I'm Okay {I Promise} // meg

My mind bends in ways that my body does not. I know the signals that I have to send to my legs to get them to twist, to lay one foot parallel to the other, but my feet object. The best I can manage is a sort of awkward squat, holding onto the bar with whitened knuckles, will power rather than anything with actual substance preventing me from falling over. I’m trying so hard to make my body do things that I used to take for granted, but there’s a little voice in my head that’s saying, “Give up, Helena, you know you can’t.” I force myself not to pay any attention, but it’s like an acid attacking my mind, eroding quickly, so that eventually I stumble and collapse into a heap on the ground.

I don’t cry. Even as a little kid, I never saw the point of crying. It never got me anywhere then, not even the piteous looks of adults that I know it would get me now. Now, I don’t want their pity. I want their bodies, and their minds and their X chromosomes, the things that make them healthy and me look- well, pitiful. Feeling sorry for someone never did the world any good. There’s no way for me to get better, not even through copious amounts of other peoples emotions. Pushing my fingers into the grout cracks between the bricks in the wall, I pull myself up shakily. With each fall I take, I swear that a little bit of the will to keep pushing myself tumbles out of me.

Before Dad left for work this morning, he’d asked me to pick up a parcel for him. “It’s at the little artist’s shop in the square,” he’d said “but by no means must you look inside.” He’s always been a bit clueless, my dad. Had he not mentioned it, I would have ignored the contents of the package, not cared about what strange contraption he was wasting his money on this time. He’s had a bit of a hard run, poor love, and I think that he’s entitled to his weird ways. But this bit of conversation, it sparked my curiosity. What on earth could he have got that I wasn’t allowed to look at? It was probably just a new drug or something, some illegal substance, perhaps smuggled in through wandering pirates from Six. Now, the sun sits steady, half way between the horizon and the center of the sky, and surely by now the shop will be open. I grab my stick, propped against the wall, and I take a glance around the studio. All polished wood and mirrors, I wish I’d had more time to dance in here.

I hobble out of the door, putting a sizable amount of my small weight on to the cane. I’ve weakened enough now that really, I should be using a frame, but I keep putting it off. Endless tomorrows ensue, until one day I realise that my poor body just cannot do it anymore. But now, I struggle on, awkward shaky steps down the hallway, into the elevator, and out onto the busy street below.

I’ve always loved the hustle and bustle of living in the city. Cars and trucks zoom down narrow alleys so quickly that if you take one wrong step into their path, you’d be roadkill. The fact I’ve still got enough control that I have not fallen victim to them yet gives me great pleasure, and with each vehicle that speeds past, leaving my hair breezing in their wake, I make a little note to death. “Not this time,” I say so that only He can hear me. “Not yet.”

My walk is over before I feel I’ve had time to enjoy it properly. It’s not far from our flat to the square, which is the only reason Dad gave me the job. That and he’s probably sick of me sulking around the house, worrying about my impending death. It’s a side effect of dying, sulking is.

As I push on the glass-paned door, a little bell tinkles and breaks the silence inside like it’s a thin sheet of ice. The contrast in here to out side is spectacular. Here, everything is still. The low-ceilinged room is cramped full of paintings, but still there’s this sense of grandeur, like it’s a regal Mayor’s house. And everything is still, so that even the scenes hung up on the wall depicting action have this feeling of serenity. I move around the room slowly, letting myself fold into each painting’s own world. I settle by one of a pond and a willow tree, sweeping her branches against the water’s face. I can feel myself there, hear the buzz of dragonflies and out of the corner of my eye, notice the dart of a Kingfisher. I’ve never been to a place like it before, somewhere were the nature rolls uninterrupted by the city, but as I extract myself from the painting, now I feel as if I have.

“Hi,” says a voice from behind me, coming from someone I didn’t notice as I entered the room. I turn on my heels, shuffling as carefully as I can. Standing at the counter is a boy, perhaps my age, perhaps older. He’s got one of those faces that, while unremarkable, seem to be able to look through people and into their hearts. Thoughtful eyes. He’s pretty attractive, really, with pristine skin and a sweep of dark hair.

“Hi,” I echo, tottering towards the counter, voice quiet. The place seems to ask politely for that hushed tone. “I’ve come to pick up, um, something for my d… for Night Larksworth.”

I let a shy smile slip. I’m not sure why I do it, really. It’s rare that I smile anymore. Like the pity, I don’t see any point in it. It’s not going to make me any better, not going to stop me from dying. But, as the shop seems to beg for calm speaking, he seems to ask for my smile, just by his one-worded greeting, and for some quite un-Helena-like reason, I am happy to oblige.

“Oh, nice to meet you! I’m Ryan Abendroth. Oh yeah, and I remember Night Larksworth. You must be Helena. I have the painting he wanted somewhere around here...”

So it was a painting. Prior to Ryan’s statement, I had my reservations, not convinced that my father would be buying a painting. He has no reason to, after all- I had presumed that, even if the parcel contained something other than drugs for me, it would have something to do with the inventions that my father toys with in his spare time. A warped piece of engine, or a specific sized spring, I could understand, but a painting? He has no reason for purchasing a painting.

My green eyes subconsciously follow Ryan as he goes to find this mystery of a portrait. I’m entranced by the way he moves- purposefully, but with grace. It’s a trait I haven’t seen much in boys before. Only as he is bent over, carefully searching through piles of canvas, does it strike me as strange that he knows my name. He’s got no reason to, after all- my name is not of importance. Perhaps Dad had mentioned me in passing when he’d been in here the first time. I don’t like the idea of that. For me, the less people who will be affected by my impending death, the better. I’ve seen people cry for acquaintances before- heck, I’ve done it myself- and I don’t want to be a cause of that. This planet has more than enough salt water already. I’m trying to tread lightly, to not leave a footprint that people do not feel compelled to fill.

He finds what he’s looking for, and peels off the paper that covers it, then pushes it towards me. I don’t even look at it to begin with. I’m watching his eyes searching my face, looking for my approval. I like this boy, his quiet smile, his want for validation. But his seemingly boundless optimism is misplaced. I learnt that a long time ago. There is no point in being optimistic. We are all dying, after all. And even if it doesn’t seem like your death will come with in the next week, month, year, you never know. Perhaps your time will come sooner that you expected.

My interest overcomes me, like a magnetic attraction, and my eyes fall down to the painting in front of me. What I see, it scares me, and I like to think of myself as someone who is fairly hard to scare. They say a picture tells a thousand words, but this is so much more. This is an essay, a lifetime of crushed dreams and broken promises. My face stares back at me, body clothed in the most exquisite black tutu, a girl imprisoned by an illness that is her nurse and her guard and her punisher, all at once.

I’m not sure what motivated my father to have this painted. Perhaps it was for his own good, a memoir of what his daughter could have been, should have been. Possibly it was for me, an aid to help me imagine what I could have grown to become. A cruel and unusual for of torture is that which had good intentions. Or was it for my grandmother, a fulfilment of the prophetic child who had shown such talent as a nine-year-old? The only one left who actually has reason to have a painting of me is my sister. Maybe it’s just a gift for her, so that she’ll be able to remember me as something other than the cripple that she has grown up with, grown apart from.

“I hope you like it! I never painted anything like it before, so for me, I was kind of scared to paint it, but in my opinion it came out pretty good. But that’s just my personal opinion – it’s yours that truly counts.”

Somewhere behind the shaking I feel in my stomach, a little part of me wants to laugh. I like his self-confidence. It’s something I’ve not experienced for a long time, now. But that flickering glow is enveloped by the odd despair that is pricking against my fingers, praying to be let out. I know I said that I don’t cry, and normally I don’t, but now I feel a little bead embellish my cheek. I didn’t even realize that I’d initiated the water works. I don’t want him to feel sorry for me, but right now I am much more focused on what I am thinking that what he is feeling.

“I- I’m sorry” I say, not daring to make eye contact with him. “It’s beautiful, it really is.”

I’m not lying, either- the technique used in the painting must be in itself something like dancing, precise brushstrokes, some delicate and some much more forceful, no room for mistakes. He has every detail included, and I can only imagine how long it would have taken to paint layer after layer of chiffon petticoats. There’s something else in there too, this look on portrait-me’s face of pure, ecstatic bliss. Without even knowing me, he’s got the emotion right. Somehow, he knows the feelings I would portray if I could dance just one last time.

“Thank you. Thank you so much, it… it means so much to me.”

Swallowing my mouth, chewing on my bottom lip, I wait for a reply. In some ways I don’t want to wait and hear what he is thinking, but I feel as if I owe it to him. Now, he knows the littlest part of my story, one tiny snapshot, and a part of me wants to give him the wider picture, the panorama view.