Janie

The early morning sun shone starkly through the bedroom window, onto Janie Pope’s face. Janie was in the habit of leaving the venetian blinds pulled half-way up so her pampered cat, Clementine, could easily navigate the window sill.  Few situations were as unnerving and potentially destructive as a frightened cat stuck between the slats of metal window shades.

 

The bright sunlight was in direct contrast to the frosty bite of October in the air. Janie buried her face in the pillow and pulled the bed quilts tightly around her shoulders. Clementine opened a sceptical eye and quickly surmised it was not yet time to get up. She stretched out a paw and, like Janie, buried her face.

 

As Janie slowly joined the awakening world, she was hit, abruptly with an all too familiar feeling of sickness and guilt.  Her body stiffened underneath the covers as panic consumed her.  Her grip on the quilts tightened into clenched fists and for a moment, Janie braced herself to vomit.  Her head was dizzied with a single, vivid thought.  Had she killed someone last night?

 

This was not Janie’s first experience of waking up to this horrific question.  There were countless mornings before this one when Janie could be found hiding beneath her bedding, desperately clutching Clementine against her body for comfort while she painstakingly sorted through details of the previous night.

 

 

Point one: She had gone out socially.

 

Point two: She had been in a bar with friends.

 

Point three: She had driven home alone.

 

Could she have killed someone with her car and not known it?  Perhaps bumped over a person who had fallen in the road?  It had been awfully dark.  Maybe while turning a corner she clipped a pedestrian – just a quick clip – but still with enough force to leave someone dying alone in the cold, while Janie comfortably slept?

 

After a few minutes of exercising a breathing technique she learned from a self-help video, Janie began the rationalisations.

 

Point one: She did not drink any alcohol.  Janie never drank alcohol.  A lifetime of internal physical defects prohibited alcohol consumption.  Janie did not even know what it felt like to be drunk.

 

Point two: Drunk driving being completely ruled out, there was no logical reason to believe that she could have struck someone without knowing.

 

Still, she traced the route home in her mind trying to remember travelling the full length of each street. She attempted to recall every traffic light, every curve, every sound. Stopping just short of madness, Janie shook off these thoughts.  Despite Clementine’s protests, Janie rolled out of bed to make a pot of coffee. She stared out of the window with folded, worried arms whilst the coffee percolated.  She studied her car.  The side she could see, anyway.  No visible damage. She prepared her first cup of coffee, all the time promising herself she would not do what she already knew she was about to do.

 

While sipping from her mug she slowly circled her parked car. Wearing a coat over her pyjamas, she carefully inspected the exterior of her silver Toyota for blood, dents, scrapes, cracks – anything to indicate a collision.  It checked out okay.  It always did. She assumed the neighbours thought her crazy.  She did not necessarily disagree. Once back inside, she skimmed the morning paper for articles about a ruthless hit-and-run driver.  There were none.  While she dressed, she listened to the local news on the television to make sure she was not the target of a manhunt in progress.  She was not.

 

Janie knew that within a couple days this feeling would subside.  She would vow not to go out socially anymore.  She would honour this self-imposed oath for several weeks, perhaps several months if she kept occupied.  Eventually, boredom would always win and Janie would succumb to a co-worker’s invitation for a night out.

 

This nightmarish process had been repeating itself for years. Janie had never been professionally diagnosed with a mental disorder. She would not dare confess these fears to a psychiatrist who might add things up and connect her to an unsolved crime.  Instead, she had done her own research.  Her first discovery was a phobia called Perccatophobia, described as a fear of sinning or committing imaginary crimes.  This self-diagnosis seemed to fit.  Janie’s upbringing had been strictly religious which could account for part of her delusions.  Maybe on a subconscious level she thought the mere act of going to a bar, even just for dancing or karaoke was sinful and, thus, cause for punishment.   She read and learned more about obsessive-compulsive and anxiety disorders.  Obtaining prescription drugs which may provide some relief required a doctor and, therefore, was not an option.  So Janie’s life continued on in this gruelling cycle.

 

The early morning sun shone starkly through the bedroom window onto Janie Pope’s face.  She had been out the night before so it was not long until she was in the driveway surveying the silver Toyota, coffee mug in hand.  It was the beginning of a warm June day so there was no explanation for the bitter cold that enveloped her as she stared catatonically at the dent in the passenger side fender.  A tangle of blond hair wafted gently in the summer breeze.  It was anchored to the silver paint by a dark red, almost brown smudge.

 

Janie told herself this was a cruel hoax being played by hateful neighbourhood kids.  No.  No one knew how she quietly suffered.  Janie stumbled to the front porch where she sat sombrely on the concrete steps.  The cup of coffee she held firmly in her hands had gone tepid.  Could there be a dead dog sprawled across a nearby street killed by Janie’s carelessness?  Maybe. Could the wispy strands of hair blowing out from the wheel well be human?  No.  Definitely not; but maybe… She should take a closer look.  She should get in the car too… Oh, God. She should at least go inside and…

 

Janie, still clad in her pyjamas, leaned her head against the wooden railing and closed her eyes. She would certainly hear the police sirens soon.  She would wait.  She would just sit and wait.

 

 Emma Parker.