Iridescent Indifference

Donia~

She was left to being stuck in the gleaming, iridescent shadows that surrounded her; the black backdrop that once only occasionally accompanied her life was now at the forefront, as she could barely maintain to show up in her life as the main character. She was lost— that’s what she was, and no one else knew.

      How could you tell if someone was missing when you never even knew them in the first place?

      This was evident as Doina walked through the shadowed, opulent aisles passed by her in a rush as she walked toward the back of the store, everyone’s favorite: Oracle.

      Virtually a glorified arts and crafts store, Oracle was originally, in the 70s, a huge supermarket.

Upon being shut down, the owners of Oracle bought the building in hopes of making the Oracle brand itself to claim a monopoly of all arts and crafts, scrapbooking, and any other hobby that many, many people took up after their muscles became weak from old age and could no longer play feverishly competitive games of tennis or racquetball.

Of course, Doina made it relatively fast into the break room of Oracle at the back of the store, stepping through the swinging doors just as swiftly as the next woman who had been periodically invisible for the majority of their life.

She sat down in the brightly lit break room – maybe that’s why all of her co-workers liked to take pictures of themselves in here – with her legs stretched out in front of her, her ass practically as big as the seat of the metal, folded chair she sat in.

Doina was aware of her rather large posterior her entire life, but that was something that would always amaze her: her ass was practically the size of a standard seat. Amazing.

And then, as the guarded, ordinary fascination of her own behind slowly dissipated from the front of Donia mind – letting the rampant thoughts she had successfully kept hidden so that she could at least think straight – she began to sob.

Quietly. She did not want anyone to hear her, or to maybe check up on her. She had enough emotions today; quite frankly, she’d had enough emotions for someone’s entire lifetime, let alone a 17 year old’s.

The tears were as always, very hot and warm as they rolled down her purposely cold cheeks (it was always cold at Oracle, it just seemed to fit the store, according to management). They slid down her face, pooling into her scarred neck from the whole fire incident that happened 13 years; she felt too apathetic to wipe them away.

This always happened when the store was busy and she always had to close. She was just so ambushed by everyone else’s emotions! Putrid, stinking khaki-colored anger flooded the largest of her blood vessels; deep, abiding cerulean blue side assaulted her own frequent struggles with depression— even deeply radiating, bright yellow joy seemed to freeze her own actions as she was too paralyzed with happiness to think coherent thoughts.

And even though she expected this dark void that she occasionally visited whenever everything was simply too hard or stressful, she hated the fact that she cried, every single damn time. She would sit in the break room at the back of the store, telling the other employees she was quickly going to the restroom, and she would lackadaisically bawl her eyes out.

She would sob, and cry, and keen for the innocence she had lost from herself – by her own doing – until she was a raw, empty excuse for a human. Those dark times, when she was not herself or even anyone else, may have been mentally exhausting and strenuous, it kept her safe.

She didn’t have to worry about anything— or anyone else’s problems.

Doina was indeed, a 17 year old woman(?) who was deeply troubled. The worst of all, however, was she hadn’t chosen any of this debauchery of a life. It was given to her— she was “gifted” with this emotional affinity, critically known as “empathy.”