The Ramblings of a Faded Woman

Liars are reliable witnesses, as long as you don’t believe a word they say.

I sit here alone in the house of my childhood, once my castle, and now my decrepit prison cell. The only light is coming from the lamppost directly ahead of me, and my only companions are the rats and roaches and other delightful creatures that scurry in the night.

The more I listen to them the more I imagine them devouring me in my sleep, and my imagination is so that I scream as the imagined rats tear into my cheeks.

Even so, I like listening to the tiny creatures because they are my only distraction. I’d rather cry in pain than listen to my own thoughts.

I used to be young once. Hard to imagine now, but it’s true. I was young and pretty and beautiful, three words that are now synonymous to each other, though there was a time when they were separate, and women who were all three were God’s gift to mankind.

There is a woman sitting on my windowsill. I do not look at her face; instead, I focus on her hands; hands so bare and pale, so much paler than mine. I watch the hands as they hold on to the windowsill, and I watch them as they come closer, ever so close to me. The hands start to stroke my face with the gentleness of a loving mother to her newborn child. When I look up the hands are gone and my cheeks are stained with the brownness of blood long dried.

I wonder what happened to all the other God-given gifts to mankind.

I used to dream. When I was a child, I would dream of conquering the world, fighting pirates, becoming a superhero. When I got a bit older my dreams changed tones, and I started dreaming of beautiful young princes who would whisk me off to their kingdom, which would uncannily resemble my house.  Even though my imagination is good, it still pales in comparison the vividness of my old dreams.

He was a pretty man. His smile was the best smile I’ve ever seen on a person, and his eyes chilled and still chill me as I thought about him then and as I think about him now. He would sit by my side and let me hold his hands and kiss his lips, but what I really wanted to do was to sink my teeth into his skin and make him scream. I didn’t know what that meant but I called it love. I still don’t know any better now.

“When did I forget to dream?” is a question I desperately try to choke back, but I can never fully do so, and it lingers in the recesses of my mind.

A rose is a beautiful thing. Red roses, those were the best. I used to plant some in my makeshift garden, but they always died before they could bloom. After some time I gave up trying and contented myself by buying the most beautiful roses I could find and then throwing them away before they would die.

She is back. She looks at me, and I look at her, finally. We look at each other in silence until she lets out a strained noise from her lips, and she explodes into blood red flowers that stain me. “Not my fault,” I scream, “not my fault.”

A rose is a beautiful thing.

iv

Thieves do not bother me. In fact, I am more worried of the vermin that surround me than people who barge in at night and take what they want. Besides, there is hardly anything they could steal from me. Maybe back then, when I was young and my life was mine, maybe then I was afraid of thieves. But not now, never now.

It came like a thief in the night. I was unto him as he was unto her, and into her did I strike. I wasn’t thinking, not at all.

There is hardly anything thieves could steal from me, except my life, and it was already stolen long ago.

v

Sometimes I hear cicadas cry in the night. Funny, I say cry, but really, they are singing. I suppose that isn’t really funny, just interesting. Their voices are a cacophony, yes, but it’s a nice cacophony, one that I can sleep to. I don’t, of course, but it’s not because of the cicadas.

She was loud, extremely loud, but I pretended she was singing, and then the noise became bearable, almost beautiful. I sang with her, cried tears of joy with her, but I didn’t bleed with her. She didn’t notice.

Sometimes cries can be a pleasant sound.

vi

Disguises are useful. A person who is good at disguising himself will be able to brave storms. A person who is good at disguising herself will experience neither heartbreak nor pain of any variety.

I stole a ring for them. When I presented it, they thanked me by paying me much more than what we agreed on. I believe I stumbled and gave myself away when I picked up the reward with the hand that I forgot to cover up, but they didn’t notice.

If I repeat these words enough times, they will eventually come true.

vii

Friends are a treasure. My best friends now are the vermin, though I still do loathe them, and my best friends then were two people who were and still are close to my heart. Time takes people apart, and life does even worst. Still, we did try our best to stay with each other, and the fact that we were unsuccessful doesn’t bother me.

We tied a string across our pinkies, hers pale, his stained with ink, and mine mottled by my birthmark. We didn’t say a word, but I knew that each of us were praying that we would all be together. I also knew that none of us really believed that we would.

I wonder how they are?

viii

He is here, and so is she. They are sitting by the table, and they are smiling. It takes me a while to realize that they are smiling for me. Though I don’t look at mirror to verify it, I know that I am young and pretty and beautiful again, and I smile, with them, and for myself. Unseen people usher me into a chair, and unseen people offer us wine. We oblige, and when the glasses are full, we smile and clink them together. We drink, and I gulp the wine down. As I place the glass back on the table and look at them, I realize, just as I realized a while ago, that they are smiling at me.