Monday. Monday-Monday, even more Monday.
Alexandria sat in her room on Monday, anxiously biting her nails at the idea of the XYZ Killer intruding her privacy and attacking her until she had been reduced into a pulp. Unlike other normal women in their 20s, who would be seen in the dusk of morning wearing last night’s party clothes while guiltily sneaking out of a stranger’s apartment, Alexandria is what you will call uptight.
In her childhood, Alexandria feared of any dark creature-often times leaving her in a discriminative situation-and would even fear her own parents after the Sun collapsed. Seeing several psychiatrists for her fear of the “bad omen” and death itself, she learned to do what most of us humans do in order to look like the average Joe prototype: keep her mouth shut.
Recently, the tabloids have been addressing an alert to the town of San Francisco about a person nicknamed the ‘XYZ Killer’ based on the markings of Xs, Ys, and Zs on their victims’ remaining body parts (and mind you, the latest victim’s only parts left behind were of his reproductive organs and his fingertips). “The San Francisco Police Department have yet to prove whether these slaughterings have anything in common,” the flat faced woman spoke almost monotonous, “but Detective Reed says that until then, lock all doors, windows, and any passageways before going to bed at night and do not trust strangers.”
“Oh, really, on a Monday? Are you out of your bloody mind?” Alexandria’s Scottish accent was thick as she spoke on the telephone. “There is a f*ing killer on the loose and you want me to walk three blocks at night to your building?”
“Fine.” She gave in.
Wednesday, Thursday….Saturday passed unforgettably rapidly as Alexandria couldn’t keep her mind off the chance of her death being at age 24, not her planned 78. “I want to live forever,” she’d murmur to herself each night.
On Sunday, though, she had a craving for milk but was out. Glancing at the stereo clock, it beamed quarter till too-late-to-get-milk, and so Alexandria snatched her coat and keys (and pocket knife, but that’s not necessarily vital for a trip 2 blocks West).
Paranoia struck Alexandria quickly the minute she left the run down apartment building in which she lived, so it wasn’t unusual for her to fondle the pocket knife ruffling in her pocket with every step she took. The bushes shook with a bit more intensity, the moon shone brighter, and the shadows of stray creatures became more mysterious.
At once, a voice spoke out of the darkness, “Care to spare a dime, ma’am?”
With just those words, Alexandria’s hairs hopped from her skin as she switched her knife and whipped around to startle the...homeless child. “What the hell do you want?” Her voice trembled with anxiety and embarrassment as she attempted to keep her bad-girl act in case anyone else was watching.
“Hey, Lady, there’s no need for any blades,” he tried to joke, dirty palms facing her. In moments, he ran away.
That wasn’t all, though.
After she had turned around to hang her head in grief and guilt, the two emotions you could only feel when you f*ed your late Aunt’s good friend who claimed she was “grieving”at your late Aunt’s funeral, a figure stood before her, as stationery as a statue. “Ex-excuse me,” he mumbled coarsely, “do you happen to have the time?”
Time, she thought, is a b****. “Uh, it’s 8:48.”
She saw his lips quiver into a demented grin. “Thank you…”
Alexandria continued on with her walk, thinking about the way the man smiled at her, focusing on each and every detail, the potential of the man being the serial killer, and the noises coming from behind her that she concludes to be footsteps. Heavy, damp footsteps. With every feathered step she took, her projection of the man’s foot would step another.
She recalled his breath, soiled like a freshly deceased being sprawled on her bed…-but his breathing, the rhythm that caught her and choked her to death as if it had strength of an army of men, grew as heavy as the footsteps he’d leave.
Alexandria couldn’t process any straight idea without picturing the  old man’s pitiful eyes and scruff unorganized all over his wrinkled face. His fingertips and fingernails, dirty over and under, as he scratched his hair or, what was left of it. If you must know, Alexandria wasn’t one to make mountains out of molehills, as she was exceptionally pleasant with the change that would come along in her life, but the man crawled under her skin and chewed on it the way he chewed on the tobacco-or she assumed, by the stench that plugged her nose-and the only words she could produce were, time is a b****.
When she heard the final footstep of the man’s boots as she stepped on the sidewalk of the corner store, she freezes. Turning around, mortified, she sees the figure again, and gasps as she felt the blade of a knife dig into her skin and slice down her abdomen, choking on her own blood. Closing her eyes and reopening them to determine whether it is a deadly nightmare or reality, she realizes the figure has disappeared.
Looking down at her open wound, Alexandria notices her pocket knife dug into her jacket, shirt, skin, and muscle tissue, her hand firmly gripping the handle.
She collapses onto the dampened sidewalk as she takes her last breath and mumbles, “Time...is a b****.”
Alexandria never did get to enjoy her milk.