The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

(Meta)Bonus Challenge!!!

The Challenge:
Everyone has known or currently knows three people who have either negatively or positively impacted their lives. For whatever reason, these people have left an indelible impression on us, invisible fingerprints which have served to shape us into what we are today. This challenge is about retribution, if you will, and how you would affect their lives if you had the ability to control their respective fates. You will assume control of one's life in the past, one's life in the present and one's life in the future. You can impact their lives in any way you want, exacting revenge or enhancing their lives in a way which would make them believe in fairytales. You are, essentially, the ruler of their universe, and either you will make them happy that they knew you, or make them wish they'd never made your acquaintance. There are no limits to what you can do. It's your turn to take control.

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Mean Girl, I'm going to call you Maria. You, with your shimmering blonde curls and round, freckled face, were the one who first introduced me to unmitigated cruelty. There was a hardness to you, something different than juvenile haplessness, a very clean kind of meanness that you could deliver with a smile. When I think of you, I remember grey mornings and lonely walks around the schoolyard, because you'd engineered my ostracism and made me the target of jokes. They'd all joined in, defenseless to your carefully crafted charm, and it felt like years to me, those cold hours spent in isolation. Eventually, I was forgiven for whatever imaginary discretion I'd committed, and once again you were my best friend, my greatest confidante, until you weren't. I can't chalk it up to adolescence and insecurity. I think that sort of heartless indifference was part of you, the thing you needed to take care of business.

It's really too bad things went the way they did.

Like when you were fifteen, and that boy you were eyeing asked you to be his girl, only to get you pregnant and leave you behind while he went off to pursue his future. You thought he'd loved you, because he said he did, but this is how you learn that words can hurt, especially when they're said without meaning. You had the baby, and you loved her so, gave her some kind of ridiculous name like Luba or Madonna, and she took the focus off the fact that you'd had to let school go because you weren't one of them, anymore. There were a lot of lonely nights after that, boyless night, nights of wondering what good sex actually felt like, but no one would come near you then, none of them wanted to be the substitute daddy, the knight on the white horse. Your family were there, but you always felt the heavy weight of their disapproval on you whenever they looked in your direction. You became the 'if only she had been more careful' daughter, the one who 'could have been something if only...' girl. And, as the years wore on, you struggled with wanting more for yourself, knowing it would have to wait, that because of a thoughtless moment when you were young, you would have to learn to accept that your time had passed. You missed the giggly nights with the girls, the swift, clumsy kisses of nervous boys on the doorstep. Your life was about working at a job you hate, because you're were trying to pay for someone else's future. You don't have many friends, most of the girls you knew have gone on to explore and learn, and there wasn't much in common between you all, anymore. There have been relationships with men, but none of them wanted to raise another man's child, none of them could tolerate your sour disposition, and you're still living with your parents, who still see you as the one who should have accomplished more.

Now, your girl Luba or Madonna is twenty-three, and she hates her name, often telling you how much she hates it, how stupid you were to hang that on her. She's done school now, got her B.A in English, but doesn't know what to do with it, and is probably going to go backpacking across Europe. You've never been, you tell her, and she tells you that you should go one day, that she's going to go with her girlfriends and that they're going to go everywhere, try everything at least once. You're not worried about her, she's always been the kind of kid who knows how to handle herself, but you are beginning to understand that you don't have much of a role in her life, anymore. She's not your best friend, like you'd hoped she'd be. You're just mom. But, there is a man in your life, though he isn't much to look at, and you tell yourself you're together because of wonderful he is, but inwardly you know that you're with him because he's there and no one else wanted to be. You hate when he touches you, but pretend you love him because he is the only thing that keeps you connected with the world outside. You'll probably marry him, knowing that time is running out and you've never liked being alone. You wonder about passion every now and then, whether or not it is really all it's touted to be, before telling yourself it doesn't matter. It's hard to miss something you've never known.

Lately, when you look in the mirror, you can't help but notice how old you're looking. You're angry about it, really, and find yourself envious of your daughter who seems so alive, so energetic and hopeful. You have very few people to confide in and the discontent that burbles under the surface is beginning to crack the skin and steal the sun the from your hair. You are incomplete, you think, your life full of imaginary holes, and you wonder what you ever did to deserve this emptiness inside. This strange feeling of dejection and insecurity, which seems to be a part of you are now, was unwanted. Unsolicited. Maria, you curse the fates for pointing their fingers at you and taking away all the good, stealing every bit of your self-confidence and leaving you lost in the cold. It's strange, but for a Mean Girl, you sure do cry a lot about how badly people treat you.

I'm sure that the irony will forever be lost on you.

~*~

Sneaky Boy, I'm going to call you Joe. You with the chocolate in your hair, the pale Celtic skin, the picture of doe-eyed innocence. You pretended not to know what you were doing, tried to put the onus on me, but I know you knew. I know you were wondering about what it might be like, how my skin might taste, what my hair might smell like, but you never had to courage to ask. No, Joe, you kept your distance because it was safer that way, but you thought about it a lot, even after she figured what you were thinking, and you told her it was me who was pushing for action. You were sly and sloppy, Joe, showing up when I had written you off, writing me when I'd thought I had heard the last of you, all under the guise of friendship and well-intentioned concern, ready to discredit me if anyone should learn that things weren't done, that you and I were still connected. But, I copped on, Joe, though it wasn't hard to do. I knew you were green and artless, and for a time, it was amusing to watch you twist and twirl as you did. I sensed that you were becoming more desperate, more curious, and I suppose I might have encouraged it for a time. Then, as was bound to happen, I got to thinking: it wasn't fair to her, and it wasn't even fair to you. You had no idea what you were up against, and I tired of feeling dirty, so things went quiet, and that's the way it has stayed until now.

Today, my sneaky one, you will open up all the old letters, and you will read them in a room with the door closed. In them, you will see the attraction, but you will also see the kindness, and your own responses, which are attached, will reveal themselves to you. Those were written in fear, you decide, written at a time when you didn't know what you wanted. Maybe it's okay that there was an attraction; we were both young, we were both worried. Isn't everyone allowed to have a yearning that never burns away? Isn't it one of the more delicious injustices in life? Can't we both be a pleasant memory in one another's mind, you wonder? You decide to keep those memories as your own delightful secret. You will rewrite those days, make them about longing rather than blame. You were young, you were bound to wonder about it and it was no one's fault. It was an attraction that never caused any significant damage.

You open the door to the room where you keep the letters, after safely tucking them back into that space she never looks, and you walk out into the hallway of the home you just moved into. It is modest, but it is yours, and the sound of your baby boy thumping around in the kitchen on all fours is one of the nicest sounds you've ever heard. You let her decide the colours on the walls, but that's okay, you owe her at least that. You can live with the light purple, even if it was one of the last colours you'd have picked; you prefer green, it always looked good on you, but as you have already acknowledged, you owe it to her. You move into the kitchen, where she's stirring the contents of the pot, the aroma greeting you as you enter, and you know right away that you're not going to like it, this strange Spanish concoction that she most probably learned from her mother. Still, you know she loves you, probably more than she did before, and she's not such a mystery, this one. She lives to make you smile and most of the time, she's successful. On those wide-eyed nights in bed as she lays beside you, snoring softly, when you're given to wondering about what might have happened if...you always fall asleep knowing that the right one is in the bed with you, that she was always the one you were supposed to kiss, even if you sometimes let your mind wander.

Today, as you stand behind her in the kitchen, your arms wrapped around her waist, your lips pressed against her neck, you tell yourself that you were lucky back then. It could have turned out differently; this world might have died. The baby pulls at your pant leg and you look down at him and smile, knowing that things are pretty good, despite the occasional wistful daydream. You are allowed to have your youthful fantasies, you think. They can't hurt anyone now. They're yours and you won't give them up. You understand the difference between what's harmful and what isn't. You've learned that much.

You're a different kind of man now, Joe. I will stop calling you Sneaky Boy.

~*~


Sad Sack girl, I'm going to call you Sally. We've been friends for a while, and I've always thought you were much better than the life you choose to live. Such a whiner, you are, but I can't help but like you, because even when you are the height of your woefulness, I can't help but appreciate the style you use to express it. You're funny, but unintentionally so, and this is what I find the most likeable about you. No. Scratch that. I like the way you say the things you want to say. Your voice is one of the only ones I want to hear, most days, and when you aren't around, I notice it. It doesn't affect me much, because I've got my life right here and it's enough to keep me busy, but I always look forward to hearing you, and I am always hoping you are closer to happiness.

Tomorrow, Sally, you're going to wake up to small changes. You will find yourself full of art and flowers, ready to erase all the things that no longer make sense. Gone will be the people who never live up to the simplest of expectations, gone will be the job that you have to drag yourself to even when you're better off home in bed. Gone will be the sadness, former Sad Sack girl, because Mustang Sally is going to ride.

Sally, you're going to meet someone new. He is going to make you wonder how you ever breathed without him near. He will tell you that he wants to fill you with babies and put a ring on your finger and all at once you're going to believe in love; it'll become your new religion. You will never doubt him, you'll know that his soul tangles easy with yours, and it'll be sure, Sally. He's not going anywhere. The two of you will take long walks in rainstorms and will try to capture those moments forever in photos or words, just so you'll have something to keep on the walls around you forever. You'll want the babies, and you'll have them someday soon, but for a while you're just happy to be living and breathing this strange thing called contentment. You used to think it was something that had to be bought. Soon you'll know better.

Sally, you're going to forget what the pain was like, the way it seeped out of you, the way it ruled your planets. It's not going away completely, though. We all have it, it doesn't die, but you're going to find a way to make it a lesser player, you're going to take away its billing. You are going to be surrounded by colour, some of it yours and some of it just because it's there, and you will find a way to make a life of it. You are going to understand that life is about happiness just as much as it about woe, and that you will be able to more easily recall the good than you ever will the bad.

He'll always like the way you smile, and he'll insist on it everyday, which won't be much of a feat for you, anymore. Part of you will feel strange in this new world, but you'll never want to leave it. This kind of strange is better than feeling familiar in grey. You're going to travel, Sally, to places with unsung landmarks and undiscovered beauty, until you find them and share them with those who care. Your worries will be the same as anyone else's, except they won't own you, anymore. This life is yours, you'll finally discover and you're never going to give it away again.

Oh, the music. Oh, the sex. Oh, the laughter.

Ride, Sally, ride. You'll be wiping away those weeping eyes.