Ekat's writing project, Week 6: Invisibility
"You can have the gift of invisibility," she said as she passed her hands over my flesh, "but it comes with a price. Use it wisely, because every time you do, it will become harder and harder to come back from being invisible to being someone others will see, and someday you won't be able to come back at all."
"Ok," I said, shivering impatiently for her to finish the process and get on with it. How cool would it be, I imagined, to be able to come and go at whim as a whisper of air no-one could see? Think of the secrets and the giggles and the fun and the jokes and the information I could glean just from being able to pass among others in the world, them all unknowing?
It was fun, at first. I could pop out of nowhere and surprise or startle my friends and family. Then I would just drift along the streets sometimes behind strangers, eavesdropping on their conversations. I remember the first time I disappeared from my lover. It was after a fight, and I was angry. I didn't want him to find me, didn't want him to push at me, or ask me what was wrong. I didn't want to leave, so I just... vanished. I heard him calling after me in perplexity, then (perhaps sadly) he turned and walked away. That hurt in ways I hadn't imagined, and I wanted to call out after him... but I couldn't. I found myself stuck in that limbo space longer than I expected, and by the time I came back, the moment to go after him had passed.
The next time we fought, I vanished in anger again. Again, he tried to follow after me, but when he couldn't find where I had gone, and I couldn't unstick myself to touch him, the moment passed again and was long gone before I could make myself come back.
One day, in the heat of the worst argument yet, I vanished right in front of his eyes. I could see the exquisite hurt under the startlement and as much as I wanted to take it all back - the argument, the anger, the vanishing - I found myself at the end of the spell, when her words came back to haunt me: "Someday you won't be able to come back at all."
And there I was. Invisible one too many times, and now that we both knew the trick, I was trapped for good here. No way to reach across, to touch, to apologize, to heal. I had used the gift unwisely, spent it on frivolity and angry retreats in avoidance. Squandered, one might even say.
There was no way back from that place. It was cold and dark, and (almost) entirely of my own making. I was never going to be anything other than invisible now, and in time after the grief faded, even the desire for memory faded. I was not just invisible, I was gone.
"Ok," I said, shivering impatiently for her to finish the process and get on with it. How cool would it be, I imagined, to be able to come and go at whim as a whisper of air no-one could see? Think of the secrets and the giggles and the fun and the jokes and the information I could glean just from being able to pass among others in the world, them all unknowing?
It was fun, at first. I could pop out of nowhere and surprise or startle my friends and family. Then I would just drift along the streets sometimes behind strangers, eavesdropping on their conversations. I remember the first time I disappeared from my lover. It was after a fight, and I was angry. I didn't want him to find me, didn't want him to push at me, or ask me what was wrong. I didn't want to leave, so I just... vanished. I heard him calling after me in perplexity, then (perhaps sadly) he turned and walked away. That hurt in ways I hadn't imagined, and I wanted to call out after him... but I couldn't. I found myself stuck in that limbo space longer than I expected, and by the time I came back, the moment to go after him had passed.
The next time we fought, I vanished in anger again. Again, he tried to follow after me, but when he couldn't find where I had gone, and I couldn't unstick myself to touch him, the moment passed again and was long gone before I could make myself come back.
One day, in the heat of the worst argument yet, I vanished right in front of his eyes. I could see the exquisite hurt under the startlement and as much as I wanted to take it all back - the argument, the anger, the vanishing - I found myself at the end of the spell, when her words came back to haunt me: "Someday you won't be able to come back at all."
And there I was. Invisible one too many times, and now that we both knew the trick, I was trapped for good here. No way to reach across, to touch, to apologize, to heal. I had used the gift unwisely, spent it on frivolity and angry retreats in avoidance. Squandered, one might even say.
There was no way back from that place. It was cold and dark, and (almost) entirely of my own making. I was never going to be anything other than invisible now, and in time after the grief faded, even the desire for memory faded. I was not just invisible, I was gone.