Writer's note: sorry for the post spam today. I had a big idea come to me last night that I had to get out of my mind, and so the story of Natalia was born. As I kept writing more and more ideas kept coming to me, and the next thing I know the original five part series got away from me. This will be my last post in the series today (and maybe for a while, but the saga of Natalia will return!). P.s. I'm not sure what the moderation is for series tags, but I gave the series its own tag under 'Natalia' to make it easy for readers to find. It's an old habit from when I used to blog.
At first a day passed, then a week, then another and finally a month. Paul had surpassed Nathan's tenture as Natalia now, and my reality warping powers had seemingly dissapeared leaving me with a mornful Paul-as-Natalia. Paul didn't speak much unless he needed something from my parents which was usually alcohol or food. Yet again mom reminisced on how Natalia was never that chatty, the she's a thinker and not a talker. Despite living with the chattie and full of shit Nathan-as-Natalia a month ago. Ocassionally Paul would talk to himself, but only in Russian. Today was one of those days.
Dad encouraged us to have "cousin time" and gave Paul the keys to his SUV. Paul drove in silence, no music or anything, until we found a Starbucks near his old work. We went inside and got our drinks. I sat there in awkward silence as Paul muttered to himself in Russian. I kept checking my phone, and scrolling through Instagram. Nathan was able to delete all the photos of himself from our private Insta, but was unable to delete the whole account. The only thing that remained was the video of Natalia in Nathan's bikini running across the snow in slow motion. At least until today. Today a new post appeared in the feed, one very similar to the last but with a whole lot more information.
In it stood Natalia in Nathan's red bikini, modeling to the camera. A female narrorator with a voice suspiciously close to that of Natalia's overlayed the video. It was in Russian, or so I assumed since I couldn't understand what she said. I texted Nathan about it, althought I knew he wouldn't answer. We hadn't talked since he sucker punched me a month ago.
"Paul," I said. He didn't hear me, he only stared at his drink and muttered in Russian. "Paul, I need your help." Still nothing.
"What does this say?" I held the between him and his frappe. He shooed the phone away. "Do you want to change back or not, I need your help. What is she saying?"
That got Paul's attention. Without speaking he took the phone and watched the video of his body stand in the snow as the woman narrorated. He watched it many times before giving it back to me.
"I'm a fucking model," he said. No shit.
"Are you talking about your job, or what?" I asked.
"It's an ad," his eyes fixed on the untouched drink. "It's an ad for Natalia, the perfect woman or whatever. I don't know, it's not much to go with."
"Word by word, what does it say?" He took the phone off my palms and began speaking the message outloud. "'I didn't ask to be her, but when it happened, it was meant to be. Experince Natalia, a touch of ecstacy.' What a load of bullshit." He put the phone back on the table.
He passed the phone back to me. We both sat there in silence together. What I hoped would lead to an answer only lead to more questions. Who was the woman, or man in the video? How did they get Nathan's bikini? I wanted to ask Paul if he still had it, but I knew he wouldn't answer. He purged himself of all of Nathan's clothes a while ago too. Did the use of touch mean anything about my lost powers? What the fuck had the world cursed us with? Before I locked my phone I noticed a caption written in Cyrillic. The only thing I could make out was the first part, the numbers 222.
"Paul," I said, "I'd hate to bother you one more time but can you translate the caption?"
He sighed and read it back. "It's an address. Two-hundreded-and-twenty-two Winter Green Drive, Emerald Woods, Illinois." He sat the phone back on the table and continued to stare at his drink. I didn't take my phone back, I couldn't. I knew it was irrational, but I felt that if I were to touch my phone in that moment I would feel my soul ripped straight from my body. I wanted to toss my phone into a nuclear reactor and decimate it down to the very atoms it was composed of and then destroy those atoms piece by piece. The address written beneath the ad wasn't just some random place, it belonged to a place very close to me, it belonged to my house.