"You're my number one broken record."

The Pilot is sipping something lime green like the blood of an extraterrestrial out of a plastic cup with his goggles nearly slipping down his forehead to cover his eyes. His gut hangs below his belt and his hands are covered in the scars of worlds before him. He claims to have seen Rome and Paris before the word fell to hell and so on and so forth and shit I swear is all a lie. I can see the earth on his back, oceans of sweat slipping down his fat cheeks.

"No, no, no. It's all you ever say. You can't trade the truth no matter how hard you try, Riley."

My spine feels like jelly, forehead pressed against the doorway. I want to leave. I always want to leave. Through the looking glass, down the rabbit hole with me, because any alternative fantasy can't be any more fucked up than my reality.

The Pilot's eyes are nasty slits, laughter coating his throat. He can read my thoughts. He always can. Nothing is safe except for the ones I tell Judith. The Pilot is psychic, he is gross, he is perverted and smelly and so intrusive in the way he sits on my bookcase, refusing to leave. Refusing to let his feet touch the ground, he makes my room into mountains, possibly some kind of Grecian hierarchy because evil is always atop a pedestal in his mind. He is also imaginary.

The Nurse is in my closet, her tattered dress increasingly tighter around her breasts, the curves of her hips. I think she hides from The Pilot and his disgusting catcalling, but unlike him, she'll actually come out and talk to me, let me rest my head against her. She'll give me a comforting hug and tell me that all the bad I'm seeing is nothing more than a smoke screen. I'm watching a movie, she says, and I'm safely in the audience while the mistakes I'm seeing are safely phantom.

I don't believe her.

But God, do I try.

Judith travels with me wherever I go. She rides my back, a mutual parasite. Her grey dress is falling apart and her Mary Janes no longer shine but her eyes are still bright and her blonde hair still glistens.
The Pilot came to me when I was 16 and told me that God didn't exist. It's nothing more than teenage schizophrenia, he tells me. I can't contain all my thoughts so he's doing it for me. Everyone, he tells me, manifests their angst and their philosophical traumas into outside sources. My mind is just too big for this world.

###

Overhead lights are the ultimate form of suffocation. I can see the nooses around the necks of the students in my classes growing tighter as their eyes bug out over bad grades and they text message their fake high school sweethearts. My teacher's noose is so tight I don't understand how she can possibly be talking, but she is. All I hear is static and I want to throw up but all I put in my body these days is lemonade.

She puts my test in front of me. It makes me sick. In my neat, perfect handwriting, 'Riley Wilson', my least favorite two words in the entire world. I hate my name. It's a permanent label that can't be changed. I suppose I could give myself a nickname, like Scooter or Mayhem or Starr, but that would just be another label. A big, red 97 with a sticker next to it.

Vile.

I didn't mean to study, but I did so for six disgusting hours anyway. It's like my bones are made of metal and I'm programmed by a battery meant to turn the pages and put this shit in my head. The Nurse assured me it was all for the best, this all meant something. Geometry will help me advance in life, even though all I want to do is make clothes. College is crucial. Love exists. But none of it means anything because it's all just promises.

The Pilot looked so disappointed. I can still feel his hot stare in my spine. When he's not speaking, all he does is stare.

Embarrassed, I turn the paper over, but not before Nicole can sneak up behind me and catch a glimpse of my grade. Her curly red hair tickles my chin and she bends over so far I can see down her shirt. It's too small for her.

"God, I hate you. I got a D," she moans.

"You'll do better next time," I lie. I want to tell her I know what she told Candace and Ethan about me, that she makes up lies about what a slut I am because she feels inferior. I want to grab the noose around her neck and pull it so tight she'll shit her size 22 pants, breaking my bony wrist with her meaty hands so I'll let her breathe. Some best friends we are to each other.

"I wish I could sit behind you so I could cheat off you."

Does she have a single goddamn original thought? She can't even do her own math. But it's always been like this since we were both five years old. She chased me around at recess and pushed me in the dirt so I'd dirty my dresses. Then she'd buy me ice cream as an apology. Faults and apologies are the foundation of our friendship. 15 years later, few things have changed.

"Maybe you should study."

"I don't have time for that!" Nicole gasps, evidently mortified. She likes to pretend she's demanded everywhere at all times but she can't get a date and her 'friends' never invite her anywhere. She punches me in the ribcage and I can feel my blood cells dying. "We should go to the mall this weekend, don't you think?"

"I have a date with Andy." To the mall, most likely, but even so.

"You whore," she snipes, grinning. I can feel the hostility, the jealousy. Not because I'm spending time with Andy, but because I have an Andy.

"Yeah, whatever." I smile up at her. She really could be pretty if she'd lose a hundred pounds or so. I didn't start to hate her until the Pilot came into my life. He's made me hate pretty much everyone I know.

"We're gonna start class soon. You should sit down."

"Love ya," she smiles. Suddenly I am sad.

###

"You're a fast learner."

I am braced against my bookcase, arms folded, staring up at the Pilot.

"You can see the nooses already. Do you know what they mean?"

"Morality." I am like a robot. "Broken individuality. Society strangles us all." I pull my own shirt down, almost exposing my flat chest entirely. I'm afraid to let anything touch my neck these days out of fear I'll suddenly stop breathing.

"God, the government." The Pilot adopts my tone. "Life, love, commitment. Grades and work. All these things we're supposed to have keep us from our real selves."

He holds up a towel.

"Blankets. The more blankets, the tighter the noose."

"Right."

"The rebels like you, like me? We're the Aliens. People don't believe in us. They're afraid of us, afraid of what we know." He grins. "The demons of society. Complete social anarchy."

I tuck my hair behind my ears.

"The people who blindly follow? Those are the junkies. They're hooked on the instant gratification obedience can get them. Soccer moms and teachers. They have no control."

I take a sip of my lemonade.

"The politicians and the religious, the ones who actively follow the rules of something else, the ones who know what they're doing… those are the toy soldiers."

It makes sense. The Aliens, the Junkies, the Toy
Soldiers. Anything related to humanity can be cut into thirds.

The nurse sneaks up behind me. I can feel her breath on my neck. "Stop spreading your hypocritical nonsense." But she's not looking at the pilot.
She's looking at me. "Everyone's unique. You can't label people like that."

"Right."

But the labels that really work, I've found, are the ones that aren't self imposed.

###

I'm increasingly sure that my boyfriend is gay. He likes shopping for clothes more than I do and I am nothing if not a fashion fiend, obsessed with my appearance as much as I am with trying to figure out which way the world turns. Andy in his girl pants with his bleached fringe and his gauges. I think I love him but at the same time I feel so distant from him.

Everyone's convinced we're having sex but a lot of the time I can barely bring myself to kiss him. It's not fair and I know it. It's all in my head- at least, I think it is. I magnify his faults like I do with Nicole's. The noose around his neck is the same color as his ego.

"Do you like this?" He holds up a tasteless hoodie against his skinny frame.

"I have to go to the bathroom."

I am quick on my feet, practically running to the family restroom before I dry heave into the sink. This always happens, every time I come here with him. Every time I see the haze in his eyes over a faint light of the dying hope that someday he'll be able to grab a hold of me.

I swallow water from the faucet, being sure to keep my hair out. When I am down I look in the mirror to fix it, rubbing my lips and swallowing repeatedly. I can still feel sickness in the back of my throat but I have to keep it away.

Mirrors are like alternate worlds. I always figured I'd find my sign within them. I called for Bloody Mary, the Candyman, and no one ever came to show me that there was something different than this. To my great distress, Judith is absent from my shoulders at the moment. All I see is myself. Shiny, neat, dark brown hair straightened to a point, doll bangs that nearly cover my eyes. I am thin, so thin my veins practically stick out. I am skeletal. The Incredible Shrinking Girl.

I don't have anorexia or anything. It's just that solid objects feel like bombs and razors, arsenic cannonballs, so violent and nauseating against my throat. Soda makes my stomach hurt so I drink lemonade. I shake all the time, feel my skin shrinking and my ribs against the fabric of my dresses but at the same time I feel light like a bird with hollow bones, hollow organs.

Regardless, Andy is texting me, telling me to meet him at the food court. He's starved. So am I, but everything here will just put me into a coma. Even so, the Junkie in me grabs me by the noose and drags me to the food court.

"Are you okay?" He doesn't wait for me answer. "What do you want to eat? I want Chinese."

"Just some lemonade."

His brow furrows. "You gotta eat something one day, Riley. You look like those girls on that program we watched about eating disorders." He swallows. "Not that you're not still pretty."

"I'm really not hungry. I just want some lemonade," I insist quietly.

He opens his mouth, an expression of inquiry in his eyes like he's going to ask where the hell I've gone. Instead, he turns around and gets in line.

###

I am tying and retying my robe so the fabric won't touch my neck. The Nurse is watching me, a worried look in her eyes. My wet hair is up in a pony tail. I can barely stand it anymore. Every time it brushes my neck I want to scream.

"Look at what he's turning you into," she says softly. "You're not letting yourself breathe."

"I do this so I can." I finally just let the robe slip off my shoulders and look at my bare frame in the mirror. I am distorted, ribs sticking out, pelvis like knives, ready to cut whoever wants to put their hands on me.

The Nurse looks faintly disgusted. Her own frame is curvy, perfect. The hourglass figure. She twirls a blonde curl on her finger. "You look so sick."

"I know," I say quietly. My stomach rumbles. I can feel an earthquake in my nerves.

"You make your mother cry."

"I know."

"You need to stop this."

I drop my hair from the ponytail, bony fingers around my hairdryer. "I can't." Or I won't. I don't know how.
She puts her hands on her hips and rests her chin on my shoulder, careful not to let her hair brush my neck. Her tattered dress has more holes in it than the last time we spoke and her eyes seem to be lighter, like she's going blind. Her reflection looks one dimensional next to mine, like a large paper doll.

"You can do whatever you need to. It's all in the way you perceive things. If you let him…" She glances at the pilot, who is cackling magnificently behind us. "…control your thinking, you'll falter."

"Right you are, ma'am," the Pilot slurs. "Who cares? There's no meaning in any of it. No matter what she does, the sun will still expand and swallow the earth."

The nurse covers my ears, eyes meeting mine in my reflection. I'm seeing spots.

"Wah, wah, wah." The Pilot is still laughing. "Pretty girl needs her mommy. Get back in your closet before I rip your dress where it counts."

"It's going to be okay," she whispers.

I am tearing up. "Easy for you to say." I can't see. "You don't exist." I am slipping, still in her arms, knees to the floor. Fainting is generally a relief; it's the waking up part I don't entirely enjoy.
Eyes closed, I can still hear her speaking.

"The world loves you, Riley. You just have to learn to love the world."

###

"There's a party tonight." Nicole takes a draw from her cigarette. She thinks she'll lose weight if she smokes. I told her a lot of people get addicted to cocaine for that reason and she laughed at me. "You gonna go? Or do you have a date with Andy?"

"That'll probably be the date." Andy and I both avoid dates where we could end up in a private situation. I think of our relationship as a social contract. He goes out with me to avoid acceptance of his budding homosexuality. I go out with him to make myself feel normal.

She nods. "Why'd you cut all your hair off, anyway?" My hair is now short, sloped to my chin in the front. I wear a headband to keep it cute. To hide the fact that it's so short I'm barely recognizable.

"I wanted a change." That and the strands against my neck always felt like knives, constant paper cuts straight through my spinal cord.

"You still look cute," she grumbles. "I hate you."

I grip the fabric of my dress. It's hanging off my bony shoulders. She's making me want to cry. All she can see is that I'm pretty, that I get good grades. She can't see that I'm fading.

This is what the Pilot warned me about.

"We'll be at the party." There's that feeling again, sick climbing up the back of my throat. Bullets ready to be shot. "I'll be right back."

Nothing happens when I get to the bathroom. Judith is on my back this time, her toes pointed inward.

"You're not okay," she says in her light, young voice.

"I'm not."

She fixes my hair. Today she's wearing glasses. "You have to do what you have to do. Find a medium. It's never perfect and it's never horrible." She sighs. "If only Nicole wouldn't say hate so easily, especially when she doesn't mean it…"

"I can't."

"You won't be able to with that kind of thought process." She presses her hands together, feet tight around my waist. "If you're gonna listen to the dirty old Pilot you have to listen to the Nurse, too. Nicole's just blinded by her own insecurities. Kind of like you're blinded by the fact that you think everything is hellsent to pay attention to how much she hates herself."

I grip the sink. "None of it means anything."

"But Riley," she whines, "it means everything."

I take a deep breath and leave the bathroom.

###

The Nurse didn't want me to come here, and within good reason. I am surrounded by nooses, these people with their beer and their bad breath and their singular goal being that they have to have sex with someone. Andy has his hand around my hips and he's talking to this guy he introduced me to once. I think his name's Shaun.

Even Judith couldn't handle this, I notice as I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the TV.

"Are you okay?" Andy whispers in my ear. His noose brushes against my back and I want to be away from him but at the same time I want him to hold me.

"Can we go somewhere private?" The words slip out of my mouth purely by accident. I can feel the Pilot's rage from the kick in my stomach.

"Yeah." He leads me upstairs to some guy's bedroom. There are clothes everywhere, trash and old pizza rolls. I am grossed out.

"Jesus, Kyle's a fuckin' pig," Andy observes, a look of wonder in his eyes. I can't help but laugh.

"Aren't all boys like this, though?"

"Haven't you been to my room before?"

"I don't think so…" Andy and I have been together for six months but we never go to each others' houses because of the rumors of what might happen if we do.

"Oh. Huh." He sits down on Kyle's bed and pats the spot next to him.

"I don't wanna have sex," I blurt out. My stomach drops again.

His eyes widen. "Who said anything about sex?"
I shrug and sit by him. He puts his arm around me. I feel super awkward, like I'm in a high school movie I really don't belong in.

"I like you a lot, Riley." He swallows.

To my complete surprise, I lean in to kiss him. I think the Nurse is driving my actions. He seems just as surprised as I am, as it takes him a second to return the kiss. His lips taste honest. I put his hands on my hips and he pulls away for a second.

"I thought you didn't want to…"

"I just want to try a little bit." Experience? No, not really. I'm just trying the Nurse's way of thinking. I want to want him. I want to want something besides to get away from it all.

He leans in to kiss me again, and I close my eyes and I feel like I'm flying. A good kind of dizzy. My bones are finally hollow like the bird I want to be. Judith's weight is absent and for once I'm glad.

And then he's kissing down my jawline and I my stomach takes a nosedive.

When his lips are on my neck, I start screaming.

He pulls away instantly, looking beyond afraid. I'm still screaming like my skin is on fire, tugging at the top of my dress to pull it down, keep my neck clean and exposed. I can hear him saying my name. I can hear people running up the stairs. The first one in the room is Nicole and she slaps Andy right across the face before pulling me outside. She's asking me what he did. I stop screaming.

"He didn't do anything to me."

I pull out from her grasp, averting my eyes.

"I'm sorry."

The front door seems to be a million miles away.

###

"This is your fault." I can see the Pilot in the mirror, legs dangling off my bookcase. Judith's chin is resting on my head. The Nurse looks concerned. I have a pair of scissors in my hands and my feet are surrounded by dark brown hair.

"My fault?"

"You made me want him that way. It was you," I mumble. "Now they all know. They know I'm…"

"You're allowed to be human."

"I'm not human," I whisper. "I'm an Alien. And I'm done pretending."

I am crazy. Not just the kind of stark alternate reality that most people have and are unaware. I'm full on batshit insane, standing in my bra and underwear. Judith hugs my head a little tighter like she's bracing herself, but she's sliding, further down, sinking into the floor like quicksand. She's gone but I barely notice. I kneel to the floor to look at my hair. None of it matters but there's a hollow inside me. I'm not pretty anymore.

It doesn't matter.

It shouldn't matter.

But God, I'm so upset I start crying. Full out
bawling, snot and tears. I'm holding my ribcage, my piercing hipbones.

"Are you happy now?"

"You can have happiness," he says softly, "or you can have the truth. Life's a fuckin' black hole. You gravitate towards it. You live. And then you're ripped apart."

I open my mouth to scream, but I haven't got any voice. There's nothing more lonely than realizing that nothing matters. Not life nor death, what we do, who we meet. None of it means anything. I've got a black hole where my heart is; it's swallowed Judith and now she's imprisoned inside my ribcage.

"What is it, Riley?" The Pilot is loud, louder, his feet dangling lower and lower. He is on the ground, approaching me. "Happiness or truth? Life or science? Can you accept that you're nothing but a scientific error?"

"Get away!" The nurse is grabbing for him. I cover my eyes as she screams and keep them covered as he grabs the scissors, cutting another huge chunk out of my hair. When I remove my hands the nurse has no eyes. She's a puppet, her arms sewn together by thread. The Pilot pushes her under my bed. I want to scream but my voice has evaporated.

"Truth, then." He grins. "Good choice."

When he touches me it feels like a chemical burn straight to my bone marrow. I have a headache from all the crying.

The Pilot has wandered across the room to open my closet. I follow him and pull everything from the hangers, clutching them in my arms rather than dropping them on the floor. I grab my backpack with all my schoolbooks and walk to the kitchen. The Pilot follows, his fingers tapping on the while like a clock.

"Time is slipping away," he murmurs like a fly, faint in the background. "I'll tell your parents that you've found rapture."

I toss everything in garbage bags, drag the food out of the fridge and the pantry and take it outside. The cold hair hits my naked skin but I can barely feel it. I drop it on the front lawn.

Holding the lid to the trash can open, the Pilot takes off his goggles and bows before climbing inside.

###

I've snuck to the garage, the keys to my car dangling in my hand. I'm shaking, wrapping the seatbelt around myself. The fabric feels like sandpaper against my skin.

I can barely get the door open before I'm crying again, gentle sobs. I'm holding my shoulders, waiting for some kind of voice to convince me of something, but there is nothing. I'm alone. The air is still aside from the opening of the garage door, a gentle hum. I find it somewhat comforting.

The engine sounds feral, like a monster ready to crawl out and devour me. I drive slowly, making it to the street. I'm shaking, feeling even more out of place doing a commonplace thing like driving. A few people catch a glimpse of me in my underwear with my hair sticking out in all directions. When I manage to stop crying I feel a strange sense of peace. I am the only person in the world.

I drive towards a bank with glass windows. People are lined up to deposit checks, check their balances. Wringing their hands in worry like their lives are on the line because they might not have enough money. Seeing that, it's a bit sad that people would consider me insane. Money and objects are even more irrelevant than the human heart.

I can feel my pulse in my throat as I pull into the parking lot but don't find a space. When I get towards the sidewalk I break. My mouth is dry and my heart is beating in my skull and my feet and my stomach is doing gymnastics. Spiders crawl down my spine like a meth high. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and my eyes are bloodshot. Fortunately, I seem to be disappearing.

I take my hands off the wheel, foot pressed on the accelerator. Closer now, just a few more feet.

With my arms out and glass coming closer and closer, breaking all around me, I am finally free. I am flying.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 11.04.2010

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