As Rod reached the end of the long strip of natural footpath, which he had started from one bridge and ended on another, he was faced with three decisions: turn back and retreat the way he came; turn left back into the city centre; or descend into the graffitied underpass, which led to a section of the city he scarcely knew. He was standing at the traffic lights, waiting for the stick figure to turn from red to green, wondering to himself what witty comeback he could say in response to the policeman’s brutal attacks. His eyes flickered amongst the pedestrians as they strolled past, checking each and every one of them for any sign, for any resemblance of the woman in question. He was so much taken up by this quest, and so much ashamed of it, and so self-conscious of it that he clutched at his frizzy, curly hair and winced terribly. “What is so wrong with me?” he wondered again and again, as though a broken record played miserably in his head. “I want to scream,” he finally said, as the red figurine seemingly taunted him from across the street. “You are like me,” it seemed to say to him wordlessly, silently, listlessly. “I want it to stop,” he cried. “I want it to fucking stop. She torments my mind. Why? Why the fuck does this woman torment my mind?”
“Still psychotic, I see,” noted the faux-Persian, gazing down his long, arched nose with disapproval. The corners of his finely penciled lips drew upwards slightly as his eyes glistened with hate. He leaned back on his Herman Miller Mirra 2 office chair, and said coldly, “You have a state of mind resulting from romantic feelings for this Eastern European woman, excessively escalating like a snowball rolling down a hill throughout the last ten years the intrusive, melancholic and tragic concerns for this person you have so nastily objectified in your sick, twisted mind; the craving to have your affection and desire to maintain the relationship be reciprocated by this object is at once just one of many signs of your unyielding narcissism.”
“Oh, not this again,” groaned Rod. “I am tired of your Jungian explanations for everything that I am going through, and I don’t want an armchair psychoanalyst,” he said with frustration. When he had crossed the street, he saw a brunette woman and watched after her with tremendous anxiety and glee, a striking rose-tinted blush rising upon his cheeks. “I must tell you to back off at once from giving me any advice – the both of you!”
“This is entertaining,” added the businessman, blowing into the mic. “These psycho...psycho...How do you say it? Analy-tick explanations have always been the most fruitful of our discussions over the years. Really, I must commend our friend Jam for being the glue that has bound our toxic friendship together all these years. Really, I must commend him very much. Speaking of our good and natural friendship, you two must very well come aboard my yacht this weekend to sail the Tyrrhenian Sea; it’ll be very pleasant, dare I say, it’ll be very pleasant.”
“I can’t afford to travel,” said Rod.
“To be poor is to be rich, my good friend,” said Aleku. “Jam, are you still competent with computers? I am trying to connect my webcam to my computer but it does not seem to be working. I have called the technician, but I cannot be bothered waiting for him to arrive. I cannot be fully dressed for much longer!”
“What is it with you?” asked Rod.
“My man, my good friend, my pal: a poor man like yourself would not understand.”
“You still haven’t graduated Rod?” inquired the policeman.
“No,” replied the young student. “I have been miserably persecuted by the institution I have devoted many slavish years to,” he answered. “I should have quit in my first year, but my stubbornness for true love has led me to wasting many more years than I care to admit to you.”
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“Don’t worry, I know all about it,” said Jam, smashing his keyboard furiously, “I have data on all the residents in the UK from my home.”
“How?” asked Rod incredulously, his facial expression one of torment and surprise.
“Haven’t I already told you? I am an inquisitor of the crown court, elected by the richest and most influential of the British people to deliver justice on their behalf.”
“Wait,” interrupted Aleku, coughing deliriously into the mic, “are you seriously telling me that you are a crown prosecutor? But last time we talked you were a staunch communist, intent on destroying the natural fabric of this glorious nation with your savvy computer skills. You had graduated with a computer science degree, yes? Then how is it that you have become a legal professional? How has a rebellious software developer, fighting tooth and nail for LGBT rights, become what he was once fundamentally opposed to? This has really turned out to be an interesting call. Oh, before you begin your story, let me nip to the toilet to have a giant wizz.”
Jam looked intensely at the camera, gazing deep into it as though piercing Rod’s very soul. “What are you looking at?” said Rod abruptly.
“I am looking at my next roadkill,” answered the crown prosecutor calmly.
Rod chuckled uneasily. “You are very funny,” he replied shakily. “It is all a joke, really, isn’t it? You are not really a crown prosecutor; you are not really a legal professional; it’s all a big joke, isn’t it? You, a policeman? Do not make me laugh!” Rod chose then to follow the young brunette woman walking over the bridge towards the centre’s high street shops. “So, tell me, what do you really do? Last time we chatted, you were working slavish hours in the factory and living at home.”
“Those days are long gone,” said Jam, smacking his lips. He widened them and slowly grazed his front teeth with his big, pink tongue.
“You must seriously stop looking at me like that,” remarked Rod uncomfortably.
“Oh, does this bother you? Does this make you feel uncomfortable? Does it?”
“Why, yes it does in fact,” he said with fear.
“Oh, I will try not to make you uncomfortable. You must not get too far away from me, little bird. But I do not think that you will run very far, nor does it matter where you go if I am to be honest and frank with you. Oh, you sweet, sweet little magpie. You probably thought that you were safe, that everything had been forgotten. When I first heard that call you made to the hotline operator, I really was saddened at those words you used to describe your mental affliction.”
Rod felt a sinking feeling deep in his chest, like his heart had been thrown down a very dark well. He looked at his phone screen again, his eyes burning from its vivid display. “How did you-”
Jam smirked, letting out a quick self-satisfied grunt as he did so. “You really had that poor woman going,” he said passionately, “you really had her going. You really had the young woman under your bewitching spell for a moment there. You really had it; I’ll grant you that.” And then he rose his hands to his eyes, and, as though he was wearing his glasses (for he used to wear glasses) he made a pushing up motion using his index and middle finger to adjust them higher up on the ridge of his sharp nose – a leftover sign from his past personality. “I never was into anime, as I had remarked many times before throughout our friendship, “but I must admit I have always liked this particular gesture I have often seen in the memes. To be perfectly honest, I had always felt left out because of my disinterest in anime. I always felt bad because all my friends liked anime but I did not. Now I see that it was for the best. Seeing you has made me realise that.”
“You know, Jam, now that I think about it truly, I wish that I had stuck up for myself more against you in highschool. You have always been deeply and utterly resentful towards me. And you still are, it seems. Even with all that newly acquired wealth, the wealth which all your family had so evilly kept to themselves during your childhood, you still are so very resentful of me.”
The prosecutor winced, “I was always surrounded by wealth growing up, but was deprived of it at the same time. Imagine growing up with rich relatives, who sat and did nothing while you were raised on out-of-date cereal; all the while they enjoyed caviar and Kobe beef and lavish vacations to Spain, and wild Murnong and Geechee Red Pea from the Sapelo Island in Georgia, USA. You know, I have never been to the United States of America, but all of my relatives have.”
“You sound like a tortured soul,” said Rod with disinterest.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Jam spat.