A little bit of flash - Jennifer

This story had to be created around a song title. As a huge fan of the Eurythmics, I chose 'Jennifer' from the 1983 album 'Sweet Dreams (Are made of this)'. 

'Jennifer, with your orange hair

Jennifer, with your green eyes

Jennifer in your dress of deepest purple

Jennifer, where are you tonight? 

Underneath the water...'

The newspaper slips from my nerveless fingers.

I stare at the vendor, his face swimming before my eyes. I think he speaks, but I can find no answer in the depths of my agony. I stumble away, staggering along the pavement like a drunkard.    

My only thought – underneath the water! My heart tears.

I think I shout her name - Jennifer! - and gasp with the pain of knowing she will never reply.

Memories assail me...

In a room of ordinary people, she had been extraordinary, her rebellious nature evident from the brilliant orange crew cut which clashed with her dress of deepest purple. Green eyes, the same colour as the scarf draped casually around her throat, had flickered over the rest of us with something akin to amusement…and finally rested on me.

Eventually I had asked – no, I think I begged - this fascinating creature to step outside; the building we were in seemed too small to contain her. I wanted to experience her company unfettered by the confines of bricks and mortar and glass. 

Her breath had been warm against my ear. “In the park, on the little bridge,” she whispered. “Give me ten minutes.”

Now, guilt overwhelms me and forces me to my knees.

I had been late, but I had remained on that bridge until the last champagne-soaked partygoer had left and my hopes had shattered. I remember screaming to the stars; ‘Jennifer! Where are you tonight?’

If only I’d looked down.

Rudvargrad Times, April 17^th.

Breaking news; The body of a young woman, strangled with a green scarf, has been discovered in the lake at Dibrovik Park. Police are appealing for anyone who might remember seeing the woman’s distinctive orange hair and purple dress…

(The song – ‘Jennifer’ by the Eurythmics, 1983.)