Jen sat at their kitchen table early Sunday morning, drinking coffee and smoking; a ceaseless habit of late. She ran her finger across the glossy page of her ‘Cosmo’ magazine. Not the whole page, and not indiscriminately. It was the face of Orlando Bloom that drew her attention. She remembered him fondly as the brave elf, Legolas Greenleaf with his sharp, blue eyes. His long, white hair so similar to the tail of the striking Palomino horse. At first, when Jen found out that Orlando possessed naturally dark features, in direct opposition to the face she’d come to love, there had been immense disappointment, but now she preferred him that way. Orlando was her hero and her true love. In fact, over the recent weeks it would be fair to say, he became her everything.

“What’s wrong with you, Jen?” Gabriella asked, emerging from their dark, quiet hallway.

“Hey.” Jen turned toward Gab with a smile.

“Have you been up all night?” Gabriella waved at the smoky kitchen air, a sour look on her face; then purposefully and sternly, opened the kitchen window and the back door attached to the kitchen.

“You know I haven’t been able to sleep lately. It’s these long summer nights, too hot.”

Jen’s attention went back to her magazine. Gab switched on the kettle.

“Hmm, it’s not normal, Jen. First, you spend months in bed, and now you don’t sleep at all. When was the last time you slept?”

“About a week.”

“That’s what I thought.” Gab shook her head.

Preparing herself tea she studied Jen. “What are you looking at, anyway?”

Jen lifted the magazine, making the cover visible.

“I didn’t think you had money to buy magazines? You certainly haven’t any for the rent.”

“I know. I felt bad about it, but then I knew you’d understand.”

“Understand what?”

Jen lifted the Cosmo again but this time turned it round to show Gabriella a picture of Orlando.

“I don’t get it.”

“Orlando,” Jen pointed at him.

“Still don’t get it.”

“When I’ve watched ‘Lord of the Rings’, recently...”

“Obsessively,” Gabriella said pointedly.

“Well, I’ve realised...” Jen looked up at the ceiling, “it just occurred to me, really.”

“What did?”

“Orlando’s been leaving messages for me. He wants me to meet him in California.”

“What’s wrong with you, Jen?”

“Nothing,” Jen’s smile disappeared, “you’re so out of touch with things, Gaby. You really shit me, sometimes.”

“It’s you who’s changed, recently, Jen. All winter you’re comatose. Then bang, just like that you’re a walking piece of sunshine, all ‘no sleep for me, I’m superhuman. Watch me while I wear may knickers on the outside and use my cape to fly to another country.’ Gab emphasised her diatribe with silence. Not too much, just thirty seconds, then, “Can you hear yourself? You’re blaming your sleeplessness on the summer nights, yet last summer you were fine. You’re talking about meeting Orlando Bloom in another country. I think you need help. You’re not well.”

“I don’t need anything. I feel great now; fantastic even. I’ve spent the past few nights thinking about starting a business when I get there.”

“Where, California? How will you

get to California?”

“Orlando’s arranged a ticket for me. He’s so wonderful.” Jen’s brown eyes sparkled incongruent to her angled annoyance. “I told you, I knew my day would come. I dreamed of a hero who would save me from my life and now it’s happening.”

“You don’t even have a passport.”

Gabriella squinted at Jen as if to extract a deeper insight from her appearance or words. “I’m ringing Mum.”

Jen moved quickly from the table, her cigarette pressed tightly between her fingers.

“Please don’t, Gabriella. Come one, I’m fine.”

Stepping back, Gabriella coughed, “I thought we agreed no smoking in the house,” she fanned her face. “It’s not normal to not

be able to sleep, Jen.”

“You’ve already made things hard between me and Mum. God, it took ages to get her off my back last time when you rang her about my ‘so called’ depression, as you put it. Why do you always have to ruin everything? You love making me look bad to her.” Jen stubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit another. She sat back at the table and ran her finger over Orlando’s face; the squareness of his jaw, the curl in his hair. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

Gabriella took her tea from the kitchen and headed with purpose to her bedroom, portable phone in hand; her stomach heavy with anxiety and sorrow.

“What’s happening to you, Jen?” She whispered to the air-conditioned room. Gab didn’t want to phone their mother. She sat on the edge of her bed, head bowed, phone pointing to her forehead; pressing into the skin.


Jen finished her coffee and cigarette, and snatched her magazine from the table. The atmosphere spoke to her this morning. She felt the messages from all around. Orlando’s voice was all about her. Not audibly but inside her. Hard to explain to anybody else, but he was there nonetheless. Right now she felt him warning her, “Get out now”. It was urgent, she knew that as surely as she knew, this very moment, Gabriella would be on the phone to Mum. Jen wasted no time. She made her way to her own room, not to change or shower; there was no time for that. Her thrice-worn tracksuit pants and ever-yellowing fingers weren’t given a thought as she located Orlando’s candle and left the house.


Gabriella had their mum on the phone.

“Something’s wrong with Jen, Mum. I can’t explain it exactly but she’s lost her mind. She thinks Orlando Bloom’s sending her a message through the TV, telling her to go to California to be with him. It’s bizarre.”

“Is that her new boyfriend? She always liked those Spanish types.”

“No, he’s not her boyfriend. He’s a Hollywood actor, Mum. She thinks he’s sending her messages through ‘The Lord of the Rings’, one of his movies.”

Then, a sound caught Gabriella’s ears. Was that her car?

“Wait a second, Mum.”

Gabriella called out to Jen but there was no reply.

“I think she’s left the house, Mum,’ Gabriella moved through the house, the portable phone still to her ear. When in the lounge, she opened the drapes. The summer sunlight strained her eyes and the hot air from behind the curtains pressed against her face. Gab noticed immediately, Jen had taken her car.


Jen drove with the window down so her cigarette smoke would be caught by the wind. Catching a glimpse of herself in the rear-view mirror, at her unkempt hair, Jen decided Orlando would understand, after all it was him urging her to leave so suddenly. What hero wouldn’t understand? Jen headed toward Melbourne, on her way to the Tullamarine Airport. Her eyes darted about, her fingers tapped on the steering wheel to the beat of the radio.

She noticed a cop car and her heart beat a speedy cadence as she slowed a little. Fingers twitching, she turned her face away from the road feigning interest in the Yarra River, until the copper’s car passed. A tic in her eyelid returned; it had come and gone over the past day or so. Things will work out. She knew this; knew it like you know when you’re in love. It couldn’t be described in any other way. She just knew.

On the Monash Freeway, Jen drove confidently. Soon she’d see Orlando. He’d hold her in his arms. They’d laugh and talk and sit together at cafés. She’d ask him if he still had his ‘Legolas’ wig. Maybe he’d wear it for her along with Legolas’ blue contact lenses.

Jen quickly tilted left to grab her handbag from the passenger seat. She might not have had time to shower and change, to eat or apply makeup, but she did have time to prepare the ritual for her voyage. She needed to light Orlando’s candle. The flame would bring the essence of him to her; he’d help her through the congested roads of Melbourne. He’d help her at the airport; through customs and onto the plane. He’d help her when she had to explain to the airport ticketing counter that he’d arranged her flight. He’d help the staff find the ticket number needed to assure her trip.

Jen’s eyes flicked from the road to her bag as she searched it. Locating the candle, she transferred it to her right hand, with a cigarette still firmly in her grip and then tossed her handbag on the passenger seat. She still sucked on her cigarette. Smoke trailed up her cheek and into her right eye. Blinking hard Jen pressed her eyelid closed with one of her hands.

“Ow, ow, ow.” Her eye throbbed. Tears blurred the right-eyes vision. Her left hand, candle ensconced within, still rested against the steering wheel.

“Shit.”

She needed her lighter. The whole thing became a juggling act with her candle in the same hand she was driving with, her cigarette in her mouth; eye squinted and her other hand searching her pockets. Front and back.

“Yes,” she said and extracted the lighter, but as she did this, pain erupted in her lips. Her cigarette had almost burned down and the heat was now too close to her lips. Intentionally dropping the lighter, her hand came up to her mouth but pain forced her lips to open prematurely, dropping the cigarette. Jen took quick stock of the road and then frantically looked about the floor and seat for the smouldering cigarette. It sat between her legs burning a hole into her thin tracksuit pants.

The sound of screeching tires invaded her ears but there was no time to respond, not even a millisecond to lift her eyes to the road. The car jolted fiercely, her head thrown back. Holding the steering wheel tightly with both hands, Jen felt the dimensions of her car, the space around her shifted, as though the steering wheel moved closer, back, closer like wobbling jelly. It seemed her ears had stopped working. Silence fell around her like fog.


Stunned, Jen sat staring out at the traffic, the other cars, and the people as she realised her location in the middle of the intersection. An unknown person knocked on her window. She tried to unwind it but it wouldn’t budge. The door was stuck, too. A siren could be heard in the distance. Jen looked to her lap; the cigarette had gone out now. Picking it up, revealed two burn holes; one in each leg of her tracksuit pants. She felt pain from the burns, but otherwise was fine. Jen retrieved her handbag, lighter and Orlando’s candle. She needed him now more than ever? Hurriedly she lit his candle, focussing her thought on him as she did so. Moments later the ambulance and several police cars arrived.

“I’m fine, I’m okay,” Jen reassured the medic, “I have to hurry, I need to get to the airport.” She couldn’t stand still; shifting her weight from one foot to the other, cigarette between her hand.

“No, you must let us do our job. We need to make sure you’re okay.” The medic eyed her lit candle and frowned.

Jen refused treatment. The driver of the other vehicle was transported to hospital in a serious condition. The police wanted a statement from Jen. According to information received from several callers to emergency services, she had run a red light.

“No, no I didn’t. I was careful. I...”

“Full name please?” The officer’s badge read ‘Const. Johnson’.

“Jennifer Hamil.”

We’ll need to take your statement.”

“No, I can’t. I’ll be happy to talk to you later but right now I must go. I have to be at the airport.”

Again, Jen moved from leg to leg. She had kept Orlando’s candle alight by cupping the flame with her hand. Not an easy task to manage while smoking.

“Come and sit in the car, Miss Hamil. It’ll be cooler in there.”

“Will you take me to the airport?”

“No.” He shook his head, uncomprehending; as though she’d spoken in a foreign language. “We need to take your statement.”

“No,” Jen shot out, like a bullet.

“Please, Miss Hamil, calm down.”

“You don’t understand. I must go now or I’ll miss my flight.” Jen leaned into Johnson’s personal space, crossing the boundary of comfort.

“What time is your flight, Miss Hamil?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“What do you mean? Do you have a ticket?”
Johnson pursed his lips and took a deep breath, then eyed her candle.

“What’s this about?”

Jen recognised his expression; the familiar crease in his brow. It was the same as her sister’s face this morning; her mother’s on other occasions. Constable Johnson thought she was mad.

“You’ll have to extinguish that before you enter the vehicle.”

“It’s okay; I’ve decided I don’t want to talk with you now. If you won’t take me to the airport then I’ll walk.” Maybe I’ll hitch a ride she thought, but wouldn’t say this to Johnson, given it was illegal.

Another officer approached Jen and asked her to take a breathalyser test.

“This’ll only take a minute,” he reassured her.

Jen hadn’t been drinking so wasn’t worried.

“Let me help you with this,” Johnson said, taking hold of the candle. But Jen wouldn’t let go of it.

“This is Orlando’s candle,” Jen spoke firmly; seriously, “it cannot be extinguished. You see, it contains his soul; his essence. I need him here with me. To help me, help me through this situation.”

“Miss Hamil, are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” she replied in a raised voice. “It would help me greatly, though, if you’d simply drive me to the airport.”

“Please put out the candle, Miss Hamil and come to the vehicle for your statement.”

“No.”

“Miss Hamil,” the other officer now spoke with a soothing tone, “I’m Senior Constable Skene. Constable Johnson has made a request of you and you’re not cooperating with him.”

“I’m happy to give a statement, just not now.”

“You don’t have a plane ticket, there’s no flight to miss.”

“I have it under control.”

“How is that, Miss Hamil?”

Jen took a deep breath. “Look, you won’t understand if I explain it to you, so I’d rather save my breath.”

“We’ll take the statement here then. Johnson, get what you need from the car.”

The statement took too long, having to explain her situation several times. Johnson raised questions she hadn’t even thought of, like was she aware she couldn’t take a lit candle onto an airplane? It seemed she was the only astute person open-minded enough to understand the minds capabilities. Skene and Johnson refused to understand, when you really loved a person, anything is possible, including the soul’s capacity to make contact through the ethereal gateway provided by the light of a candle.

“I need to make a call,” Johnson said finally, and retreated to his car.

Upon return, Johnson and Skene discussed something privately, and then addressed Jen.

“Miss Hamil, it’s my assessment that you’re not rational at this time. Frankly, we’re worried about your mental health.”

Johnson put through a call to the Crisis Assessment Team, who’d arrive shortly to assess the situation further.

“No, please?” Jen cried, “You said if I gave a statement I could go. Please? Orlando’s waiting for me.” Her cupped hand came away from the candle’s flame and Jen fell to the ground dramatically. The wind snuffed the candle’s flame immediately.

Jen cried hysterically into her lap, “Please, please just let me go.”

Johnson kneeled next to her, rubbing her back; calming her.


It was late Sunday afternoon when Gabriella’s phone rang.

“Gab, it’s Mum. They’ve found Jen. She’s been in a car accident and they’ve taken her to the Alfred.”

“Is she okay?” Gab asked; her eyes moist.

“Yes, fine. Just some cuts and bruises, but your car’s a write-off.”

Gab didn’t know what to say. She was glad she hadn’t reported her car stolen earlier. Jen was in enough trouble.

“Mum, as much as I love her, I’m frightened to have her back here. It’s been really hard living with her lately.”

“She won’t be back for some time.”

“Why’s that?”

“Jen refused the ambulance to the hospital. It was the CAT team who picked her up. The police at the scene had her committed against her will.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means she’ll be there for at least twenty-two days, apparently. I don’t know. I don’t know what it means.” Gab heard the uneven breathing of her mother’s quiet crying. “I’m heading to the hospital now. Do you want me to pick you up on my way?” Mum asked.


It had been a week since the accident. Jen sat on a bed in a room she shared with several others in the hospital ward. The staff were mean, particularly the brisk older woman who’d been Jen’s first duty nurse.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Jen had explained, patiently at first. But in no time at all she found herself yelling uncontrollably.

“Why do you think you haven’t been sleeping, Jennifer?” the Doctor asked. She couldn’t even pronounce his name. Jayawayawadana, or something like that.

“I’ve told you over and over, I’m sick to death of repeating myself. If I light a candle, Orlando Bloom’s presence will be near me. It gives me power and strength so that I don’t need to sleep. And, it guides me to him. Now I want my fucking candle back.”

“Calm down, Jennifer...”

“Jen,” she yelled, “stop calling me Jennifer and give me back my candle.”

The staff didn’t listen to her. They wouldn’t believe her. It was a conspiracy. Instead they tried to brainwash her into believing a ridiculous diagnosis.

“Bipolar Disorder,” the doctor said.

The Lithium Carbonate they’d prescribed made Jen feel weak and shaky. She was non-stop peeing and her stomach felt awful. Why was Gabriella perfectly fine and she the sick one?

Jen missed the presence of Orlando’s spirit. Mum brought in her 'Orlando' movie collection and portable DVD player, but Jen wasn’t allowed to burn a candle. It was another hot night but you couldn’t tell that in a hospital, not with the climate control. She sat on her bed with her glossy Cosmo magazine and gently ran her fingers over Orlando’s dark features. I’m with you always, Orlando; my hero.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 18.06.2010

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