Jane Nash: Personal narrative ‘Conjuring me’

“Pete, Pete”. It looked like I was daydreaming I’m sure, but I wasn’t even there at all.

He texted me what he was visualizing. A moment of telepathy or was it cosmic integration? Dreaming? Imagining? Fuck it. I wasn’t there and yet he watched me in the coffee shop a little way down the streets from the Law Courts. So strange to see me behind glass mottled with raindrops. Me, who lives ten thousand miles away.

Hence the texting. Was it to remind me of something or was I reminding him? No birthdays, anniversaries, celebrations, deaths or memorials but there I appeared in his line of vision.

I hate it when that happens. When someone conjures me into their reality. I have never given permission. I think it’s rather rude, to encourage the building of false memories, the extension of delusions.

I thought living ten thousand miles away would prevent this loss of privacy, in other words, the consequences of cosmic peccadillos. I’m wondering whether he’s wondering whether he sees me as some optical echo from a shared history. Like glances at the same glasses, colour of lipstick, hair tumbling over the back of a winter coat from a knitted turquoise hat, the odd doppelgänger and the laughter of a cousin.

Wind ruffles my hair. Waves push out, suck in and carry illusions created by the Moon. I’m convinced we are still Hera’s playthings and delusions skip from our eyes to make tides turn and loved ones miss each other.

Jane Nash

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Jane Nash: Short story ‘Irrational paranoia’

It arrives, a box containing two smaller boxes within. He doesn’t open both of them, only one. He glances at the label on the second box. He opens the first box. It contains what he has ordered. He smiles to himself.

The label on the second box predicts its contents. That’s all it is, a prediction. But what if it is the wrong label? What if the contents are different to the original order?

He decides not to look inside incase its contents are different. It doesn’t occur to him that he might be pleasantly surprised. The odds are good that the box does indeed contain his order but still he can’t be completely sure. He rationalises that he does like surprises and so places the box at the back of his cupboard for a rainy day when he is in need of a surprise.

Jane Nash

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