a bit of something, a bit of nothing

The remnants of her French onion soup began to dry and harden against the small ceramic bowl. The bus boy had walked past three or four times and had yet to stop by her table to clear the remains of the lunch. He had stopped at the table on her left, the table on her right, and at this point Sophie wondered if she existed.

Her existence wasn’t nullified simply by the bus boy’s neglect, but by a series of event that had taken place over the course of the day. Her request for napkins went unheard. Her plea for a pack of cigarettes to the gas station attendant fell on deaf ears. Sophie realized that she was maybe one of the walking dead. All of her senses were intact, as she could well attest with the din of the Sunday afternoon restaurant crowd, the smell of freshly-baked bread filling her nose, the taste of the salty soup still burning her tongue, the horrific décor making her eyes ache and the puckered texture of the Styrofoam in her hand.

But did anyone else see her? Maybe they saw her but were so horrified by what they saw, it easier to ignore her.

The bus boy passed her by again. She sneered in his direction as he walked away.

Sophie was average looking, nothing that you’d pin up on the wall of a freshman dorm room but certainly not ugly. But what horrified passersby was not the width of her hips or how that black shirt looked on her – it was the expression of complete misery on her face. Maybe it was a look that was too easily recognizable by the white, upper-middle class suburbanites – they had seen it once or twice when looking in the mirror but then dismissed it as a passing phase. Sophie was a mirror for them – a mirror of everything they feared they might become, what they might feel if they allowed themselves to do so.
I wanted to approach Sophie, to tell her that she wasn’t invisible – that I saw her. But she wouldn’t have believed me, she didn’t want to hear anything I would tell her.

I could see that she was startled by the sound of a baby – she looked immediately to her right and was equally startled when she didn’t see a baby anywhere in sight. She began to wonder if she had lost her mind, in addition to her existence. I began to wonder myself.

“You’re doing alright,” I whispered as I made my way to the soda machine. “I didn’t see the baby, either. But I heard it too.”

She acted as though I wasn’t there, either. But I knew she heard me and she was thinking over what I said. As I walked back to my seat I heard her say something under hear breath, something that sounded like “the baby’s not real, neither are you.”
“Damn,” I thought to myself. “She’s right.”

I don’t know how long I’ve been hiding inside here. I don’t hide all the time, you know, I show up for special events – birthdays, weddings, times where she needs a little extra … support. I tell her she looks beautiful, I tell her she’s saying all the right things. I can feel her smile light up her face when she listens. But today she’s not listening and I need to get through to her. She doesn’t think I care, but I do. Without her, I’m nothing.

“Sophie, you need to stand up and get some more Dr. Pepper. You are thirsty and that way you will see that you are still here. You are not going through the motions. You are living, you are breathing.”

She refused to lift her eyes from her laptop – trying to look like a good citizen, reading the news, shaking her head at the atrocities in front of her. Her mouth was parched from the bread crust she was knowing on, but she refused to stand. Was her stubbornness out of principal? Didn’t she realize that she was thirsty, whether or not I was the one to point it out?

Every table around her was cleared off now, shining wet with the scent of bleach drifting toward her. She was staring at her cell phone, wishing it would ring. It didn’t matter who would be on the other end, just that it would ring, that someone would need her, want her, validate her and acknowledge her.

There was a little kid with his dad. The kid was clearly bored and trying to entertain himself as his dad busied himself with what appeared to be incredibly boring business paperwork. The little kid – the back of his shirt read “Dylan” – had a brown grocery bag filled with action figures that were falling on the floor, and Sophie wanted to go play with him. She wanted to sit on the floor and play cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, super hero and super villain. I could feel that she wanted to cry and I told her to toughen up, that crying in a bread shop is unacceptable behavior.

No phone calls yet.

“Maybe you should call someone,” I tell her, knowing it is said in vain.

“I don’t feel like talking, I don’t know if I’d even answer if anyone called,” she said, quietly. She glanced up, noticing that a woman with her two children were trying not to stare at her. The woman tried to act natural as she whispered to her children to move to a different part of the restaurant. Sophie cleared her own tray and at 2:30, nearly two hours of not speaking, not looking at anyone, she left without barely making a sound.

Sophie woke up in a darkened room. Her eyes strained to adjust and she could barely make out the time on her watch. It was 10:37. She had lost eight hours and she didn’t know where she was. A voice came from a hallway, a voice that she recognized but couldn’t place. The owner of that voice came into the room and sat down next to her.

“Wakey wakey, Anna.”

“What?” Sophie yawned and rubbed her eyes. “What did you call me?”

“Uh, I called you by your name, Anna. Don’t you need to get to work? I’m surprised the hospital hasn’t paged you yet.”
Sophie said nothing. The man stood up and she could smell a pot of coffee brewing.

“Sophie, you need to leave there,” I told her. “He thinks you are still her, and you need to get out before he tries to drive you to the hospital. Get on your clothes and get out.”

Sophie looked down at the floor and saw a set of scrubs.

“He thinks you are a nurse, get it? Pull yourself together and get out of there, Sophie. You know what is going on, don’t play stupid.”

She quickly picked up her clothing and carefully put on the uniform as though it was made of glass.

The man returned. “Dressed so soon? Well here’s some coffee for your night shift. Want a ride to work?”

Sophie’s eyes darted up to his. “No. No, I think I’ll walk. But, um, thanks for the coffee.” As she walked out of the room the man grabbed her by the arm and kissed her hard on the lips. She could vaguely remember this happening before, but she was certain it had been a very vivid dream.

“See you in the morning, Anna. I love you,” he said.

Sophie looked back at him. “Yeah, me too,” she said to the stranger.