Paralleled Nothingness

I sat alone and cold. I shivered as the wind both gave me a break and tortured me at its heart’s desire. The bouts of wind had me wondering if I was going to survive after all. Unlike my friends. They were dead.

I didn’t want to give up hope so easily. And I didn’t. I sat my ground literally as I waited, hoping that maybe they had managed to retrace their steps in the snow; Lonny was so good with directions no matter where she was; I wouldn’t have made it as far in life without her direction. There’s no way a derailed path in the woods would be the contender that finally made her meet her match. Lonny owned every obstacle; she owned life. She wasn’t going to bargain it so easily.

I waited and shivered as the cold bouts suddenly mixed with icy flakes; I shivered but sat my ground, curling into a ball with my hands to my knees. I suddenly regretted my weight loss and haircut. While both minimal in magnitude, the reduction lessened protection against that force of nature, which was only getting icier by the minute. The wetness of each particle hit the parts of my shoulders and neck that had once been shielded by my brunette, curly locks. My arms tried keeping my knees warm, but the bones in them had taken the place of the flesh; their fragility was foreign, though it had always been there. I waited. I had to wait even when I knew the frigid reality of two humans going up against a climate that made Antartica seem like a tropical getaway. My friends hadn’t gotten away and the chances were, I wouldn’t either. 

      I sat and shivered as the wind got heavier, then decided to give me a break, then decided to once again beat me with its frigidness, then give me another break. It did this on and off for what felt like an eternity, but was really about thirty minutes. I had to get up and leave before I joined my friends. I loved them, but wasn’t ready to go just yet. I never thought I would reject death’s premature invitation. 

I walked and walked and walked as the icy flakes kept torturing me, touching me in the ugliest of ways. I kept walking as if my life depended on it, because it did. I walked and thought about Andy; how he must have met his demise. He wasn’t like Lonny; he was as delicate at the tree branches that the icy flakes were pelting at alongside me; thin, fragile, dried-up, and ready to completely collapse at any moment. Nevertheless, Andy always found joy in spending time with Lonny and I and he always managed to find the most joy every time we went out for dessert, especially ice cream. He loved ice cream and he especially liked it while enjoying the summer heat. He loved it and smiled as he enjoyed the two things that brought him most joy in the world: sugar and warmth. I could only imagine how excruciating his final moments were, and lonely. Andy already felt lonely all the time, but if, by some uglier twist of fate, Lonny had gone first, him dying alone would have been the cherry on top of an already tragic existence. I walked and walked and my footsteps got heavier and the icy wind didn’t spare me mercy, but I kept pushing forward, like Andy would say to me every time he detailed one of his dates gone wrong. But he always kept pushing, which led me to wonder if maybe it wasn’t Lonny who pushed and pushed until her very last breath.

      Out of nowhere, it came into view. It was frozen solid, but clear as day even with the fog and my breath shrouding its presentation. It presented itself as the way out of one frigid prison onto one with less solitary confinement. I walked up to it and looked at my reflection. I wanted one last look at me before leaving the world I had spent twenty years sentenced to. I wanted to see my image one last time like I would every night when I was at home alone. I didn’t mind being alone, unlike Andy; to me, loneliness allowed me to be alone.

       I looked at my image, then thought of him: Jacob. How he would always stand in the mirror behind me. We did this every single time I slept over or when he visited. We did this the day after we first slept together. We did this every time he was in my room and I was in his. We would look at our nakedness in the mirror. Now he would have to do this alone. Unlike me, he loathed loneliness. Before me, he was always alone.

       The frozen pond’s clarity paralleled me. That was the thing about me; I always had clarity. Confusion wasn’t rampant in my life. I had good friends, a good boyfriend: a good life. I didn’t lead some tormented life like Andy, or a life that made me overly exuberant to compensate for a traumatic childhood, like Lonny. There weren’t shaping life events that caused me to change or break. There weren’t moments filled with neither tears of joy or sorrow, even when Jacob saw me in my nakedness the first time, and every time after. I was a constant bystander in my own life. I never felt too much.

    The wind got icier and less forgiving. The wetness of the flakes on my face and shoulders getting replaced by new, cold, combined particles. But I wasn’t afraid; I simply stood alone staring at my reflection. There was nothing left to be afraid for. They were gone. My friends were dead. 

That frozen pond was still, unbreakable. Its formation throughout the seasons did nothing to change it. It simply grew colder. Formidable. “I love your new haircut; did you lose some weight. You’re such a good actress!” I thought of every passing season in my life and how it marked my formation: developing voice, developing height, developing breast: developing womanhood. 

    These events would have marked anyone in some noteworthy way; sensitivity, pride, vanity: changes in character. I instead took every bit of my formation with a grain of salt, accepted it like I was slowly starting to accept my premature conclusion. I looked at that frozen pond, its exterior reflecting my crystalline image, even when frostbite was beginning to form over my lips and curly locks, and a bluish tinge was taking over my lips, much like my favorite lipstick which had been discontinued a month short of my twentieth birthday; it was my favorite lipstick. I felt that.

    I walked forward, onto that hard yet welcoming exterior, my black boots somehow standing firm against the threat of collapse. I stood still, and looked down at me once again. I was still on top of that frozen pond. Still and looking at my withering without nothing more than a slight widening of my eyes. I looked and stood still, then I didn’t. I started jumping. Jumping up and down. Nothing. I continued with full force, going up against the formation of the frozen pond. It was winning the battle. But so was I; for the first time in my life I felt something new. Rejection. The frozen pond didn’t want me the harder I jumped. I jumped and jumped until my knees started to burn, the first wave of warmth I had felt in almost an hour. I kept on going relentlessly, the burning started to mix with aching. I continued jumping. I didn’t want to stop. I felt something that not even the impeding embrace of death made me feel; it was an ugly feeling and yet one I loved: something new. Rejection. This frozen deity didn’t want me; it could have taken me at any moment yet it rejected me without second thought. I wasn’t the right one for the taking. Rejection. It was rejecting me for no known reason.

     Just like Lonny, audition after audition; just like Andy, man after man; just like Jacob had been by his father for no known reason aside him resembling his grandfather; I had always wondered how that felt; how they felt every time they related their rejections and I couldn’t relate. I couldn’t relate with rejection, and now I could. This frozen pond; an icy, blizzard messenger from above or below, didn’t want me.

       I felt them come out, freezing almost instantaneously after their birth: tears. One after another exiting my eyes and quickly crusting onto my lashes, a select few making it down to my cheeks before meeting their premature death. Tears. I hadn’t felt those in a while. A long time. Not even during my previous acting scenes in which my characters had experienced great life loses. Tears. I had gone so long without them that I stopped missing them. Now they returned amidst my seeming demise. 

         I felt them and let them flow before something else exited my body: it was loud. Loud and ugly sounding: shrieking. I shrieked and suddenly took notice of my heavy chest. It was heavy and painful. And I loved it. Rejection. Tears. Pain. I loved it. I needed them. I had needed them because I never understood them; I never understood them every time Lonny shed them when sharing her debilitating disillusion audition after failed audition; I needed them every time Andy tearfully joked about taking his life when I knew he was only-three quarters joking and one-text away from saying his goodbyes; I needed them every time Jacob shared his own distresses, and notably every time he held me in his arms as we looked at our naked reflections in the mirror and in each other’s eyes; but only now did I have them. Now that I was alone. Truly lonely.

      I stopped. Stopped and once again looked at my reflection, the frozen pond serving as the truest mirror ever. We were no longer parallels. It was stronger than me, its fortitude broke me in a way the icy wind hadn’t yet. I wanted it too. No longer for the sake of being broken, but because I was too broken to return. Return to a life without my friends; a life where Jacob was soon to exit, as he had warned me during our last moment of nakedness; a life without those who would cherish my brokenness.

       They appeared out of nowhere: one wearing a furry parka and the other a blue jean jacket; the one in the blue jacket reminded me of Jacob, except he was shorter and looked thinner even underneath the blue. They waved. I didn’t. I didn’t I need them. I needed Lonny, and Andy, and Jacob. I needed them. And only them. To continue to feel. I was no longer cold. Frigid. Frozen. Numb. No longer feeling nothing.

     The men walked closer as they waved. I didn’t. I jumped. Up and down. I jumped and jumped, the burning mixed with the aching returned. Nothing. The frozen pond didn’t want me. I needed it to. Not these men who had come to return me. I didn’t want to return alone. To feel alone. I wanted to feel with Lonny and Andy and Jacob, and anyone who once felt with me but felt alone. I jumped with the burning mixed with the aching. Nothing. The frozen pond rejected me like I had rejected feeling anything when surrounded by those that mattered in my life. Lonny, Andy, Jacob; everyone who felt something for me. The frozen pond served me my just desserts. My just desserts for a lifetime of nothingness.