Meet Kalina:

A character to appear in The Overseer Existence

It may seem like I’m talking to myself kiddies—but I’m not. See, one day in the future, I know they’ll have a way to turn thoughts into something shareable. Maybe with a brain probe. When you die, they can drill that needle through your skull and suck it all out.

In that sense, you’d never really die and as you’re reading or listening just remember—it all came from a dead or profound brain.

Not that I expect anyone to read my stories—they’d probably burn my thoughts anyway. That’s okay. It’s not like anything I say is all that important.

I’m just the average white, 25-year-old, cis female that’s tired of this over-bearing society. ‘Course I’m married, have a stable job, have life insurance, payed off my own car after five years, and I’m a little bat-shit insane—so maybe I’m not quite average? Only society knows.

My point—I’m not pretending to be a mascot for all—not in the slightest. I’m a mascot for me, myself, and I. Whoever wants to join the dance team is welcome.

Where do I live? It’s just a cliched town where everyone-knows-everyone and the DNA pool is severely limited. The trees sit sparse along the cracked and greyed sidewalk I’m jogging over and the buildings passing might be in our downtown, but they’re old.

Sorry, I meant historical.

And don’t get me started on the cornstalks we all joke about here in Ohio.   

I swerve around the one other person on the sidewalk who’s disappearing inside one of our three gyms.

Yeah, three.

My feet pause and I look through the bay window—the window is dark so you can’t see inside, but I know there’s a pool in there. My favorite pool with no-one under 14 allowed to swim and it’s heated—chlorine’s a little too strong.

It’s not fancy or high-tech—they basically rehabbed the old building and spruced it up on the inside. I sometimes join this gym. I’m not good at keeping habits though.

Oh, that’s right—I just told you I was jogging.

Yeah, that was misleading. I hate jogging. I love swimming. One is harsh on your joints and the other is fucking phenomenal. But there’s no time to swim now. I’m looking for someone and according to my sources he was last seen hanging out in one of our alleys.

Don’t worry—they are trying to slowly turn us into a city, but our alleys aren’t dark and treacherous yet. Creepy with the old rusted stairs leading into ancient—historical—buildings. One building has bars on the windows and door.

It’s cool though. We have a historical society that put together this free museum with all the history—

My arms tingle as the little hairs rise. With my chest still laboring from the two-block run, I rush across the street.

 “Hey there!” I call in my signature friendly tone.

The short man cowers lower into his trench coat dyed hot pink with fluorescent orange tiger stripes. His hair stands in grey spikes tipped red as if something living had fallen onto him and died instantly.

Anxiety rips through my sagging stomach—sagging. Yes, I’m over-weight—do get over it.

“I just have a few questions.”

“Few questions?” His voice slithers from the white ski mask hiding his face.

Did he cut holes in it for the spikes on his head?

“That’s right. I work for the local paper. We can go talk in my office… or right here is fine to.”

This is insane. This guy could be a total nutter. But I wanted something different—something besides the back-and-forth swordfight minus-the-sword politics the newbie reporter always gets.

“You name?” He asks.

I left a note on Jerome’s (my boss’s) desk this morning. He never comes in before nine, so he won’t have time to stop me. Or save me.

The little man-thing creeps closer, and I hold my ground. Eyes as round as a quarter-dollar and yellow with pin-prick irises.

“You under-stand?”

“Yes.” I prepare for bad breath, but it never comes.

“Name?”

Holy Shitake—there’s no breath, because his lips aren’t moving!

Breathe Kalina! Breathe! My fingernails press tightly into a fist, cutting into my skin.

“You scared? Of me?”

 I shake my head and blond curls bounce against my shoulders. I force my feet to be still.

“Good. You take.” His quivering hand reaches outward with a long, clear crystal resting in his palm.

“What is it?” The crystal glimmers in the weak rays of sun like a quartz pendant I once begged my grandmother to buy for me. Curiosity raises my hand above his—Stop!

I have no idea what this is. It could be laced with some poison or drug.

“Looks in soul. Transforms for you. You be first one for Mezado.”

“Mezado? Is that your name?”

His head tilts sideways. Every nerve in me screams to run, but I slip the small crystal between my fingertips and raise it into the air for inspection.

It’s the same blue as my eyes.  

“You sought me. You saw me. You heard me. Now it do same for you.” He turns and slithers further into the well-lit alley. No bounce, no walking—slithering.

“Wait a minute,” I close a fist around the crystal and follow him at a slow walk.

“Kiss the Ardor. It become yours. You be first.”

Smoke whirls around our feet and wafts up my legs. Dry air burns into my lungs. Water runs from my eyes, and I rub them vigorously.

As the smoke clears, nothing is left of the creature except the white ski mask and the colorful coat.

Laughter bounds from the street and I jerk my green drawstring bag from my back to hide away the evidence. With shaking fingers, I manage to secure the crystal—ardor—into the mask.

***

I lock our front door as our pup runs for his favorite toy. A boxer mix both smart and playful—my favorite. He had been abandoned.

“Hammie!” I pull out a bacon treat from the bag we keep on the bookshelf beside the front door and his tongue lolls out.

Hammie…the name the foster home gave him. It’s been five months and I still shake my head at it.

I collapse onto our brown sectional and slide the crystal from my pocket. Crystal… glass stone… I’m not sure what to make of it. The more I hold it, the cloudier it gets. It’s not as if anything will happen if I kiss it. No way.

But what if something does?

Maybe I’ll turn into the same creature he was. Maybe it’s a curse and he just wanted to be rid of it.

I jolt forward and grab my notebook, writing a letter to my loved ones and leaving it on my husband’s computer desk. He’d see it there before he ever made it to the fridge once he gets home from his job at the bottling factory.

I press the glass against my lips. Cool air flows against my body. Barks and growls bound from Hammie.

So tired.

I pull the crystal back and with it comes silver light streaming from within my mouth. Panic forces me to scramble off the couch and I fall to my knees with dizziness. I move the ardor away, but the energy pulls further. Blue clouds blossom inside the crystal and it shines with the silver light.

The crystal grows longer—A smooth pen forms with a needle poking half-an-inch out of the top of it. A small lid grows around the needle and a grip winds around the bottom of the pen. The outside is a clear blue, the inside and the needle are the same silvery color as the light now receding into my mouth.

What. The. Hell?

Hammie whines and attacks my face with slobbery kisses. I reassure him with pets and kisses until he turns and collapses into my lap. My fingers tug off the lid exposing the thin needle. I recap it.

I stretch my body toward the notebook on the edge of the couch—careful not to disturb Hammie. I click the pen and put it to the paper, but it doesn’t write.

The needle.  

With careful ease, I expose the needle and press my thumb onto it—just enough to break skin. Blue liquid flows from my thumb to the needle into the silvery center. There is one, thin, clear line in the silver center that lets me see how full the pen is.

As the pen fills completely, I pull my thumb away and recap it. My mouth sucks away the lone droplet of red blood resting on my wound.

 With a recapped pen, I put it to the paper.

Nothing.

With a nervous wetting of my lips, I press the pen to the back of my hand and draw a heart. As the blood flows out, it dries dark blue with silver glistening like sparkles.

It’s not blood.  

Cool pricks spread through my body up to my scalp. The heart shines and floats away from my hand into the air. Hammie snores.

In a flash of silver light, the heart erupts into a small ball of fluff that lands on my hand and rolls off–plopping to the floor with a “meow.”

I pick up the kitten with gentle easiness. Fur the same color as the blue of the pen. The room fades in-and-out with shadows.

“Kalina, I’m home. We got Evalynn settled into her new apartment—she invited us to a cookout this Sunday.”

My open mouth and wide eyes meet the exhausted face of an old man. Graying and wrinkled with one too many freckles.

“Honey,” he kneels in-front of me on wobbling legs, “did you fall? Are you okay?”

Did I—what?

“Answer me!” His grip pierces my shoulders.

“I’m fine—I’m fine,” my voice croaks.

“Come on.” He eases me up, and I catch myself on the suede couch beside us as my knees pop with creaks.  

“Where?” I shake my head and lean on the man as dizziness spins my vision. “The blue kitten?”

“Come on.”

He leads me through picture-clad lilac walls. My feet pause. A picture of me and my husband but we’re older—maybe in our early thirties. With a little girl tugging at my hand and a young boy on my husband’s shoulders.

That’s not possible.

“I know exactly how you feel honey. Feels like it was only five years ago our kids were running through the house. Now our precious granddaughter has moved out on her own. Time flies.”

“Bathroom?”

“Right here.” He leads me to the room at the end of the hall, but I turn away.

I don’t need to see, because I can feel it. What did I do to myself? What did that thing do?

“I have to find the crystal.”

“What crystal?”

“The cat.”

“Come outside honey.” He leads me by the elbow.

We walk through a back door in the grey kitchen. A fence of stone rises six feet into the sky. The grass sways—blue and three inches high. A tree grows in the center of the yard—myriads of color stretching through the bark and limbs. My fingers reach toward a vibrant pink leaf and I pluck it off.

It melts into a puddle in my palm then slowly grows into a crystal. Nervous laughter escapes my lips.

“You’ve forgotten again, haven’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say.

His lips smile at me as his eyes crinkle with sadness. “How old are you honey?”

“24.”

His chin shakes and he pulls me into a tight hug. He chuckles, “Honey—you’re a few centuries old.”