Immortal

"Miss Black?" the friendly secretary addressed me.

"Yes?"

"Please, follow me. Mrs. Shaw will interview You now."

I nodded and followed her into a small office with transparent walls. A middle-aged woman with fair hair was typing quickly at the table. She could barely fit in the chair, and her feet in gorgeous shoes did not touch the floor. I was hesitant to go ahead and take a seat opposite her without permission, so I hovered at the door due to indecision.

Mrs. Shaw finished her fascinating task and looked at me.

"Miss Black, right?"

"Yes.

"Please, come in and sit down," she pointed at the chair opposite her.

The chair was comfortable, and the person opposite me boded for the conversation or it only looked that way. The most important thing was not to start seeing things at the most inopportune moment. Mrs. Shaw decided to get down to business without delay.

"Tell me about yourself."

"My name is Darsy Black. I came here from Springfield to study law…"

"No, no!" Mrs. Shaw interrupted me. "I read your CV, and all this is well-written there. I want to hear something that would make me hire an 18-year-old student. In the future, the Assistant Secretary will be able to become a registered partner if she works hard, therefore there are enough applicants for this position even among the graduates. But I'm that kind of a boss who values not the theoretical knowledge but the personality, attitude to life and comfort of mutual work. So, you have three minutes to convince me that I can rely on you, despite your lack of experience and young age."

"Ok!" I nodded. Nobody had prepared me for such an interview. As a rule, the interviewers usually ask about skills, but not about my personality, since this was of the least interest to the employer. "Can you rely on me? Absolutely. I grew up in a poor, large family. I have two younger brothers and a sister. My little brother died of lymphoma five years ago. This loss nearly wrecked my Dad and since then he has not gone outside. Shortly after he had a stroke and became confined to a wheelchair. My Mom works hard to provide us with everything we need. And I had to help her with domestic chores from the age of six because both parents had to work to pay the mortgage. After my brother's death and my father's illness, we had to sell the house and move into the smaller one, and I had to change school. Despite this, I graduated with honors, got a scholarship at Harvard. Now I want to get a job to help my family. I don't have skills or knowledge to compete for the higher position or at least the trainee, but I am sure to be perfect for getting coffee and handling the copy machine. I am quite reserved and discreet, so you can feel free to entrust me with your private matters, and nobody will find out about this…"

"Do you believe in God, Miss Black?" Mrs. Shaw interrupted me.

"This is the only thing I believe in."

It wasn't clear whether Mrs. Shaw was satisfied with this answer or not, but the interview was over. The friendly secretary promised to call me and inform of any decision made by Mrs. Shaw. I left the building of the law firm in much worse condition than the one with which I came there. It was unlikely for me to get this job after this weird two-minute conversation. I could only count on the second and last attempt this year – the position of the cashier at the local supermarket was much more appropriate, given the absence of any experience.

"Where are we going?" the understanding that we were not going home brought me back to my senses.

"You're the one who insisted on being examined. Or have you already changed your mind?" Jackson asked.

I had not had a hallucination in hours, but it could mean nothing, so I shook my head and we continued our way.

Jackson undertook the talk to the doctor concerning my condition. I partially heard the conversation. Jackson told the story of how I hit my head yesterday and felt bad afterwards. My condition could be hardly described that way, but after that brief conversation, I had the MRI, tomography, general analyses, and a bunch of other procedures. I wondered whether my insurance covered this or I would soon receive a bill for a huge sum that I would not be able to pay.

We were eventually a

"Miss Black, You are absolutely healthy. We didn't find a hematoma after the hit. There's also no danger of blood clots. I'll prescribe you mild sedatives to reduce your anxiety and vitamins to improve your general health condition.

I was expecting to hear anything, I was ready for any diagnosis but not the one that I was absolutely healthy. I was not all right. That's for sure. The presence of a brain tumor would be the most logical explanation for this condition, but nothing like this was found.

We walked from the hospital to the parking lot in complete silence. Jackson did not even tease me. Suddenly, I felt a terrible pain but it seemed it was not mine. I saw the image of a man whom this pain belonged to. I tripped and fell down. But I didn't feel the hit. It seemed to me that I or the world stopped. The entire situation reminded me of some low-budget blockbuster when everything stopped moving: birds, leaves, people, whirls of garbage, just like it was right now. Hardly had I time to get surprised when a translucent image of a man appeared.

"Hello!" he uttered. His voice sounded like an echo.

"Hello! Who are you? Have you done this?" I waved at the deserted parking lot.

"I have no idea what you are talking about. I thought you would explain to me what was going on…"

But instead, I ran my hand over his silhouette, and it fell through as if it was a hologram.

"What are you doing?"

"I got it! This is someone's joke! You're a hologram. Rosy and Mickey are behind all of this! Those two troublemakers made me think I was going nuts!"

Turning away from the man, I stepped to Jackson who, apparently, was in collusion with my friends. How did they pull this off?

The parking lot got back to normal when I walked away from the hologram.

"You are traitor!" I dropped at Jackson.

"Excuse me?" Jackson began to blink and his eyebrows shot up.

"Did you make all this up to play a trick on me? What a stupid joke! I really thought I was going crazy!"

Jackson took my hands and said in a soothing voice,

"Calm down, babe! Everything will be all right! I don't know what you're talking about, but we will go back home, eat something, get some sleep, and you will be fine tomorrow. I promise!"

"Jackson, can you stop it now? The joke got out of hand!" I was losing my temper. People glanced back at us but I did not care.

"Darsy, what joke are you talking about? Get in the car, please!"

"I'm not going anywhere with you until you confess."

I squeezed Jackson's hand and looked him in the eye.

"Ouch! Darsy, what are you doing?"

I glanced at the hand he was trying to pull out from my grip. It was shrinking as if someone was sucking the blood out of it. I released his hand, wanted to say something, to apologize while Jackson writhed in pain but I could not. Instead, I just ran away. I was racing out myself until my lungs started to burn.

The day was dawning. The streets of Boston were filling with groups of people looking for entertainment. I was wandering through unfamiliar alleys, trying to avoid contact with people. I could not simply comprehend everything that happened a few hours after the party. It could not be just a hallucination, because Jackson got hurt by my touch, and it was already too real.