There Once Was a Girl Just Like Me
Kate E. Lore
There once was a girl just like me, who in her youth, simply could not sit still. It was as though she were filled with jumping beans, boiling water, or some sort of stored up kinetic energy waiting to be used. This girl, who was just like me, had a nervous weary disposition. She was rather tense for a child. On top of that this particular little girl had a weird habit of pacing back and forth across the living room. When asked just what the hell she was doing the girl would answer quite honestly; “I’m imagining” and then the girl would continue on, to day dream a world unto herself and well beyond.
As the girl delved deeper and deeper into her own created world she would increase in speed of pace. Her dirty bare feet would unconsciously match the whirling gears of her mind. Pacing, racing, back and forth the girls family would get irritated when she, got too lost and forgot herself, stepping in front of the television blocking their view. The girl’s sister liked to practice her aim by throwing objects at her.
After sometime if nobody was actually watching the television the girl would be left unbothered and she could get as deeply lost in her imagination as possible. Eyes open she saw only the magical world of her own creation. Feet pacing rapid as a drum, she felt only the soft grass of that imaginary place, or the heat of lava lurking just beneath a thin rock surface, or the sharp sands of an alien desert.
Unfortunately this girl was just like me, so she sometimes lost herself too much and became too unaware of her surroundings. The girl began humming, mumbling, and making strange noises as she paced full speed, practically running, back and forth across the room. The family became concerned that there was something wrong with her. In any case they found her noise to be an annoyance. The girl hadn’t even realized she was making any sound. The family began making fun of the girl and did their best to embarrass her out of the habit. The family began to flat out stop the girl from her pacing. They told her to go outside and play.
This girl in particular was just like me so she decided to take up bike riding. Her legs now spun in a full circular motion, the gears in her mind now fueled the gears of a bicycle, and it was a holy unity complete with the speaking in tongues.
This girl, just like me, grew up in a crumbling rental of a house down at the muddy bottom of a hill. Every day of good weather the girl would ride out first thing. Sometimes she would sail smooth and glide gracefully in circles like an ice-skater on pavement, but mostly she rode up the hill.
Up and up the girl would petal. The farther she travelled up the street the steeper her climb became. Each turn of the wheel grew more and more difficult, and every inch took longer and longer to make. She would sweat, her legs would ache, and her throat would scream for water. The girl would petal as hard as possible and she would go as far and high as she could before having to stop for feeling weak with exhaustion. And at each stopping point the girl looked up and silently observed just how much farther she had yet to go. Going back home was to fly downhill like a kite snapped free steered perfectly by the wind to its final destination.
Every day brought the same uphill challenge. But every day she dreamed up a new scenario. Sometimes she had to escape a terrible danger, and other times she had to save the world. Every day the girl reached a little bit further, and everyday wherever she stopped was the salvation of the imagining, the end of the story. Except of course for the impending top of the hill, which always seemed to loom before her, and remained to her that final goal, or the end of the war if you will.
One day the girl road and road forward further than ever before. Her feverish dream was this time, to save her family from drowning. Legs burning, heart pounding, head feeling light she pushed herself beyond her own limits. Up she rode higher and higher. The houses around her grew larger and nicer in quality, the yards on each side of the road appeared well maintained here to an absurd degree, and the cars suddenly looked shinier. The girl got so caught up in observing the difference of how these people live at the top of the street that she did not realize that the ground had begun to even out. She had reached the top of the hill.
This girl, just like me, was dizzy and panting as she gazed down that long road. Far off in the distance she could see her own house. It looked small, plain, and dirty. She could see her neighbors as well and their houses too looked suddenly so inferior compared to these houses at the top of the street. The girl could clearly see the progression of houses from hers at the bottom up to these at the top.
And then the girl turned around. After this hill had leveled out the ground rose up yet again. But this time instead of a hill it was a mountain, a huge monstrous mountain that towered over her like a cruel giant mocking her efforts. This mountain was four times as steep as the hill had been, and it was most certainly that much longer of a climb.
The girl felt suddenly as though she were a stone sinking deep into water. She felt as though the farther she sank it became that much colder and darker in these waters that surrounded her. It had been this hard for her to climb the hill, it would be impossible to climb that mountain. And so she turned around and rode downhill thinking only of that mountain and its impossibilities. The girl did not ride her bike the next day, nor did she ride her bike the day after that, nor any of the days that followed.
Once on a cold day of winter that very same year the girl found herself bored and at home. This was the sort of winter day in which there was no snow on the ground but all the trees were bare and the sky was grey making a sad corpse of the world. In any case it was too cold to go outside. The girl and her sister decided to do a puppet show, both of them being bored, and a puppet show sounded like a good use of time.
So this girl, just like me, snuck into her brother’s room in order to steal some fishing string and fish hooks because at the time she thought this would be the best was to put her toys on strings. This, girl, just like me found his tackle box and opened it. This girl, just like me, pushed aside the top tackle shelf to delve deeper in the box. There sitting on top of the bottom were several needles and a single spoon stained black from the burning of a lighter. Like all children this girl saw and understood more than her family gave her credit for. This girl knew exactly what the needle meant. Her brother was using heroine again. The only reason he’d been allowed to come back and live in the house after he got out of jail was this agreement that the drug use had stopped.
Things were going to be bad again. The cycle would start all over. It would be the same crap as before, there would be screaming in the house all the time and everyone would have to hide their money. Not even the piggy banks would be safe. Sometimes they’d come home and the television would be gone, or the video tapes, or what little jewelry their mother owned. This girl, just like me, suddenly realized that she’d been pacing back and forth.
Out in the living room the girl sat waiting for her mother. She felt light as if she were outside of her own body, as if she were submerged in water.
This girl, just like me, wanted to tell her mother, to warn her that the bad stuff had come again like a storm rolling in upon the horizon. The girl wanted to, but her mother came home in the late afternoon stumbling in through the doorway. She was laughing and slurring her speech. She gave no heed to her daughter as she preceded straight back into her room.
This girl, just like me, recognized the helplessness of her own situation. So she tried to forget it, or at least to think about something else.
Out she stepped into the cold icy air; the world around her was a bleak shadow of its former spring time life. The girl began to walk away from her house. She began to walk up the hill. The girl found that the faster she walked the warmer she began to feel. So she walked faster. The girl had never tried walking up this hill before, and quickly found it to be much easier on foot than on bicycle. In no time at all she found herself at that peak of the hill. She found herself in that plateau place where the ground evened out and she could look down to see her house in the distance appearing to her then something like a stain on a map.
This girl, just like me, turned her back to the whole street and began to walk forward. She increased her speed increasing her pace, each step taking her further faster. The girl dropped all pretense, she began to run.
This girl, just like me, ran and ran pushing herself further and further from the only world she’d ever known. She ran away from her single mother of four who turned to the drink. She ran away from the father and sister not there. She ran away from the sister who felt best with herself by being cruel to others. She ran away from her brother and his monstrous addiction that shook the whole house like an earthquake. She ran away from low income free school lunches, food stamps, welfare, and screaming arguments late at night.
And she ran up the mountain as it continued to grow before her like a treadmill made from her mind, it never seemed to get any closer, this impossible feat.
And she ran to the peak of the block, the peak of the county, the peak of the state. Still the mountain loomed before, hovering and taunting with an irritation like that which rubs your skin raw.
And she ran unto the peak of the world, the absolute highest point of elevation. She ran up the dry ragged rocks which lined the oddly flat empty surface which was the mountain top. Up here she could see only these rocks scattered about on the bare surface, which looked this way as an effect of elevation. Nothing could truly live here she knew instinctively, because it was just too high up. It was too close.
She ran and ran toward the obtuse triangle mountain top that was the horizon disappearing into the sun. On she ran and ran, but always ahead of her was some higher point, she could always go farther, and she could always climb higher.
Long behind her stretched out the world, it grew thinner and smaller in her sight the higher she reached. The world stretched long and oval. The world stretched like putty as forward she ran propelling toward the peak which itself grew thinner going from obtuse to acute. On she ran and ran until that peak was needle thin. She ran until it was a single line.
At first it seemed as though she were following this thread which lead her in a single direction. But then she turned, and the line turned with her. So the girl dipped and curved as she ran and the line met her evenly. The line curved and danced just as the girl did. Just like the whirling gears of her mind which never stopped moving.
The girl now led the line. This single thin line that shaped out a letter. Then spelled a word. Made a sentence. Wrote a story.
Kate E Lore writes fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, articles, and makes comics. Kate has won several awards including honorable mention with Switchgrass Review. Originally from Dayton Ohio, Kate is currently earning a masters degree in creative writing from Miami University. Kate earned her bachelor's degree from The Ohio State University.