The Theory of Everything I
1.
My friend explained the theory of everything once to me and I can’t remember much of it but I know it’s a theory about everything which is a lot of things which could also be nothing. But I am not much interested in physics or numbers and while most times that doesn’t reward me, I can’t force myself into anything. I’m stubborn and strong headed which could be endearing but also not, like when it’s irritating and pink nose - when it’s annoying. So while I fully plan on calling this the theory of everything, I am well aware that it has nothing to do with an all encompassing theory. This is going to be a story about the stars, about infinity, about peace and a journey, it’s an all encompassing story at least, so there’s no (too much) false advertising.
It’s a good story too and like all good stories begin, this one also begins with smoking. Chain smoking and killing the butt with your feet, she could convince herself that she was setting the world on fire so it would burn like her but she would cry herself to sleep for all the baby birds that would be eating her death wish the next day and she would cry for her lungs and she would cry for the innocence her parents still thought she had. She grieved a lot. I’d like to think she learnt how to grieve after the loss a few years ago and never learned how to stop. They always teach you how to do stuff, start things; learning, loving, leaving but they never teach you how to stop. Or how to unlearn, unlove, come back.
Her dream was to be a manic pixie dream girl, to complete someone, something and while she knew she was setting the women’s lib movement a few decades back, the desire to be a part of something, to fit, to lock in place so perfect that you don’t realize that she was never there in the first place, that desire was stronger than the revolutionary in her and at least she knew that she didn’t have to be revolutionary. She didn’t have to want to change everything, she just had to find a way to live and then die. If that way was being the sun to someone’s moon/darkness/night, or the fire to someone’s water/ice/placidity then that’s what she would be. She wanted to survive, no matter how much she wanted to die, she wanted to survive. She could’ve been drowning but the only way she would drown was if she was trying to breathe. She had heard somewhere that we were supposed to live for others anyway.
She walks back to the graveyard where she’s watching a burial take place. She respects the dead enough to not smoke in there but not so much the living, like her own self and to not smoke in the first place.
She enjoys watching people during burials and the different types of people. Like regular people watching but with a morbid twist because how else is she supposed to stand out. The people always present: the ones crying because it is customary to cry, the ones paid to cry and the ones who don’t cry but you can smell their pain that it leaves a stint on your own heart. Also she realizes that is a peculiar habit - being a peeping Tom but for burials and would be a wonderful conversation to have someday. And it’s possible she does it sometimes to remind herself that she’s not in the ground, she’s not degrading. She’s alive and isn’t that the greatest news ever. That she isn’t covered with a sheet, pale skin, closed lids, six feet in the ground. She’s breathing.
She takes a deep breath as she opens her eyes to the sunlight streaming into her room, effectively pooling directly on her face. She said sunlight was a better alarm than actual alarms and she didn’t want the shock that came with being jolted out of your sleep, dreamless or nightmare-full.
It’s a Monday which means school which means hell. But she’s survived 16 years of school and she can survive one more day. Her mantra for every single day cause all you have to do is take one day and finish that one day and then it’s done. And then you repeat but that’s not your problem, your problem is this one day.
One day she knows that it’s all going to end and for once she’s not talking about her life but she is talking about life - the traditional one. She might die but then we’ll get to see her Phoenix properties because she’ll be more alive than she ever was.
She wishes she was walking barefoot because she swears she can feel the school’s cold concrete floors through her ballet flats. Walking never used to be a chore, we’re wired as beings that have to walk everywhere in such a way that while it is a chore, we’re not supposed to notice it but when you’re young and you’re walking and you think you’re being watched and you can pretty much feel every involuntary action happening in your body you’re pretty sure there’s something wrong with the way you’re moving your feet in a way that’s propelling you forward. She let’s go if herself.
The professional term for letting go of one’s self is dissociation and she does this too often for it to be healthy. (It’s not) But nothing beats being in a tough situation and being able to let go of your body and float. So she let’s go, always and then it’s like she’s just a body - she doesn’t feel whatever it is she’s doing, emotionally. And that’s how she gets through a day. That’s how she gets through a day that is fireproof like most days are.
