Reflection of a Vampire #4

 

ROSALIE stopped the car as she saw Queen Riza heavily breathing. “Do you have asthma? Or COPD?”

 

“I don’t know what you are talking about. I need only fresh air!” Queen Riza answered Rosalie. “Will you please, just let me get out here? I will sit there in the square.” Queen Riza asked Rosalie if Rosalie will drop her so that she can breathe fresh air.

 

“Okay, Rotterdam is a quiet and safe city, nothing will happen to you.” Rosalie agreed to the request of Queen Riza.

 

Queen Riza came out the car and she walked into the square. Rosalie started her car to the snack bar to buy foods, it’s just few streets farther.

 

As Queen Riza walked toward the square the two men sitting in one of the cements seats saw her. There’s no other people in the square, just them drinking beer. The two men were homeless and because it’s summer, they just stay in the square, they do not go to a shelter house as the temperature was tolerable.

 

  “Look, Andre, what a strange woman, look at her clothing.” One man exclaimed upon seeing Queen Riza.

 

“She have a crown on her head!” the other man that was called Andre said and laughed.

 

“What is she doing in the middle of the night?”

 

“I do not know, Kees.” Tipsy Andre answered and stood up. He walked toward Queen Riza who was approaching them.

 

“Hello?” he greeted Queen Riza who answered him with a smile. Andre saw through the light that he was in the front of a pretty woman. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

 

“If you come with me in there, I will tell you why.” Queen Riza answered Andre, pointing a thick bushes of rhododendron planted in both side of the small path within the square.

 

Andre and Queen Riza went in there and Kees who was already drunk mumbled. “Why he always have luck in women than me?”

 

Kees stayed seated where he sit, and he heard sounds like, ‘Oh,’ ‘Ah,’ which he thought were sounds of love from Andre. While waiting he fall asleep because of too much alcohol intake.

 

Rosalie have already the foods and was driving the same way back. By the square she stopped to picked Queen Riza who was already waiting along the road.

 

Driving back home, Rosalie noticed that Queen Riza was relaxed. She do not breathe heavily anymore but Queen Riza once for a while giggles for no reason at all. And she has hiccups.

 

When they were inside the house, Rosalie put the paper bag on the table.

 

“Hamburgers and frites, and cola!” Rosalie said to Queen Riza as she open the paper bag where the foods she bought were. Queen Riza was just calmly sitting and watching her.

“Now we can eat!”

 

“I am happy you brought me outside your house. It is a very satisfying night. I feel much better.” Queen Riza with a smile in her face said to Rosalie.

 

“No problem.” Rosalie answered Queen Riza and put a frites to her mouth. She pushed to Queen Riza her share of the food. “Eat. You was hungry you said, that’s why we come out the house to buy these foods.”

 

“Moment.” Queen Riza said as she stood up and walked into the room of Rosalie.

 

“Where are you going?” but Queen Riza did not answer. She continued walking and entered the room of Rosalie.

 

Rosalie thought that Queen Riza would comeback so she just stayed sitting and eat her hamburger but after five minutes that Queen Riza did not come back, she entered her room. She saw no Queen Riza inside.

 

“Where are you?” Rosalie asked while seeking Queen Riza. “Riza where are you?”

 

When there’s no answer, Rosalie faced the mirror and said, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, where is Riza, my sister?”

 

Rosalie thought that Queen Riza will show thru her reflection in the mirror but no. Rosalie stood there for a while but she only see herself as she was.

 

“If you just go without saying a goodbye it’s okay” and Rosalie turn her back to the mirror as she’s planning to finish her food when she heard a voice. The voice of Queen Riza.

 

“Go to sleep, Rosalie! ‘Till next time.”

 

THE next day, Sunday. Rosalie just wake up by her bio rhythm even though she went sleep late. She stayed for a while in her bed and tried to recollect in her mind about Queen Riza and her going outside the house at the middle of the night. About Queen Riza’s hunger but did not eat the food she bought. Strange woman she thought as she really believed that Queen Riza was another person.

 

She did her household chores as she always do every Sunday. She also emptied the Wash dryer and folded her clothes, then when everything were done, she take out from the refrigerator the foods she bought last night. She put in the magnetron the hamburger and frites that was for Queen Riza but went away without eating it.

After eating her lunch, she sit in the living room, pick her mobile phone and began scrolling her emails, then went to the page of FB, scrolling and read things that interest her. Then she open the news site to read the news until she come to an article of news about what happened last night in Noordplein, the square that Queen Riza stepped out the car to have a fresh breathe of air.

 

The news have it about a homeless man murdered in the square. The man was decapitated and the police arrested another homeless man as he was found sleeping of drunkenness on a cement bank, on his body the head of the decapitated man.

 

Rosalie quickly opened her TV to look if there’s a news about it. A local TV Station of Rotterdam always ran complete details of special news. She’s right. The local TV Station have about it, and they were talking about a horrible crime, the first time that happened in Noordplein.

*to be continued* Remy Dorio