Points With Purpose - ObviousCat's Message

A Challenge?

Posted: 3/9/2010 - 0 comment(s) [ Comment ] - 0 trackback(s) [ Trackback ]

Hey PWP, how're you all tonight? I have a small request for someone if they're willing to help me out.

I need someone to help me edit my novel. I'm willing to release my first chapter bellow. My style is really odd so I'm not sure how many people would want to help. Also, the novel will later contain triggers as it is a novel to examine a situation most of us on PWP have been in. I don't want to burden anyone with that.

So, if you'd like have a read and please let me know if you think I should edit the other chapters and keep going, or if I should stop. Anyone who is willing to help me make this project better is welcomed, I really want to inspire change with this one.

Thank you all for your time,

OC~

[This hasn't been edited yet, please excuse any mistakes.]

Ch. 1

You see sir, I’ve always hated the phrase; “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Those words give too much credit to humanity. Seeing to believe? Imagine that concept. No one would believe anything unless they saw it. People should really say; “I’ll believe it when someone can show me the facts and evidence when it actually matters to me.” Leave a message after the beep.

People see every moment. Yet, no one can believe what they see. No one recognizes people for what they are or the experiences they wear on their skin like permanent ink and stains in a collective story explaining the reasons for existing or not. No one asks for a name today because no one has time to see even what is in front of them. Why bother with the formalities when there isn’t even any time to look at someone?

There is not-a-one, yet we all continue to see and catalogue in the simplest way. Fat guy, skinny chick, hot girl, ugly, sir, ma’am, lady, dude, bus driver, professor, mother, father, pedo, whore, dog, cat, hobo, dead, zombie. The list goes on, some names more interesting than others, some more intimidating.

I’ve got the honour of being one for you, good sir.

I’m just The Girl on the Bus.

(But, I’d feel so much more interesting if I were the zombie.)

But, I can only be what you see today, right? I’ll just stick with your suggestion, Sir.

I see you everyday but I have never spoken to you. You see me everyday but you‘ve never spoken to me. I haven’t said a word to anyone on this bus for that matter. Do I speak French? Maybe English? Maybe I’m mute? Oh, god I wish. It would make my day so much simpler. Who cares? Not you, my good sir.

It doesn’t matter to you how a seventeen year old ended up in the capital city of Eskimo-land, boarding The Five every day of the week at six in the morning sharp. It doesn’t matter why I don’t look at you in the face, or why I always stand instead of sit, even when my bag weighs nearly twenty pounds. Heaven forbid I have to sit beside someone.

You never wonder how I afford the brown bag clenched to my chest, or the hand-made canvases protected by to cheap sheets of cardboard I snatched from outside in the garbage pile. You can only guess I’m one of those crazy bohemian girls- minus dreadlocks and floral skirts. The ones who don‘t eat meat and dance naked in the rain unashamedly. There you go, seeing again! Quit it.

You don’t have to wonder. I must have a group at school, at the university. I am wearing their sweater after all. I must have a junction of crazy bohemian girls, a faction of vegan nature freaks I can turn to. Oh of course, we get together every Wednesday and braid our hair while we fly around on unicorns. Yes.

My people don’t get together. We are cowed by the pain, and we meet in severe anonymity. But we see each other; we see the cloudy eyes and down-cast faces. We see the scars and the clenched fists and flinching. A whole army of Bus Girls and Boys. We the stained bohemian Bus Girls and Boys. So why doesn’t anyone else?

It bothers you that I don’t wash my hands, like I’m some filthy street runner. But I do wash- I wash twice a day with scalding hot water until I turn cherry red. But, the smell never goes away.

I guess you’re right, Sir. I am dirty. Always.

But, don’t worry it’s only pure pigment from mixing tempera on my fingers. Egg yolks are good for your hands- your skin, but I can’t say the same for the pigment. If you could only get passed the stains, you’d realize how soft they are, Sir.

For a while, maybe you chalked it up to my wearing headphones? Maybe that’s why I’m silent. Oh no, don’t worry its not an attempt to ignore anyone (well, yes it is), its just my way of making myself look like that unapproachable Girl on the Bus you’ve got locked in your head. I wouldn’t want to ruin your image, Sir. I don’t have enough money to plug them into anything, so I make up the songs in my head. The head phones help keep out the unwanted questions- no one would want to bother with someone who shows as much interest in them as they do in me.

Build an unattractive fence. No one wants to climb it or dig under it when they think they know what will be waiting on the other side- like a bad lawn or angry pit-bull or something.

Beware of Dog.

You should know better. It’s only cat hair on my shirt. But, ‘Beware of Cat’ isn’t really a great security system for today’s modern Girl on the Bus. At least you gave me that much. I have to keep that air of unimportant mystery for you and for me. The type where you can tell just by looking at me that there isn’t anything interesting to see here.

No one will know I have a story. And if no one else knows, then I won’t have to tell it. I won’t have to feel that shame. I won’t have to see another back to my eyes or hear another harsh word to my ear.

It’s been a year and I still can’t talk about it. It’s only been a year and I’m right back at it. I let them do it before, why not again? It’s not like anyone will notice. It’s for a good cause, who cares if it hurts me if it can help someone else who can break her label. I’ll let him hurt me, just like the rest. It’s ruined for me anyways.

I’ll spare you the details with my cryptic words for now. Take it as my corny bohemian poetic nature and not anything important. You didn’t bother seeing before any way. I have to keep being disposable. I don’t want anyone caring when I stop showing up.

If I died tomorrow, no one would notice I was gone. Just like a shadow, no one ever saw me in the first place. And they would bury my empty coffin, never thinking to look at the girl who was never there. So in the end, I have to wonder if I ever was. Am I just an afterthought? Here to give a little shading to the surroundings? Or was I just never finished? I’m incomplete, an unfinished product. I am all sorts of broken pieces and insecurities and half finished characteristics hastily thrown together. I’m in the bargain bin; the finished product will be shipped next Tuesday. I don’t make sense at all.

I wish that I could say that one day I’d walk away from this story. It is my greatest wish to drop every detail into a black trash bag and throw it away into the wastelands of suburban bliss. But, this isn’t an option for me, or for anyone who must look at the back of their aggressor’s heads in passive rage. Living today is like walking around without ankles; it wouldn’t matter if the ground was there or not. There is no support.

Everyone has secrets that they long to hide, they forever keep them locked away, hoping that no one will unearth them. Burying them in the backyard, keeping them hidden by flowers and meaningless conversation and barbecues. I am the secret and I’m struggling to get free. I want you to know me. I want to get rid of the girl that pretends she’s me, smiling and sweet, kind and gentle. The one you forget while she’s still in the same room as you, on the same goddamned bus every morning.

I wish you’d make an effort. I’m so tired of playing ‘hard to get’. I’ve tried to call out for too long. No one listens today; they only believe what they see. Well, they all see me, why don’t they look?

I’ve gotten good at crawling and dragging myself through the days though most people wouldn’t see it upon first glance. No one studies long enough to notice how limp I become or how cloudy and colourless my eyes have faded to from that precious blue Mum loved so much. It is not something one learns from a book, it comes with actually watching- what could be worse?

I am happy, quirky, thoughtful, and helpful. I am sad, lonely, depressing, and suicidal. I am two halves of one whole. But I am not complete. What you see, what you think you see, is not what is in front of you. You see what I want you to see, what you want to see. And that girl is not me. I hate her. And I know that she hates me, in the same way you would hate me, if you only knew.

In the end, what is more real? The me that everyone sees all day, or the me that only I know? If seeing is believing and I only appear when the lights are out or the doors are all closed, why doesn‘t anyone bother banging on the door? Go on, get a crowbar or something!

Please turn on the light.

I’m tired of playing that someone will come and save me from myself. I wish you’d get the nerve to ask me why I never smile, to investigate me. I’ve always had this dream, of someone being as kind as to inquire. They’d take me away from that routine Five Bus ride, to somewhere quiet and ask me if I was okay. Ask me over coffee, yes, that is how it would happen.

“I see you every day and you never smile. Are you okay?” You would ask.

I’d shake my head. No words yet. I’d stare into the coffee. It feels hot on my fingers, fighting the temperature of the mug. It reminds me that I want to shower again.

Now I‘m interesting. “How come?” Then it would happen. Then you’d say “It’s okay, I’m right here. You can tell me.”

But, you won’t.

I don’t want anyone to see unless they are willing to look. Only then will it be worth to risk seeing a face while fearing to see someone’s back again. In that case, believe what you will. I’ll always be that girl for you, Sir. Kind and forgettable. You don’t have to listen, no you don’t. I know that you won’t. I’m just The Girl on the Bus. You know everything there is to know about The Girl on the Bus.

But you know nothing about these: The Survivor, The Raped, The Abused, The Beaten, The Suicidal, The Victim, The Sterile, The Sick, The Silent. Therefore, my good Sir, you know nothing about me.

And that thought makes me cry, just a little, but I hide it well. It’s wrong of me to think that just because you see me every day that you have a responsibility to dig at me, to find the better part of me.

I shouldn’t think that of anyone.

So I’ll reserve myself until my time comes. The day is near. I was stupid to think you could see, Sir. Don’t blame yourself, you’ll just continue to know nothing about me and it should probably stay that way. What was I thinking? I don’t even like coffee.

“Hey? You okay, huh?”

What?

“You don’t look like a coffee person.”

Good eye, Sniper.

But you stand by your words: “Do you want to get a tea?”

I’m breaking the rules of being The Girl on the Bus.

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