#102 liminal girl

[stories-by-rie]

102 Liminal Girl

trigger warning: This short story talks very explicitly about depression. Please take care! There’s also a ghost aka dead person.

It’s the broken whispers, Leonie thought as the tip of the girl’s pastel green marker broke. They weren’t audible, of course, not for all the people around them. But she could hear them. It was a matter of knowing, she figured as she watched the girl slump a little more, shoving the destroyed marker off her papers and looking back at her laptop screen as if nothing had happened. 

The giggle that echoed faintly. She wasn’t actually even sure if the girl noticed; if she did then she at least pretended well not to. 

The chatter, too quiet to understand, that just stopped in the middle when library staff walked past them and shot them a glance. 

The smug lines of their mouths, that clearly tried very hard not to look like a smile, but so very clearly showed their arrogance. 

Blinding light dipped everything into white for a split second, only to be followed by shaking thunder. The rain still clashed against the window front of the library where the tables stood in long rows, only a few students splattered around the room so early in the semester.

Hesitantly, Leonie walked out of the niche she was staying at, and moved along the rows of tables until she reached the one where the girl was working at. When she took the seat opposite of her, she didn’t notice. No one ever did. 

All she could do was keep quiet, really, and watch the other girl work in peace. Even if there was a hollow look in her. Maybe she really didn’t notice the reactions of the girls a few rows ahead, maybe she thought no one was looking at her, that no one saw her. 

Just then the girl sighed and the pen in her hand stopped, as did the finger that kept scrolling down the paper she was reading digitally. It was a little as if she was frozen, stuck somewhere. It wasn’t the first time Leonie saw the look on her face. A little as if her soul left, or maybe was locked inside somewhere. 

Perhaps, that was the reason for it all, the reason why she found herself at the chair opposite of her.

The girl that pretended like she wasn’t really there, the girl that others talked about like she didn’t exist - she really was too similar to her for a person. 

She was too close to being a ghost. 

Despite the loud thunder, she started resting her head on her hand, and a few minutes later she put it down on the desk and drifted off.

At some point the others left. It started to get quite late, the clock’s finger ticked relentlessly towards midnight. None of the people that left went to nudge her awake, ask her if she intended to sleep at the library the whole night. 

In a way, it wasn’t uncommon. The library was open both day and night, and not so rarely, students found themselves falling asleep at some point. But for the girl, Leonie’s nonexistent heart still ached a little. 

It was a quiet night. Apart from the girl, she was nearly alone, nearly being herself. 

Maybe that was why, once she woke up again, she stared right at Leonie. There was not really surprise in her face, but shyness perhaps, the oncoming feeling that she had been stared at for a long time. 

    “Sorry,” was all that Leonie mumbled before she got up from the chair to put distance between them, walked a little farther back where the light of the hallway was a little brighter and dimmed her figure to a faint grey. 

    “What are you?” the girl asked, irritated now, still not scared. Leonie thought it must have been the sleep that still clung to her eyes, still puffy eyes, the red mark on her cheek where her head had rested on the table. 

    “Just someone roaming here.” Leonie smiled softly at her and sat back down on the chair, looking at the girl in front of her with narrowed eyes. She could see that she felt uncomfortable under the attention, but this was not a trivial matter any longer, and the attention had to be endured. 

She looked away from Leonie now, her eyes wandering around the room until stopped at the digital numbers on her phone screen. 

Now there was finally surprise on her face and she started to slowly pack her stuff back into her bag. 

"I don't think you'll be able to leave, actually," Leonie remarked and got a questioning eyebrow in response. "How do you feel?" she asked and the movements of the girl slowed down a little. Yet, she still answered in a tone that made clear how meaningless that question was to her. 

"Okay," she mumbled and shrugged. She looked around again, a silence that was deafening even for a library. The loneliness that was so prominent at two am. 

"It's… It's a strange feeling, don't you agree? As if this place isn't supposed to exist at this time. It doesn't match," she then added and her shoulders slumped now. Made her smaller. 

"What are you still doing here?” she asked then, either having forgotten that Leonie already told her, or thought it had been a joke. 

Either way, there was no different answer, and she didn’t see any reason in repeating herself, wasting those words just once more. A little in thoughts, she moved her fingers over the table, drawing a picture no one else but her could see. Where she moved in the shadow, her hand looked a little warmer, a little more human. 

    “When you say okay, what does that mean?” she asked this time without looking up at the girl, but there was a stillness in the air that told her that she had been heard. 

    “Okay is okay. It’s what it is. What else should it be?” 

    Leonie only replied, “Hm.”

The girl stood up, her bag ready to leave, but when she made a step towards the exit, she hesitated. 

    “What did you mean when you said I couldn’t leave?”

Leonie looked up at her, in that quiet room that felt so isolated from the rest of the world, somehow, as if the rest didn’t exist anymore. Trapped in a capsule. 

    “I meant that I am me, and I cannot leave. And you seem to be similar to me, so you might not be able to leave either.”

    “You cannot leave?” It was a question, but from her mouth it sounded more like an accusation. 

    “It’s just like that.”

At first, the girl put down her bag on the floor, and slowly she sat back down then. Because Leonie was right. She couldn’t leave. It was just like that. And the girl knew it. 

    “What’s your name?” she asked then, for the sake to give the girl in front of her something more than just an image in her mind. 

    “Amira,” she answered, and it sounded as if she was a stranger to herself. When another lightning flickered through the room, and blinded everything in white, Amira’s eyes lost her for a second.

    “Why does this stuff happen to me?” she suddenly broke out, her voice thin and on the verge of cracking. There was so much unspoken fear behind those words. She pressed her hands against her eyes, so hard it must hurt, but the silent cry was imminent on her twisted mouth. 

    “It’s not a good day?” Leonie whispered, afraid that her voice could be too loud for Amira’s ears. 

    “It’s never a good day!” Amira answered, quietly but her voice broke in the middle so that the last two words sounded like a sob. “It just never is!”

Leonie smiled to herself, thinking that the okay hadn’t sounded okay at all, and she voiced that thought to Amira who now wiped away her tears. 

    “When I say I am okay, then that okay is still true,” she answered, calmed down now, but her feelings still clearly pent up inside. “I am okay, in contrast to last week. At some point, saying I am not okay wouldn’t make sense anymore. It’s fine. I am okay today, for the state that I am in. So I am okay. But that doesn’t mean that I am fine.”

It was like a waterfall as she poured her thought out to Leonie. Maybe because she felt that nothing she said would be of consequence. Those words were spoken and afterwards held no power anymore. Leonie couldn't tell them anyone. They were both in that place they couldn't get out of, and no one else would be there to judge either of them. 

They sat at the table for a while, lightning blinding them occasionally, and at some point, Leonie smiled in a sad way, and leaned back in her seat some more. Finding the balance on two chair legs and whipping back and forth. 

    “So, what is that state you’re in?” Leonie asked, looking right at Amira’s eyes for the first time. She had kind eyes. They looked brown, even if it might have just been the dark light of the dimmed library table. No matter what colour - they were filled with tears again. 

    “The state I am in? How would I even put that into words?” Her lips were wobbling, the kind that wasn’t cute at all, it was the kind that made Leonies lips wobble a tiny bit too. 

    “Just. Tell me what it is,” she replied softly and Amira stared off out of the glass front, where they could see the sky light up again and again. 

    “It’s an ugly state,” she started, and from those words, Leonie knew that she had found the right ones. “It’s not just numb and quiet. Not just the apathy, the endless tiredness. It’s not a soft and paralyzed form of procrastination. Not what I used to imagine it would be all my life. On the contrary. It’s the dirty dishes in my sink that have been there for a whole week,” her voice cracked, the tears spilled, “It’s the loud music I blast into my ears. As if the pain could be proof that something still works. It’s that I sometimes only get up because I have to go to the bathroom.” She buried her face in her hands. “I haven’t washed the clothes I am wearing right now for a month and I can only hope the deodorant can cover that up. I haven’t cleaned my teeth in - I don’t even know. But I manage to dress myself up, smearing makeup all over my face nonetheless.” Another lightning, a thunder cracked, louder than before now. “It’s disgusting. There’s a spot of god-knows-what on the floor in my kitchen and I have only managed to put a wet towel on top of it, not to wipe it away. Who even does that?” 

Amira wiped away the tears, and once she had dried her skin, it was hard to notice that she had cried at all. Nearly as if nothing had happened. 

    “You’re all alone?” Leonie wondered. She had stopped playing around with her chair a while ago. 

    “I don’t know. No, I am not. And even if it should be just that, I wouldn’t call it loneliness. It’s not that I am lonely, because I am not alone, and I don’t feel alone in the presence of those that I love either. It’s more that I am not alone enough. There is always still me. I sometimes wish I could be without me. I don’t mean this in a way that I want to stop to exist, on the contrary. I want to exist more. It’s that I want so much, but I don’t care at all.” She clasped her hands over her heart, closed her eyes, and suppressed whimpers that worked themselves up. “And… All my plants are dying. Not that badly but my hibiscus hasn’t bloomed in a year. It’s only half of what it used to be, so many branches died and I had to cut them off.” She looked up, to the door, and Leonie could feel her need to leave. "There's nowhere to go, is there?“

It wasn't a question, so Leonie didn't answer. Again. 

The storm moved on and the distance between lightning and thunder grew, the rumbling fainter as time progressed. 

    “Why are you here?” Amira asked, obvious now that she wondered more about the place than Leonie’s existence per se. 

    “I died over there,” she answered and pointed to a row of shelves. They were marked as shelves containing scientific psychological articles. She still remembered staring at the Science when it had happened. “I had an inflammation of the heart muscle and then I was stressed. Should’ve probably slept more. Thirty years ago.”

    “Must be boring.”

    “It’s fine. Feels like yesterday to me.”

There was a smile on Amira’s lips, a genuine one and she rested her head on one hand. Still, both of their presences seemed to darken the room around them a bit more, made them a little better to see for being invisible in their own ways. 

    “You know,” Leonie mumbled after a while, the clock’s finger ticking closer to four, “Many like you have found themselves floating here. Not knowing where to go.”

    “There were more?”

    “Of course.”

    “Then, where are they now?”

    “Oh, they leave sooner or later,” Leonie explained and stretched her ghostly muscles. “Because, the way I see it, if you don’t know where to go, it doesn’t matter which way you take, no?” 

Amira looked up at her, the eyes wide. 

    “If I leave and come back tomorrow, would I be able to see you again?”

Leonie chuckled at that question and shrugged. Usually, no one liked seeking out that state she was in. 

    “You’d have to find out,” she answered. 

It started to get lighter again. Not in a way where the darkness of the night would disappear, but slightly lifted to tell them that day was around the corner. 

    “What’s your name?” Amira asked. 

    “Leonie,” she answered, her voice already more like a whisper. But it was intentional. Amira’s eyes lost her then, but there was a tiny smile in them, that told her that she had been heard. She got up from her chair, got her bag, and when she looked to the exit this time, there was a special kind of determination in her eyes. 

    “See you again, Leonie,” she said, and got to leave.

~19.12.2020~

[destroyyourbinder]

“Unlike man’s body, the female body is frequently depicted within patriarchal cultural discourses as fluid, unstable, chameleon-like. Michèle Montrelay hasargued that in western discourse, woman signifies ‘the ruin of representation’(Montrelay 1978: 89). Julia Kristeva distinguishes between two kinds of bodies: the symbolic and the imaginary or abject body. In Powers of Horror, she argues that the female body is quintessentially the abject body because of its procreative functions.Unlike the male body, the proper female body is penetrable, changes shape, swells,gives birth, contracts, lactates, bleeds. Woman’s body reminds man of his ‘debt to nature’ and as such threatens to collapse the boundary between human and animal, civilized and uncivilized (Kristeva 1982: 102). Bakhtin argued that the essentially grotesque body was that of the pregnant, birth-giving woman (1984: 339). When man is rendered grotesque, his body is usually feminized (Creed 1993: 122): it is penetrated, changes shape, swells, bleeds, is cut open, grows hair and fangs. Insofar as woman’s body signifies the human potential to return to a more primitive state of being, her image is accordingly manipulated, shaped, altered, stereotyped to point to the dangers that threaten civilization from all sides. If it is the female body in general – rather than specifically the lesbian body – which signifies the other, how, then, does the lesbian body differ from the body of the so-called ‘normal’ woman? There are at least three stereotypes of the lesbian body which are so threatening they cannot easily be applied to the body of the non-lesbian. These stereotypes are:the lesbian body as active and masculinized; the animalistic lesbian body; the narcissistic lesbian body. Born from a deepseated fear of female sexuality, these stereotypes refer explicitly to the lesbian body, and arise from the nature of the threat lesbianism offers to patriarchal heterosexual culture. The central image used to control representations of the potentially lesbian body– to draw back the female body from entering the dark realm of lesbian desire – is that of the tomboy. The narrative of the tomboy functions as a liminal journey of discovery in which feminine sexuality is put into crisis and finally recuperated into the dominant patriarchal order – although not without first offering the female spectator a series of contradictory messages which may well work against their overtly ideological purpose of guiding the young girl into taking up her proper destiny.” --Lesbian bodies: Tribades, tomboys and tarts, by Barbara Creed People ask me all the time how the hell the body distortions common to female dysphoria-- the deep sense of “wrongness”, an error of the flesh, the should-not-be, a horror so all-encompassing one cannot even look at the feeling, nonetheless the body-- could arise from everyday misogyny. Think about these passages. If you don’t (won’t, can’t) believe me, then believe the male literary critic (Bakhtin) who recognized this uncanniness and made it part of an Official Published Important Man Theory.

[my-insanity-is-irrelevant]

The same to you - all of them 🎃

200: My crush’s name is: Ryan, Eli, Claire, several others I cant name for complicated reasons 

199: I was born in: 1997/a hospital 

198: I am really: Intense weather in my calmness or excitement 

197: My cellphone company is: T-Mobile

196: My eye color is: Light green

195: My shoe size is: 9 1/2 wide (i usually have to do like a 11 for high heals)

194: My ring size is: ??????? probably big I have chubby fingers

193: My height is: 5′ 6″

192: I am allergic to: nothing unless you count idiocy 

191: My 1st car was: A blue 2007 Ford Focus and I LOVED her

190: My 1st job was: A server for Cheddar’s Casual Cafe 

189: Last book you read: How to Ruin Everything by George Watsky 10/10

188: My bed is: A king with lots o’ pillows and blankets and is very comfy

187: My pet: 2 cats, 5 kittens, 6 dogs, 2 snakes, 1 bearded dragon, 1 leopard gecko, 4 turtles, 1 bullfrog tadpole, and bunches of fish

186: My best friend: is a boy i met a month ago because i have intimacy issues

185: My favorite shampoo is: Dead Sea’s Argon oil shampoo is so good to my poor dry curls

184: Xbox or ps3: I use an Xbox to watch Netflix but I don’t play video games

183: Piggy banks are: Cute decorations but go unused

182: In my pockets: $2, some lint, a rubber band, and something weird i took out of my dog’s mouth earlier

181: On my calendar: I have nothing written in it but it has cool pictures of bears

180: Marriage is: Cool because of the financial benefits but other than that unnecessary to prove one’s love. I want a wedding though because I want a pretty dress

179: Spongebob can: Make me hate my life a 3am

178: My mom: Died of breast cancer and smoked a lot of pot

177: The last three songs I bought were? I can’t remember ever paying for music but the last three i listened to are: Cherry Wine by Hozier, Strong As An Oak by Watsky, and San Cristobal by Mal Blum

176: Last YouTube video watched: A slam poem by Neil Hilborn called Liminality

175: How many cousins do you have? I have no clue? At least 10 on each side, but i’m sure there’s way more than that

174: Do you have any siblings? 2 older brothers, 2 older sisters, ans one younger sister 

173: Are your parents divorced? They were never married

172: Are you taller than your mom? Nope! She was like 5′10′

171: Do you play an instrument? I can play hot cross buns on the recorder and thats the best i can do

170: What did you do yesterday? I slept and ate beef jerky[ I Believe In ]169: Love at first sight: No, but i do believe in lust and infatuation at first site. I think  love takes time to grow.

168: Luck: Yes like, as in karma

167: Fate: Catch me in the right mood and i do

166: Yourself: NOOOOOPE

165: Aliens: Yes

164: Heaven: No

163: Hell: Yes, it’s called Texas

162: God: Naaaaah

161: Horoscopes: I think they’re accurate generalizations

160: Soul mates: Yeah but not like the traditional; kind of way, i think we have lots of people we’re meant to be with in various ways

159: Ghosts: Yes and No i go back and forth

158: Gay Marriage: 100%

157: War:0%

156: Orbs: Idk what this is talking about but sure, ill root for them

155: Magic: No, Im a science gal[ This or That ]154: Hugs or Kisses: Hugs

153: Drunk or High: High, drinking gives me a tummy ache

152: Phone or Online: Online

151: Red heads or Black haired: Red heads

150: Blondes or Brunettes: Brunettes

149: Hot or cold: Cold

148: Summer or winter: Winter

147: Autumn or Spring: Autumn

146: Chocolate or vanilla: Vanilla

145: Night or Day: Night

144: Oranges or Apples: Apples

143: Curly or Straight hair: Curly

142: McDonalds or Burger King: Mcdonald’s

141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate: White Chocolate is the key to my heart

140: Mac or PC: PC

139: Flip flops or high heels: HIgh heels even though i cant walk in them

138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor: Sweet and poor

137: Coke or Pepsi: Coke

136: Hillary or Obama: Obama

135: Burried or cremated: Cremated, the idea of rotting creeps me out

134: Singing or Dancing: Dancing but im bad at both

133: Coach or Chanel: Idgaf

132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks: ??????

131: Small town or Big city: Big city

130: Wal-Mart or Target: Wal-Mart

129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler: I hate Adam Sandler

128: Manicure or Pedicure: Manicure

127: East Coast or West Coast: West Coast

126: Your Birthday or Christmas: Christmas all the waaaaaay

125: Chocolate or Flowers: Flowers, preferably potted

124: Disney or Six Flags: Disney i’m scared of roller coasters

123: Yankees or Red Sox: I dont sports[ Here’s What I Think About ]122: War: Its stupid and bad and i hate violence 

121: George W. Bush: Okay, looook, i dig his paintings, okay???

120: Gay Marriage: gimme that shit i want that shit

119: The presidential election: I could be down for violence against trump

118: Abortion: everyone should have safe access to abortions, they save lives

117: MySpace: I never had one? Does it still exist? I may make one for fun? 

116: Reality TV: i dont ever watch it, i avoid it like the plauge

115: Parents: Mine were grade A shit

114: Back stabbers: What goes around comes around

113: Ebay: I use Amazon

112: Facebook: Its filled with my racist family, i avoid it 

111: Work: I watch my niece and nephew (twins) and i love it

110: My Neighbors: I don’t interact with them ever

109: Gas Prices: why so expensive pls give me break

108: Designer Clothes: catch me in wal-mart clothes i bough 4 years ago

107: College: I want but cant afford halp

106: Sports: no

105: My family: I love them but they fkn annoy the shit out of me with their political views

104: The future: stop.[ Last time I ]103: Hugged someone: My niece yesterday

102: Last time you ate: I am eating a bowl of mac n’ cheese right now

101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in awhile: I saw my sister’s in-laws last week and i loooooove them! I made slime with the kids

100: Cried in front of someone: When i found out my ex was cheating on me like two months ago

99: Went to a movie theater: Went on a date with a cute boi like a month ago and w saw Baby Driver it was so good

98: Took a vacation: The only vacation ive ever took in my life was with my ex and his family to Florida last summer

97: Swam in a pool: Less than a week ago

96: Changed a diaper: Yesterday, i change them for a living

95: Got my nails done:last summer

94: Went to a wedding: My oldest sister got married last week!

93: Broke a bone: when i was like 3????

92: Got a peircing: two weeks ago i got my nipples done

91: Broke the law: this morning when i got high

90: Texted: Im texting cute bbs  right now[ MISC ]89: Who makes you laugh the most: My boi Ryan who is a fkn idiot i love him

88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: I already left home and only miss having someone else cook and clean because my roomates are hopeless

87: The last movie I saw: The Last Five Years

86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: When i can move far north and start a loving and respectful communist sex cult

85: The thing im not looking forward to: Getting up for work at 5 in the morning

84: People call me: lame

83: The most difficult thing to do is: exist

82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: i sure haven’t i’m Safe

81: My zodiac sign is: Libra

80: The first person i talked to today was: Ryan

79: First time you had a crush: i liked a boy named Antonio in second grade

78: The one person who i can’t hide things from: no one? 

77: Last time someone said something you were thinking: Ryan last night when we said a stupid Ricks and Morty quote at the same time

76: Right now I am talking to: my cat Beatrice 

75: What are you going to do when you grow up: probably cry a lot

74: I have/will get a job: working with kids!

73: Tomorrow: I will be very tired

72: Today: I am very tired

71: Next Summer: I will be very hot

70: Next Weekend: Im going to tie ppl up with rope

69: I have these pets: see 187

68: The worst sound in the world: A baby crying because they’re hurt or sad

67: The person that makes me cry the most is: my ex inbox me for his url so you can tell him hes a meanie

66: People that make you happy: My nieces and nephews and also my bff

65: Last time I cried: last night because the damn dog was so cute

64: My friends are: amazing and deserve the world

63: My computer is: slow and bad but i still love her

62: My School: was down the road from a prison, which my mom was in years ago

61: My Car: is old and smells like my mom’s cigarettes 

60: I lose all respect for people who: are racist, homophobic, sexist, trans-phobic, Islamophobic, anti-semetic, ect. 

59: The movie I cried at was: the beginning of Guardians of the Galaxy

58: Your hair color is: Auburn

57: TV shows you watch: Game of Thrones, Criminal Minds, Sense 8

56: Favorite web site: tumblr.com

55: Your dream vacation: stargazing in Alaska 

54: The worst pain I was ever in was: when i fucked up my siatic nerve in a car wreck in January 

53: How do you like your steak cooked: medium-well

52: My room is: cold and messy and covered in kittens

51: My favorite celebrity is: Harry Styles

50: Where would you like to be: on a beach in Iceland with a person playing a ukulele 

49: Do you want children: Only if i have more than one long term partner living with me 

48: Ever been in love: Yes 

47: Who’s your best friend: see 186 its Ryan

46: More guy friends or girl friends: no

45: One thing that makes you feel great is: when my cat comes to me and just lays where shes barely touching me 

44: One person that you wish you could see right now: My best friend from high school who committed suicide 

43: Do you have a 5 year plan: no

42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: no

41: Have you pre-named your children: I want to name my kid Coraline but id also like to do something not defined by a single gender?

40: Last person I got mad at: My sister because she left the dogs inside all day while i was at work even though shes a stay at home mom and so the poor things had accidents and no one was happy

39: I would like to move to: Canada

38: I wish I was a professional: mom[ My Favorites ]37: Candy: white chocolate truffles 

36: Vehicle: vintage beatles 

35: President: Alexander Hamilton

34: State visited: Florida

33: Cellphone provider: ?????

32: Athlete: ?????

31: Actor: Nat Wolf

30: Actress: Maise willams

29: Singer: Radical Face/Hozier

28: Band: Bad Books

27: Clothing store: Wal-mart

26: Grocery store: Joe-V’s Smart Shop

25: TV show: Game of Thrones

24: Movie: Swiss Army Man

23: Website: see 56

22: Animal:  Monitors 

21: Theme park: i dont do theme parks

20: Holiday: Halloween

19: Sport to watch: does Yuri on Ice count?

18: Sport to play: no

17: Magazine: i don’t read magazines but i heard Teen Vogue is doing wonders

16: Book: The Kite Runner

15: Day of the week: Wednesday’s Child is Full of Woe

14: Beach: wherever i was in Florida 

13: Concert attended: Warped Tour 2015 there was a band called Onwards ect. it was so good

12: Thing to cook: homemade flour tortillas 

11: Food: Cheese enchiladas

10: Restaurant: This cute little place named Marianne’s thats down the road from my house she makes the best tamales 

9: Radio station: 94.5 The Buzz

8: Yankee candle scent: Clean Linen 

7: Perfume: i dont

6: Flower: Lilies 

5: Color: pink

4: Talk show host: Steve Harvey

3: Comedian: John Mulaney

2: Dog breed: Pit Bulls

1: Did you answer all these truthfully? 100%