Beyond Subreality: Two Worlds

by Fancycatz

When asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, her eyes would saucer and she would crow, "A writer!"

There was no reason why. She barely knew her alphabet, let alone understood what writing was. But when she had first been asked, others had already picked doctor, astronaut, fireman, and policeman. There wasn't much else left. So in a moment that was part panic, part inspiration, and part unconscious desire she had said, "A writer!"

But soon, the word, the desire meant something to her. And she truly wanted to be a writer. Every year in grade school they would write stories and then painstakingly bind the hand written pages with wallpaper covered cardboard covers. She painstakingly lettered the words on the lined paper, wishing her handwriting did justice to the words. She loved her stories. She loved her books, with the pretty patterned covers. She took more time than any of the others picking from the scraps of wall paper donated from the sample books at the local wallpaper store. No other subject mattered except making the books. Writing the book, decorating the book, binding the book. Her mother has kept those books, all these years. When she takes them out, she gently cradles them in her hands and she weeps, she loves them so, even now. And she weeps because they were the pinnacle of her writing career.

Her stories were wildly imaginative for a child--spies, and three legged cats, and maniacal madmen. And long. Always long. So much more the surprising coming from such a shy and quiet child. In second grade she used the "it was all a dream device" to end a story involving death and spies and booby trapped mazes. In fourth grade her family and teachers were captivated by a story she wrote in which she used the line, "...bones. Human bones." They found the gruesome detail and dramatic pause hilariously funny coming from a ten year old. In fifth grade, one of her pretty bound stories won an award. She wore her very best dress and her pretty black patent leather shoes when she went up on the stage to take her certificate. The award ceremony was at night, at the high school. The parents came. It was an important event. She was so proud that she had written a story that had won an award. Her parents showed it to everyone and told them she was going to be an author.

When she was thirteen she taught herself to type. Her mother gave her an old electric typewriter. The report of the metal keys sharply striking the crisp white paper was comforting. Writing was catharsis for a long, bitter day full of hurts, slights, and insults. The sharp CRACK that was the result of her fingers pounding on the keys felt as if she had actually struck something. The DING at the end of each line and then the shuddering whir and THUNK as the carriage snapped back to the beginning of the next line so forcefully that it carried the typewriter with it were a soothing music. Line by line the typewriter would slowly slide left and after ten lines or so she would have to stop and recenter the typewriter under her fingers. She didn't mind.

By the time she reached high school her career aspirations had changed. She wanted to be a lawyer. But still she wrote. Writing was her heart, her soul, her dreams. She wanted to be a lawyer because being a writer sounded childish. And no one thought she could make any money at it. Growing up poor made one fear poverty. Lawyers were rich. And she was bright and tenacious and argumentative. And oh so practical. But at night, she was beautiful and mysterious and brave and romantic.

She wrote novels. She wrote trilogies. She wrote poetry. She wrote a television series. She created and destroyed worlds. She wrote about the dawn of man and the ancients who came before. She wrote about the old west. She wrote love stories where the men were brave and strong and noble and the women were beautiful and strong willed. She wrote spy stories. She wrote about the future. She flew and danced and sang and a hundred other things not possible during the day. Instead of counting sheep, she drifted to sleep writing in her head episodes of her favorite television shows or rewriting the endings to movies.

Mountains of paper changed the topography of her room. She wrote her stories and then set them adrift on the wind. Some days it wasn't enough that the worlds existed for her alone. They were beautiful worlds, bright and gay, bold and daring. But lonely. Oh so lonely. It was a long time before she let anyone see them. It did more for her that they should think her cold, unfeeling, hard. What good to let them know there lurked heat and passion and imagination underneath? That was only proof that she had hopes and dreams and fears just like everyone else. It would show she was vulnerable. Some small part of her longed to be an author still and that secret hope made her let other people read her stories. Her friends liked the stories but were puzzled. The flowing words, the creative descriptions, the strange worlds so bright and gay, bold and daring weren't like her at all. They weren't analytical, serious, practical. People didn't understand. But they liked her knack for words.

People had thought her cold and hard but in college she realized she wasn't cold enough or hard enough to deal with the realities of the world. Lawyering gave way to advocating for the poor. She used her analyticalness, her seriousness, her practicality to help families in need. She held them when they cried, scolded them when they stumbled, listened while they told her of the horrors of day to day living that she in all her cold and hard sens ibilities had never imagined could exit. And every night she cried for them. Her worlds grew brighter and gayer, bolder and more daring to combat the bleakness surrounding her. The more reality pressed her during the day, the more fanciful her nights. She was a cat, a bird, a woman with a fluffy, white tail. She was a warrior maiden, she fought fantastic beings, she went to a madcap court, she lived in a strange house that was bigger inside than out. And she wasn't alone. In that world she found warrior angels and fallen angels and rugby players and talking lizards and cross-dressing midgets and rainbow colored people. She was silly, she was playful, she was childish, she was brave. She was all the things she was not. That world was brighter and gayer, bolder and more daring than anything she could have imagined. And it shut out the bleakness.

Some days she would sit and think back to her former dreams. And about her pretty wall paper covered books. And the award she had won. She thought about crawling inside her dreams and never coming out. What harm to lock herself away in a room and live forever in her bright and gay, bold and daring worlds? To live free and light and happy. To shut out the pain and suffering and bleakness. To blot out the tears and bruises and thin pinched faces. To dance, to spin, to sing, to gambol through magenta fields under turquoise skies. And to not cry anymore tears.

She wasn't built to live in the world, this outer world of harsh and cold realities. It hurt, it stung, it haunted, it wore down. For all her analyticalness, her seriousness, and her practicality she was thin and soft and frail. What harm to hide away, oh so far away, oh so safe away, in her inner world? Who would notice? Who would care? Perhaps even, if her stories were sent out, not on the wind, but on paper, someone, somewhere, would read her stories and be happy, just for a little bit. Perhaps in some small way she could add a little bit of joy to a hard and cold reality.

But always selflessness won out over selfishness and she would withdraw from the bright and gay, bold and daring world, saving it safe for another day, another night. The tears and bruises and thin pinched faces called her back every day. Who else would hold them and scold them and listen to them? And take their pain home every night and soak it into a pillow? Egotism supreme! Who else indeed? A world full of people all brighter, more serious, more practical than she. And stronger and harder. Stronger and harder indeed. But what was stronger and harder to tears and bruises and fears?

She wrote her stories, oceans of words poured into a box of light and sent them out on the wind. And every once in a while the wind would tell her she had done a fine job, that she had added a little bit of joy in a cold and hard reality. Her worlds weren't lonely anymore. Other people shared them. And most importantly, the wind and the bright and gay, bold and daring world kept her secret. The secret the cold and harsh reality didn´t understand. The secret truth that a person as analytical, serious, and practical as she couldn't hold and scold and listen and empathize and do all the things she did every day that brought the tears at night without being soft and then and frail underneath. The bright and bold world with its vast array of miracles and dreams knew. And every night the world renewed her. And every flight on feathered wings, talking slipper sighting, and madcap romp through a pocket dimension was a gift that was passed on the next day when she was able to hold, to scold, and to listen to those people that were both the reason she did and did not write.

Every night she pounded on her computer keys, not nearly so satisfying as the DINGing typewriter, but eminently more practical, until her fingers were numb. Her husband didn't understand those bright and gay, bold and daring worlds she wrote. He thought them silly. But he liked her knack for words.

"You should be a writer," he would often say. "A real writer."

And softly, tightly, impatiently she would say, "I _am_ a writer."

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