She's a Question Mark
Mind-bending short fiction by Russ Bickerstaff
Today’s short fiction piece was written by Russ Bickerstaff, a critic and author living in Milwaukee, WI.
I don’t know how long I’d been talking to her before I realized that I didn’t know who she was. I just found myself standing or sitting there (or maybe walking) when it occurred to me that she was probably some kind of stranger. And honestly, I didn’t know whether or not I’d actually been talking to her when I realized that I didn’t know who she was. And at the moment I had that realization, I suppose I probably must have thought that there was a good chance that she didn’t know who I was. And it was entirely possible that she didn’t even know that she was talking to me.
Somewhere, a few moments later, I guess the realization had started to set in that if she didn’t know that she was talking to me, she might have actually been carrying on a conversation with someone else entirely. And I just didn’t know who it was. And I mean… I guess I’d assumed that we were alone while we were talking. But then… I’d also been under the impression that I knew who she was. Not explicitly, of course — I hadn’t really thought about where I knew her from. But I know that I would have taken a more active role in figuring out who she was if I’d known that she was a stranger.
I can’t seem to remember when it might have been that I’d even started talking to her. Every time I started to think about conversations with her that had grown explicit enough to be foveated in my memory, it would occur to me that I was thinking about someone else entirely and forget who it was that I was looking for until I found myself talking to her again: the stranger. And there she was. (Or was not.)
I suppose that I was scanning my memory for her long enough to realize that I was talking to her again… but I knew that she didn’t necessarily know that she was talking to me. And I felt that, in a sense, I may have been looking into her face wondering where and when it was that she was speaking. Her face (or the face that I associated with her) seemed to be out of the past. It could have been a face that she had chosen or it could have been that she was merely a face out of the past that was passing through the present on its way somewhere. Some weird fragment of media that someone was working with that might not have had any kind of an identity behind it.
I was looking for her even while I was looking into her eyes. Or whatever. I knew that I was probably talking to her from inside, but I didn’t know. It was possible that I was talking to memories that I’d recorded of someone I’d forgotten who might not have ever had anything to do with me outside of the recording that I’d created the construct through. But I mean… I knew that if I’d created her (or if I’d had her created for me), I’d forgotten doing so. Or maybe I’d paid them to have me forget. Like, I didn’t want me to know that I’d had her created so I told them to scrub my mind of her creation or something.
Of course, this was all speculation and nothing more, as I wasn’t all that certain that she was even talking to me… even if I might have I could look at just about anyone and they would look kind of confusing in relation to this other person I’d run without ever physically seeing. And so I tried to put her out of my mind, but she was like the echo of a phantom song that I hadn't actually heard in years. Every now and then I’d be talking to a woman in line or at work or whatever and I’d catch a fraction of an aura of hers and wonder if it might have been something that had been cast on the woman in question by the ghost of this stranger that I may have had made for me or something.
She was everywhere, in fragments and notions and impressions of someone I couldn’t seem to ever find when I was actually looking for her. She was everywhere, in aspects of everything that I’d ever seen. I had tried my best to stop thinking about her. It took me a few days or months or years or decades or whatever to realize that I’d been looking for her all along. I suppose it might have had something to do with some of the freelance work that I was doing, but it was so very, very difficult to know for sure.
So I continued to hear the sound of her voice as I talked to her, knowing that she didn’t know whether or not she was talking to me and I guess… I guess I knew that I was doing something for work, or for me, or something like that, but it was all a matter of making sure that I was getting everything done, but I really didn’t know.
All I could really do was embrace whatever the hell she was and let it wash over me like the diaphanous curtain of some forgotten dream or something like that. I felt the essence of her that I still see and hear nearly everywhere… including my own profile and the things I sometimes catch a glimpse of in reflections in the screen or the mirror or whatever. I know she’s out there, but I also know that the essence of her is all in my head. And every time I think about it in this way for this long, I start to lose my mind, even though I know that it’s there. And I’m here. And everything is as it should be.