I took some first aid courses around different community centers and worked alongside a friend of mine in an ambulance for three years.”
            Janine put the pen away and smiled at Sharon. “Well, you’ve had quite an interesting life.”
            Sharon smiled. “I’m glad you think so.”
            “Well, welcome aboard, Sharon. Fortunately, you seem to be overqualified for the job, so I’ll see you tomorrow for your first bit of training. Training will be more of a tour on how the company works, as you already know the basics on how to defend yourself, but I’m sure that will be good enough for you to get a feel on what we’re looking for from our employees. We’ll do a couple of tests to see what you can do and give you some more training from there.”
            Sharon shook Janine’s hand and left the office as quickly as she could without seeming hasty. Once outside the doors she stopped and took a large breath of air. Then she casually walked over to the nearest coffee shop.
            “I’ll take a espresso with an extra shot,” she said to the cashier and handed them a five, saying hurriedly, “keep the change.”
            She sat down at a table and looked out the window. You did it, Shar. Congrats! You got the job!  She thought, but her mind didn’t entirely comprehend what had just happened.
            “Ma’am?” a short seventeen-year-old boy handed her a paper cup full of steamy coffee before disappearing behind the counter again. She took the plastic top off the cup and inhaled deeply as she closed her eyes. Excitement would come later, as soon as the realization hit that she had gotten a job she was going to keep for the rest of her working life.

The Doll House

Originally published on March 29, 2006

           Alice and John would spend hours coming up with adventures for the Pilsner family. The dolls were Alice’s and she would buy the small ones with her birthday money from Pilsner’s Doll Shoppe. Although John pretended just to play house with his little sister as an older brother’s obligation, he enjoyed it as much as she did and would dust the house whenever no one was there to watch him. They had come up with an entire epic on the tales of specific dolls in Alice’s collection. Mrs. Pilsner was a slender doll with golden hair and blue eyes. Alice would usually have her in a blue dress with flowers. She worked as a dance teacher (Alice’s contribution) several minutes from home and taught any dance from the Tango to the Waltz. Mr. Pilsner was a professor at the local college (John’s contribution) who would come home from work and spend time with his son and daughter. Then he would grade papers in his study before going to bed. He wore a gray suit and had brown hair with brown eyes and glasses. Megan Pilsner was eight years old with blond hair and brown eyes. She loved the color orange and flowers. Every day, she would go out in her orange dress and apron and pick some flowers after school and put them in a cup of water until they wilted. She would then throw out the old flowers and pick new ones. Samuel Pilsner was ten and had brown hair and blue eyes. He wore gray trousers and a blue shirt. Sam loved to read and was often found with his nose in a book by the creek down the road. Aunt Trish was a schoolteacher who would visit every summer, as she was unmarried and school was out then. She had red hair and green eyes with small freckles around her nose. She usually wore a red-striped dress with an apron. Then there was Todd, who really had no relation to the family at all. Alice wanted him to be in love with Aunt Trish, but John thought that was too stupid and pointless. Alice and John used to have fights over this, but soon they dropped it and just had Todd as a family friend. Although Alice had tried several times to get either Aunt Trish interested in Todd or visa versa, John would have no part in it and they would have to stop. Todd had black hair and gray eyes and would wear tan pants with a white button down shirt (this was Alice’s favorite outfit for the men, but she would never tell John that). Alice continued to buy more dolls for the family, until soon, the two had an entire town of people. They stopped adding members to the family and called their town Sempresummer. Occasionally, the Pilsner mansion would hold extravagant parties, when Alice would pull out her box of extra clothes and dress each and every doll in a new outfit. Then she would call John over and they would have a busy evening. 
           The Pilsner mansion was quite an extravagant house, despite its size. The kitchen had a porcelain sink, a family table in the middle of the room with a breadbox and cheese. An icebox sat in the corner next to a bright window with a window box filled with pansies and marigolds. The floor was a spotless white under matching chairs around the small table. The kitchen led to the dining room. The ceiling had a crystal chandelier over a large wood table. The seats were upholstered in velvet and they sat upon a dustless hard wood floor. The table was set with matching rose china and a candelabrum sat in the center of the table. The dining room had two doors: one led to the ballroom and the other to the parlor. The parlor had two couches and a large fireplace. Above the mantle was the family portrait and below that was a clock. The couches face the south wall and were a chocolate brown with a curtain trimming around the bottom to hide the legs. The floor was hardwood and polished. A wall of large windows was on the north wall and the curtains matched the color of the couches. There were more pictures along the remaining walls. There was a door in the far corner leading to the kitchen from the parlor as well. The ballroom was Alice’s favorite. It was the largest room in the house with large windows on the west wall, where the dancers could watch the sun set. The southern wall was also covered in windows and in the middle of the wall was a pair of glass doors leading to the garden. The walls were a light green and the curtains on the windows were sheer white with gold thread around the edges. Silk ribbons hung from the edges of the curtains so that the maids could pull them back and tie them with a bow. In the adjacent corner to the door was a piano and behind the piano on shelves were a violin, cello, and harp. The ceiling had pictures of angels dancing in a masquerade in some heavenly ball. The parlor also had a door next to the one leading to the kitchen that went to the library. The library was always John’s favorite. Although not very big, the library had bookshelves that reached the ceiling and a ladder that rolled on a track around the room. A table sat in the middle of the room with several chairs that were padded on the back and the seat. The east wall was covered in windows, “so that one had the best reading light in the morning,” John would say. A chandelier was in the middle above the table, “so that you can continue reading until it’s morning again.” The library had a small extra corner and was shaped like a large “L”. Next to the windows was a door leading to the hall. At the opposite end of the hall was a staircase leading to the bedrooms.
           The hall on the second floor had white walls and was shaped in a “T”. There were windows on the horizontal top of the “T,” facing east and smaller window at the bottom, facing west. There was light tan carpeting covering the hall. The first room on the left was the study. The study was a long room with a long window facing south and a small powder room in the corner. The walls were painted a bright blue and the carpeting was navy. The walls had a couple shelves with books on them, but mostly photographs of the family and newspaper clippings of interesting articles. There was a desk underneath the windows running the length of the wall with a typewriter and papers strewn all over the desk. Alice and John knew to leave them alone, lest Mr. Pilsner would get upset. The next room was the master bedroom. This room was also long and painted mauve. The carpet on the floor matched the walls and the basing around the floor was cherry. A large window covered in thick mauve curtains and matching valence was on the south wall. There was a chair in the corner of the room and a large king-size bed in the northeast corner. The west wall had a door, which lead into the master bathroom. The walls were mauve, but the sink, bathtub, and floor were a black marble. The windows on the south and west walls were frosted and had mauve curtains. On the right side of the hall, closest to the stairs were the two guest bedrooms. Both painted white with black bedspreads and black curtains. The powder rooms had white paint with black porcelain sink and toilet. Next to the guest bedrooms was the public bathroom. This was painted taupe with gold trimming and white porcelain bathtub, sink, and toilet. There were no windows in this bathroom, but a small light with frosted-glass covering was in the middle of the room. The final two bedrooms were children’s bedrooms: one painted apricot, the other periwinkle. There were windows in both on the south walls and the curtains matched the walls and carpeting.
           Years went by and Alice and John stopped playing in Sempresummer. Occasionally, when Alice had nothing else to do, she would pull out all the dolls and rearrange their daily lives. Eventually John moved out of the house and Alice was looking at the dollhouse for the last time before she left for college. She smiled and moved Todd and Aunt Trish into one the guest rooms where they could have a more private conversation and perhaps, if John didn’t intervene, fall in love.