The Time Was 11:27

Jenny dreamed the dream again. When she awoke, she checked the clock. 11:27, it read, just like every other time she could remember when she awoke from the dream. She didn’t remember exactly what she had dreamed, which was the norm for her, but she had the unmistakable feeling that it was the dream. For as long of the twelve years of her life that she could remember, which was roughly the last six, Jenny had dreamed the dream.

Laughter. Car. Seatbelt. Drive-thru. French fries. Crash. Screaming. Blood. Then, without fail, she would awake. Never did she see whose blood it was, never could she tell where the screaming had originated from. All she ever could remember were those eight [senses].

As Jenny always did when she awoke from the dream, she immediately went to the bathroom to get a drink of water. She used to get shaken by the dream, but she had grown used to it by now. Fifty times?, she wondered. One hundred? One thousand? She couldn’t place just how many times she had dreamed the dream, but that didn’t really bother her anymore. What did bother her was the timing. 11:27 PM became a time that she greatly feared night after night. She wouldn’t allow herself, or any member of her immediate family, to be in a car at that time. Everyone in her household always had to be indoors by 11:00 PM. Can’t take any chances, she thought.

Jenny would never tell her family exactly why they all had to be indoors by 11:00 PM, nor did they understand her fascination with 11:27 PM. Jenny didn’t want them to think that her mind was broken. She didn’t want to be treated any differently than Mary or Johnny, her fifteen and seven-year-old siblings.

When she had first told her mom and dad about the necessity of being indoors by 11:00 PM, they laughed. Jenny, she remembers them saying to her six-year-old self, we’ll be okay. There’s nothing that makes the nighttime any scarier than the daytime.

Realizing that her parents seemed to be ignoring her warning, Jenny had screamed and screamed and screamed, nearly hyperventilating, until they promised to never be on the road after 11:00 PM. Jenny couldn’t say why she had reacted so strongly, nor did her parents understand what had gotten into their daughter. It greatly frightened all three of them.

Like what often happens when people are scared, however, Jenny and her parents never explicitly spoke of the event again. They all simply went about their daily lives, pretending to be oblivious of the dark, incomprehensible, foreboding sense of dread that hit their daughter every night before she went to sleep. Still, no one in the house was permitted to be on the road after 11:00 PM; this was understood by all, even the now-teenaged Mary.

-----

The morning after Jenny’s latest bout of the dream, she was cheery. Jenny was always cheery in the morning; the singing birds and rising sun meant that the horrible, incomprehensible sense of dread - and, quite possibly, the dream – was hours and hours away. During the day, Jenny could be a kid. She could eat breakfast with her family, go to school, and play with her friends. She had many friends; in fact, she was one of the most popular girls in school. Jenny was a different person during the day – she was outgoing, cheerful, and always smiling. Everyone loved her, and no one outside of her immediate family had any inkling of knowledge into the sense of helplessness that overcame her after the sun went down.

Her friends did think it strange that she never would attend sleepovers, yes, but they always shrugged that off as Jenny simply being too busy, too popular. It never crossed their adolescent minds that she may have been dealing with forces beyond the extent of anyone’s knowledge when the stars appeared in the sky. It never occurred to them that Jenny may be rendered absolutely helpless by an overwhelming feeling of [death] when the once-blue sky became black.

By the time the morning had grown old, nearly ready to turn over to the afternoon, Jenny found herself growing more and more frightened, to the point of near-hyperventilation. She was sitting at her lunch table, watching all her friends laugh at something that she had said – though she couldn’t even remember what it was, let alone if it was funny – as she ate her peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sour cream and onion chips. That’s when the hyperventilation started to set in. She had never felt so helpless when the sun was shining. Not here, Jenny thought. I can’t do this here. Why now?

Hurriedly, she excused herself from the table and made her way to the bathroom, which was located right beyond the cafeteria doors. A teacher was always on duty during lunch hours, standing right next to those doors, making sure that students did not just get up and leave the lunchroom. As she hurried across the lunchroom, for her table was in the front of the lunchroom, nearest to the food (cause that’s where all the popular kids sat), Jenny looked up to see who was on duty. Mr. Todd. Jenny’s heart fell. Mr. Todd was her science teacher, and the nicest of all the teachers; he was her favorite. He’ll say something to me, and I’ll be forced to look up at him and say something back, and he’ll see that something is wrong, and he’ll get concerned, and he’ll know that I’m not normal, and... Jenny’s heart was racing a mile a minute as she got closer to the door.

“Hi, Jenny.” Mr. Todd said, with a big smile on his face. “How are y…”

“Good, how are you?” Jenny interrupted, not even looking up before walking by and entering the bathroom. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. He knows. He has to know. He’s never going to look at me normally again. Jenny had forgotten what had sent her to the bathroom in the first place, unable to focus on anything besides her interaction with Mr. Todd. Thinking she had left the lunch table solely to use the toilet, Jenny entered a stall. When she sat down on the toilet, everything came rushing back. Overwhelmed by the sudden flood of emotions, Jenny felt an immense headache – one unlike any she had ever had before – wash over her. It felt like she imagined a beachgoer would feel like if the soft sand suddenly became tiny blades. She closed her eyes.

LAUGHTER. CAR. SEATBELT. DRIVE-THRU. FRENCH FRIES. CRASH. SCREAMING. BLOOD.

She opened her eyes to find herself sprawled across the floor in the bathroom stall. She had no sense of time, no sense of where she was. Purely out of habit, Jenny pulled out her phone to check the time. Her blood went ice cold. 11:27.

-----

Jenny didn’t remember leaving the bathroom, nor how she got to the nurse’s office. The first thing she could remember after the [vision] was lying on the bed in the nurse’s room, with Mr. Todd and Ms. Suzy standing over her, worriedly. Jenny could hear Mr. Todd talking to Ms. Suzy, but their bodies, their words, felt far away. She just collapsed when she came out of the bathroom, Suzy. She just… fell. Is she okay? Should we call 9-1-1? Should we call her… Her eyes are open. Suzy, ask her something.

Sweetie, Jenny, honey. Are you okay? Do you remember what happened?

Jenny thought Ms. Suzy was addressing her, but she couldn’t tell for sure. Groggily, like Jenny imagined a bat would act when waking up from hibernation, she said, “I’m… I’m… okay.”

Her statement didn’t seem to set the adults at ease. As Jenny started to slowly feel more and more like herself, the feeling of an incredible headache hit her again. She smacked her forehead with her palm, and then immediately felt light-headed.

“Water…” she croaked.

Mr. Todd ran off to get her some water. By the time he returned just a few moments later, Jenny was trying to sit up to talk to Ms. Suzy. She thanked him for the water, then drank the entire bottle in a span of a few seconds. Mr. Todd looked at her curiously.

“She says she got up too quickly from the toilet, and passed out,” Ms. Suzy said, turning to face Mr. Todd. “She says it happens to her sometimes.”

Mr. Todd looked extremely relieved. “I… I thought… Never mind what I thought. You’re sure you’re okay, Jenny?”

Jenny could only muster a nod and a half-smile. She didn’t like lying, especially to her favorite teacher. Keeping the dream to myself isn’t a lie. It’s just not telling the full truth, she thought, absentmindedly.

“I’m glad to hear it.” Mr. Todd started to turn away. “I have to get back to my classroom, but listen to what Ms. Suzy tells you, Jenny. You need some rest.”

After Mr. Todd had left, Jenny’s mind began to wander back to [the dream]. It had never, ever come during the day, and it had never before come in a vision. The 11:27 wrinkle just made Jenny more fearful. Slowly shaking her head as if to distill those thoughts, Jenny turned back to face Ms. Suzy. They can’t know. They can’t know that I’m not normal.

Ms. Suzy suggested that they call Jenny’s parents to pick her up and, despite Jenny’s pleas that she was fine and wanted to return to class, Ms. Suzy picked up the phone. My friends will just think I got sick. They won’t know. They won’t know that I’m different. They won’t. They will.

Jenny waited for her mom in the nurse’s office – her mom worked at the daycare center about five miles away from the school; her father worked in the city, about an hour away. They’re going to know. My friends are going to know. My friends are going to find out. Mr. Todd is going to find out. Everyone is going to find out. Everyone is going to know. Everyone is going to know that I’m not normal. Everyone.

By the time her mother picked her up and they got home, Jenny had gone over the whole [lie] with her mother multiple times. She had gone to the bathroom, she said, and gotten up too quickly from the toilet, staggered out to the hallway, and passed out. She feels fine now, she said – it was just like when she was eight years old and passed out after getting up too quickly from a rollercoaster ride at Six Flags. Everything was fine. Everything was normal.

-----

The feeling of near-hyperventilation and dread was constant now. The dream came to Jenny every day now. Twice a day, every day, in fact. Every day at 11:25AM, Jenny would go to the bathroom, and enter the stall, locking it behind her, waiting for that 11:27 [nightmare]. Every time, for the past two weeks, it came. Laughter. Car. Seatbelt. Drive-thru. French fries. Crash. Screaming. Blood. Every time, Jenny picked herself off the floor in the stall, rubbed her temples as the familiar headache returned, and forced a smile onto her face as she left the bathroom, back to the lunch table.

Every night at 11:27PM, Jenny awoke from her slumber, sweating and breathing heavily. The incredible, incomprehensible feeling of dread always came, and the headache always came with it. Every night, Jenny went to the bathroom to get a drink of water after the dream. Then, Jenny would go back to bed. It took her awhile to fall asleep afterwards, but when she finally would drift off around 1:00AM, Jenny was peaceful. It was the only six hours that Jenny was peaceful every day.

By the third week of this, Jenny started to show cracks. Her smile would take a few extra beats to find her mouth when her friends spoke to her. When Mr. Todd called on her in class, her response was a few seconds too slow, and a little too off-topic. Everyone knows, she constantly thought. Everyone knows that I’m not normal. Everyone.

-----

One day, at precisely 11:21AM, about six weeks after the dream started coming to Jenny twice a day, Mr. Todd told her that he’d like to speak with her alone. By the time they got to his classroom, the clock read 11:24. Frantic, she started to explain that she had to go to lunch, to the bathroom, anything. But Mr. Todd said the conversation would only take a moment. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. He’s going to find out. He’s going to find out. He’s going to find out.

“Jenny? Are you okay?” Lost in her worries, Jenny had not realized that Mr. Todd had been speaking to her for a few moments.

“I’m fine.” Jenny said. She had perfected the art of lying.

“Jenny, you’ve been struggling to complete your work recently, and you just don’t seem to be happy or engaged. Is something going on at home?”

“No. I’m fine.” Jenny tried to muster a smile to make the statement more believable, but failed miserably. My head hurts so badly. So, so badly.

Mr. Todd went on and on about how he wanted to help her and that if she didn’t want to talk to him, she could speak with a counselor. Jenny just stared at him blankly, entering in her one or two-word responses when necessary. Finally, he let her go. She pulled out her phone. 11:34.

Suddenly, Jenny felt better – the best she had felt in as long as she could remember. The dream hadn’t come. She was free. No one is going to find out. No one is going to know that I’m not normal. Everything is going to be okay. Everything is going to be normal.

When Jenny returned to her lunch table for the final ten minutes of the lunch period, she laughed and laughed with her friends. She smiled more than she had in weeks. She felt like an immense weight had lifted from her shoulders. She felt normal.

By the time science class came along, Jenny felt like she had just won the lottery. She warmly greeted a shocked-but-ecstatic Mr. Todd, answered all his questions, and even raised her hand without prompting. She felt incredible. She felt normal.

-----

Jenny was riding the bus home when she heard her phone go off. It just takes some time / Little girl, you’re in the middle of a ride / Everything, everything will be just fine / Everything, everything will be… “Hello?” Jenny recognized her ringtone – she LOVED Jimmy Eats World – and picked up her phone. “Mom? What about Mary? Fast food? What? No. What? What are you talking about? Her face went completely pale. “Why are you lying? What time did you say? Wh--”

She threw the phone against the window, crying. Everyone on the bus looked at her. Everything was not normal. She was not normal.