Machinations of Kajra

One

“Well…The weather. The weather, it is, but a thing that does when it does when it’s supposed to do it, when it decides to, doesn’t it? It’s nice. I enjoy it. I really do. And I really love sitting outside of the condominium, watching. Waiting. Observing, right? Listening. Taking all of it in. Absorbing all of it, right. Right.”

As Kajra Van Rijn sat outside, taking in the sights and sounds of her new environment, a young woman exited the building and walked past the pool area where she was sitting, only to stop and curiously tilt her head at her.

She then walked over.

“Hi!” the woman said. “New here?”

“Am I ‘new’?” Kajra said. “Or are you just not yet used to me? Or is it the other way around, isn’t it? It could be either, couldn’t it. Right.”

“Um…okay,” the woman said. “I was just asking because you’re sitting near a pool, in Atlanta, in the middle of summer, with the full black Victorian thing you have going on there. You look hot. Anyhow, I’m Morgan. Morgan Hill. And you are?”

“I’m a lot of things, aren’t I?” Kajra said. “But apparently, you’re asking for my name, aren’t you? You are. Right. I’m Van Rijn. Kajra, as it were.”

“Kajra Van Rijn,” Morgan said. “Your name sounds like you just made it up. It sounds like a character from a ‘Gor’ novel. Neat, I suppose.”

“I could have, couldn’t I?” Kajra said. “What is a name, but a construct? Everything is made up, once you say it out loud, isn’t it? A fleeting piece of an idea of two parents, meeting somewhere in the middle to form a full fleeting idea, that is no longer fleeting, is it? Or maybe it still is. Right.”

Morgan cracked a small smile.

“You’re weird as hell, and I kind of dig it,” she said. “Anyway, Kajra Van Rijn, with your possibly made up name, hard to pin down accent, and fashion sense straight out of an Anne Rice novel, I’m gonna go. I’m guessing we’ll see more of each other.”

“Will we?” Kajra said. “Whatever the fates have decided, possibly. Right.”

Morgan chuckled, and walked off.

“There was a feeling, as it were. What was it, exactly? I’m not quite sure yet. Would it help if I sat with it longer? Or would I just be dwelling on something that has not yet had a definite answer?”

Later on that day, amongst stacks of still packed boxes and halfway put up decorations, Kajra sat in front of a green screen, and behind a binaural microphone.

She leaned over, breathed heavily into the left side of the microphone, and whispered.

“Welcome….To Machinations of Kajra.”

She moved over to the right side.

“Relaxation. Calm. Quiet. Peace of mind. Things we all have spent time and energy chasing, as it were. Would you like to relax? Possibly. Would you like a quiet moment, with only the sound of my voice to guide you through it? Apparently, or you wouldn’t be watching this, would you. But I suppose it isn’t truly ‘quiet’ if I am talking you through it, would it be? Regardless, spend the next thirty minutes with me, and maybe we’ll stumble upon one of these things together. Or maybe we won’t. It is entirely up to you, isn’t it? Right.”

As Kajra was wrapping up, Morgan walked down the hallway past her door, which was open.

She stopped and peeked in.

“It looks like the Addams Family exploded in here,” Morgan said. “Because of course it does.”

“Things look a lot like other things to people who may or may not understand, as it were,” Kajra said. “Or maybe they don’t.”

“Okay so you don’t even beat around the bush, do you?” Morgan said. “You just avoid it entirely, huh? The bush isn’t even in the equation. There is no bush to speak of. The bush is a non-factor.”

Kajra said nothing, only tilting her head.

“Sounds about right,” Morgan said.

She peeked over Kajra’s shoulder.

“Ooh, so you do like, ASMR?” Morgan asked. “I’ve always wanted to be in one of those videos, like the ones with an actual second person in it. It looks relaxing. The sweet nothings in the ear and everything. Although your nothings are probably more like maybes and probably’s and possibly’s and ‘who knows-es’.”

“I do,” Kajra said.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket, pulled up her channel, and handed it to Morgan.

“Machinations of Kajra?” Morgan said. “What exactly are you machinating on? Are you planning on taking something over? This building? The world perhaps? I NEED to know the details of the machinating, and whether I need to move or not.”

“Possibly,” Kajra said. “And about what you stated earlier. Is that not something that could happen? Or is it out of the question? Possibly not, since you stated an explicit interest, as it were. Right.”

Morgan chuckled.

“The HOA is going to LOVE you,” she said.

“Are they? Or is this an attempt at humour, using sarcasm as the delivery mechanism? Possibly. It could honestly go either way, as it were. And there it is again. That feeling. But this time, it feels as if I’m being pulled toward something. Am I? Right.”