She lay with her neck at an odd angle, looking almost separate from the rest of her body... Not that you could see her as soon as you walked through the door for she was under a duvet with her head facing the window that was opposite. You would only be able to tell she was there if you stood directly in front of the clouds she was watching.
If you could see her though, you would think she was the most beautiful girl to ever live. Not beautiful in a natural sense; beautiful in a way that is also mysterious. She didn't have flowing golden curls or ivory skin; no piercing eyes of green. She was shorter than average and certainly larger than a catwalk model, but in her ordinariness she was stunning. Something radiated from within that rendered her irresistible to both genders. People fell in love with her, even if just for a moment, as she passed them by in the street. When she laughed or smiled, others also felt the sudden need to do so. She was hypnotising, to say the least, if you saw her.
But that was just it, you couldn't see her as you walked into what you could assume was her room. You would see a duvet, piled high upon itself. You wouldn't think to yourself that this girl of immense beauty was underneath the duvet, and had been there for the past seventy-two hours; silently staring out the window, staying still. But she wasn't dead, oh no, that wasn't what she called it anyway. For this girl, having not moved a single inch, or even blinked, in far too long, was in fact undead. She said she preferred that term.
Now, she wouldn't want you to look at her and think she was one of the sexy vampires they have in films, those are too far-fetched anyway. She wasn't a vampire, though she liked to use that as an excuse so as to not go outside when it was too sunny; it was how she got out of doing chores – not that her parents believed her, of course. But they're gone now, almost everyone she was once friends with are gone now. In fact, she wouldn't really like you to look at her at all: she feels awfully sorry for herself at the moment which, between you and I, isn't helping anyone.
It's quite a tragic story really, she wouldn't want you to know the finer details of it but you see, for the story to make sense, these details need to be made painfully explicit. She wouldn't like that, but then again she isn't aware that this is being written. You see, when she sleeps, she talks a fair amount of how she came to be three-hundred and sixty-two years old, without looking a day over twenty-three. But, I'm afraid, that part of this story will have to come later.
She lay with her neck at an odd angle, looking almost separate from the rest of her body... Not that you could see her as soon as you walked through the door for she was under a duvet with her head facing the window that was opposite. You would only be able to tell she was there if you stood directly in front of the clouds she was watching. And that was just it, you couldn't see her. That was how she got into this mess in the first place; because, despite being the prettiest girl you have ever seen, she felt as though she was the polar opposite to that – a chameleon, invisible. Which is why, three-hundred and thirty-nine years ago, she decided to wish upon one of the many shooting stars to become someone new.
Her wish landed her in the same body, which she found disappointing. And it wasn't until her friends slowly started to age around her that she realised what her vague wish had resulted in. Everyone around her was ageing, but she remained the same. She soon realised she couldn't stay where she was, and faked her death. Staying only long enough to watch her own funeral, long enough to know that she couldn't show her face without scaring her loved ones half to death. A twenty-three year old, once from the countryside in England, packed and moved to where everyone was invisible; to a place where she returned to being what she, in desperation, wished away. This place was London, and she returned home to the country only when she knew that everything once familiar had disappeared.
Time passed around her, always leaving her behind in the shadows. People turned to look at her for years to come, falling ever so slightly in love with the features on her face that never grew tired or old. This girl, unseen to you where you stand, lost everything through a single wish she made one night. People turned to look at her for years to come, never really noticing the guilt and sadness she carried upon her shoulders. This girl, unseen to you where you stand, has never wanted to permanently disappear more.
Which is ironic, she thinks, considering the wish she made was to stop the feeling of being completely invisible.
She lays under this duvet watching the clouds change and move on, hoping and praying that she can do the same. But the guilt is too much for her to bear, and she breaks the position she has held for the last seventy-two hours.
When the sadness comes, her appetite is ash on the floor. The food gets stuck, four bites and she feels done. The urge to cry comes and goes, chaotic, powerful, and spilling hot tears. In between the floods, it sits heavy on her heart. And though she sometimes won't sit still, won't curl up and refuse to move like her body wants. The last few days she has given in to what her body says she needs. And, so, her hands come up to cup her face, shielding all her features from the clouds, and her tears fall from her eyes. By this point, you will move round to block the remaining light from the window, covering the clouds she could see through the gaps in her fingers. She will know you're standing there, watching her, she'll figure out that you've been watching her for a long time. Her tears will grow softer, but don't be fooled. This isn't because you're comforting her by being there.
Her comfort, in case your curiosity got the better of you as it did me, though unsightly, was the room she was laying in... With wallpaper hanging on to the walls, trying its best to not let go; with floorboards broken and jutting up at odd angles; with her mattress and duvet in the middle of the large room, dirty from years of usage without too much thought being put into getting them clean; with the roof looking for all the world like a giant had sat on it, for it sagged terribly; with windows being more gaping holes than actual panes of glass, wind rushing in and out; with the door hung on its hinges at a jaunty angle, now only really a frame. It was a rotting heap, bowing down, subservient to the elements. But, you see, this house, dirty as it were, was her comfort. Not you. She often spent days laying on the mattress, sometimes even without the duvet, in the middle of the harshest of winters, watching the clouds pass, be it through what was once the window or through the hole that had started to appear in the lowest sag of the roof.
A doctor might jump to the conclusion that she was depressed, diagnose her even, but that wouldn't be the first time she heard that word. She didn't like it much. She would describe her sadness like death by a thousand paper cuts, for every time she remembered her loss it was another cut to her already damaged mind. None were enough to kill her, but overtime their accumulation bled her of the humanity she had once had. She once was gregarious and generous natured, now she was just gaunt and melancholy. She thought that more fitting than a single word.
And she thought a lot while here, though she wouldn't admit that.
