But then we took a trip to the zoo.
The tigers had this beautiful enclosure; there was even a little lake, and I was thinking it looked pretty nice, considering, until I noticed one tiger just walking very fast back and forth through the space. After watching him for a minute I realized he wasn’t just walking, but pacing the exact same route over and over again.
He’d worn a similar path into his cage that I’d worn into mine. And I was suddenly sad for both of us, but I also knew I wasn’t going to do anything about it. There’s something about following rules that is very important to me. I can’t really understand it yet, but I hope I will someday.
Even though I know in some way it’s like that tiger and his pacing, the running is still good. It makes me feel calm. And it keeps the loneliness away. Maybe it’s the same for that tiger. I mean, it’s lonely to run; it’s a singular activity, but it’s supposed to be that way, I think. And, I don’t know, the way I see it, there’s nothing wrong with feeling lonely when you’re supposed to be alone. It’s when you’re standing in a crowded room and feel lonely that it’s really sad, I think. Sometimes, feeling like that makes me want to tear off all my skin.
So yeah. I run as much as I can. And running neurotically by a fence all the time hasn’t made me so popular with the other girls. But it was kind of a lost cause with them anyway, I think. They’re never mean to me, rather, they just don’t seem to understand me, and then from there they just seem to kind of wish I’d stay away from them, and so I do. It doesn’t help that I don’t speak. The not speaking thing really seems to bother them. I can’t blame them. It would probably bother me too. I’ve tried to find things to say sometimes, but nothing comes. It’s just empty inside. Hollow where the words should be. It’s felt like that every day since the accident.
That’s really how it all started. I just didn’t have anything to say for a while after the crash, and then I couldn’t think of anything to say, and then I just forgot that I was supposed to be thinking of something to say. And so I was quiet all the time. But that’s another reason for the running I guess. Nobody ever expects you to speak when you’re running.
A big splashy drop of rain hits me on my wrist and I look up. It’s crazy cloudy out of nowhere, the sky looks ready to let loose on me. More cold drops hit my skull and seep into my hair. Running in the rain is even better than regular running. I know I’ll be called in immediately though, and sure enough as soon as I finish the thought I look up and see Alice motioning me in from the front door. It’s good that it’s Alice though, because she likes me more than most of the workers do, and she almost always lets me get another lap in. I hold up my pointer finger to indicate ‘just one more lap’. Even from this distance I can see her roll her eyes, but she grins too.
She yells out across the quad. “Okay, but hurry up!” before going back inside. I smile up at the sky and stretch out my legs, really laying into my long strides. I go faster, but never too fast. Never faster than I’ve ever seen anybody else run. Well, not much faster. I almost laugh out loud in sheer joy at the feeling of the rain pelting my skin, and my muscles humming underneath. It’s times like this that I really feel how different I am from everyone else. When I feel like maybe I survived the car accident for a reason. That maybe my destiny is for something bigger than I can imagine. How someone can wish to be extraordinary and simultaneously wish to blend in and never be seen is something I don’t quite understand yet. Like two parts of me battling it out for unknown spoils – one side yearning to be more than I am, calling to something deep inside me that I don’t understand, the other side hoping to disappear into the wallpaper and never have to say a word.
Because if I’m the same then the car accident can’t be my fault.
If there’s nothing extraordinary about me it can just be one of those horrible things that happen. Horrible things happen everyday and I am not unique. Why is that idea so comforting?
So though I want to be the same as every other person that ever drew breath, because it means maybe I’m innocent, something eats away at me on the inside. Shaking its head and clucking its tongue at me, chiding me, reminding me that I’ve always known there’s something very much ‘not the same’ about me. When that voice rises to the surface I push it down. I bury it in my running strides, repeating to myself ‘the same’.
The same. The same. The same. The same. The same. The same. The same.
I come in a minute later, soaked, my feet covered in mud from my wet and quickly eroding path. Alice sighs dramatically like I have just killed her.