Many thanks to Carrie for her super-editing techniques! The bruises
should have faded by the time you all reach Detroit.

For Deb, who keeps me going.

=====================================================================

Invisible Woman
by GirlGone

Because you know me,
we have never met.
Because you see me,
you cannot hear.
   -Invisible Woman by Joyce Carol Oates

=====================================================================

I watch the waitress pour coffee automatically, as if the motion so
often repeated requires little thought. There is something about her
features, an imprint of tired acceptance etched upon her face which is
hauntingly familiar.

A part of me wants to look away, yet I am unable. For one brief moment
she is all that I see: Frizzy brown hair, stained apron, three chains
of
gold around her left wrist, her skin sallow from too little sleep.
Throughout the motion of pouring, her gaze remains unfocused and
unclear, her stolen absence punctuated by the gathering of tiny lines
at
the corners of her eyes and lips.

On the ouside of her inner vision, I am invisible, insignificant. I
wonder what she sees with hidden eyes? What life does she lead in the
recesses of her mind during the moment she pours his coffee,
black-sugar-only-no-cream-thank-you-very-much, her soul clouded in
boredom and repetition? There is a simple grace and unwitting fluidity
to her form as she retreats to the other side of the restaurant.

I am left to wonder. To imagine. To assume.

"Scully? Earth to Scully." Mulder snaps his fingers, the sound drawing
my attention back to the booth where we are sitting.

"Sorry. . . I. . ."

"You were a million miles away." He smiles - a quick tensing of the
lips, nothing more, nothing less. He sets aside my preoccupation as he
sets aside so much in his life: Without a second thought. "I was just
building up to my hypothesis. The big finale. I wouldn't want you to
miss the good part."

"Is this where I provide the drumroll?" I inquire dryly, moving to
align
the spoon, fork, and knife into linear perfection on the paper napkin.
An annoying and frustrating habit to assert perfection in this
imperfect
world. I am reduced to satisfying the craving by straightening
silverware or keeping my paperclips grouped by size. A small breath of
air unwittingly escapes me. "Go ahead, Mulder. I'm dying to hear your
theory on the Greene girls."

Nodding, he raises his spoon and dumps sugar into his coffee.
"Abduction. Bright lights. False memories. Recurring nightmares. It
appears to be a straight-forward case, Scully." The spoon hits the
side
of his cup as he stirs it, the ceramic ringing as it comes into
contact
with the metal. The pattern of the sound underlies his words like
punctuation. A list of facts substantiating yet another theory. I
wonder
if he orchestrates his sounds, his movements in the same haphazard
fashion as he does everything else. I stare at the circular motion of
his hand in silence.

He lifts the spoon from the cup and sets it carefully on his napkin. A
dark stain begins to form underneath the curve of metal. It seeps into
the white paper, its growth and pattern established by viscosity and
air
pressure and the density of the fibers. None of which I am able to
control. I stare at it in fascination as he stares at me in
expectation.

I know at this point he wants me to refute his illogical logic,
provide
him with a theory based in science, a string of technical terms which
will hold his excitement in check. I am aware of what is expected of
me.
Today, as I concentrate on the stain which grows and spreads, I choose
to say nothing. I merely shrug.

"What? No counter theories? No medical jargon? Not even a "Mulder
you're
nuts"? I'm surprised, Scully. Don't tell me you've switched to decaf
again."

His humor irritates me. I close my eyes for a moment, annoyed that
even
when I am silent, I am considered suspect. If I believe, if I do not
believe - the positioning of my intellect is irrelevant to him. I am
expected to be his opposite, to be the light to his darkness. Today,
it
wearies me. His need for it wearies me. I press the cool ridges of my
fingertips against my brow.

After five years we still play this game.

"Scully? Are you. . . feeling OK?"
 Even in here, in the self-imposed darkness created to compose myself,
I
detect concern in the hitch of his voice. It is there, then gone,
faded
by avoidance and fear. Reluctantly, I open my eyes and force a
perfunctory smile. To calm him, I must remain calm. One more
expectation
forged over our years together.

"I'm fine, Mulder."

The impact of the phrase is like a slap across his face. He flinches
as
if I had completed the act with a hand instead of a phrase. His eyes
shift away. There, then gone. Damn Fox Mulder. A headache, an
irritation, a routine phrase escaping from my lips -  To him, they are
a
result of the cancer held at bay. He clings to this new Scully, this
perceived Scully, in desperation, no longer remembering the woman I
once
was. Even cured, the cancer is incurable, dissolving the essential
components of my personality in the wake of my recovery.

I would blame him or curse him, yet, at times, even I am left
wondering
at the stranger who returns my level gaze in the mirror each morning.

"Mulder, I'm fine." I reach across the table to touch his hand, to
apologize with a gesture, a look. To bridge the gap between the
disparate splinters of the women I was and the one which I have
become.
He picks up the spoon and begins stirring his coffee again. The move
is
painful and deliberate and the refusal stings. He continues with his
theories as if I am not even there.

"It's a classic case of abduction Scully. However, the most unusual
factor of this whole case, the part which really intrigues me is the
girls' early background. Did you know that they once participated in a
project which was sub-contracted by the government? It was related to
stress factors in the REM dream state by hallucinogenics administered.
.
."

Words, words, words. More words. So many that they lose their meaning,
their value in the telling, in the re-telling, in the familiar
patterns
I have heard too many times. The weight of recognition stretches them
until they are distended and unformed. Yet, even then, the words he
utters cannot be ignored. They are like water pressing into glass.
They
contain a density I feel but cannot see.

Am I in here, Mulder? Do you even see me?

I grip the edge of the cheap table, fingers pressing into the formica.
The desire to ask these questions aloud as he talks about conspiracies
and aliens and tests is quenched by the pressure of my hands. For one
moment I am struck with the desire for an honest response from him,
not
a smart-assed remark, or a flinch, or a soulful look in his eyes like
I
am already gone and buried and forgotten. I want him to look at me; to
see me. I need it.

I search for some small acknowledgement from him - a change in the
focus
of his eyes, a softening around the corners of his mouth, a
restlessness
in the way he moves his hands - any sign which will reaffirm my
existence in his world.

Nothing.

He stirs and talks, talks and stirs, studiously avoiding eye contact.
He
looks anywhere but across the booth where I sit.  At the waitress
behind
the counter. At the elderly couple waiting for the hostess. At the
menu,
reading it for the fifteenth time as if the meaning of life would be
revealed the descriptive wording of a Denny's Grand Slam breakfast.

Abruptly I slide across the red vinyl and slip out of the booth. Only
a
few steps to the glass doors and then I am outside. If my
uncharacteristic departure in the middle of his speech warrants a
response, I am unable to hear it. I am out of his sight - alone;
unseen.

As invisible in my absence as I am in his presence.

=======

In May, the sky is so blue it is undefined; limitless. It hurts to
stare
at all that emptiness so I avert my gaze, staring instead at the
cracks
on the sidewalk below my feet. Where had my life gone wrong? When had
I
lost my faith? A jagged crack in my life like the one in the cement -
a
thin line eroding and expanding, creating a dark fissure that
swallowed
me whole.

The landscape of the life I had so richly imagined as a girl has been
altered. It is foreign; distorted by events and people and regrets
beyond my control. The sky falls upon me and it is empty; a large
canvas
containing nothing, as sterile and unformed as this life I have grown
to
inhabit. In the blind transition from childish dreams to adulthood, I
find myself unable to walk without sinking, to move without losing
balance. In despair, I stumble, and the ground which gives way to my
descent retains no imprint of my fall. No record of my failures. No
sign
of my journey.

A crack in the pavement like a crack in my life.

I stumble and fall. There is nothing above me. Nothing below. There,
then gone. My body hits the sidewalk, cement digging roughly into my
knees and the palms of my hand. Chips of rock stinging, singing pain
as
they are embedded into my flesh. There is the odd tickle along my left
leg where my nylons have run. Damn it. A perfectly good pair of Evan
Picone hosiery shot to hell. Pulling at the nylon covering my skinned
knee, poking though the hole of the material, I only succeed in
smearing
the blood on my leg. On my fingers.

I rise and brush the dirt from the pale fabric of my suit. I glance
down
the row of tract houses, their windows aligned in a marching row of
similarity, suddenly embarrassed that someone may have observed my
clumsiness. There is the hiss of sprinklers and the hum of pool
filters.
The song of birds. The slam of a door a few blocks over. But this
street, this place, remains devoid of human contact.

There is no one here. No one to observe my fall.

I walk down the street, carefully avoiding the cracks, focused
completely on the task at hand. My mind registers a depression in the
sidewalk. At first I think it is a hole, a chipped and worn section of
the cement and I move to step around it. The angle changes my
peceptions
and the hole takes on shape. A hand print, a child's imprint in the
sidewalk. It is so small. So tiny. I bend to examine it, tracing the
outline with my finger. For one brief moment it is all that I see and
imagine I feel the weight of the unseen child in the depth of the
impression. Something inside of me aches so badly I want to cry. But I
don't. For some reason I can't. I press my hand upon the invisible
one,
realizing that as I touch, I am also touched.

I rise, eyes unfocused and unclear, wet from unshed tears. I stare at
nothing.  After a moment I turn back down the path I have already
tread,
covering the uneven ground with practiced ease.

THE END