The Girl

I found the dead girl crying in a corner of the mall. It was one of those dark little hallways malls have, to store equipment or whatever. I passed by it, and heard sobbing sounds, and felt compelled to investigate.1

I have to say, at first I thought she was pretty. She was maybe seventeen, a year or so younger than me, and the light was low and all I could see of her was that she was slender and had very white skin and long black hair. She had her knees pressed up against her face and was crying into them. She was dressed, rather unadornedly, in black, including a black turtleneck. She could easily have been goth, and as easily not. 2

I crouched in front of her, not sure what to do. “Um... are you all right?”3

She looked up at me, and her eyes were shot thoroughly with sinews of red, snot snaking from both nostrils. Her cheeks were caked with dirt, and it mingled with the tears to form a sort of mud. I gaped for a moment, then groped in my pocket and handed her a wrinkled Kleenex.4

“Thank you,” she said, and her voice was deep and throaty.5

“Is there... Is there anything I can do for you?”6

“There is nothing to do for such as me,” she said.7

“Nonsense,” I said, and something of pity awakened in me. I put my arm around her shoulders, and helped her up. I took her out of that dark hallway, and sat with her on one of the benches lining the mall's main corridor.8

It was when I turned to look at her that her full oddness struck me. Her skin was not just pale: it was beyond white to blue, the color of skim milk. There was no color even in her lips. Her hair hung limp, as I have never seen hair do, and it was caked with dirt.9

She seemed disinclined to speak, so I did. “What's your name?” I said.10

“Name?” she said. “I know not. I once had a name, I suppose, but it is lost in the white perfume of the past.” 11

That was when I became suspicious. “Hey...” I said. “You... you talk kind of strange. Are you... an actor, or something?”12

She looked at me then, and those bloodshot eyes were both perfectly blank and perfectly terrifying. “You think such as I would play at this for amusement?” She stopped a moment, mouth slightly open as if in thought. “I keep saying such as I, but perhaps it is a mistake, for I do not believe there have been others like me.” She turned to me, as if suddenly remembering my existence. “At any rate, look on this and see if you think me an actor.”13

She reached up to her turtleneck, and folded the top down, exposing her neck. I gasped and jumped back involuntarily. The front of her neck was a mass of red, a gaping wound that had never been cared for yet did not pulse and did not bleed. It simply was, frozen, like a gouge from the side of a tree.14

“What happened to you?” I said.15

“I know not,” she said.16

“Well... who were you?” I said. “Did you have a family?”17

“I know not,” she said. “What care such as I for these things? The dead die alone, lie alone. If there is a resurrection, will there be reunion too?”18

“I believe so,” I said, softly.19

She looked at her hands, folded in her lap. “I hope so. I know not.”20

“Do you know anything?” I said.21

“I know this. Sometime before, I went to a field at night and lay beneath a massive tree. I looked up at the stars, and they spread before me, dancing in their multitudes, sparkling and winking down at me. And the tree branches above me stretched towards them, arms uplifted in communion or praise, as if they would call the stars down on our heads. And I felt the grass prickle my back and the exposed roots dig their hard knots into my muscles, and I felt united with it all: the grass and the roots and the tree and its branches and the stars above.22

“But then... Then I felt the blades of grass as alien invaders, and I felt the roots pushing me and pushing me, away and away. And I felt the distance of the stars from the branches that welcomed them, and I knew that the hope of reunion would always remain cold. And I felt cold, and separate from everything.23

“And the tree branches bent to gather me, and the tree said, 'I will lift you up, and you will know fulfillment.'24

“'I cannot know fulfillment,' I said. 'For I have never known fulfillment in the world.'25

“'Then,' said the tree, 'I will bury you in the dirt, that you will know oblivion.'26

“But I knew that even oblivion would not hold me, for neither had I ever known silence.”