ZOE GALAXY: The Invitation

Chapter Two: A Bodiless Birthday

She was floating near the ceiling, bodiless. 

How did I get up here?  

She couldn't understand how she could see the entire room from a bird's eye view, like she was looking into the top of a dollhouse. There was a sound, like a musical note, only more beautiful and it was communicating something on a level she knew, but couldn't comprehend. 

Where is my body?  

The question calmly came and went, a tiny ripple in her placid mind. She continued to float in emptiness, remaining thoughtless and receptive to the communicating sound. Until, more questions came. Ping, ping. Tiny pebbles plopping into her calm lake.  

Aren't I supposed to have a body?  

Am I dead?  

Then with a sudden kaplunk and an urgency gripping for life: Where the hell IS my body?!?  

An internal alarm had been sounded and in rushed a crushing energy. Instantly, she felt a downward swoosh and all at once she was in a body she could feel and see. No longer hovering on the ceiling, she looked around at the objects in the dark room. She could recall neither their functions nor their names. 

Swoosh, pop, pop, pop. Information came to her in lightbulb flashes. Walls...a window...that's a desk...a dresser...a lamp...an alarm clock, it's 4:44am...where is that SOUND coming from? She reached for the clock and hit the snooze button. The sound grew louder. Suddenly, a question grabbed her forcefully. 

Who am I?  

Holy crap, she didn't know who she was. She switched on the bedside lamp and searched the room for clues.  

Who am I? Who am I? WHO AM I!  

The thought continued to demand, circling in her head like a hawk hunting a field mouse. Acid burned the back of her throat, panicked she tried to remember her name. Nothing. She was unattached, adrift with no memories to define her, no hoped for future to anchor her.  

She just was.  

Swish, click, click...her head tingled. And then, it was there, like a package being delivered. Out popped a name that scrolled across her mind.  

Zoe Galaxy 

That is your name, now breathe, she ordered and forced herself to inhale. More information flooded in: this is my bedroom...my books, I love books...my birthday today...goodbye sixteen!...no boyfriend...Oh God, I'm miserable. A miserable, sad person. And I smoke. She looked around for her cigarettes and rubbed the back of her head. She felt a growing pressure there and something just out of reach, something she was supposed to remember, pressing at the edge of her consciousness...a promise?  

The musical note was growing so loud she feared her eardrums would burst. She cupped her hands to ears. In a moment stretching beyond its boundaries, she became the sound and all it contained. A infinite smile spread across her face.  

Then, silence.  

Her heart raced, her arm hairs stood up, her smile quickly faded. She had the eerie feeling she was being watched. Surveying her room, she realized there wasn't really anywhere to hide. The closet was too small and her bed was a mattress lying on the floor. Everything looked safe. Except the window!  

It was wide open and missing the screen she'd pushed out long ago so she could secretly smoke. A breeze rippled through the sheer pink curtains her mom insisted remain in her otherwise black and gray room. A cold chill ran up her spine. Could someone have been in her room and climbed out the window right before she woke up?  

She was both afraid and excited.  

She threw off the bed covers and grabbed her brand new journal from the nightstand. Every year on her birthday she started a new journal with high hopes for an exciting year. She wanted to be a writer, a good one, but so far her only life material was depressing, suicide invoking, mind numbing blabber. All the years of weekly counseling and she still had volumes of journals filled with endless ways of saying the same thing: I hate my life. When she asked her counselor if she'd ever be normal, he told her she'd probably need counseling for the rest of her life. He seemed perfectly satisfied with his answer, as if her lack of improvement over their years together had nothing to do with his skill as a therapist.  

Zoe searched for a pen amongst the papers, books, clothes, and magazines strewn about her bed. She wanted to record everything that had just happened; the no-body experience, the sound, the clanging question - Who am I?. Finding her favorite purple pen, she opened her new journal and gasped. Her journal had already been written in. At the top of the first page was the sentence:  

I live in a meaningless world. 

Did she write this in her sleep? Is there such a thing as sleep-writing? She considered again the open window. The likelihood of someone climbing up the porch lattice and sneaking into her room to write in her journal was zero to nil. Still, she couldn't explain how the words got there. It didn't look like her writing and she didn't own a gold ink pen.  

Out of habit and to comfort herself, she looked at her dad's motorcycle jacket hanging on her closet door. She got out of bed, weaved around the stacks of books and put the jacket on over her pajamas. She cautiously went to the window, searching the areas of light around the streetlights.  

Something moved. 

Whatever it was darted behind a bush so quick she couldn't be sure if she saw what she thought she saw: Wings. Huge and black. 

With trembling hands she shut the window, locked it and drew the curtains. Her mind assured her that her eyes were playing tricks. She exhaled slowly and took out her dad's picture hidden in the nightstand drawer.  

"It's my birthday, daddy. Seventeen now. Maybe this year will be better. I wish you were here, Rabbit." Clutching the picture to her chest, she laid back down on her mattress and curled up into a ball. The jacket collar still smelled like him, a mix of wood, spices and soap. She inhaled and let herself be carried away. 

In rushed the memory of that day - the only time her dad had ever broken his promise. 

***NEXT CHAPTER**** Posting in the AM on Thanksgiving Day and the next chapt. on the following Sat. morning!

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