A Child Star is Born

The TV screen blared in front of a single armchair, as it often did—casting light and shadow upon her unsmiling face. There, she watched her younger self skip and prance.

“Come on boy and girls!” the purple dinosaur cheered, “Let’s all sing the sharing song!”

She jumped up and joined hands with the other children. Her cheeks were pink and upturned. Her sandy blonde hair bounced underneath an oversized baseball cap—a stark contrast to the woman huddled in the chair clutching a blanket around her shoulders.

“1,2,3 OH it’s great to share! Show that you care and just share!”

Her little self followed the dinosaur’s tail around as she sang out in high-pitched harmony. It was great to share that song with her friends and with everyone watching at home. It was so long ago when happiness was singing and dancing behind the big camera with the friendly, talking dinosaur.

The TV sat in the middle of an ordinary living room in an ordinary, disheveled apartment. Ripped open envelopes lay on the coffee table beside a clouded mug. The drapes and blinds were all shuttered, letting in only the slightest drop of sunlight. The décor left nothing to be desired, but also did not reek of misery. It was truly an unremarkable dwelling.

She futility snatched her cell phone from the arm rest and looked at the screen. Of course, there appeared nothing new except yesterday’s text from her mother. To shake up her ennui, she dropped the blanket, pushed herself off the chair and reluctantly padded her way towards the front door. As she cleared her throat and stepped herself onto the unbecoming Welcome mat, she recalled another tune from those yesterdays.

“Oh, it’s great to get outside! When you’re feeling down just go outside…” she sang underneath her breath. Her empty mind wandered out over the still grass on the front yard. If she had the enthusiasm to concentrate hard enough, she bet she could count each drop of dew that kissed each blade. She continued to space out into the mundane details of the neighborhood—the gnats buzzing in a small, TV static-like cloud, the faint sparkle of the asphalt--eventually interrupted by a lone teenager zipping by on a 10 speed. She quickly slipped back through the door and promptly shut it behind her. She didn’t care too much for the outside these days anyway.

What to do? the back of her mind softly whispered as she stared back at the walls of her apartment. She found her feet slugging almost instinctively towards the computer sitting upon a thin, IKEA desk.

Sure. Why not? Life is just checking your email and your social media until you die. She groaned a little as she opened the desktop. Welcome, Isabelle! The screen greeted her. Isabelle entered in her admin password and opened the internet browser. A box flashed in the top right corner of the screen telling her she had a single Facebook notification.

Whoopee. The fun begins, she thought sarcastically. It was not a notification saying that someone had liked one of her comments, but rather a single message sitting in her inbox, piquing her interest slightly.

“Jennifer Young?” she read aloud, then read it once more to herself. It had been ages since she said or even thought about that name.

Happy Birthday Isabelle! It’s sure been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve been thinking about you lately and I hope you’re doing well for yourself! You were always so talented and a delight to work with. I trust that same, young spirit is still bubbling inside of you. You’re what? 24, 25 now? Anyway, I hope your birthday is a special one! Love from your favorite manager (wink, wink) 😊

Isabelle pulled away from the computer in a jerk reaction.

No. How dare she? Isabelle thought disgustedly. She felt a tight, heated sensation shoot through her chest and shoulders. The thought repeated itself over and over in her mind. Abruptly, she rose from the computer chair and began to pace in short, back and forth intervals. She knew she was better off not reading the damned message. She should have known when she saw the name, but it was too late now. The curiosity had broken her.

She slapped her hands to her head over and over as hot tears threatened to well up. It was a reminder to bitter to stomach. A memory shook loose from the cursed soil it was buried. She stomped towards the open door of her bedroom and slammed the world shut from behind her. Flinging herself into her bed, her fingers blindly reached for the half empty bottle left carelessly by the nightstand. Raising the sweet poison to her lips, she closed her eyes and indulged in deep gulps one by one until sleep crept in—shutting her eyes to the memory and to the message still flashing from the computer screen.

________________

               She lay suspended in a dreamless sleep, as if waiting in anticipation for what was to come. When she came to, Lucifer was sitting on the edge of her bed like he had never left.

“Hello old friend,” he spoke in a deep hollow voice. “My, how long it has been. And happy birthday to you.”

Some birthday, she thought. A meeting with the devil. Isabelle sat up and looked dead at him, wiping her eyes to make sure he was really there. Surely, he was still perched there at the end of her bed.

               “You know this isn’t how things work with you and I,” he reminded her. “I come to you as I please. You do not summon me. So now that I’ve granted you this tremendous mercy, what have you bent the rules and called for me today?

               “I know sir. Thank you for coming.” She choked slightly on her words, searching for the courage to continue with her plea. “About our deal…”

               “About our deal?” he repeated loudly. “There is nothing for you to say about our deal. You got everything you wanted. You wanted to be a child star and I made it so. This transaction has long been completed. To remarkable success I might add.”

               “But I’m not a child star!” she protested. “The show isn’t even on the air anymore. I’ve been completely forgotten, and I have nothing to show for it. Look at this place!” She gestured around to her drab surroundings.

               “Ah, but you have your memories.” he taunted. “You wanted the spotlight. You wanted to be adored, and you’ll always have that fleeting feeling. What a shame you thought it would last. Poor girl.”

               “You made a deal with a 5 year old!” she shouted, “Honestly, what did I know about life then?”

               “I made a deal with you. You are still yourself are you not?”

               “But it isn’t fair!”

               “Fair?!” He let out a sinister laugh. “You made a deal with the devil. Certainly you understand how this works now.”

               “But can we maybe amend our deal? Please. I have so long to live with this nothingness.”

               “The soul has no expiration date, Isabelle. Yours will always belong to me, and you will always be that child star. At least that’s what you will always be remembered as anyway.”

               “You mean not remembered,” she cried. “I’m just like everybody else now. Worse off even.”

               “Cry and whine all you want,” he laughed again. “It won’t change our deal. Your soul is mine forever.”

               “Well maybe I should just end it all!”

               “Pathetic coward.” Lucifer scoffed. “Suffering from buyer’s remorse, are we? Well you’re right. You’re not different from anyone else. And just like all the other tokens I’ve collected, you will not be set free. You signed your check missy.”

               Isabelle hung her head in defeat. Just what did I expect to happen anyway?

               “A bit of advice,” he said while rising up from the bed, “Which you should feel very lucky to get, because I’m hardly this generous: When there is no escape, one would do far better to lean in than to resist.”

____________________

               Morning came with the same sense of defeat Isabelle was all too familiar with. She drug herself from underneath the covers and placed both feet on the carpet, feeling the pounding arise in her head. She looked over to the corner of the bed where Lucifer had just sat.

               It is far better to lean in than to resist, she thought. She had to admit that something in those words felt profound. She mulled them over again and again as she rose from her bed and made way towards her living room/kitchen area. But what to do with that parting advice?

               She looked around at her familiar, unremarkable surroundings and decided to start with the windows. She raised the blinds and pulled back the drapes. Sunlight spread like honey over the floor and across the walls. She let the forgotten sensation settle in her chest. Well, that’s something.

               Looking outside through the open windows, she thought of what else she could do to break up the flow of her long since dreary days. She still wore her nightgown, but knew if she didn’t do what she was thinking, she might talk herself out of it for the rest of the day. Making her way to the front door and stepping out into the warm sunlight, she decided to go for a walk that day.

               Here I go. Here I go, she kept repeating to herself as some sort of encouragement. Having left with only the clothes on her back and no sunglasses, she squinted at the sun rays above her but still tried to “lean in” anyway. As she made her way down the middle of the quiet street, she felt a little self-conscious about her nightgown, noticing a few passersby glance in her direction. Then she remembered that this feeling wasn’t too different than what walking around was like when she was 5, and so many children and parents recognized her perky face.

               “Good Morning,” she mustered up to a few of them. She wasn’t used to speaking to people so early, and sometimes she would go all day without speaking, so she had to clear her throat. The more she walked down the street, the more she tried to notice the good things. The wavering of the shadow and sun that passed through the little trees. The light breeze that kissed her face. The hum of lawn mowers and the cars parked in driveways with interesting colors like lime green. She found the stroll energizing, if only slightly, and it certainly felt better than the increasingly numbing feeling of the arm chair.

               She made her way back to the house, trying to hold onto the new sensations that were a departure from yesterday and all the many days before. When she got back through the door, she looked around and thought about what else she could do. It was only her and the apartment after all. From across the room, the sleeping computer screen stared at her. Although fruitlessly checking her often non-notifications was a frequent bored habit, she thought about a way she could make this ritual different today.

               She opened Facebook and returned to the message that yesterday had made her so angry.

               Hello Jennifer. Thank you for the birthday wishes. It certainly has been a long time, hasn’t it? But perhaps it’s not such a coincidence that we randomly connected again. I’ve been thinking about those old days a lot. I was wondering if we might make a deal.” ….