Jane Oculos

I never knew I could feel so many jitters in my body just at the sight of a girl. Jane Oculos. She was a beauty and I could understand why I was mesmerized. Thank God my mother had forced me to sign up for this camp.

I got off the bus, one foot after the other, and landed on the bare soil just outside the camp’s wooden reception office. The midmorning sun was soothing and draining at the same time. There’s always something about it that feels so good but in the long run, you notice that it makes you feel lazy. The tall trees all around us seemed to sense that we were intruders and beyond the eerie silence they seemed to bring about, one could almost hear them discuss amongst themselves the hatred they had for those of our kind.

My first agenda had just changed from finding a quiet spot so as to avoid everyone else, to finding the courage to introduce myself to Jane. I didn’t really believe in camp romances but who knows what could happen in three days? You’d be surprised what could happen in one.

After two rounds of roll call (Mr. James is a very paranoid person), we were assigned our log cabins, six in each. Girls were assigned cabins on the farthest corner of the camp while we, the boys, got the cabins adjacent to the reception building. I got a cabin with Peter Mr. James, Friedrich and some other two boys I only knew by face. The cabins were amazingly designed. They had brown round walls made of wooden blocks, held together by wooden pillars and capped off with a canvas top. It felt like a crossbreed of a tent and a cabin. The interior however, also had something to say. The bunk beds were a luxury to be beheld. I hopped onto one of the lower bunk beds and couldn’t fail to notice the amount of spring in the mattress. Bliss. Each cabin contained only one room. In that one room space, the bunks were arranged in a circle round a circular sofa in the centre, with a table in its centre. The sofa was made of wood and African styled cushions. The table had a wooden frame and a glass top.

We all lay on our beds as we digested the images we had seen of the place. It was truly an amazing place to retreat to; thank God they took our phones away. The afternoon whirled away slowly as we were allowed to spend our time as we thought best. I fell into a nap then I awoke then I fell back into a semi – slumber state before deciding that a walk in the woods would do me some good.

I stepped into my brown safari boots, fresh from Africa (my uncle works at Amboseli in Kenya), and decided to head away from the reception office in hope that maybe I would meet Jane. It’s funny sometimes, how I expect some fortunate event to take place and a romantic episode to suddenly unfold. But almost always, my hopes are surreal, and I know I’m not the only one. That however, was not the case on that day.

She was sitted on a tree stamp facing away from the path. I could hear stifled sobs and my concern rose a notch higher. What was going on? At the same time, I couldn’t help but feel elated. In movies, romantic scenes almost always had a certain sad prelude that was solved by the sweet solution of love.

So I stepped forward in boldness and stood before her, off the path. She looked up at me and scrutinized me before I had the chance to speak and introduce myself. I wanted her first impression of me to come from the tone of my voice, it’s heavenly. But instead it came from the brown khaki shorts, T-shirt and safari boots I had adorned. I must have looked like one of Christopher Columbus’ men or a compatriot of Dr. David Livingstone.

Jane looked up at me as if she knew me, there was something about that glint in her eyes that seemed to shout my name. I could feel it. Then, out of the blue, she broke the ice.

“Hi.”

“Hh … Hi,” I managed to stammer, much to my disappointment. “I’m Neal Harper.”

“And I’m Jane. Jane Oculos.”

“Is there something wrong? Is there any way I can help you?” Wrong question. I’m making her look like a weakling. But she seems unbothered by it. She’s bothered by something else.

“Do I look weird to you? Do you see anything wrong in me?” Okay, now I was confused as to what was going on. But I made a move that surprised me.

“Nothing but your lovely teeth; not many people have those. And those dents on your cheeks, beautiful.” Smooth. Real smooth.

“You’re gonna die!” she blurted out in a manner that made it look like she had meant to whisper. Something was definitely wrong. I knew I wasn’t really good with women but I didn’t know I was this bad.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. It’s just that … I don’t think you would believe me,” she said, with real emotion.

“Try me.”

“Okay then. Have you heard of transient global amnesia?”

“No.”

“Okay, fine. I can’t remember anything about my recent years. I know who I am and where I was born and who my parents are but I can’t remember why I’m here today. It’s like, all of a sudden I’ve lost the last three years of my life.”

“Is that why you’re out here all alone crying?” Pathetic. You’re making her look so weak. No one likes that. You know what, let me just relax. Everything will be fine.

“So why did you tell me I was going to die?” I asked after lacking something to say to feel the silence my awkward question had created.

The wind whistled on the greenery all around us, creating an appropriate background to her explanation. She said that she had lost her past but she could ‘remember’ her future. I couldn’t help but wonder what wrong I had done to the ancient gods of love. The one time I get the courage to hustle and talk to a pretty girl, she tells me that she can’t remember her past but she knows the future? Come on! For real?

“So, what you’re saying is that you know that I’m going to die?”

“I don’t know; I just feel it, you know?” I don’t but … fine. I’m eventually gonna die anyway so let’s roll with it.

“What should I do to stop it?”

“Death? You can’t stop that,” she chuckles almost choking on her tears. “But about dying today, I don’t know what you can do about that. It’s Friedrich. He’s the one who’s got a gun and ammunition in his bag.”

“What the heck?” I exclaim almost swallowing my short tongue. “How do you know?”

“I told you, I know what’s going to happen in my future. You’d better run,” she said in such a calm manner that scared the hell out of me.

Somehow, I ended up taking the advice of someone claiming to remember the future and not the past. Don’t blame me though, she was as beautiful as the sunset. I’m allowed to be convinced of such things by her.

I made it back to our cabin in record time, gulping air in and spitting it out.

“Friedrich you …!”

He wasn’t there. Where was he? Where was his bag? Oh, damn! There it is in the corner. No wait, it’s a round cabin. There it is over there! And it’s empty!

I was just about to rush out when Peter, my cabin mate, scolded me for waking him up from a dream about his future with …. Wait, who’s future?

It hit me in the most unlikely moments. Jane had contradicted herself. She somehow knew about the weapons in Friedrich’s bag but Friedrich’s bag was never part of her future. She hadn’t entered our cabin for all I knew. She must have been lying! But why?

I consoled my heaving lungs for a few seconds before crucifying them again. I ran my heart out and I’m glad I did because I found Oculos at gunpoint.

“Neal, don’t move. You don’t have to get involved,” Jane cried out.

“Do you mind explaining to me what’s going on?” First, she tells me she can’t remember her past, then she tells me I’m going to die. Now, she’s at gunpoint. But at this moment, it appears the only thing she can explain to me is the dimensions of the pathway to Heaven.

I didn’t move a muscle in the eerie silence.

“I was four when I had a really bad car accident, Ni.” Okay, so now I’m Ni? That sounds nice.

“It was really bad and I got a couple of hits to my head. My parents say that my hippocampus was damaged and I lost the ability to form new memories. So, my doctors suggested that I get another one from a donor. Mr Nietz’s widow donated his hippocampus to me. The surgery was a success but the doctors warned me that the possibility of something going wrong with my memories was possible. How the heck I know what’s going to happen in the future, I don’t know. Friedrich here is Mr Nietz’s only child and he hates me for having received his father’s hippocampus.”

“Oh, and he’s a nihilist,” she added matter of factly. “He believes moral values are baseless and human constructs, which if you think deeply, seems true. So there’s no way you’re talking him out of killing me. I lied to you about the bag because I didn’t want you here when this would happen but I guess this is one thing about the future I didn’t get to see. I’m sorry, Ni.”

“She’s right, Niiii,” Friedrich taunted, his finger inches from the trigger.

“Maybe about one or two things, but not about everything. I’m not talking you out of this, I’m talking you into this; a sort of simulation. What is it that you really want from having her head?”

“You wouldn’t understand even if I explained it to you. You don’t think like me and that is a truth you must accept. You’re a child. You believe that we are all born with a law written inside us; do good and avoid evil. Fool! Hideous fool! She doesn’t even like you! I’d hand you this gun to my job for me but I know you’re a ‘gooood’ person, aren’t you, Ni? You’ve been trained since birth. Even drug lords train their children. Difference? The definition of good and bad. But I wouldn’t expect you to care.”

“I care; I freaking do! I care about why you’re doing this because I know behind almost all human actions, is a search for satisfaction. If you expect this to make you feel good, it will, for a while. Because there’s a difference between pleasure and satisfaction and pleasure doesn’t always lead to lasting satisfaction. That’s how I know what is really good, for me, and what is really bad, again, for me. If you were wise enough, I’d expect you to care.” Nasty, but on point. I like it.

“That’s it. Point the gun at me,” I encourage. Foolish. Who’s going to protect your beautiful lady if he kills you?

“Ni! No!” Oculos scream.

“You fool! You deserve death, like my father!”

“Don’t speak of your old man like that! We both know it aches you day and night that he died. Drop the act. Drop the gun.”

“No!”

“This isn’t about right and wrong anymore. This is about what really gets to you; what do you live for? The stench of death and blood on your hands and at the back of your mind like a shadow at midday; unseen but present? Try loving.”

“What I want is peace! I must settle things!”

“Really? I’d beg to differ. What you want is peace but you don’t know how to get it. Try loving. Drop the gun.”

“Love? Fool! Love is a soft word for the fallacy that stops you from treating yourself with the care you ought to just because it will hurt someone else.”

“What you need is love! And you know it. That’s what you’ve lacked!”

“Love is vague.”

“That’s how you’ve become.”

“Shut up!”

“No! You shut up!”

Oops. Blast! Drop!

He had fired the gun.

Relax, I’m writing this story, so of course I didn’t die. Oculos also didn’t die. It wasn’t Friedrich either. Somehow he had shot into the air in frustration, dropped the gun and made off into the woods.

“I will be back for you Jane!”

The echo rang in the forest but I didn’t give a hoot about it. I was relieved. We were relieved. I breathed a huge sigh and turned to face Oculos with a stinging thought in my head.

“Why did you tell me I was going to die?”

“Because I felt it. But I’m sure what I felt was from somewhere further in the future,” she said trying to soothe me with her weak smile. Weak because of what had just taken place.

“Do you like romance novels?”

“What? Why? Of all the ….” Shut up! You’ve just survived a death scene. Now’s the time for romance.

“Usually I’d prefer a drama free book.” She can tell you’re lying. She’s giving you a suspicious look.

“Okay. I was a bit shy. I do like reading romance novels.”

“Nice. You remember that I told you that I don’t know exactly what’s gonna take place, I only feel it? Well, right now I feel like it would be warmer in your arms than in this flimsy flax jacket of mine? Don’t you feel it too?”

“Did you see this coming?”

“I told you I don’t know everything. I just have some sort of forward-thinking thingy in my head. But at least I’m sure you’re going to go bald at thirty.”

Smooth. Real smooth.