Voices....Jane Elisabeth Walker

Hey folks,

I'm going to change my aim a little bit here. The Mondays are going to change their purpose. As I don't hate that many bands, Cracking Down was starting to loose some steam. In fact, whatever style you do, if you rock to it as hard as you can, there is a good chance I like your music. So, therefore...the need for a change was getting there on Monday.

So here is my new formula. It's called: "Voices". It's a very simple concept. Every week, I'll write a different story, which will mainly be OR an action OR character developpement OR dialogue. It will have around 1000 words every time. It will have no other restraint...but maybe to be prose...no poetry, no column...just fiction.

The kick off for this week is inspired by an ex-girlfriend of mine who went Norman Bates on me a few years ago before disappearing into the past. A few weeks ago I had a dream where she was in an institution. If we take this at a wider range, I guess it could be interpreted as a tale about the dangers of young adulthood a theme that I love!!! Just sit back, relax and enjoy:

Jane Elisabeth Walker

Ah, look at all the lonely people

Jane is signing in front of the mirror.

Ah, look at all the lonely people…

Tonight is the big night she worked so hard for. Tonight she’ll finally be a princess. Oh it wasn’t an easy road. It wasn’t well traveled neither. But all that work will come to fruition. Tonight, Dwight is picking her up at seven to go to the prom.

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream…waits at the window…

She liked that song, Eleanor Rigby, her mother used to sign it while rocking her when she was young. She loved that feeling, that security of rocking against her mother’s body. Signing it was quite soothing for Jane Elisabeth. It remembered her of that warm, relaxing moment with mommy. A time when she felt invincible.

When she was done with her make-up, she looked at herself in the room’s vanity one more time, in contemplation. She worked so hard at being beautiful.

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from ?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong ?

Jane is happy, she wishes that moment lasts forever.

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear…

After the prom, she would become a lawyer. Not a cold and greedy one, but a passionate one who helps the kids and the needy. The good kind of lawyers, like in these movies she saw. That would invest their lives into helping the others and find love in a ruthless co-worker who will be inspired by her selfless work. Dwight was a nice boyfriend, but he was a pure intellectual. She couldn’t live her life next to someone who wants to be a pure spirit, this is not the real world. She was not important enough for him. He was nice, but he wasn’t what love destined for Jane Elisabeth.

All the lonely people…

She had the most beautiful dress and she went such a long way since the days of Piggy Walker. She wasn’t Piggy anymore. She was Jane…or J. Elisabeth Walker as she planned to use for a professional name. Oh, such excitement. As she was double checking the last details, she saw the reflection of Charlie’s face in the vanity.

She didn’t like Charlie. He was a meanie. Even if she worked so hard to become who she was today, Charlie kept making Jane feel like Piggy. He was a stupid boy. Jealous of her happiness, of her status among her peers. He was just an unhappy boy in a blue suit, roaming the corridors of their house.

“Jane, what’chu doin’?” he asked, as if he didn’t know.

“Get out Charlie, I have to get ready, Dwight will be there soon.” Jane answered,
clearly irritated.

Charlie rolled his eyes and put his back against the door of her room.

“What? Get out!” she said.

“Jane, it’s time to go to bed.” , he said.

“What? But it’s only seven! Dwight will be there soon, he’ll take me to the prom.

He’ll have an orchid for me.”, she said, laughing.

“Why are we going over this every time Jane Elisabeth? You go to bed at seven, because you wake up at five. Doctor Grimsley gives you that curfew because you have sleep disorder. Aren’t you taking your medication?” Charlie said, grumpily.

The notion of Doctor Grimsley was vaguely unpleasant. She couldn’t pinpoint who he was, but it awoke a flow of images in her mind. She saw the blood, she was the worried look on daddy’s face…she saw that old, wrinkled, dry man looking at her with a cold pity.

“I can’t go to bed, what is Dwight going to think? He’s going to think that I’m crazy” told Jane with a loud, nervous noise, trying to get Charlie out of her way.

“Jane, Dwight is dead. You killed him. You’re living in this fantasy because it was the best moment of your life. Snap out of it, just accept who you are and what you’ve done.”

Jane started to screaminguncontrollably. She threw herself at Charlie throwing blind windmill punches. Charlie took her by under the arms and pulled her away from the bathroom. She was kicking the air and trying to bite Charlie’s arm. Thank god he was wearing his vest. These were the blocking mechanism Doctor Grimsley said. Every time she was confronted to what happened, she’d violently block it, wind up the clock and start again where she was happy and unassuming.

Jane Elisabeth Walker came to Silver Heights a year ago after she was judged unapt for criminal prosecution. She was suffering of extreme nervous exhaustion following her failure at an exam in criminal law class at University Of Washington. Her mother told Doctor Grimsley that she could never adapt to the competitive world of law students. The long hours, the jealousy, the inner politics. She was raised in a very calm and protected environnement.

What Charlie could never understand was why she killed that poor fellow Dwight Hartman. After all, SHE dumped him for a greater life in the big city. But no, she killed him, she stabbed him eighty-eight times in the back as he was calmly writing while listening to music in the living room. The poor girlfriend of Dwight got one hell of a show when she got back in from her aerobics class. She found her man shred into pieces and the bloody Jane signing some Beatles song on the couch, all covered in blood. She had the good reflex and left the apartment before Jane could understand what was going on.

As horrible as it was sometimes it was still fascinating for Charles Connolly to work with these people. As a security guard for now, but his classes were almost done and Doctor Grimsley told him he could do his internship at Silver Heights. He wished he could have Jane Elisabeth as a patient. She was irritating at times, but he has empathy for her.

He looked at her on the floor of the padded cell and remembered the picture from her file. The prom picture with Dwight Hartman. She was beautiful on it. A bit chubby, but well deserving of the Prom Queen title she got. Now she kept walking around on that torn up dress, she must have taken fifty pounds, he flaccid greenish skin made her look even sicker that she already was.

After a few seconds of total inertia, she got up, looking around like an injured dog. She got up and took a few step towards the window of the cell. She was looking towards Charlie, but he knew she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at her reflection…again.

I look at all the lonely people…

“Here we go again “, said Charlie…”I need another coffee….He got back to his office, calmly whistling the melody of Eleanor Rigby.