October 25, 2009

• An Indie Fairy Tale

  Thanks to the talented Carolina17 for writing a guest post for me!

  One upon a time in a middling county in Pennsylvania that was not quite Amish Country, not quite Coal Country, and not quite the Delaware Valley, lived a very shy girl in a very small house bordered on all sides by magic cornfields. They must be magic, she reckoned, because they stretched on for ever and ever as far as she could see, and she could walk for hours and never see another soul save for some cows or an occasional farm-dog. She lived alone; that is to say, she lived in the tiny house with her parents and no brothers or sisters, for to a small girl this is just the same as living alone.
  Her early years were happy enough, as she was doted on by her parents' friends, and had no earthly idea that children were generally meant to socialize with other children, or that people normally lived in bigger houses that had other houses next to them, or that bathroom tiles were not supposed to occasionally tumble loose from the wall and never be replaced. She read books upon books, watched public television and drank A&W cream sodas that her parents' friends bought her from the vending machine in their break room. Life was simple and good.
  Upon reaching the age of five something new happened to the girl. It was called Kindergarten and it was terribly confusing. Quite suddenly she was tossed into a yellow bus and carried off to a place full of other children the same age as she was. It was exciting at first--the only other people her own age the girl was acquainted with were her two cousins. But the girl did not belong in this new place. Most of these other children didn't even know how to read, and didn't know the answers to any of the questions the teacher asked. So the girl answered them all, and the teacher got mad at her! She stopped answering questions entirely after that.
  None of these fellows could sit with a book or a simple toy for hours at a time. They could not do a thing longer than twenty seconds without moving to something else, and grew bored with the girl very quickly. Being painfully shy, she was also nearly unable to talk to anyone, and so made very few friends.
  The girl advanced in years and grades, but little changed. She was lucky enough to have better teachers as time went on, who told her that knowing all the answers was not a bad thing and had her put in a gifted class for all the children who did. And in the fourth grade she met a girl even shyer than herself, called Kerry, who would remain her best friend for years and years. But the older she got, the more aware she became of her social inability. She could not play any sport well, had no interest in MTV or fashion or gossip, and knew nothing of this sudden fascination everyone had with boys, and so had no common ground with anyone. It was only years later that she realized what everyone discovered around age twelve was something she had been experiencing all her life; she had, since the age of four, routinely gazed upon one male face or another and fallen hopelessly in love. She had in fact been fixated on the redhead from Clarissa Explains it All from first all the way through to fourth grade. Her favorite playground activity remained the swing: solitary, peaceful, and license to kick anyone who got in the way.
  High school came and the girl still did not change, although everyone around her did. Girls gained chests, boys gained chest hair, everyone gained terrible skin. Their attention spans did not increase as a general rule, nor did their tolerance for this strange girl who enjoyed reading books and dressing oddly. They did not know that she dressed in such a way to avoid being completely unnoticed as she had been in years past. She became something of a celebrity; a mocked one, granted, but a celebrity nonetheless. This remained her private joke on her peers.
  In fact, high school was not so terrible overall. The girl's friend count swelled to six, an unprecedented number for her. Boys still paid her no mind, but there would be time for that later, she reasoned. In the meantime she had songs to sing, papers to write, Pi to recite. From the minute she stepped foot in the door of her tiny house until the minute she fell asleep, there was never a half-hour without something amusing on television. Life was simple and good.
  Still, the girl was restless. She knew now that the cornfields were not magic, and that there was a whole world outside their monotony, outside the drudgery of her repetitive existence. The television told her it was so. It showed her a wondrous city named Chapel Hill where movie theaters were within walking distance and beautiful boys with glowing skin (one in particular with great green eyes like china saucers) played basketball in front of thousands. She knew she could not live within the cornfields forever, so one day she at last departed for the place called Carolina.
  Her years in Carolina were happy, to a point. When she walked to the movies, had dinner with one of the heaps of new friends she made, or on that one glorious occasion when the beautiful boy with green saucer eyes actually touched her (!), she felt a contentment she had never felt among the cornfields. This is a real magic place, she reasoned, because everything I could want is here; how could I ever be sad again?
  But to her own amazement, she was sad. Often. It would sneak up on her gradually, then collapse from behind with the force of a tidal wave. This place Carolina, it did not want people living there forever. They were meant to stay only a short time, decide what they were to do with the rest of their lives, then leave. But she could not decide. There was nothing she truly wanted to do, and a growing sense of panic simmered just below her surface.
  This was not entirely true. There was something the girl wanted to do more than anything else. That was to love someone and be loved in return. She could not do this either. She came very close one time, as close as a long kiss on a plaid sofa, a very passionate kiss in fact. Leastwise it was on her end; the other half of the kiss, as it turned out, felt nothing at all, and she was forced to kick him out in a tearful rage. Love remained out of her grasp. It tormented her with insidious thoughts, thoughts that went 'You'll always be alone, you pathetic creature. What business do you have wishing for sweet amber-eyed track boys from Colorado who are six levels out of your league? There is a reason the only person who ever asked for your number was a cross-eyed scene kid who couldn't hold up his end of the conversation. You should call him back. Beggars can't be choosers.'
  Her friends, nearing the end of their time in Carolina, became heavily involved in their own lives. They stopped calling, stopped arriving at her door, stopped seeing her entirely. Her friends from high school remained in touch, but they were of course great distances away. The girl had no idea what to do anymore. She distracted herself with books and sporting events and long walks. She no longer had her amber-eyed track boy to confide in. Sometimes she cried. Sometimes she could not cry. Mostly she drifted, as one hopelessly lost.
  The girl had been told before that she had some kind of talent for writing. She did not wholly believe this, having read enough books to know that she did not compare with what was out there. But the more she thought about it, the more she was sure that there was absolutely nothing else she could imagine doing with her life.
  One day the girl was asked to write a piece for a friend of hers. Having nothing more compelling to set down, she wrote her own story. It had occasional embellishments and omitted some things, but it was true and heartfelt. She spent an hour pouring her heart onto the page, and in that hour not one negative thought crept its way into her psyche. She was unconcerned with the direction of her future. It no longer mattered that her best friend and confidante was thirteen time zones away. For the first time in years the girl was absolutely sure of what she was going to do with herself after graduation. She had to write, for what else was there?
  It's too early to tell, but the girl may yet live happily ever after. She thanks Greek for writing the prompt that eventually helped her to this realization.

  • 10:39 pm
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