Here we meet one of the regulars, a lonely woman who has breakfast for three no less than twice a week. There was a time, before she abandoned her vanity, that she would rather have starved. Not so today. Today she eats with a different sort of abandon.
And the band plays…
My Funny Valentine
Your looks are laughable
Unphotographable
Yet, you’re my favorite work of artHeavy sigh. Can I say it like that? Heavy sigh. I suppose it is not a thing you are supposed to say out loud. Heavy sigh. It sounds strange, putting it into words, but it’s how I feel all the time. Heavy sigh. I think about how sad I am to miss the attention. Heavy sigh. I think about how glad I am to be left alone. Heavy sigh. I think about what I used to be. Heavy Sigh. I think about what I’ve become. Heavy sigh. And, of course, I think about...I mean...all the time now, I think about...and what they...and who I...and what’s left but...heavy sigh?
Well, at least I can eat.
I don’t really blame Dr. Skyler. I’m not even sure if I believe in them, honestly.
It was right over there. It sounds like I’m crazy, but it was right over there. Right. Over. There. It was hard to see, like it is now, but if we were to walk over there at this moment, we would only find that wall. It won’t change as we get closer. Believe me. I’ve tried. But once upon a time, in this place, that vague shadow dripping down the wall covered a hallway. Sort of. From here, it looked much the same as it does now, except maybe that shadow was a little darker. Or maybe my eyes were a little tired. Or maybe I just wanted it more. Maybe a lot of things. But when I walked over, when I dared to walk over, I discovered that the shadow on the wall was really an opening, a hallway leading to a back room.
The old lady had suggested I wander over there. The owner maybe? She certainly talked like she was the owner, though she never said the words. I’m certain of that. She didn’t say much at all, really. We’d been talking for at least an hour. Well...when I say we, I really mean I’d been talking for at least an hour. I was moaning about my latest breakup. Another in a long list of men that couldn’t see past my...you see, I’d always been...it was just so hard. At least, that was how I used to feel. That no one could see me for who I really was. That I would take a chance on someone. Someone that looked at me with need, with love in their eyes, hope. I would feel that need and let them fall for me. Take a chance on them. And we would...well...let’s just leave it at a kiss.
But I couldn’t find love. Infatuation, yes. Lust, certainly. But love? It was like they could never see past the...it sounds arrogant to say, but I really was beautiful. Stunning. People turned when I walked into a room. Stared. And it created this barrier. Like they were so stuck on...sorry. I’m doing the thing again. I don’t mean to treat you like...there’s a time and place for that, but I don’t suppose this is it.
I’m not exactly sure what you mean by catacombs. That wasn’t my experience at all. Not that...I mean, I get it. I can understand what you mean. Intellectually. But I’ve never witnessed it the way you, the way the others have talked about it. You all talk as if there is this maze of tunnels and caves thrumming beneath us, as if there is some secret lair that you go to if only you can get past the bodyguard. But where is it? Show me? I don’t see it, do you?
Where’s the bouncer?
I talked to the old lady, and she said I should visit her friend. Dr. Skyler. Dr. Mackenzie Skyler. An old friend who had been a little down on their luck. A genius who hadn’t been sufficiently recognized. A miracle worker she couldn’t bear to see waste away in a forgotten retirement. A friend she had made space for in the back. A strange place for a doctor’s office, certainly, but she had the space, and they needed a home, so why not? Why not go visit them? Why not see if they can help you? They have helped so many.
I wandered the hallway in and out of shadows until I came to their door. The name looked like it had been on the glass for decades. Not grimy exactly - the frosted glass was clean - but with an underlying level of grime that looked like it would never quite come off. As if it was cleaned once each year, and the cleaning never quite got everything, so that the foundation of muck got a little thicker each year.
I expected to find a haggard man, sad and weary, perhaps four times my age. Maybe with an ancient secretary that spent the day chain smoking. That was what the door made me feel. I could not have been more wrong.
I’m getting full. Finally. Want any of this? Sorry, is that weird?
Heavy sigh.
It’s funny. I used to eat so little because I was always worried about my figure. Worried about losing my...my superpower. The one thing I had that made me special. The thing I didn’t want but couldn’t dare to lose. I would dream of eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and stare at my full plate, wishing I could enjoy it, but also proud of my will power, so to speak. Back then, I would stop eating long before I was full. These days, I keep going long after. I haven’t quite found the...what’s the word...equilibrium, I guess?
Where was I?
Oh, right. Dr. Skyler.
It’s not that they were cute, exactly. Though, perhaps attractive is the right word for the wrong reasons. Or the right ones. I was certainly attracted to them. Had trouble looking away. Wanted to be in their presence. But I wouldn’t say they were conventionally attractive in the sense of handsome or cute or pretty. I just immediately found myself wanting to stay near them. Maybe part of that was how they didn’t seem to stare at me, didn’t seem to be affected by the way I looked. Their eyes didn’t dive deep into mine, nor did they shy away. It was like they were just talking to a normal person. Someone they neither liked nor disliked. That was pretty unusual for me. Then. Now that’s how everyone treats me. Well, maybe more on the dislike side.
They asked me why I had come, and I said I didn’t know.
They asked me what they could do for me, and I said I didn’t know.
They asked if I was lost, and I told them...I told them I was. That I was a lost soul. That I didn’t know who I was. That I had spent my life looking at myself through others’ eyes. That I couldn’t help surrounding myself with sad puppy dogs who thought they needed me but never really cared. That I had been subsumed by other people’s desires only to become so small and buried that the greatest of archeologists would not be able to bring me back out. That I was cursed with magic. That my curse brought men and women to my door in such great numbers that I no longer had any space for myself. To know who I was. Who I wanted to be. That I had learned to spend my life in service to others who cared only for winning my affection, for the prize of my beauty, and no care of what, if anything, lay behind.
And more.
Much, much more.
And I stared at them with expectation.
And I was disappointed.
It was not so much that they looked confused, though certainly a little, but that they seemed not to care. They suggested I had wandered into the wrong office. That I must have confused them with a therapist they knew with a similar name. They began to write directions on a monographed notepad, even as they wished me luck in my search.
I almost left. Almost gave up. In a heartbeat I had unburdened my soul to a complete stranger who could not have cared less. I looked up, sheepish, told them I was sorry. I apologized for coming to the wrong office. That the old woman had sent me and must have muddled the directions.
That changed everything.
They said, “Ah. Well. That is significant. Geraldine does not refer patients lightly. Hmm...I suppose I’m not so busy that I couldn’t...Let’s go back to my examination room and see what we can do.”
And I was well and truly lost.
In the examination room, we sat in the dark and talked. For hours. Talked for hours. It was part of the technique. They said it was important to talk about change before seeing it. To understand the potential for change, to understand what was underneath the skin before studying the surface.
Heavy sigh.
It was exactly what I needed. What I thought I needed. For someone to start to see me from the inside without so much as glancing at the outside. Not just see past my looks, but miss them altogether. It was not only refreshing, it was...there was a freedom it brought with it. You just can’t imagine what my...what life had been like before they...
Mostly, I talked about myself, about my life, about my boredom. But we talked about them too. Dr. Skyler. Mackie, their friends called them. Minutes felt like hours and hours felt like minutes. Time was meaningless in that place as we sat in the dark visiting each other’s souls. If I’ve ever fallen in love, really fallen in love, that was it. That was the moment. There. In the dark. No stares. No kisses. No gentle caressing of the hand. Just soul communing with soul.
Heavy sigh.
After they turned the lights on, the talking stopped. They stared at me with interest. Not the way so many had stared at me in the past. Not with lust or desire. This was a scientific study. As if they were a plastic surgeon preparing to change my face, which...I should be clear here...was not what I had come for. At least...it was not what I thought I had come for. I had come for...I think...maybe...I don’t really know. I hated that my looks kept people from really seeing me, but I don’t think I was ready to...you know...lose them. They were me. I wasn’t ready to lose me. I just wanted to help people see past what was on the surface. Sometimes.
After what felt like hours, Dr. Skyler said they could help me.
“People see what you want them to see. Your surface, your face, your body, they are refractions of your soul. Projections that start from within and settle into a new state on the surface. Your inner beauty has created an outward projection that is quite natural, but also distracting. I can help you with that. Draw your soul to the surface where we might gently change the refraction. You will look different to others, but not entirely different. You will still be you, but in a mild iteration.”
“Surgery?”
“Of a sort.”
We stared at each other in silence. Not a dreamy stare. Not a gaze. More of a study. An examination.
“We’ll begin tomorrow.”
And they showed me the door.
I went home and dreamed of them, of our connection, of their face, what I imagined to be their heart. I dreamed of being loved for who I was. Of joy. And when the time came for my first appointment, I came back.
And I came back. And I came back. And I came back. Appointment after appointment. I counted the hours and days between them. I thought of nothing but Mackie. The space between our meetings became nothing but waiting. Desire.
And the surgery...I mean, it wasn’t...what they did...what they...how can I...did I have a soul? Do I have one now? It happened so slowly. Each time I felt...well, I suppose...a little...different, perhaps. Not that they...
The change wasn’t noticeable. Not really. Not to me. What I noticed was...something else. Something closer to...well...love, I suppose. Each time I left their office it was with a lift to my heart. At home, I would dream of coming back. Of looking into their eyes for one more moment. Of falling into that abyss and drifting inside pure joy.
And they let me. Love them, I mean. They let me love them. I thought they loved me. I thought we were in love with each other. But this place...it’s not...they never loved me. They hungered for me. They ate of me until they were sated then dismissed me.
That’s what this place is.
Each time I came back, I fell in deeper. Each time the connection between us grew. Each time we grew closer until we were one person. Until we could no longer keep ourselves apart. Until their magnetism at last drew me into their arms. Until we kissed. Brought our bodies together. Felt our skin become one as we melted in...
We had been building love for weeks. It feels unfair to say that we did not make love until that afternoon. The love was made long before then. We consummated, yes. Brought our bodies together in sexual congress. To call it merely anything is to dismiss perhaps the greatest moment of my life.
Or the worst.
Yet.
It was merely a moment within our journey together. We had been climbing a mountain together, watching the view grow as we traversed a path ever higher, each step offering a wider vista long before we reached the top. But we did reach the top. We did, at last summit the peak. And where is there to go from there but down?
Heavy sigh.
The next time I came back, we shared physical intimacy again, but it was not the same. Good, but not the same. There was something missing. Maybe they were distracted. Maybe their heart just wasn’t in it. I had deceived myself into thinking we were in love, and that had carried me through, but looking back, I think it was as soon as that next day that our intimacy turned toward the clinical.
I thought I had been subjected to their so-called surgery for weeks, thought that our time together had been the actual work, but they had only been preparing me. They had been filling me up so that they might empty me out. Drawing my soul to the surface with the illusion of love. Now the time had come to drain it. Not all at once. I think that would have killed me altogether. They always left just enough to keep me coming back. Left some small amount of hope, enough memory of the illusion that I could dream of calling it back. But there was no calling back. They had drawn the disease as puss into a wound, draining it, day by day. There would be no putting it back.
Each time we met after that, I felt a little emptier, a little sadder, and, yes, a little more desperate.
The day came, of course. Of course, it did. This place...this....I mean...that’s what I was here for, right? That’s what you’re here for. But it’s not...
The day came when I reached out and they shuddered. When they hadn’t just lost interest. When they could no longer pretend to love me. When their work was done, and the mere sight of me filled them with disgust.
And I was cured.
I came out here, to this very table. I’m not a drinker, never have been, but I have, from time to time, allowed food to fill the emptiness I have felt inside. I ordered a small meal and stared at the shadow on the wall. The waiter paid me no mind. At first I...but it soon became clear. The stares were gone. The attention was gone. I was invisible at last.
Regret crept in. I felt as if I had lost everything. I had dreamed of people looking past my looks to see the real me inside. Never had I imagined they would cease to see me at all. To dismiss me. To look at me with disdain. In a panic, I rushed back to Dr. Skyler’s office, but it was no more than you see right now. A wall with a shadow. I knocked on the wall. Pounded on it. Screamed for Dr. Skyler until a waiter asked me to leave. I screamed at him. Told him to find the old lady but he had no idea what I was talking about.
I sat on the floor.
I cried.
And I picked myself up, came back to this very table, and ate my breakfast. The whole thing. And then I ordered another, which I nearly finished as well.
I’ve been back a few times a week ever since. I suppose I keep hoping for...that the old lady might...that second chances can...but I don’t suppose such things exist. Certainly not here. Though you can’t argue that the food is good.
Heavy sigh.