PART 1.
This is a short story of sorts that might or might not be part of a larger cycle. If it is, then it is towards the end — part 4 of 6. Maybe. We’ll see. Anyway, rather than dump the story into one large post, I’m going to chunk it up and let it be consumed over a couple of posts. Enjoy.
She listened. The sound. Was it receding? Bumping and thudding it went. Yes, bumping and thudding, it became fainter and fainter. She allowed herself once more to breathe. Her heart beat quickly, and in the darkness that enveloped her, she eased herself away from the wall of cool stone that was at her back. Desperately, she again stretched out her hands and felt her way forward, trying to keep her breathing shallow and quiet.
“There’s no way out!” cried a voice in her head.
She fought down the panic. “Somehow I got here,” she thought.
There’s no way out!” cried the voice again and again. “There is no way out!”
“Where am I?” she whispered out loud. “Where am I?”
***
Once upon a time there was a girl named Lisa, and she found herself lost in a place so inky black that she lost her name and began to doubt that she even existed. And once upon a time there was a girl who chose her own name, who rediscovered herself as both a bird and a young woman, and who built from her own words a castle surrounded by rich gardens that rolled out like a dress during a deep curtsey. It all started, though, when the girl named Lisa came home from school one day to find that her mother had cleaned out the closet in her room.
For years the closet in Lisa’s room had been dependable, and like so many dependable things in life, she had taken it for granted. It had been her one proof, though proof of what, exactly, she was uncertain, as she had bounced from her father’s to her mother’s, from camp to camp, and from school to school. All she knew was that the proof was necessary. The closet contained calendars with photos of pop stars (a gift from one of her mom’s boyfriends), coffee mugs from Disney World (from when she had gone with her dad and his new wife), a telescope, puzzles of the United States (to help her learn her capitals), a tent (a gift from her mom’s former boyfriend), shoes, necklaces (gifts from the parents of her mom’s current boyfriend), ticket stubs from movies that she’d gone to on birthdays, foil wrappers from Easter chocolates, baby teeth she had lost, the crushed egg of a robin kept in a plastic bag, and mixed in down at the very bottom of the pile were spools of thread and a card streaked with colored paint that someone had given her when she was little. Willie, Lisa’s stuffed walrus from her childhood, was stuck under a teepee that was part of a story line that went with an expensive set of dolls.
One Sunday night, however, when Lisa came back from her father’s she found her closet emptied, and on her dresser was a music box.
“Mom, what happened to all my stuff?!”
Lisa’s mother stood in the doorway to the room, with her usual pasted on smile.
“How about a ‘Thanks mom’?” said her mother. Here voice had a cheerful quality to it. The kind of cheerful that never listens.
“I can’t believe you! Those were my things.”
“Lisa, it was a big mess. It was attracting bugs for goodness sakes, and it exhausted me. Do you want that? And this is so much better. Didn’t it exhaust you?”
Lisa walked over and fell backward on to her bed and stared at the ceiling.
“Besides, next year you’ll go to college.”
“So?”
“So? You don’t need that junk anymore, and anyway, I’m the one that lives here full-time. God, what will a roommate think of you? Little Miss hoarder.”
Lisa still lay on her sofa, staring at the ceiling. Her mother stayed in the doorway, waiting, as if still expecting to be thanked.
“Did you see the music box I got you? The therapist says that’s what you nee…”
As the words were coming out of her mother’s mouth, Lisa was up. In one motion she grabbed the music box and hurled it against the wall. With a crash, the box splintered apart and fell to the floor. In a fury Lisa turned towards her mother.
“I…Did…Not…Ask…For a music box,” she said with a cold fury. Her words were like a hammer. Hit. Hit. Hit. She panted, and glared straight into her mother’s eyes. Her mother, though, had not even flinched.
“Fine.” Her mother held up her hands. “Fine. Be your father’s spoiled daughter.”
“Get out!” screamed Lisa. “I can’t wait to be out of here!”
“That makes two of us,” her mother replied, and then turned and walked away, the door left open to the room as if to show the world Lisa’s shame.
For years it had been like this — a life lived as if she were a clenched fist. If Lisa’s mind still contained memories of Sebastian, Willie, Verbs, and the City spread about like the panes of a stained glass window, well, she wouldn’t have known where to find them. Her dad had remarried, and Lisa had smiled at the wedding and carried the ring on a pillow. There were half-sisters born, and the young son of her mom’s boyfriend brought into her life. She went to camps in the summer, played field hockey in the fall and soccer in the spring. She had friends who gossiped about each other and with whom she chatted online. Mostly, though, her days seemed to skip across her life like a stone skipping across the smooth water of a lake.
Did Jared like her?
OMG, she totally wasn’t ready for the math test!
She should write for the newspaper so that she’d have a better chance of getting into a good college.
Skip. Skip. Skip.
Her mother’s boyfriend had moved out, and her mom had gone on a trip. That’s when Lisa had lived with her dad and his new family full-time. And then her mother had returned, and there was nastiness, and lawyers, and Lisa had moved back in with her mother, and a judge had decided that her father owed her mom money.
Skip. Skip.
And around her, like the passing of the night with its vibrant city lights, the Land of Not (which is what the city had used to be called) had slowly, imperceptibly awakened to a dawn emptied of color. Where it had once been a stained glass window, it was now a sidewalk – flat, hard and stretching out as far the eye could see. Each day was one foot in front of the other. Where the King’s tower had once stood was just another building, with scaffolding up its side. Where the ocean had once caressed the warm sand, were plastic cups, and other debris blown off the streets. And where the frogs had once called along side the river bank, a highway rushed and rushed and curved its way along the bay.
But none of this mattered. In fact, none of it was even noticed. Lisa did not care about things like that anymore.
It was not to say that the city had become ugly. It hadn’t. The water towers on the roofs, and the brick buildings, and the skyscrapers, and the roads crammed with honking cars – all of these things still carried the same energy of dreams being broken down, piece by piece, and then built back up. No, the problem with the city, if indeed there was a problem, was that it now held Lisa in an embrace so tight that breathing was becoming difficult. An embrace so tight that it was hard to even see the brick buildings, the skyscrapers and the roads crammed with honking cars. They clamored and pounded to be admitted into her mind. It was like the city, once so fluid and ever-changing, had hardened, and hardened, and hardened some more, and Lisa was caught on the inside, crumbling. There was always something that needed doing. Errands to get done. Homework to do. Things to buy, and therapists to see.
Skip. Skip. Skip.
Was that her heart departing her? Over the buildings and out to sea it went, while left behind was something black an oily, or black and hard, or maybe, just empty.
“Lisa! We have to get going!”
Lisa woke with a start. It was the next morning. She turned and looked at her clock. 6:45. She had exactly 10 minutes to get ready for school. Pulling herself out of bed, she grabbed a pair of pants off the back of a chair and slipped them on. Even as she did so she cleared away the strands of dream that still stuck to her face like a spider’s web. It had been something about a flood. Something about tentacles — dark and caressing her with a trembling love.
“Lisa?!”
“I’m awake!”
Lisa pushed the dream from her mind. It unsettled her. She pulled on a t-shirt from an already open drawer and stood before the mirror.
That was when she noticed that something was not right. Something that she could not place, like an itch that doesn’t disappear with the scratching. There she stood. Her black hair had its usual morning pre-brush straggle, and when she reached her hand up to touch her face, her reflection reached up and touched its face, too. But Lisa could not escape the feeling that who she saw in the mirror wasn’t really her – that the person looking back did not belong to her.
“I’m going!” she heard her mother yell up from the first floor.
“All right, I’m coming! I’m coming!”
Lisa grabbed a brush, scooped up her socks and shoes and ran out the door. And as the sound of her bare feet clumped down the steps, if anyone had been there to notice, they would have seen that her reflection remained in the mirror — that it narrowed its eyes, and smiled, before stepping out into the room.
All that day at school Lisa felt off. Her head felt light, and it seemed like her voice came from far away. It was lunchtime, and she was sitting with her friends, Jenny and Kate.
“Didn’t you used to be friends with Sebastian?”
“I don’t know if I’d say friends.”
“Oh god, Jenny, not Sebastian again. He is so not your type. Do you think he’s her type?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
“See? Lisa says he’s not your type.”
“Oh be quiet.”
“Jesus, who’s Miss Sensitive? I’m just saying – wait, rewind. You knew Sebastian, right?”
“Kind of. We played together when we were kids. I think my parents knew his dad or something. It’s sort of embarrassing.”
Lisa’s two friends stared at her, waiting for her to go on, but she didn’t. She just stared at her salad, and then put it aside. For just a second she felt herself drifting up from her seat. Lisa grabbed hold of the table, and looked at her friends. They hadn’t noticed anything. Instead, Jenny looked at a cheese stick that she was holding in front of her face, before letting it drop on to her tray..
“Ug. School food is so disgusting.”
“Wait. Do you want to hear disgusting? I heard that Erica saw Mr. Ziniac kissing Mrs. Palmer in the teachers lounge!”
“Kate!” Jenny shrieked. “Are you trying to make us puke?!”
Lisa pasted a smile to her face, but inside she thought, “What’s wrong with me?” She felt weak and hollow, like she was water pouring out through a sieve. And as she felt herself emptied she began to feel cold. Her body shivered, and her teeth chattered. The feeling continued through French, and Calculus. Lisa was sure that someone would notice, but classes went on as normal, until finally school let out, and Lisa walked home.
The streets seemed to rock beneath her feet, and once Lisa had to reach out and hold on to a metal lamppost because she felt as if a breeze had lifted her from the ground. Cars honked and baby strollers and pedestrians continued to stream around her. The sun shone down on the awnings of the shop fronts and restaurants, and no one noticed Lisa’s struggle. With all of her will, she managed to get home. Her hands shook as she opened the lockbox and took out the key.
Leaving the door open, she entered the empty house, and began to walk up the steps to her room. Each step wore her out, and she paused half way up the stairs in order to rest her forehead against the wall.
Finally she made it to her room.
The last thing that she saw was the shattered remains of the music box on the floor.
The last thing she heard was a voice coming from behind her.
“Happy birthday,” it said.
And with a puff, Lisa felt herself blown out like a candle.