My Entry

Larry worked very hard to be invisible. To blend into the scenery at work, to lead an uneventful life which would hopefully lead to an uneventful death.  Today he'd clothed himself in tan khakis, dun colored shirts, cheap shoes with quiet soles, and a countenance worthy of a thoughtful gargoyle.  If you thought about that last item, you'd realize that Larry was not considered good looking.



"Wizened Asian Tortoise", was a comment in one of his salary reviews, in the section headed "Use two words that describe the employee'."  They'd used three, but that fact was overlooked.  As was Larry.



One day, Larry stood in the crowd waiting for the train home.  A very thin woman with dark shadows under her large eyes, framed in large, round lenses, stood next to him.  Larry, feeling the intrusive weight of another human being, discretely side stepped, but suddenly she threw her head back and sneezed so loudly that it made him, and others around them jump.  Only Larry, who stooped to pick up her eye glasses, was near to her now. She slipped a little and caught herself by grabbing his sleeve.



"Oh dank you so berry much!" He felt the warmth of her breath on his cheek. She was the arty type; black page boy hair, long knitted scarf unwrapping around a real wool coat.



Larry was dazzled. 



She took her glasses from his outstretched hand.  They stood together, looking for the train, trying hard not to look at each other. 



The woman's name was Cynthia, and she was indeed the arty type, as she was an art teacher, a brand new one.  Cynthia, always too thin and too plain, tried the opposite tactic for invisibility, by becoming a "weirdo".  It had worked. She was alone in life.



The two invisible people rode the train together, standing a few rows apart, her stealing glances at him as she wiped her nose with a tissue, Larry looking pointedly at his book, which he bought to read on the way home and had managed to get to "Chapter Two: The Bloodening".  He watched her in his peripheral vision, and saw to his astonishment she was looking at him.  Her obvious interest in him had him reeling.  He could feel it even now, an invisible caress placed on his cheek and neck where her breath had touched him. .



The train stopped and she got off, but not without first beaming him a smile, and despite her aching throat, flapped a soggy mitten and shouted out, "Tanks again" because she knew he had been watching her, too.



It did not occur to him to get out as well, or to even make note of what stop she had gotten off at.  Larry was stunned.  His High School year book, if he had gotten one, would have been filled with photos and fonts and nothing cursive in ink.  Her smile had been the most explosive event of his adult life.  True, he was only 25, and had just recently began the rest of his life, which up until now had all the drama of a slug on pain killers.  Except for his attachment to Gothic horror novels, he life was as colorful as his pants.



Back in his studio apartment, a roomy place for the rent overlooking a parking garage, Larry showered, dressed for bed, found the Lovecraft he'd read several times before and read it in bed until the intrusion of the memory of the Artsy Girl, as he called her, had made reading a single paragraph impossible.  The light was turned off, and Larry dreamed of "that which eternal lie", unaware of the virus which was spreading like gangs of rampaging shoggoths throughout his body.



A week later, and Larry was again waiting for the train after his first day back at work, a day that had lasted for eons or seemed to.  By this time he had forgotten the thin artsy woman, a virus filled pustule who'd burst and spread disease and laid waste to what precious vacation time he had left.  He still felt ill, but he was no longer contagious, according to his new boss.



His watery eyes darted around the platform,  He hadn't seen the woman that miserable first morning back to work, but hadn't expected to. Now he was keen.  He anticipated a confrontation. He could hardly keep track of his surroundings, he was so keyed up.



She had done it to him.  The Artsy stick insect, with no regard for humanity.  Who knew how many innocents she'd sent home to a sick bed, riddled with soggy tissues and crossword puzzle books.  And now it was up to him to teach her the error of her ways.



Without warning, there she was.  In an ancient olive colored anorak, black leggings and heavy soled army surplus boots.  She saw him.  Her face lit up, too bright for a train station.  As she walked up to him, his resolve melted away.   



What happened next was a fit of sneezing so violent that he lost his balance.  Cynthia had great reflexes for a weird art teacher and was quickly at his side, shoring him up.



"Gesundheit!" she said. He felt her arm link through his.



"I did this to you, didn't I? I am so sorry!"



He felt the warmth again, not from the fever, but from something he'd rejected before he had even known it, but now felt through the fabric of a olive drab anorak wrapped around the only woman who'd ever taken any notice of him, who'd broken through his cloak of invisibility with the weapon that had conquered a martian invasion: a simple virus.



"No broblemo," he replied.