You only live twice

Or so it seems

One life for yourself

And one for your dreams

You drift through the years

And life seems tame

Til one dream appears

And love is its name

And love is a stranger

Who'll beckon you on

Don't think of the danger

Or the stranger's gone

"You Only Live Twice"

Nancy Sinatra

October 13, 2009

Boston, Massachusetts

Today was her birthday.

Sarah was now twenty-six years old. She didn't feel any older, although as each year passed, she would always tell herself the same thing: it was because the days went by uneventfully, unacknowledged. The few friends she associated with probably knew of it. But even if they remembered, no one would wish her felicitations. They knew better.

October 13.

October was a spooky month, or so she had been told. The number thirteen was spooky as well. In a predictable rotation, her birthday was on a Friday, which seemed to make it much worse. Some old superstition concerning the Knights Templar. She was well versed in random factoids. Into her mind popped another. Triskadeccaphobia it was called–a long, difficult to say and spell word, that simply meant fear of the number 13. She always reminded herself that phobia meant irrational fear. Things like heights and spiders, things that could never harm a person.

What were irrational fears? Why was that considered an irrational fear? Why was any fear considered irrational? On whose judgment? Someone who had been bitten by a poisonous spider had every reason to fear others. Fear of heights was in effect just fear of falling–something very plausible to happen, and the higher the height, the more frightening the fall. Every phobia had a cause, some underlying trauma, remembered or repressed, that skewed the logic of every situation that followed. Was it only irrational when the cause was unknown?

Pyrophobia. Fear of fire. An irrational fear of fire. Sarah had pyrophobia. It was a fact, a known entity, a diagnosis. She could not look at fire, could not stand next to a fire, feel its heat or smell the burning. The smell of sooty ashes made her gag. Even when she was freezing cold, an open flame's warmth was more chilling than the winter. She could not strike a match, could not be near someone else striking a match.

Although it wasn't the reason she lived this way. She was not debilitated by her fear of fire.

No, her debilitation, her handicap, her deformity was what smothered her life. She was crippled, unable to use both of her legs. She walked with crutches, rather she limped and dragged her leg with the aid of crutches. Her mangled and twisted left leg was the main reason she lived so isolated. But digging deeper, the cause–the real cause, was fire.

Irrational fear? She knew better.

Fire had done all of this to her. Left her alone in the world from age three, destroyed her leg and her ability to walk. Left her scarred. Kept her from regular public school–friends, fun, life. Deprived her of a normal life, forcing her to live in a house full of strangers. Kept her isolated, from the first memory she had at all, crouching by a burning wall, trapped in a corner, to now, alone in her apartment, her house, her world.

Carina had left a cupcake on her dresser, just as she'd promised. No candle, no singing, just as Sarah had asked her. It was a kindness that she appreciated, one of the few that she would know today.

She took the cupcake in her hand, looking at the beautifully swirled frosting, a pale pink dotted with red and purple sprinkles. The cake part was vanilla, as she saw the pale yellow on the edge as it peeked out from the paper wrapper. Delicately, she pulled the paper, turning the cupcake in her hand until it was free. She dusted the spray sprinkles from her lap, and slowly nibbled the cupcake, in a circular motion, then bit the bottom in half, leaving a barely contained mountain of sugary frosting.

She popped the rest in her mouth in one bite, savoring the sweetness of the frosting, even as she felt it almost hurt her teeth. The frosting was the best part, she thought. When she was younger, she would always eat the frosting first, being left with an uninteresting chunk of sweet but bland cake. As she had aged, she had come to understand, the best part of things needed to be savored, appreciated. Cake was dull, frosting was delightful. There were far too few opportunities to savor anything anymore. One could not savor misery or loneliness. It was endured, like a dry mouthful of cupcake. So when she could, she saved the special things for last.

She moved into her bathroom, washed her hands to rid the sticky remnants of her birthday treat. She hadn't meant to, but she regarded her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her blonde hair was thick, shiny, parted simply on the side, cut bluntly just below her shoulders. She liked it styled this way; it hid the scar on her scalp best.

Her eyes were a uniquely bright blue, like the ocean. Soulful eyes, someone had told her once. Who, she couldn't remember now.

She could remember almost everything she ever read, whether it interested her or not. But words spoken in kindness, words spoken in friendship, floated in the haze, disconnected from time and place. Some were recalled in voice she thought she could place–her mother, her father. Some blended into a generic mixture, like the voice on the radio or on the television late at night. Some, she swore, were words she hadn't heard yet, hopes or wishes, words spoken in dreams by faceless souls.

She smiled at herself, testing how it looked. Did it look forced, phony? Her facial muscles felt strange, unused to smiling that way, so fiercely. A beautiful smile, she also remembered, the same way. Who would have ever seen it to know? Who could have said that to her? Maybe the dentist, she thought bitterly.

She shook herself, walking away from the mirror quickly, as if the oddly grinning reflection was following her, chasing her, demanding to be acknowledged. She spotted the note Carina had left beside the cupcake. Moving tentatively, she walked to the dresser and lifted the flimsy note, written on a square dessert napkin.

Make a wish. I dare you.

That was Carina, unapologetic but unexpectedly kind. Understanding, more so than anyone else she knew. Was Carina her best friend? She didn't know. People who she called friends fit on the fingers of one hand. What did it mean to be a best friend? Did she spend more time with her? Did they have more in common? More topics of conversation that could be expounded upon? More history in common?

None of those things. Sarah liked being alone. Sarah was an introvert, she had learned, as strangers had taught her how to explain her inner nature. It made perfect sense. Being around a lot of people was draining, exhausting. She always felt better when she could close herself away, just collect herself and organize her thoughts. She needed to prepare herself to be around people.

The truth about Carina was simple. She was worth giving up time being alone for. No one knew loneliness like an introvert. Carina understood her when she would say that, but not because she was a kindred spirit. It was because she was the opposite, an extrovert, and they clashed like night and day that way. Introverts weren't lonely because they were alone. Extroverts felt that way, and thought that everyone else had to feel the same. What else could there be to feel? Sarah knew, though. Loneliness for introverts was not caused by being alone. It was caused by the absence of love. That tiny group of people who were inside the closest circle–those were loved. Then acquaintances, and none in between. No one else was imperative for survival.

What should she wish for?

She hated wishing. Who hated wishing? She admonished herself.

It was infantile and discouraging. If she wanted something, needed something, and it was possible–she found a way to get it. If it was something outside of her control–a normal leg, her parents alive again, a chance to live a normal life, she wouldn't wish. No action could bring those things about. Wishing was futile.

Had she wished for love?

That—that was her one weakness. Her indulgence of futility. She closed her eyes, and wished simply for love. An amorphous shape, lightly colored in her mind, something she believed existed, though she had never seen it, couldn't remember feeling it. But sometimes, when she was asleep, she dreamed. Most of her dreams were mundane, jumbled mixes of day's events in a bizarre context. Those weren't real dreams, she thought, just her subconscious mind transferring her short term memory to long. Real dreams she only remembered vaguely.

She was always someplace that she had never been, that she knew inside the dream was meant to represent a place that she had. Strange trees, flowers, unfamiliar view–but she would be there, and know she was in her own backyard. She was never alone either. His face wasn't visible, nothing about him was discernible, but she knew him. She knew everything about him. And she was always comfortable there–because he knew her, and he loved her.

How did she know this, when she couldn't understand love, having never really felt it, only its absence? She didn't know. But she would wake, empty and alone, and miss the presence, the feeling of someone there with her. She woke up feeling she left a part of herself in the dream, and panic would always flare as she realized what was missing was in a place that didn't exist, where she had no conscious control of her visits.

The feeling would fade as reality took shape around her, the panic and loss would dissipate. Sometimes in the middle of the day she would search inside, trying to see if the feelings were real, if she could recall how it felt on the inside, and it would be difficult. The everyday numbed her into monotony. And it was just as well, for the numbness was the only way she could navigate the world alone. Without love.

XXX

Sarah had a job that she reported to every day. Making a living was an important part of feeling worthwhile, with a purpose, maybe even a goal. For some, it filled the time, provided structure. That's what the social workers had told her, sometimes treating her as if her disability was mental as well as physical.

With no college degree, as a disabled ward of the court, her options had been more limited than someone she would have called normal, but better than someone with more severe handicaps. When she had turned 18, her social worker, in parting, had given her a list of leads, places where she could work. She had been overjoyed, a rare instance embedded in the misery of facing life head on with limited choices, to learn she could work at the library. It didn't pay very much, and it had little hope for advancement, but she supported herself. Living in a one-room apartment in a dingy rooming house.

She went to the library every day, helping people find books, checking books in and out. Putting books back on the shelf. Cataloging new books as they arrived, marking them in the computer. It was quiet, peaceful, and full of the things she loved most in the world. When all her job tasks were completed, she was allowed to read at her desk. Anything she could get her hands on, she would read. Things she was interested in, fiction, non-fiction. Sometimes she would ask people about the books they were checking out, or returning, but she would usually get more information from the sleeve of the book than from the people who read them. One word answers never sufficed.

One of her co-workers at the library, an older woman, close to retirement, would tell her all the time she should join a book club, if she wanted to discuss things she read. Primarily, the thought was daunting, as it required finding a group of strangers and insinuating herself inside, something she would talk herself out of easily. Then she would think about what it would be like–and she would completely talk herself out of it. The same people blurting one word answers, eating snacks, drinking, gossiping, eventually getting around to blurting one word answers in a circle. She had very little faith in the intellectuality of those around her.

It was not looking down, or snobbery, or belittling in any way. She was just different. She accepted this about herself. Her chances of coming across another person who could understand her, really understand her, were slim. There just weren't any people she could converse with on that level in her daily life. She was an introvert, so her thoughts alone in her head most of the time were sufficient.

The only time it wasn't was in the space between wakefulness and dream, when she could feel the edges of the cavern inside her, and wish it was full.