Biding Her Time

Back in the old college days, Roomie and I used to share a room.

She often would head off to sleep earlier than I, as I had episodes of X-Files to watch (which she hated). One night, after hours of rooting for Mulder and Scully’s paranormal crime-solving skills – I, too, want to believe.– I decided it was time to go to bed.

When I walked into the room, Roomie was sitting straight up in her bed, just staring at the door. Her face was totally blank. Having spent as much time as I had watching the mysterious and creepifying, I, quite naturally I think, jumped. She gave no indication of having noticed my surprise. Instead she said, in complete monotone, “I just woke up,” and promptly fell back on her bed, grumbling for a few minutes before, once again, falling silent.

She had no recollection of this in the morning.

Well, I was sufficiently creeped out, but I’d never heard her talk in her sleep before, so I figured it was a weird anomaly. Sadly, not so.

Over the next few weeks, I heard random, short bursts of words coming from her side of the room as I fell asleep. And then one night, she uttered the most terrifying words ever spoken.

“Roommate alterations.”

I sat up and stared over at her bed, but nothing else came. That was it. “Roommate alterations,” then silence.

What could that possibly mean?

Me being me, I started envisioning the horrible things this alteration process might entail.

Her in a white lab coat and me strapped to a table as she began to cut open my head. On a far table, sits a jar with poor Abby Normal’s brain floating around in formaldehyde.

I’m being submerged into a tank of water, with large needles sticking out of my arms and legs. Through the hazy liquid I see her pull the switch, pumping Adamantium into my body. But I don’t have the healing mutation! I’ll never survive!

She straps me into a chair, attaching a helmet of jumper cables to my head. She paces the floor, whispering to herself, maniacally, as I wait for her to pull the switch.
The possibilities were equally endless and nightmarish.

I informed her the next morning that I knew of her plans. That I was on to her. That forewarned was forearmed. That Goonies never say die. That nobody puts Baby in a corner! (Yeah, I might have lost the thread a little bit there, but she got the point.)

Roomie laughed and said she didn’t remember saying that. She even agreed that it was a truly creepy thing to say. And wasn’t it all just so weird?

Sure, all the words were right, but I knew. Behind the sunny smile and blonde curls lay a mad scientist. Just waiting to get out.

Four years have passed since her terrifying mumbling and, as far as I’m aware, she has not attempted the fruition of her dastardly plot. But every once in awhile, she’ll look at me in a certain way and I wonder if, maybe, just maybe, she’s playing the long game.