Fortune

Wings. Breasts. Drumsticks. All of it floating in a pool of butter. Enough to clog the hearts of a small village. Yep, I ate a full chicken. For the first time I felt like Fortune was smilling at me. Fortune, that’s the girl sitting across from me at the table. Her hair is green. Love. Not really, curiosity mostly. I feed her twice a day. She doesn’t complain. She never says a word. Now is the before sleep meal. She looks happy.

I found Fortune five years ago, she was sleeping under a bridge and my car broke down. She wasn’t moving but she was alive. I picked her up and put her in my trunk. After I got home I put her on the bed in my spare bedroom in the basement. For three days she just slept and stared at the ceiling. I figured she was going to die of dehydration if I didn’t manage to get some water into her. I stole an IV at the hospital where I worked. Fifteen IV bags later I heard sounds in the basement. She was looking for something. Probably drugs. She stank and was so thin I was amazed her frame could hold her up. So I put a bowl of rice on the night stand next to the bed. She was oblivious to me. She ignored the spoon and started eating the rice by shoving her face into the bowl.

In five years she hasn’t said a word. Maybe she can’t, maybe she’s a mute or something. I wont bring her to the hospital to find out. I don’t want to. What if they figure who she is? Can’t let that happen. I have a fascination for this thing. This girl. It’s not sexual or perverted. More like the affection you feel for a stray cat you pick up. I called it Fortune.

I’ve done some research, missing kids, milk cartons and all that stuff. Nothing, as far as the rest of the world is concerned she doesn’t exist. I want to keep it that way. I’m not a pervert or a sicko or a serial killer or any of that crazy shit. I’m a normal guy. I think. Her hair is green because I dyed it.

Today is Friday. I don’t work and I don’t have a calendar. It could be Sunday all the time. I just know it’s Friday because on the TV across from the buffet table is the Friday evening news. My picture is on the left corner of the screen above the news guy. The picture is from three years ago, it’s from my hospital card. I was a doctor. But I quit. I’ve found something more interesting. A Ghost. Forgotten. That’s what I thought, until now. Must have made a mistake, must have picked up the wrong cat.