Chapter 1:
Jennifer lives a normal life.
Jennifer was a normal woman. She lived a normal life. Jennifer would wake up before dawn and brew a coffee. Her apartment was small, but she didn’t need it to be any bigger. Her bedroom had a vanity, which was a particleboard dresser from Ikea decorated with organizers, pencil holders, and a pop figure. There was business-casual attire strewn about, most of it clean, just not put away.
A lot of her clothes had begun to live on the chair: that chair in the corner that she bought to use for writing, but ended up using as a collector for washed clothes in a state of limbo. Ran through the wash, but never put away, and sifted through like a farm trough each day to pull out a clean pair of socks and underwear. She tiptoed past the clutter and into the kitchen, and began the daily coffee ritual by the dim light of the cooking range. It involved a paper filter, a scoop of ground beans into the machine, and tap water. Then, Jennifer could wait for the aroma of a fresh brew to wake her up a little. Everything was very ordinary.
Today she left without eating breakfast, and it was raining. Like every day, Jennifer walked three blocks to the transit terminal to catch a train. Since it was such a short walk, she never used an umbrella, preferring to brave the elements and feel the rain patter onto her jacket. Real women were waterproof; she could handle a little bit of weather. The train was always full this early in the morning, and Jennifer would rarely get lucky enough to nab a seat. When standing, you have to find a handle above, or lean against the doors, or squeeze into any space one could find. Most often, she would be sandwiched between riders, feeling like a packed sardine.
The train was inexpensive and reliable, and she didn’t mind it. She’d never say she did, anyway. Jennifer was used to transit and could watch people on the train. People-watching was entertaining enough to get past the smells and uncomfortable touching that was impossible to avoid when you’re shoulder to shoulder with rush hour traffic. She would tell herself it was just a part of life: that society evolved this way by the work of human beings, specifically for the needs of human beings. It was by design that she was clinging to life to the handrail with hardly an inch of space to breathe, wondering if the tall man next to her knew he had the odour and appearance of a rotten vegetable. Nothing at play here was surprising; this was all according to the plan.
Work was eight and a half hours at the shopping mall where she would smile at appropriate times and say the appropriate things to customers to try and get them to buy clothes. They would rarely reciprocate her pleasant demeanour. People would be themselves, and Jennifer would be professionally sanitary. Her phrases were practised and targeted to each type of customer, whom Jennifer profiled ruthlessly.
Tracksuits would be dismissive, and she would give them a more casual greeting while leaning on surfaces with an elbow. Teenagers would be thieves, so they’d get a curt yet firm approach, and she would hardly leave their side. Families would be big spenders, but always a mixed bag, and Jennifer would decide to talk to the husband first or the wife first on a case-by-case basis. She would flirt, but just a hint of it. Sometimes she would get the cold shoulder, which means give the customer space and watch them from across the store, swooping in only when their body language suggested they needed a fitting room or a size. Then she would disappear again like a silent butler to leave them to their business.
Jennifer was good at what she did. She had quotas to meet, after all. It was thankless servitude, and every time someone proved her biases correct, she would smirk in the satisfaction of her black thoughts. She hated everyone she helped in a day, because that was the regular thing to do in her line of work.
She also wasn’t lonely. She was comfortable just by herself, because she understood herself. Loneliness was an emotion people felt when they’re bored and can't fill the void with anything worthwhile, so they seek vapid escape in the comings and goings of others. It’s why she was okay when Leon sat her down at his flat last month and told her that it wasn’t going to work out anymore. He was blonde and tall, and that must have been all that mattered about Leon, because Jennifer was fine with it. Breakups happen to normal people.
Leon could have ghosted her, and that would have been worse than being told all his effort in the relationship felt like a one-way street. He could have hit her, and that would have been worse than telling her she was stagnating, and he couldn’t have her dragging him down anymore. He could have done a lot of things, but Leon kept it civil and only took away two years of her life over an afternoon chat. It had been a few weeks since then, but Jennifer was doing fine on her own. There was a bit more room in her small apartment without any of Leon’s clutter, and she had some spare time on her hands to work on her journalism, which life always seemed to get in the way of anyway. She got plenty of social interaction with her co-workers and on the net, so it wasn’t like she was unpopular. All told, she was quite comfortable, and that was good.
She was entirely ordinary. She was polite to the workers when she paid for her chicken salad, and she was trying to avoid having too much caffeine, even though Jennifer had gotten a second cup of coffee at the food court earlier that day. She kept it all together on the commute and all throughout the day, and only stayed a few minutes longer in the bathroom at work to stare at her reflection in the mirror. Even on the train ride home, she wouldn’t ever cry in front of strangers. She kept things like that to herself and cried in the shower, like a regular person.
Emotions weren’t a rational thing, and she hated feeling them even more than she hated her customers. Other people were simply less mature than she was. Less intelligent. They would run around with their problems on their sleeves, complaining all day, or laughing too loudly, acting like big, oversized children. Adults take care of their problems and don't intrude on other people's comforts by being burdensome or loud. Jennifer was normal, and more people should take note of that and take care of their problems like she always did. She did everything correctly and was just fine staying that way.
After her nightly shower, Jennifer slipped into her pyjamas. They had a print of cute penguins all over, and some of the penguins even had cool sunglasses on, which was a bonus. After a good shower cry, it was only regular to wear your cool penguin pyjamas and browse the web for a few hours before bedtime. Jennifer didn’t want to think about much today. Jennifer was in control of her life, and she wasn’t interrupting anyone or getting in the way of anybody. She was safe and happy. Or at least, she could actively choose to be happy when she felt like it.
She figured that was how most people navigated through life: happiness wasn’t a retroactive symptom of events—it was an active choice. Anyone who fooled themselves into thinking happiness was a spontaneous thing that sprang into their life with the right criteria was merely coping. They hadn’t sat with themselves for long enough and watched the workings of the world. They still probably believed in soulmates, or reincarnation, or the tooth fairy, too. Jennifer knew the world revolved around choices, and when she wanted to be happy, she chose to be. She wanted to be alone, because it was simpler to live this way. No one would bother her, and she wouldn’t bother anyone. She could have disappeared right there, right then, and no one would have been any the wiser.
Jennifer was living a normal life. It was so ordinary, in fact, that the next morning, when no one brewed the coffee in her small apartment, when one fewer woman rode the train during rush hour, and even though the store was short-staffed, no one noticed that Jennifer was missing. Under the covers of her bed was a set of penguin pyjamas, laid out in the rough outline of a person who had been sleeping. Nothing else of Jennifer remained. The City of Rephaim had claimed her, and not a single person thought it was strange.
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