On The Edge of Invisible.

Chapter 3 • almost invisible

Grace

When you live in the a small town for your whole life you can remember everything about it; the streets, the cars, the people. At even the slightest hint towards home, or a home, your head spins with the memories. Most people remember their hometowns vividly, street for street, pothole for pothole. However, I found myself walking around the town aimlessly, confused of my direction, fearing my destination.

Lost is what I was.

The roads and streets of the Georgian town I used to live in were all but a jumbled up mess in my head.

After sitting in the hospital for the past years, my mind had all the time in the world to imagine and wander. The streets and avenues had overlapped, the parkways and trails switched, and my prominent death had thrown me blindly into the unsolved maze of a world I had so kindly been hidden from for the past 3 years.

Lost.

It's what I was.

But for all of the bad, there was so much good. I had forgotten what it was like to be alive. The view I had from my dull, mono-color hospital room had taken away my senses, and death had kindly returned them. The sound of the wind, of birds chirping, even the sound of my feet scraping concrete graced my ears. It filled them with noise; beautiful, lovely noise.The grass was greener, the sky was bluer, the dirt was brown, but somehow gleamed brightly with life, as if it were encouraging the world to grow around it. The feeling was so strong, I started to believe that the dirt was encouraging me to keep on going.

It's crazy how fast the world can change when you're not paying attention to it.

I found myself in a small park. I trailed beneath large oak trees, fantasizing over the pure beauty of the mid-summer leaves slowly ripening to their most beautiful colors before they'd fall down to the breathtaking earth only to be deprived of the nutrients they needed. I took in a deep breath of the fresh air, savoring the feeling of full, healthy lungs.

The view was surreal to me compared to the drab hospital walls caving in on me for the last 3 years. Of all things I missed, the dreary room was not one. Nothing could save me from the nightmares the small, compacted walls had caused me.

I gazed across the small pond that had come into view and let the memory of it rest gracefully in my thoughts as I walked down the pavemented pathway.

Out of nowhere, a weird sensation came over my body. It felt as though I was jello, and had been sent through a strainer. Every piece of my body went rigid. My finger tips were cold and my toes were numb. A sense of fear overwhelmed me. I looked up to a blurry world and my breathe caught in my throat. Then suddenly, things became clear. I stumbled slightly, but turned sharply only to see a young girl jogging down the way I had just come..

Had she..?

No..

Impossible.

I took in my surroundings, suddenly far more thankful for the second life I had been given to live, and fell into a bench over-looking the small pond. People walked in front of me and sat beside me, but never once acknowledged me. I'd look at them and smile, but they'd never smile back, or wave, or even glance over. I was invisible to them.

Through this whole process, through my whole life really, that was one aspect that hadn't been altered.

I had been invisible for as long as I could remember. Over-looked in the hall, never picked for projects or teams, and never acknowledged when I spoke. It wasn't until I was diagnosed and became the talk of the school that people began to notice me, but even that died down when they realized that being my friend would mean making a commitment to a dying girl. I guess for them, it was just too much.