Portrait (2024)
Some say the streets of Fantasma were haunted. Others say they were cursed. Not a lot of businesses were open around those parts. Except for one. A small café by the name of Selene was strangely always open at nighttime.
BY ALINA CHUNG
IMAGE BY CAMEO VENCHIARUTTI
Some say the streets of Fantasma were haunted. Others say they were cursed. Not a lot of businesses were open around those parts. Except for one. A small café by the name of Selene was strangely always open at nighttime.
I tended to the bar counter in the dingy shop my manager called a café. Dust motes floated in the light shining through the window at the front of the shop. The red velvet leather seats shone in the setting sun, as well. They had a lingering chocolatey smell of coffee from the night before. I swept my black bangs away from my eyes and smiled to myself as I saw the result of my cleaning. The café was usually empty throughout the day, so I didn’t often talk to people. At night was when the café got its “customers.” I heard the bell at the door chime.
“Welcome to Selene. Take a seat and I’ll be with you,” I said, not looking away from a glass I was wiping for the past half hour. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do after the deep cleaning of the café. A bit early for a customer . . . I thought as I snuck a glance at the clock across from the counter. It was around seven o’clock. I put down the glass and dusted my brown apron in preparation for the customer.
Tiny footsteps could be heard beneath the counter. Tiny hands reached for the seat and eventually pulled the rest of the body up onto it. A blue glow emanated from the customer. I looked up from the glass to meet their gaze. Well, to look past their gaze. I could still see through them, albeit a bit hazy. A little girl, possibly ten or so, sat patiently. Her twin tails swayed with her to the tune of an old children’s song. It was strange to see the indent of the seat; she looked weightless.
“Alright, what can I get for you, kid?” I asked, trying to entertain her.
“Ice cream! Three scoops please! Oh, and I want strawberry!” She responded, a slight lisp coming through as she spoke.
“Three scoops of strawberry ice cream coming right up.” I turned to the freezer and grabbed a chilled glass bowl and a container of ice cream. The little girl laughed and tapped her hands on the counter excitedly. I rolled my eyes and sighed. Entertaining children as soon as the sun’s going down—honestly, what was he thinking putting me up to this? I finished scooping out the ice cream, thinking about how useless my manager was. “Alright, here’s your ice cream,” I said as I slid the glass bowl over to the girl.
“Yay!” She squealed and immediately began to devour her dessert. How jealous I was of that kid not being able to gain any weight.
I went back to cleaning glasses along the counter. Kids were easy to deal with; just give them what they want and they’ll give you a solid 5 minutes to yourself before—
“Hey, ma’am, I wanted to ask you a favour,” she said, interrupting my train of thought. I raised my brow at her.
“What is it?” I asked, cautiously. Kids often asked for the most ridiculous things.
“I wanna find a park. With swings!” She lifted herself off her seat with her hands.
“You know there are a lot of parks in this town, right?”
“Yeah, but I wanna find THE park. The one I know. I just don’t remember how to get there.”
“Kid, I’m still working.”
“Aw, please? There’s no one here anyways!”
“No. Ask someone else who isn’t afraid of ghosts.” I looked up from my glass to see the girl about to burst into tears. Uh oh. The glasses set on the table began to shake. I started to lose my footing. The café was on the verge of erupting until—
“Ah, what did I say about talking to customers like that, Jess?” A man, in his fifties, walked into the shop. His greying hair shone against the faint orange hue of the sunset. My manager, Mr. Alexander—Mr. Alex for short—had arrived.
“It isn’t my fault that I'm working, Mr. Alex.” I turned around to put the glasses away, rolling my eyes once more.
“Come now, don’t be like that, you’re upsetting the kid.” Mr. Alex wiped a tear that had escaped off the little girl’s face. “I’ll take over from here. You help this young lady.” He smiled, his eyes obscured by the round sunglasses he had on. I narrowed my eyes at him, expressing how tired I was of his ridiculous suggestions. He simply chuckled and began to set up his station at the bar counter.
The nerve of this man . . . I sighed. “Alright, let’s go, kid.”
“Yippee!” The girl giggled and clapped, then ran out while I was still getting my coat.
“I’ll be back later tonight, hopefully,” I said as I pushed open the door.
“Enjoy your trip.” Mr. Alex simply smiled and waved.
“Enjoy my trip, yeah right,” I muttered under my breath. I hoped the vapour from my mouth in the cold had obscured my strained facial expression. We made it outside a short distance away from the front of the café. “Do you even know where to start, kid?”
“I do! My house is down this street,” the little girl said as she grabbed my hand and dragged me further down the street.
Thank God the streets are dead right now. I do not like the idea of being pulled into traffic. I looked around the neighbourhood. I could see streetlights flickering, welcoming the night. It was always so quiet around dusk. The whole curse rumour was due to the dead silence each night brought. The spirits were muting the streets. Though the one currently dragging me was the loudest spirit I’d ever met.
“Okay! Here we . . . are . . . huh?” The house in front of us was one I hadn’t seen in a long time either. Years had gone by, and the entire front of the house had changed. “What happened? This isn’t my house . . .” The little girl seemed disappointed.
“It seems to have gone through a lot of renovations over the years. I don’t recognize it either.” I knew because I used to live in that house as well, when I was a young girl. I could barely remember most of my childhood. I didn’t even remember what I looked like when I was a child.
“Oh, well, anyways, the park should be somewhere this way!” The little girl grabbed my hand once more and dragged me down the block. My mind flashed back to the days when I still had someone taking care of me. Visions of a smiling and wrinkled face looking down on me, the artificial smell of the salty ocean with a weak cologne, large hands wrapped around me. I shook my head and continued forward with the girl.
We soon arrived at an elementary school. “I never really got to go here. Mommy said it wasn’t safe,” the little girl said, her tone reflective.
“Funny, I never went to school either. At least, I don’t remember going.” I thought about the prospect of going back to school. I had a stable job; I could go back if I wanted to. I’m sure Mr. Alex wouldn’t mind either, if it meant things would be better for me. I imagined walking down school halls, greeted by blue lockers with each turn, surrounded by people like me, just plain old students. I suddenly felt the impact of being shoved against lockers with echoes of laughing children surrounding me in my mind. It all felt so real, perhaps I did go to school in the past. I remembered a phrase that would get tossed around the halls.
“The freak who could see ghosts.”
I was driven away from school after a few years of the bullying. I was getting a headache from the flashbacks but found myself still being dragged by the little girl.
“There’s still more. I know there is,” she said. “Don’t you agree?”
Ah, I see what’s going on now. Is it time to face those memories? I thought it was too soon. “Yeah. I know there’s more,” I chuckled. “Show me.”
“Okay. Let’s go over there,” she pointed towards an empty lot. “I remember seeing a lot of bad people around here.”
“Yeah, me too. I think they disbanded though. It’s been too long for me to remember.” I looked down at the pavement. I thought about the gang. How deep I was. The atrocities I committed in the dead of night. I felt a bit of remorse, though I didn’t exactly understand why at that moment.
“You think you could leave that easily? You, make her regret ever associating with us.”
Ah, I tried. I thought. I tried really hard to separate myself from them, didn’t I? In the end, I couldn’t dissociate from them. They haunted the corners of my mind as much as my bullies did, as much as my father did.
“That old man was nice, wasn’t he?” She was referring to Mr. Alex.
“Yeah, he was.” I smiled. He saved my life after all.
“A girl like you, who only just reached adulthood, shouldn’t be ruining her life so early on. I have a proposition for you.”
I thought Mr. Alex was crazy. Some old guy picking up a girl off the street like an abandoned puppy. He knelt on one knee, looking down at a beat-up, broken girl on the pavement, long dark hair covering most of her face to hide the bruises.
“I have a small café off by the east side of town. It’s not too busy but it’s nice and warm. Come by, have a coffee some time. The first one’s on the house.”
I smiled, thinking of that day once more. He truly saved my life with a single cup of coffee.
“Good, right? You can have more of it if you come work for me. It’s better than a life of crime. I’ll see what I can do with any charges held against you.”
It was smooth and oddly sweet for a black coffee. It reminded me of strawberries. It was warm, comforting. I had never felt such warmth since my father had passed away. I was only twelve when he died. The rest of my life had only gone downhill. I skipped out on school, often pulled all-nighters out on the streets because I didn’t want to go home to people who didn’t love me like he did. That was, until I met Mr. Alex. I realized I was no longer being dragged, but rather, the two of us were walking in unison.
“There it is! The park!” The girl yelled. She let go of my hand to play on the swings. I laughed and made my way over to her to push her.
“I remember my father used to take me here. He pushed me the same way I’m pushing you now,” I said, giving a light push forward.
“I’m happy that you finally remember, ma’am. Mommy used to take me here, too.” She smiled. We played for a little while longer. “I think . . . I’m tired now,” the girl said.
“Do you want to go home?” I asked.
“Yeah. I do.” She began to fade away. “Thank you.”
“I should be thanking you,” I responded. “You did a lot for me.”
The little girl smiled and waved goodbye as she dissipated into nothing.
I should make my way back . . . it’s almost midnight. The cold air made me shiver and I breathed on the palms of my hands to keep them warm.
I arrived back at Selene, shutting the door behind me and shaking off the cold. I looked behind the bar counter to see Mr. Alex, with crossed arms, staring at me.
“How was your little outing?” he asked.
“It was fine,” I shrugged off an answer, taking off my long coat. “The girl dragged me all over the place and now my feet hurt.”
“Oh, a shame. Well, sit down. I’ll brew some coffee for you. The one you like? The sweet one?”
I widened my eyes in surprise, not expecting a treat from him. I sat down. “Thank you, Mr. Alex. For everything.”
Mr. Alex tilted his head in confusion. “You’re welcome, my dear?”
I couldn’t help but smile as he handed me my coffee. “Next time, I’ll brew something for you. I promise.”
Alina Chung is a first-year student in the Bachelor of Creative and Professional Writing program at Humber College. She loves writing whimsical scenarios and often finds sparks of magic in the plain and ordinary.
Image: Portrait (Cameo Venchiarutti)
Edited for publication by Patricia Arhinson, as part of the Bachelor of Creative and Professional Writing Program.
HLR Spotlight is a collaboration between the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario. This project is funded by Humber’s Office of Research & Innovation.