A little bit of flash - Jennifer
This story had to be created around a song title. As a huge fan of the Eurythmics, I chose 'Jennifer' from the 1983 album 'Sweet Dreams (Are made of this)'.
'Jennifer, with your orange hair
Jennifer, with your green eyes
Jennifer in your dress of deepest purple
Jennifer, where are you tonight?
Underneath the water...'
The newspaper slips from my nerveless fingers.
I stare at the vendor, his face swimming before my eyes. I
think he speaks, but I can find no answer in the depths of my agony. I stumble away,
staggering along the pavement like a drunkard.
My only thought – underneath the water! My heart tears.
I think I shout her name - Jennifer! - and gasp with the
pain of knowing she will never reply.
Memories assail me...
In a room of ordinary
people, she had been extraordinary, her rebellious nature evident from the brilliant
orange crew cut which clashed with her dress of deepest purple. Green eyes, the
same colour as the scarf draped casually around her throat, had flickered over
the rest of us with something akin to amusement…and finally rested on me.
Eventually I had asked
– no, I think I begged - this fascinating creature to step outside; the
building we were in seemed too small to contain her. I wanted to experience her
company unfettered by the confines of bricks and mortar and glass.
Her breath had been warm
against my ear. “In the park, on the little bridge,” she whispered. “Give me
ten minutes.”
Now, guilt overwhelms me and forces me to my knees.
I had been late, but I had remained on that bridge until the
last champagne-soaked partygoer had left and my hopes had shattered. I remember
screaming to the stars; ‘Jennifer! Where are you tonight?’
If only I’d looked down.
Rudvargrad Times,
April 17th.
Breaking news; The body of a young woman, strangled with a
green scarf, has been discovered in the lake at Dibrovik Park
(The song – ‘Jennifer’ by the Eurythmics, 1983.)