Not-So-Normal

Prologue

      Francis Flynn did not understand why normal people hated the idea of unusual people wanting to be normal. "Just be yourself," they would say. "Normal isn't real anyway," they would say. Well, that was the biggest load of horse shit that Francis had ever heard. Of course normal existed. If nobody was normal, then unusual people wouldn't want to be it. It was only ever normal people who claimed that normal didn't exist. There were no outcasts of society who claimed that they were treated the same as their more popular peers despite the mounting evidence proving otherwise. No, it was always normal people who didn't understand the worth of their normalcy. Normal people had never been abnormal and if it didn't affect them, then it didn't exist.

        Of course, normal exists. It may be difficult to pinpoint what exactly "normal" is, but it exists. Francis had her own definition of "normal". Normal was the absence of anything abnormal. For instance, if one had an overbite, they would be considered "not normal". If someone had dark skin, differing beliefs, a particularly large mole, or anything outside of what was deemed acceptable, they were not normal. Normalcy is determined by the lack of abnormalities more than the presence of anything else.

      Francis just did not understand why the desire to be normal seemed to cause every normal person to lose their mind. It was as if the idea of someone who wasn't like them becoming like them threatened their entire existence. Unusual people should stay right where they belong: Away from those who are normal. Then, there were the normal people who refuted unusual people's desires to be normal by insisting that they would rather not be normal. The very idea was preposterous to Francis. Normal people did not want to become abnormal. Normal people wanted abnormal people to think that they wanted to become abnormal. That way, normal people can stay normal without unusual people trying to steal that from them.

      Francis Fionna Flynn was not normal. She knew that from the day she was born and she would know that until the day she died. Francis wanted to be normal. That did not mean she wanted to change every aspect of her personality in order to become more popular or that she wanted more people to like her. Francis wanted to be normal because it would make her life so much easier. Francis had no problems with herself and the way she was, but the requirements for wanting to change do not include hating the current version.

   Francis Flynn wanted to be normal because if she were normal, she wouldn't have to learn how to read and write in a language that no one else understood. If she were normal, she wouldn't have to deal with people knocking her over or shoving her in the hallways. If she were normal, she would not feel the need to scoff when someone yells at her to "watch" where she's headed. Normal people could watch where they were going. Normal people didn't have people whispering about them behind their back about how they didn't "look like a girl" or have store owners ask them to leave or any of the other ridiculous bullshit that Francis had to put up with on a regular basis. Normal people couldn't be discriminated against based on how they looked. Normal people knew what they looked like.

    Francis did not. Her appearance was just as much of a mystery to her as what might be at the bottom of the ocean. She had a rough idea of what other people saw when they looked at her based on their descriptions of her, but she had no way of knowing what "blonde" meant or why people cared about "brown" skin or what exactly "freckles" were. She knew that she wore a long, blonde wig. She knew that people complimented her on the color that she would never see. She didn't choose the wig because it was blonde. She chose it because the texture didn't make her scalp itch and when she wore it, people addressed her as "ma'am" more often than "sir", and that was enough for her. She knew that she had dark skin even if she had no concept of darkness. She understood that the color of one's skin mattered only in people's heads and that the history and culture behind it mattered so much more. She knew that freckles were dots across the skin and that she had them across her nose and cheeks. She knew that many people found freckles to be cute, but Francis couldn't feel freckles.

    Francis could feel that she was tall, that she bumped into things that were too low-hanging. Francis could feel that he shoulders were wide and caused her to bump into things more than she should. Francis could feel the rolls of her stomach, the muscles in her thighs, the distance between her eyes, and the texture of the palms of her hands. Those were the things that mattered to her. She didn't want to be normal due to how she looked.

    Francis had no problem with being blind. She really didn't. She had nothing to compare it to, after all. She had no idea what it was like to be able to see and she honestly didn't care enough to want to experience it. She was content with her blindness, similar to how one might be content with having ADHD or be content with being double-jointed. It may make things more difficult at times, but there is no comparison to a life without it. The only problem was that it wasn't normal and if it wasn't normal, the normal people are going to make life hell for those who have it.

    That was something that normal people did. They expected everyone else to be normal as well. If they weren't normal, they must learn how to behave normally in order to progress through a normal world. Some minor accommodations may be provided, but those were just so that normal people could pretend to be helping the poor abnormal people to the best of their ability. Normal people seemed to believe that if abnormal people were simply treated normally, then maybe they would learn to behave normally without actually becoming normal.

     Francis disliked normal people. Normal people refused to allow the world to become a little less normal. The unusual had to be pushed to the side, put in special classes or safe spaces just so they could exist without being threatened. Normal people didn't think they should have to change a single thing about themselves or about their world. It was the abnormal people who simply needed to try harder.

    Abnormal people try twice as hard as normal people and still get told that they must "try harder" if they want to keep up with everyone else. Francis was honestly so tired of trying hard. She'd tried hard her entire life and was told that it wasn't enough. That she wasn't enough. Francis wanted to be normal, but she never would be. She knew that. Everyone knew that. Francis couldn't become normal and she didn't try to be normal.

   Normal is often described as boring or simple or plain, but normal sounded like a paradise. A normal life for normal people was filled with family and good grades and a future career just waiting to be applied for. Francis' normal was a series of slurs, of everyone expecting so much more, of hatred and fear and distress. Francis couldn't ever be normal. All she could hope for was a not-so-normal year.