Stuck in a loop

Stuck in a loop:

She first appeared in second semester. Slightly taller than average, with long brown hair and glasses, she responded to his inquisitive glance with a shy smile. Returning the smile, he noted with interest a haunting sadness in her eyes. It wasn’t until their second date that he discovered the cause. Over a post-movie coffee, she haltingly told him of her orphanhood. Her father had died when she was too young to mourn him, leaving her alone with her slowly fading mother. The day she was to begin university, her mother finally succumbed to cancer.

He wrapped his arms around her while violent sobs shook her body.

The next weekend she came over to his house. After dinner, they retired to his room. Snuggling up against the winter chill, she suddenly said

“Tell me a joke.”

“Ok. Umm…What do you call a stupid oxygen molecule?”

“An oxymoron?”

“You’re meant to say ‘What?’! Way to steal my thunder!”

She laughed and quickly kissed him on the cheek.

“That was so lame. I’ll tell you a good one.”

“Ok, go!”

“Umm..why is the sky the ruler of the world?”

“I wasn’t aware there was a ruler of the world!”

“Hush you! Follow the formula!”

“Hah, ok why?”

“Because it’s always raining! Get it? Raining!”

He snorted and hugged her even more tightly, “That was terrible!”

And so it continued. Until out of desperation, he reached for the common denominator of awful jokes.

“Well your mum’s so stupid, she takes two hours to watch ‘60 minutes’!”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt an all consuming sense of guilt overcome him. She shrugged off his arms.

“Shit I’m sorry! I didn’t think.”

They sat in silence, his face unconsciously assuming a picturesque puppy dog mask of guilt.

“It’s allright. Look I’m gonna head home. I’ll see you…soon.”

He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling as she opened the front door and walked out of his life.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

He punched his pillow for a few minutes and then called his friend Jake.

“I’m a fucking idiot!”

“What did you do this time?”

“I told her a your mum joke. Could I be any stupider?”

“Wow…I mean wow. That is seriously descending into the realm of idiothood. Do you want me to get the stocks out and throw a few tomatoes at you?”

“I’d gladly let you if I thought it’d help matters. Do you think she’d forgive me if she were the one throwing the rotten fruit?”

“Haha who knows? Girls..I can barely figure you out, you’ve got no chance working out what makes her tick.”

He sighed. “I just wish I could take it back..”

“So why don’t you?”

“What do you mean? I already apologised, not that that’s gonna do any good. I don’t think she even wants to see me again.”

“You know what I mean. It’s sitting right there in your basement, waiting for an opportunity like this.”

“What! Are you nuts? My dad would kill me!”

“Well I’m just saying if you want to see her again…You really cut her to the core man.”

“I know…I’ll talk to you later ok?”

“Good luck man, tell me what it feels like.”

“I’m not going to use it!”

“Sure you aren’t.”

He put the phone down and returned his gaze to the ceiling. Twenty minutes later, he rolled off the bed and walked down the stairs into the basement, pausing only to pick up his father’s keys from the hook on the wall. Whistling nervously, he unlocked the door and fumbled for the light switch. His father’s workroom lay bathed in harsh fluorescent light. In the corner stood a metal frame covered with translucent mesh. It had two wires leading to it. One from a non descript desktop computer, the other from a transformer connected to the wall plug. He quickly sat down at the computer and logged on using his father’s membership number for the Kylie Minogue fan club. Scanning the desktop quickly, he clicked on an icon labelled ‘Portal’. A badly designed interface appeared. The screen was cluttered with buttons and text boxes and it took him a while to find what he was looking for. It had changed quite substantially from the version his father had shown him a year ago. He typed in a few numbers, pressed enter and then opened the door on the side of the metal frame. Inside there was nothing but a large red button. It was slightly depressing how simple it all was. Taking a deep breath to ready himself for the pain, he punched the red button. A green arc of energy shot out from the side of the frame and lanced into him. As a torturous pain wracked him, he remembered his mother holding him back as his father convulsed and then disappeared to appear again instantly with a deep grin on his face.

And then he was back in her arms. She grinned at him and he kissed her, her future absence intensifying his passion. An eternity later, they broke off, and she brushed the hair out of her eyes.

“Well go on, it’s your turn.”

“Why did the principal fire the cross eyed teacher?”

She shrugged off his arms and stared at him in silence, waiting for him to say something.

“Aren’t you going to guess? Fine! He couldn’t control his pupils!”

She stood up.

“Look I’m gonna head home. I’ll see you…soon.”

He sat up on the bed, arms still outstretched, following the contours of her shoulders. A few minutes later, he picked up the phone.

“Jake something went wrong dude. I don’t understand it.”

“What did you do this time?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I made sure I told a completely innocuous joke, but she just got up and left, exactly like last time..”

“Wow…I mean wow. That is seriously descending into the realm of idiothood. Do you want me to get the stocks out and throw a few tomatoes at you?”

“What? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Haha who knows? Girls..I can barely figure you out, you’ve got no chance working out what makes her tick.”

His voice failed him. He dropped the phone on the bed. He could still faintly hear Jake’s voice, talking to himself.

“So why don’t you?”

“You know what I mean. It’s sitting right there in your basement, waiting for an opportunity like this.”

“Well I’m just saying if you want to see her again…You really cut her to the core man.”

“Good luck man, tell me what it feels like.”

“Sure you aren’t.”

He lay on the bed, his mind racing, trying to make sense of it all. Twenty minutes later, his spine arched as pain drove everything else from his mind.

Her arm felt like a lead weight against his shoulder. He stared at her smiling face with vacant eyes.