Summary Of The Opening Chapter Of Frankenstein: A Narrative Fiction

Rachel stared into the blur of trees passing the bus window. The woods were getting deeper and thicker as the bus moved north, away from her empty home and the pregnant graves of her mother, father and son. She looked up into the sky and thought about the faith she also orphaned there, a faith she had since birth, a faith she had painstakingly force-fit into every moment of her life for thirty years. But it had proven to be like the rest of her relationships, one where she was always expected to give and never to receive. It was her time to receive, so it had to be left behind. She leaned over and reached into her brown purse, which sat on the floorboard tucked between her feet. She exhumed from it her worn little journal and her pencil and
then sat back and pushed off her small black shoes. One of the nostrils of the man who sat next to her began to twitch and his eyes narrowed. She lifted the pencil to her mouth and began to chew the tip like a squirrel, in order to expose the lead. What a vile creature, he thought. His entire body was held in contraction, his knees pressed together, elbows close to his sides and his small black leather case clinched tight in his hands and held down hard against his lap. He felt her fill every bit of space that he emptied, if not with her body then certainly with her smell, for his light cologne and hair gel could not compete with the pungent odor of grease and feet that emanated from her. “So Art,” said Rachel, “what is it about me that offends you most?” “Excuse me,” replied the man.
Rachel kept writing in her journal as if she had never said a word and the man stared at her. “How did you know my name was Art?” “Well,” began Rachel matter-of-factly, “it was pretty hard to miss. When you purchased your bus ticket the woman called you Arthur, and your nose twitched like it did just a moment ago when something I did also offended you. Now it could have been that you go by your middle name, which is Leigh, but I figured that name was probably more feminine than you would prefer, so you probably do use your first name, but a modified version.” Art asked, “How do you know my middle name is Leigh?” “One thing at a time. You should have asked why I did not presume you went by a nickname or your last name. If you had, I would have told you that is possible, but your last name is Henry and your briefcase case has a monogram of an ‘A’ on it, not an ‘H’. So you identify with A, not H, and since you don’t like Arthur, the most probable name you go by is Art.” “Oh,” stammered Art. Rachel continued, “But you have not answered my question.” Art noticed that his face had relaxed almost to the point of hanging loose and gangly. His mouth was slightly open and he felt undone and exposed. It was as if she could see right through him, or worse, right into him. “You did not offend me, ma’am.” Half of her mouth twisted up into a guileful smile. “So what is in the bag,” she asked. “That is personal,” snapped Art. “At least that answer is honest,” replied Rachel. “Or, rather, half honest.” Art’s body tensed and his knuckles whitened.
He was no longer aware of the woman’s smell, the cheap, coarse texture of her clothes nor even the nauseating side-to-side movement of the bus. His mind was fixed and bedazzled by this creature’s godlike omniscience and how, though he had never seen her eyes fall upon his person, she seemed to see him with supernatural clarity. “Are you a witch?” he asked. Rachel let out a little giggle and then rejoined with, “A which what?” “You know what I mean,” said the man in a whisper. “But do you know what you mean?” replied Rachel. Rachel had drawn a tree on a page of her journal. She wiped some of the grease from her forehead with her fingertip and then brushed it on the page to smudge and blend the texture of the leaves. She wrote “Art” on the trunk of the tree and then tore the page from the soiled binding string that held it in place. “Best you put this in your satchel with all your other personal items,” advised Rachel as she handed the page to Art. “For on the day you lose it, you will also die.”

Art lifted the paper slowly from Rachel’s hand, placed it into his case, closed the flap and then stared silently at the back of the worn bus seat in front of
him.