True Light

Whe… Where am I?

Really, Jessie?! You don’t know where you are?! Really?!

I can’t focus … I see a blazing light …

Ooooooh, no! I’m outside! I’m in the sun!

Nooooo, nooooo, noooo!!!

Jessie, get up! Get up now! If you don’t get up, you’re going to go into anaphylactic shock. You’re going to die, Jessie! Get up!

Get up! Now!

………….

I’m already in shock, aren’t I? That’s why I can’t move. I’m going to die.

Yes, I’m going to die.

Shit!

Great job, Jessie! Aces!

No really! Get a grip for a second and just feel. What do you feel?

Nothing special, right? No physical pain … no nothing …

Do you know what this means? You’re numb.

You’re numb. You can’t move and you’re under the sun. You’re allergic to the sun, Jessie. Which means that you’re going to sit here inside your head. Without a clue about what’s going to happen to you, until …

Until what?

Shit!

I think I’m honestly dying in the most boring way possible.

Yup!

Shouldn’t I be seeing my life movie or something?

………….

OH MY GOD, JESSIE! Just die already, or get up, or get off… out, or whatever the hell you want to get but do something. Anything!

Why did I have to go outside? Why didn’t I just sit inside like a good little girl and wait for whatever the hell I’ve been waiting for all this time?!

I honestly don’t know what’s more boring, this moment right here or all those leading up to it?!

Come on, Jessie! Maybe this is what this crap is all about, maybe you’re supposed to reach some sort of epiphany or some other voodoo crap like that.

Come on! Maybe I can speed this process along, somehow. Epiphany time! Think something smart and get on with it.

Hmmmm! An epiphany should be like an all encompassing “aha” moment, right? Like, like a holistic realization, a life-long summary like a iti bitty grain of wisdom. Right?

RIGHT?!

Oh my God! I’m going nowhere fast.

Chill, Jessie. Maybe it’s like meditation, maybe you need to allow it to flow through you. To fill you up … Pfffttt …. ha, ha! Fill you up! Hahaha!

Shit! I’m dying and apparently I’m gonna spend eternity listening to myself rave. Haaaaaaaaah, I’m screwed!

………….

I just had to get outside, didn’t I? Why did I go outside? I was perfectly well in the shadows. I … I don’t think I regret it. Hmmmm, that’s weird. Am I happy?! What am I so happy about? Is it because of him? It is! I’m happy I met him. I’m happy I went outside today … for him.

The last few years have been really tough. Little by little I lost everything I ever knew, everything I took comfort in.

Oh my god! It’s the movie! Shit! Where’s the popcorn?

Shut up, Jessie!

It just sort of happened one day, didn’t it? Today everything was fine and then … Oh my god, I can’t believe that after all these years … it’s… it’s just so much.

Come on, Jessie! Out with it…

They left me! They all left me! Each and everyone of them: Sonya, Jane, Dave, Andrew… All my friends left me!

It started really slow at first: I would get a rash on my hand, or my foot, some aloe cream and it would be fine. Then, I would start to get light headed, but once I sat down it passed. After a while, it became a bit difficult to breathe, as if my lungs would forget how to work.

I loved the sun, I really did. It filled me up with hope… it made be feel loved, connected. As if… being under its rays, I could feel connected to everybody else. I felt whole.

At one point, I woke up in the hospital. And that was it. That was the beginning of the end. That was … it. The doctor thought I had just passed out from sun exposure … Sun exposure. I was covered in scabs from head to toe, I was a walking rash for the next week.

I never really felt the sun after that. Ever.

Dave and Andrew were the first to go, one day they just stopped answering my texts. They said I had become to weird to handle. At least, they said something, Jane just ghosted me. Puff… no more Jane, ever.

Sonya. Now that’s a painful chapter. I had literally barricaded myself in my room by that point: shaded mirrors, heavy blackout curtains 84 inches long, it was a fortress. Sonya had just stopped by on her way back from school.

“Hey, Jessie! How are you feeling?”

“Awesome! How do you think I’m feeling?” I was a bitch.

“I’m sorry. What have you been up to these past few days?”

“What do you think? I’ve been hiking the world, yesterday I was in Paris, this morning I was in Amsterdam, I was thinking about going to London tomorrow. I’ll have a blast!”

“Listen. I need to tell you something. My folks … they’ve decided we’re going to move.”

I can still remember how I felt when she uttered those words: move. I was no longer capable of moving. I felt so… jealous, and hurt. It’s not like it was her fault I was stuck in my room all day, everyday. It’s not like I had become a plant, a mushroom… one of those toxic weird looking green mushrooms. But I acted like it.

“Fine! This was becoming boring anyway.”

“Hey, it’s not like our friendship is over. I’m sure we can still see each other from time to time, and we’ll chat a lot. You’re still my bestfriend, you know. I love you, Jessie!”

“No!”

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean, no. We’re not bestfriends, I don’t think we’re still friends, to be honest. I’m just your sick little weird friend whom you visit from time to time. I’m your school trivia gossip.”

“Come on, Jessie! It’s not like that, don’t be like that. You know it’s not true. You ARE my friend.”

“No! Move! I don’t care. I want to be left alone! I’m better alone. I’m much better alone.”

“Jessie…”

“Please go.”

“Jessie!”

“LEAVE!!!”

She left. Poor Sonya! I was such a bitch to her. We never spoke after that. I never spoke to her after that. I couldn’t, I just couldn’t.

The next few years were a mess. I moved out of my parents house. I was nineteen when I did. They kept pestering me about my condition and how it was all in my head. If only I could believe and see as they did, if only I could step back into the light. I would become their pretty little princess once more. Poor Mom and Dad, I drove them nuts. I think that, deep down, they were happy I was moving out.

The night life really suited me, sleep all day, party all night. I was a real life Cinderella, get home by five or I end up in the Emergency Ward! I made some really decent money though, enough to buy my own place anyway. Thank God I look good in front of a camera. I could’ve kept going at it too, if it wasn’t for him. Inventive girl like me, I would’ve made fifty and could’ve still rocked somebody’s world.

No! He had to show up. My knight in shinning armor. Robert the Great! Slayer of Demons! Savior of Virgins! Or is the other way around?!

Shit! I’ll miss him. He made me feel so special. I thought he was so weird at first, all those quirky little jokes, not like all those other keyboard John’s. He was so… normal. Who knew that’s what a girl actually wants, to feel… appropriate.

We went out a couple of times. He worked the night shift, just like me. He once said to me that, at times, he really missed the sun. How weird that had sounded. I hadn’t thought about the sun for a very long time.

The sun: my captor, my tormentor, my doom. Everyone had always said that it was all in my mind, that I wasn’t actually allergic but was experiencing a psychosomatic response to a traumatic event in my past. I guess I proved them wrong.

Shit! I really feel enlightened. Maybe this is what this trip was all about. Repentance. Guess I’ll come back as one of those dudes that stand by the road with a REPENT sign. That’d be funny.

I really, really miss Brian!

………….

………….

………….

Wait, what? What was that? Who did I say I’ll miss?

Berry?

Ryan?

Buck?

Focus, Jessie!

B… Brian?! That’s it! Who the hell is Brian?

Brian, Brian! Br… i… an.

Ooooooooh, no! I remember! That asshole, that mothe…

I was seventeen and it was the summer holiday. I went to the seaside with Sonya, Jane, and the guys. I was so happy because that year my boobs had really gotten bigger and I really wanted to show off in my two piece neon-green swimsuit. I was a bomb!

Everywhere I went boys were staring at me. I loved every second of it. I could feel their desire, their need, their greed. And then, there was Brian! Party all night long, sleep in the shade all day, everyday. I needed him to notice me, and he did. I was beyond myself when he first came over and asked if I wanted to have a drink with him!

I felt so beautiful, so powerful, so desired, so… feminine. We laughed! We touched! We kissed! Hmmmm, if I think about it, he was a little too clingy and kind of douchey. I guess that explains what happened the next day.

When we saw each other again at noon, he was together with some skank. I recognized her as she had been droning around him every night. I actually thought he liked me. When I came to their spot he just stared at me.

“What?!” he said.

“Hi! How are you?” I was still beyond myself with excitement.

“Busy, can’t you see.”

“Ooooh! Do you want to get together later?”

“Not really! Now that I look at you, you’re hideous in the sunlight.”

Hideous! Who calls someone hideous?! That pencil sportin’ little shit. I… I… hate his guts. He ruined my summer. I hope he’s someone’s girlfriend somewhere, and I hope he’s enjoying it.

Hideous in the sunlight!

Hideous … in… the… sunlight!

Hideous…

…sunlight.

Sun… light.

………….

“I’m awake! I’m awake! Holy shit! Holy… I’m alive!”

“Where’s my phone? I need to call Rob. I want to go to the seaside!”