User blog:Promestein/Starcross - Birthday

''July 14th. 1969.''

Alice floated in empty space and stared at the date on the calendar with whatever powers of sight she somehow possessed, turning it over in her head over and over again until July no longer seemed to be a word, or anything, for that matter. Only a disordered string of letters.

She had waited for hours for the man to wake up and tear off the page on the calendar and move onto the next day. Even though the day had started the second the clock struck midnight, it only processed once that sheet was gone. July 14th. Alice’s birthday. Ha-neul’s, too, but what does THAT matter? Counting the birthdays of the dead seemed like a depressing waste of time. And yet, Alice did it for herself anyways. She needed something to do, after all. Even if it was just wait for someone to move onto the next day.

16 years old, now.

8 years since she died.

In a couple of months, Alice will have been dead longer than she has been alive.

She turned her head to look over at the crackling of eggs on a stove, and is denied even the growling of a stomach. How long has it been since she’s eaten? 8 years. How long has it been since she’s been able to taste? 8 years. How long has it been since she was held? 8 years. 8 years. 8 years. Alice can’t even really cry to bemoan her sorry state, only wrack her nonexistent body with miserable little twitches and the wailing of a child.

With nothing else to do, Alice drifted over to catch a glimpse of those eggs over the man’s shoulder, and found herself disappointed. He was a poor cook, by the looks of things. That’s how things go when you live alone, she supposed, and sighed to herself, knowing she was in much the same state. Though, she’d like to think she wouldn’t forget what her parents taught her. No, the only thing stopping her from cooking was the state of her body, which left her incapable of feeling or touching a thing.

Shaking her head in disgust at the sorry excuse of a breakfast the unfortunate man would subject himself to, Alice passed through the wall of the house, floating up above the buildings to stare down at the roads below. From up here, everyone looked like ants. If she had been lucky enough to go to Heaven, would she have this same view? Probably, but at least she would be able to share it. Not that it mattered. The entire idea was a sad attempt to boost her spirit, but it only made her sadder. No, there was no reward. No paradise. Only this, until she was too weak to be blown around by the wind.

Even on her birthday, Alice had nothing new to do. She felt heavy, weighed down by 8 years of crushed dreams and loneliness. Her body followed the same path as always, allowing a slight wind to blow her along the streets, eyes drifting over the passerby. She recognized many of them. In the past, when Alice had more energy to spare, she would follow them around. Watch their lives. She could still see their lives on their faces. Their days. The things they planned to do. So many years, and they had become open books. Characters, with clearly defined backstories, motivations, desires.

She had bored of them all.

It took some time for someone to catch her eye. A woman - a pretty one, one that Alice had followed many times. Her name escaped her memory, but it didn’t matter. Alice could never say hello, or introduce herself, so she didn’t need to know, did she? She was wearing a sundress. The cute clothing sent pangs of envy through Alice. If the world was fair at all, she would be out enjoying the sun today, wearing clothes like this. Living her life. Not slowly dying. It wasn’t fair.

She followed her, again, without thinking about it, drifting along her path and silently cursing every inch of her being, every strip of fabric clinging to her damned body, the body that had been DENIED to her. Damn her. Alice knew how this was going to go, already, her routines slowly returning to mind. A Tuesday. She would have work. Alice shook her head, or at least, she tried. Did she have a head? The question would never really leave her alone. The point was that the menial days these people took bored her. But it was better than nothing.

Hours pass. The woman was a secretary. It meant a lot of talking happens and it is all about things that do not interest Alice. Her attention strayed to the other employees. Once, she could pay more attention to the tedious conversations they had with each other and their customers, but now it went in one and out the other. It didn’t help that her hearing had gotten worse. Every sound was muted, and numb. Only if she really focused could Alice confidently comprehend a discussion. And these were not worth the effort.

Instead, Alice found a woman who looked kindly enough, and settled down as close to her as she could, tuning out all the noise until all she could hear was the soft lubdub of a heart and the breaths she took in and let out. It was comforting. The one pleasure she was truly able to enjoy, this feeling of listening like this. It would be better if she was in her arms, but… Alice had to make do.

To her surprise, Alice found that she hadn’t seen this woman before. Perhaps she was new in town? It didn’t matter. This was a gift. A new routine to follow. A new person to discover. She spoke and Alice listened, letting her eyes drift over her desk. A name. Edith. Happy birthday, she thought to herself, and had she been able to, she’d have grabbed onto the fabric of Edith’s dress to follow her out the building when the workday ended.

She followed her home, listening to the clicking of her heels and staring at the Sun, shining far above the Earth. 93 million miles away, wasn’t it? It always felt so close. Far closer than any human Alice had followed. Each day, she dreaded its setting, for that meant that most people would slowly settle into sleep, and Alice would have to stumble in the dark in search of more interesting pursuits.

To escape this, she had wandered to cities with more interesting nightlifes in the past, where she had seen so many things. Many of them had been things Alice had not wished to see again, but she saw these things again, and again, so they had become almost normal. They invited a response no more abnormal than the irritation of a seeing someone with a body or clothing she envied. An event that had become regular. Expected.

That didn’t matter now. This was new. This was special. Edith was arriving at her home, judging by the expression on her face and the subtle changes in her walking speed. She fished out keys as she walked up the steps, and, ever impatient, Alice slipped through the cracks in the door to beat her inside, feeling a small bit of childish triumph over winning the race that she had just now called. Inside, she found a nicely furnished house. Vaguely familiar, like most of what the city had to offer.

Another woman waited inside, reading, on a rocking chair. A sister? A friend? She was younger, not all that younger, but younger. Pretty, too, in the way that made Alice’s soul wrack over with envy and self-pity. Unfair. Too unfair. She glanced over her shoulder, trying to catch some of the words in her book, but as the keys click into place and the door is opened, the book is discarded, her opportunity lost. At least she gets the title. The Andromeda Strain? An interesting, mysterious title. Too bad the chance to read along was taken from her. How unfair. She’d have to stick around to get the rest of it, though it looked like the woman was already pretty far in.

She welcomed Edith with a hug, which was expected, and then a… ah, ah, ah. A kiss. Alice stared from above the book, feeling a violent deluge of conflicting emotions, as they stay connected for a moment, and then another, and then detach, but remain close. The sight is one Alice cannot move away from. So she does not. Their hands intertwine, gently. The intimacy. The trust on display. If Alice had a heart, it would beat faster, painfully so.

Her emotions do not sort themselves out, only intensify. Painful, painful longing, the desire to wrap her arms around another woman like that and taste their lips, to stay so close, to breathe the same air for just a moment. Once, Alice had been ashamed, but there was no one to judge her here. There was no sin when there was no consequence, and a God that cared about anything was obviously a lie when a child had her death dragged out a million times over. So nothing mattered.

She hurt.

She hurt a lot.

She wanted this. She NEEDED this. And it was denied to her, yet again. The envy is almost worse than the longing, the burning jealousy, of the both of them. To be in either position, to feel someone. There was nothing Alice would not do to have that again. But it was lost. And all she could do was watch others enjoy their love and their lives when she had none. If she could cry, she would weep, even as she continued to follow their movements around the house, watching Edith settle in, watching them relax together, and watch television. Edith talked about her day. Alice didn’t listen to that, instead focusing on the small reactions of her partner, and of Edith in response. They made each other happy.

Toxic, toxic, almost murderous envy.

Then, she watched Edith cook. She was a better cook than the sad man from the morning, but what she made did not seem very remarkable, all the same. But dinner was dinner. And dinner made by a loved one was so much more, wasn’t it? Alice wished she could make someone happy with her cooking. She could only barely remember the expressions of her parents when she tried to show off what she had made for them. And Ha-neul…

Alice sniffled.

Her partner, whatever her name, was happy to be fed, and happier to eat something cooked with love. Lucky her! The envy only got worse, and worse, and worse, and Alice did her best to ignore her, but as they shared their dinner with a comfortable atmosphere of love and trust and safety between them, it seeped through every aspect of her thoughts. Even this happy scene only worsened it. Alice shouldn’t be here anymore, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave. As much as this made her drown in jealousy and need, it was the only thing that gave her something to dream about. The chance to have this. Somehow.

It would be a mistake to give up. That was why Alice was suffocating like this, why her senses were numbing, why every day felt so heavy, so slow, so pointless. Because she was giving up. This couldn’t be that aimless. She couldn’t just accept this, and pass the rest of her miserable afterlife letting herself waste away. In the past, she had fled from anyone who could help her, terrified that this “help” would be to just help her “find peace”, to put her out of her misery. That fear still consumed her. As much as she needed someone, she feared that they’d only bring her final death, somehow. So… Alice wouldn’t surrender to fate, to circumstances, to hope that someone would come save her, somehow, or that she would run for help and find someone willing to give it. No. She’d take her happy ending. She had to. Alice repeated the words to herself, again, and again, minutes blurring into hours as her unstable grasp on time is distorted even more, but it didn’t matter.

She snapped back to reality after a few more minutes spent hyping herself up, until she felt a bit stronger, and looked around, the change in her surroundings hard to process, at first. The dinner table was clear. The lights off. It was evening, late into the evening. Alice blinked - or did she? Did she even have eyes? She shook the thoughts away and drifted into another room, looking for Edith. Alice’s willpower had been restored, and so she wanted to reward herself, with more comfort. With Edith’s imaginary embrace, with the thumping of her heart.

It didn’t take long to find her bedroom, the only room in the house with lights on, presumably shared with her partner. Jealousy flared up again, but Alice did her best to ignore it as she passed through the closed door, ready to settle in between them and hear the sounds of two hearts, of two sleeping beauties. The moment she turned her attention over to the bed, whatever focus Alice had mustered up is shattered in an instant.

Ah.

Only rarely is Alice prepared to stumble onto this. That being said, it was something she had watched far more than she should’ve. It wasn’t her fault that people were always doing it. Maybe it was her fault that she stayed, like some sort of voyeur. It was another thing she couldn’t help. Their bodies bled into each other, and Alice stared, feeling the same longing but something more, something that made her oddly but not unpleasantly anxious. However it was supposed to feel was lost to her, and she didn’t know if there was anyway for her to deal with it. She had seen people dealing with it before. But she couldn’t do it, because she was made of fucking smoke!

And now she was getting worked up. Great. Thanks, Edith and whatever her name was. Even with those angry thoughts intensifying over and over again as her weird feelings got worse, she couldn’t draw her attention away. This, too… this, she wanted. Watching left her almost lightheaded. And she kept on staring. She craved this, she needed this. It was just as much about the physicality of it as it was the intimacy. The sensation. Alice couldn’t imagine what it was like. She wanted to know.

They pull away from each other, a disappointment, and simply lie there, wrapped up in each other. The longing that has been mountain with every passing moment gets inconceivably worse all at once. What came before didn’t matter. This was what Alice wanted. They toy with each other’s hair, they breathe in the hot air around them, they hold each other, and it’s so awfully cruel that Alice had to see any of this that, for a moment, she couldn’t stop herself from wanting to end all of this.

Bitter, alone, and antsy, Alice squeezed herself between them, an easy task because, again, her body wasn’t even real. She pushed her hand into Edith’s chest, and was not at all surprised to see that she there’s nothing there, that she feels nothing. Even the hot air may as well not be there for her. This sucks. It sucks so fucking much. Alice wants to be solid. She wanted to feel, to love, to hold, and to be felt, to be loved, to be held. Why was that such an impossible request?

She couldn’t even remember what she looked like. Maybe that was for the best, since all that she could confidently remember is that she HATED every inch of the skin she was born into. But it would’ve been something. When she’s solid… when she’s solid again, when she has a body again, Alice wants it to be one that can’t be ignored. She didn’t want to be forgotten and abandoned again. She’d be someone no one could look away from. Beautiful, tall, and strong. And she’d get everything she wanted. All the things she was denied, because the world saw fit to take her childhood away from her.

Calmed by the thought of her ideal body, and by the soft beating of hearts, Alice allowed herself to indulge, further. She imagined every cell of the body she wished she could have. Everything she could and would do once her body was solid. The life she’d live, the love she’d have. It would make all these nights spent drowning in envy and rage worth it. It would make all these relationships she’d witnessed from beginning to end look pathetic in comparison. Her love would never die, it would never be taken from her. Not again. Never again.

For so long, she entertained herself with the meticulous details of her future life, so long that when she shifted to see how much time had passed she could not comprehend it when the bed was empty. It couldn’t have been that long. Alice drifted out of the bed, and wandered further into the house, confused to see all these small things missing. Edith was not missing, curled up on a couch. It took a second to see what she was doing.

Drinking. Drinking. An escape that Alice had watched so many times before, for hours. People passing away their misery with hours that they would not recall, to dull the pain in their heart. Another thing that Alice envied, a release that she was again denied. The gaps in the house fell into place, the odd silence that hung over the house made sense. Edith was alone, now. Had been for some time. Abandoned. Even that happy, seemingly perfect relationship passed in a heartbeat.

Not a heartbeat.

Alice stared at the calendar on the kitchen wall.

November.

What?

How?

She looked, harder, desperately trying to make sense of this. What happened? Had she passed that long in her escapism? That couldn’t be possible. This had to be a nightmare, she told herself, but Alice had not gotten a second of sleep since the moment the radiation seared her skin. Impossible. No, no, no, no. She had blank periods like this before, for hours, sometimes a day or two, but never this long, never for months. Was Alice that close to death? Did all that certainty mean nothing, because she was at the end of her rope?

Violent nausea set the world into spinning motion around her, as she sinks into and through the ground, burying herself a couple feet underground. November. November. November 1969. That was… that meant… she had officially been dead longer than she had been alive.

Alice shrieked.

Alice sobbed.

Alice ripped herself from the earth and pounded at the walls, and her hands went through as if there was nothing there. She threw herself onto the road, and sank into the asphalt as if it were water, had the cars pass through her like she was thin air. And she screamed. And she screamed. And she screamed. But she knew no one could hear.

Falling to her knees, Alice stops the childish wail in her throat, blinking violently as she heaves for breaths that won’t come, staring at the mat beneath her. A cold drop of sweat drips onto the floor. Another, and another. It’s covering her body. Her body. She can feel the mat against her knees and palms. Can feel the tears pricking at her eyes.

The bile in her throat.

With unnecessary speed and force, Alice dashes to the bathroom that was meters away, ripping open the door and throwing herself inside, just in time to retch and spit the contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl. The taste settles on her tongue, and she vomits again, tears trickling down her cheeks as the bile burns at her mouth. It’s in her hair, which had fallen over her face, and now, the disgustingly wet strands brush against her skin, and the sickening smell wafts its way into her nose.

Alice slams down the handle, watches her bile swirl down the drain, and then slowly stands up, still hyperventilating. The feeling of her clothes on her back is alien. The feeling of her hair, on her neck, in her face, is worse. The taste is overwhelming, the smell a violent assault on her shaken mind. With shaky hands, she undresses herself and slides into the shower, dousing herself with scalding hot water only seconds later.

And she cries, unabashed, unrestrained, because there is no one here to judge her, because everyone abandoned her. It takes time for her brain to reset, sorting the fiction from the truth, time in which she finds herself curling up at one end of the tub, trembling and sobbing.

A nightmare. It had just been a nightmare. Her body is here, she’s in it, not some falsehood aimlessly wandering about a dead city and watching its inhabitants with a depressed curiosity. No, that part of Alice’s life was done. Long done. She presses a hand to her face, takes in a shaky breath, and starts reorganizing her thoughts, obsessively.

Thanks to her specially made body, Alice only needs to sleep a few hours a day, and can operate for weeks with minimal to zero rest. But sleep provides a lot of things for her, for anyone - an escape, however brief. Rest is a chance to get away from her endless anxieties and fears, to subconsciously order her thoughts as her processing continues, sorting through calculations and predictions simulated in her sleeping mind.

Usually, it went fine, and helped Alice calm down and find herself again.

Other times, the dangers of having a perfect memory rear their ugly head, and Alice finds herself reliving the worst moments of her life in crystal clear quality, accurate down to every mote of dust, so real that she may as well be there again, that she may as well be dying all over again. It’s incomparably horrific, these visions that invade her most peaceful hours and take her over once more, so that she can see herself at her lowest again, so that her body feels foreign and alien and shocking once more.

In the past, it was better, because she could roll over in bed and drape her arms around EQUINOX. She could hold her, and, if she was lucky, EQUINOX would stir and hold her back, maybe murmur something small, and gentle, and intimate, something that would remind her that she was one of this story’s actors, and not a voyeur posing as the reader.

But now, her nightmares are just as often about EQUINOX as they are about that empty decade. Those are worse. Visceral. Screaming. Pain. Rage. While the others are almost devoid of substance, her memories of EQUINOX are so real and terrifying in their every grisly detail that the fear is every bit the same fear it was back then. And then she awakens. And it was all another falsehood. A cruel joke, something that EQUINOX would no doubt cackle with her wife over as Alice sobbed and mourned in the shower, covered in vomit and tears.

It is all so unfair.