Would You Fancy That...

Genre: Romance
Setting: A Laundromat
Object: A hammer




Stolen Love


SYNOPSIS: After several years a man has a chance encounter with a lost love. Destroyed by what he learns, he realizes that some things are better left unexplained.










Her eyes, pensive and hollow, were just as he remembered them: the palest blue rings strangling endless holes. He followed their path to the machine across from her. It rumbled and jittered wildly, sporadically giving way to squelching bursts. The wet garments slapped against the glass, smearing it with random bursts of color. Her hair was longer now and, despite obvious attempt to tame it, unruly strands curled in defiant directions. Charlie gaped through the open door in disbelief. He could only see her profile but it was unmistakable. He walked inside and sat in the empty chair beside her. She didn’t look at him.

*************************************

Charlie hadn’t seen Claire in over 7 years. Their relationship had lasted barely six months, less than any other he maintained before or since, yet she had affected him more than any other woman. She entranced him immediately, her breathy words besotting him. He remembered the way each syllable scratched its way up her throat before expelling from her mouth. He also remembered the constant compulsion to press his lips to hers and swallow every utterance. Strangely alluring and narcotic, she became his only vice. Despite Charlie’s affections and efforts, the relationship ended abruptly. One night they were tangled in a sweaty heaving mass, thrusting and moaning, and the next morning he awoke to see her standing over him, chewing on her fingers. A contorted frown manipulated her face and vagueness lingered in her eyes.

“Get the fuck out!” she shouted, ripping the duvet from atop his naked body. “I don’t want to look at you!”

Charlie rolled over lazily, squinting. “Claire, what the fuck?”

“Don’t you say my name! Get out!”

He begged for an explanation but she refused. He eventually left, demoralized and mystified.

*************************************


The rumbling stopped and Clair stood hurriedly. Her movements were shaky. Charlie watched with increasing bemusement as she pulled the saturated and twisted lumps of fabric from the washing machine and began flinging them into an open dryer. She pulled the lint trap from the machine’s innards and peeled a mass of speckled gray material from the screen. She performed the task meticulously, almost manically.

“Are you even going to acknowledge me, Claire? Jesus.”

Charlie’s voice rose sharply enough to gain an audience. A woman across the room looked up from a magazine and craned her neck to get a better view of the action. A small child sitting in the designated play area stared while clenching a toy hammer in a tiny, suspended fist. And, a college-aged girl gawked, a now frozen finger wedged in her nostril.

Claire jammed the apparatus back into its slot and slammed the dryer door. She punched and twisted at the buttons and dials and stepped back just as the appliance began to growl. She then turned her attention to Charlie.

“I thought I told you to leave me alone. Did you follow me here?”

“Follow you here? Claire, I haven’t seen you in 7 years. I was walking by and I saw you through the doorway. I came in to say…I mean, fuck.”

She seemed anxious now. “Why would I want to talk to you? What makes you think I could ever stand to look at you?”

“Claire, I just want an explanation. I think you owe me that.”

“I owe you? You have some nerve. You owe me!”

She rubbed her now moistened eyes and then crossed her arms over her stomach. The boy from the play area emerged from behind her and slipped his tiny hand into hers.

“Mom?” the child questioned, tilting his head back to glance up at her.

The toy hammer dangled from his other hand and he swayed nervously. He was only about 4-years-old but his staid look aged him.

“Is this your son?” Charlie asked, his voice suddenly less severe.

“No, he’s not. That’s none of your business, anyway.”

Claire shook her hand free from the child’s but he continued to stare up at her with eyes that were a miniature replication of her own. Charlie shook his head and walked toward the door.

“Unbelievable. You know what? I don’t need to rehash this. I should have just kept walking by!” he shouted as he exited the Laundromat. “Go to hell, Claire!”

Claire ran after him wailing, “I loved Charlie! I will always love Charlie!”

Charlie twirled around with incredulity.

“You ended it. I always wanted to be with you, you’re the one that didn’t want to be with me.”

“Why would I want to be with you?” Her eyes were protruding, pulsating with abhorrence.

Charlie’s frame surrendered now and his shoulders slumped in defeat.

“Claire, you love me one second, you hate me the next. Are you trying to torment me?”

An older woman exited the grocery store next to the Laundromat just in time to hear Charlie’s submission. She ran to Claire.

“Go inside, now. Robert needs you.” She asserted, nodding towards the boy inside.

Claire obediently reentered the store without looking back.

“What is wrong with her?” Charlie demanded.

The woman, obviously perplexed by the situation, snapped, “She’s very sick. She can’t help herself.”

“Sick how?”

“She has Capgras Syndrome.” The woman’s voice, now softened, offered, “I’m afraid she’ll never accept you for you again, Charlie. She doesn’t know you anymore. Please don’t ever go near her again.”

“What?!” Charlie managed.

A noise drew the woman’s attention to the interior of the Laundromat and she disappeared through the doorway.

That evening Charlie sat alone in his apartment with a half empty bottle of scotch. His distended, red eyes burned into a medical entry on the computer screen:

“Capgras Syndrome is a delusional disorder in which a cerebral lesion causes the sufferer to believe that someone has been replaced by an impostor, an exact double, despite recognition of familiarity in appearance and behavior. The double is usually the most intimate figure in the sufferer’s life. No recorded case has ever resulted in the reversal of symptoms.”