Her eyes were closed but she could tell it was daylight. She turned her head away from the window, trying to hold on to the darkness a little longer. Her hand involuntarily twitched as she became aware of the room, the bed, the place, the time, herself.
She reached out a finger concentrating on the feeling of the sheets beneath her fingertip. The sheets were scratchy and old. They’d been used hundreds of times. It made sense. The hospital couldn’t be expected to buy new sheets for every patient.
She relented and opened her eyes. The new sunlight lit the bare and impersonal room. She never liked sunrises. The light was pale and sad as though it was struggling to ignite. It was different from the sunlight of a soft, warm summer afternoon. She remembered how much the light changed between the seasons. A winter sun was far different from a summer sun. The light had different heat and color. She missed feeling about light. She used to feel about everything.
She looked down at her hand petting the sheet beneath it. It was no longer the hand she expected to see. Somewhere, somehow, time had shifted drastically and she had lost years. She expected to see her dainty wrist, freckled skin and long graceful fingers flaunting manicured nails. But she was frequently shocked these days to look down and see an arthritic hand, gnarled and wrinkled, marred with liver spots. She was no longer slim, really, having lost the battle of age a while ago. But in her mind, she could still see her waifish self. She could still remember it. She missed it. She missed a lot of things.
She put all of her attention back on the sheets, feeling a snag in the fabric. Touch. It had been so long since she had been touched. Maybe that was why she was so captivated by touching the sheets right now. It was the first thing she really touched, or that touched her, in such a long time.
Through the cracked and displaced window slats, the sun pierced into the room and shone into her eyes. She closed her eyes and tried to feel and touch the sun, but instead, she felt more alone.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself at the edge of an algae-covered pond. Kudzu-covered trees shielded her from the highway, hanging in long wispy tendrils. The only sound she heard was the cicadas’ whine as they wailed their sleepy summer song.
At thirteen, she was awkward and uncertain with her long legs and pale pink skin. Despite efforts, she didn’t fit in. Her mess of red hair never obeyed demand; thusly ending up a nest of fly-aways and lazy unkempt waves.
The tall grass tickled her bare legs. She scratched away an ant as she looked out over this secret fairy domain. It was, in truth, a pond made of waste runoff from the sump pump. But, to a child of thirteen with a lively imagination, it was a secret garden of dreams and warmth. The sun peered through thick trees and she danced, secretly, in its dappled light.
Life was her’s for the taking and she knew it. She could do anything she wanted. Soon it would start and she would be off on her way in the world. The world would, of course, welcome her, as though it had been waiting for her the whole time. “Come to me, child, and play with me” she felt the world beckon her. She couldn’t wait.
She laid down in a patch of sunlight and stretched out her thin body capturing as much warmth as possible. The world was, she felt, full of magic, and she was eager to find it. She closed her eyes and tried to feel the world, in its entirety, like a playmate she had yet to meet.
When she opened her eyes again, she was heartbroken to see the ugly sterile room again. She wiggled her toes against the sheets at the end of the bed. She had escaped for a time, but now she had come back. Disinterested in this place, she noticed a small cup of pills by her bed. She didn’t feel like taking the pills. She didn’t feel like participating in her life today. It was a harsh reminder of what was lost to her; what she couldn’t get back.
She raised her hand to her eyes to shield the pills from view but instead was met with the same disappointing view of a hand belonging to an 80-year-old woman, rather than the young slim self she expected. She closed her eyes again…wanting to escape.
She was rushed from behind and lifted up. She held her breath as the sea carried her towards the shore. As the sand ground itself against her legs she opened her eyes to find herself landed on the shore. Taking a deep breath, she felt the warm water engulf her again up to her waist and she turned around to see the ocean; the endless, eternal ocean, as it lapped against her.
She wiggled her toes in the sand, watching as her red nails disappeared and reappeared as the sand shifted. She adjusted the strap on her bikini bottom to make sure it was secure, and suddenly became very aware of the heat. The sun beat down on her, unshielded, and she felt like a sea creature who only reacted to the sea and sun.
She laid back on the sand as the water swirled under her. Lazily, she pulled her hand up and traced a line from her pelvis to her ribs. Twenty years old. The water moved her hair unnaturally and she giggled as she rolled in the surf.
Standing up, still drenching herself in sunlight, she kicked at the water as it sprayed her. Her taut stomach and lithe limbs created a stunning view as she danced along the water’s edge.
“Come to me, child, and play with me” she seemed to hear the world say again. It was still all ahead of her…the life she would have. She was old enough to know she was young enough to enjoy life. She heard her mother call her name for lunch. These lazy days of summer would pass soon and she would have to deal with the actuality of life again. But right now, right now at this moment, life was full of possibility.
She decided to embrace one more moment before succumbing to lunch and dove back into the water. Floating on her back, she closed her eyes to the glaring sun and felt herself weightless and free, at one with the ocean surrounded with warmth and hope.
She heard voices. She hated those voices. They were always hushed and unnatural. People who were speaking who didn’t want to be heard. Were they talking about her? Did she really care? She lifted her hand to brush her thick red hair away from her face and instead found only wispy white remnants. She opened her eyes again to discover she was thrust back into the world of the ugly impersonal room. The hushed voices outside the door talking about charts. Clicking pens and determined footsteps.
No one ever came inside her room anymore. And on the rare occasions that they did, no one spoke to her. Why was it assumed she had nothing to say? Why was it a forgone conclusion that conversation had dried up for her? Why wasn’t she worth talking to anymore? When did she stop being someone worth talking to?
The room got colder and she pulled the sheets up to her shoulder. Turning on her side, to block out the voices, she dragged her fingernail along her bottom lip as a tear escaped, unbidden. She didn’t realize she was so close to crying. She closed her eyes to be lost again….to escape.
But no escape rushed to save her this time. Instead her life, good and bad, rushed in like a tsunami. Bombarded with pictures of faces and people she’d loved and lost was like flipping through a rolodex of the most important people in her life. Her heart leapt at every face as she remembered, fully, how much she had loved each and every one. How much she missed them. Where had they all gone?
Dancing through her life, in a sudden timeless moment, she felt the fury of youth again followed by the settled resignation of what life ultimately was as a middle aged woman. It was at this age that she started to become invisible. No longer able to attract men, having missed her window, and accepting that life really was going to be all alone for her. The weight of the realization pressing on her as each day she faced the cold world by herself, her parents and family having left at intervals.
Sobbing, the woman grasped the sheets, willing this not to be her world. Wanting to go back to any time or place where she didn’t feel so completely alone….wanting to find the slip of time where the world would once again say “Come to me, child, and play with me.”
A gray fog filtered into her thoughts, causing the memories to become hazy. Momentarily released from the overwhelming sadness of a life lived unnoticed, she relished the gray fog and thanked it. The fog encircled and engulfed her making the ugly unforgiving world farther and farther away. The voices faded. The pill cups faded. The sad sick early morning sun faded. And she faded with it. Giving up the fight to be seen for once and for all.
She released the heavy stones of sadness that had weighed her down. She unraveled herself from the tangle of responsibilities and heartbreak. In one final, but small fight, she gripped the sheets tighter in her hands and then she heard for the last time “Come to me, child, and play with me.”
With that, she released her hold on the sheets and let go. And her life, unnoticed, slipped away to a place where the sun, the water and the sky met and danced together.