'Her head's in the clouds.'
 

'Weird girl.'

​

'I like her!'

​

'What's wrong with her?'

'Is she okay?'

'Your daughter's not paying attention in class, ma'am.'

'She's fun!'

'What is she talking about?'

'Do you think she's a bit funny in the head?'

'WHY CAN'T YOU JUST BE NORMAL!?'

​

* * * 

I've heard it all. A lot. But it turns to white noise after a while.
'When did it all start, Zoe?' She tucked her pen behind her ear. I imagined the ink
leaking down the side of her neck, turning her blue, like an older Violet Beauregarde
with crow's feet and a stale rose scent that made my nose tingle.

When did it start?

At three years of age, the bright carrot toys on my old mobile turned into sharp
knives. They dropped, piercing their way into the hardwood floors before bursting
into water. I used a marker to cover up the holes, but that didn't work. I used tape
and stickers as a last resort.

Ma sent me to bed without a story that night, said I shouldn't be poking holes in the
floor.

At five, I watched the clouds drip down from the sky like melting cream off a plate.
The park ground turned to a sea of vanilla milk as blobs continued to fall. I wished I
had a straw.

'Zoe, darling, we don't drink mud! Get up right now. Just look at the state of your
clothes!'

Ma sighed and tugged at my arm. I glanced up at the cloudless canvas, not a bird,
balloon, or kite to add any appeal. The puddle of thick, brown mud below bubbled as
I pulled my gumboot out. The park was empty now, and everything looked grey, as
though someone had poured one of Steve's disgusting protein shakes over the city.
Ma's eyes were thin with disapproval. Her cheeks' natural red shone through her
blush. I didn't know why she was so angry.

At seven, I was convinced I'd swallowed three fifty-cent pieces. They were rattling
'round in my stomach like a piggy bank as I played on the school playground. My
teacher couldn't hear it, but I could taste the metal. The doctor couldn't find anything,
and Ma lost four hours of her work day.

At ten, I was stuck inside our old TV set, like Mike Teavee. The glass was too thick to
break, and the rainbow static felt like balls of cotton against my skin. I glanced at my
fingertips and watched in awe as my nails turned to static, followed by my hands,
arms, and, well, you can guess the rest. My static form started to blow away like
sand in a storm. Bold text appeared across the TV's surface, glitching.

PLEASE STAND BY
NO SIGNAL
NO-NO SIGNAL
PLE-SE SAVE BY
NO SAG- BY
PLEASE SAVE ME
NO SANITY

Another me was watching from the outside, yelling to Ma.

'Help her! She's stuck in there!'

'What are you talking about, Zo? There's no one in there. The tele's been broken for
a week now. You knew that. Please, just read your books or help me declutter this
drawer.'

She switched the TV off, but I was frozen, kneeling on the ground, staring at
the blank screen.

At fourteen, I ran so hard and fast; my toes turned bloody. Ma had to wash my shoes
twice to get the stains out.

'Three or four men were chasing me!' I puffed.
'We're sick of your antics!' She had her harsh voice on — although I think that was
her default setting. 'It was just Steve. He said you took off for no reason, screaming
bloody murder. He came all that way to give you a ride home, and you make him
chase you 'round the whole damn town.'
'I didn't see Steve. I only saw…'

I only saw a group of men gripping their beers at the bar next door. They leered and
said foul things. I'd pressed my back against the bricked building and pretended to
look at something on my phone, hoping Steve would arrive sooner — something I
never thought I'd wish for. They moved closer — a blur of unfamiliar faces and
shadows making my skin crawl. One of them started to run his hand up my arm. I
bolted — glancing back every few minutes to see them stumbling and calling after
me.

I slept with the light on for two weeks after that. I swear I could see their faces
outside our apartment building. Waiting. Always waiting.

Cyrus surprised me with a new pair of shoes that week. They were a blush pink
colour, and I wrote "ANDY" on the bottom in Sharpie.

Cyrus was our neighbour across the hall. He told everyone he was "twenty and some
months", but he was closer to seventy. Completely deaf in both ears. I used to cover
my own in solidarity whenever I saw him, but Ma said it was offensive. He taught me
to sign when I was just five. He'd come on adventures with me when Ma was too
busy — which turned out to be a lot of the time. He seemed to be the only person
who enjoyed spending time with me. Who knew what my silences meant and my
obnoxious excitement over the smallest of things. He never seemed to tire of me like
Ma and Steve so easily did. I'd often sneak across the hall after finding myself in
trouble, which was more of a common occurrence than I could understand.

At sixteen, my mate, Soph, took me rock climbing. I got halfway up the wall until the
multicoloured rocks exploded like popping candy, knocking me off. I sprained my
wrist, and Soph's invites became fewer.

At nineteen, I pressed my hands to my ears, shrieking as Ma and Steve continued
what looked like an intense discussion. I caught a few phrases off their lips.

'What's wrong with her?'

'I don't know. She's your kid.'
'Legally yours too, remember.' Ma rolled her eyes.
'Yeah, well — those are your genes right there, not mine.' He pointed his
cigarette-stained finger at me.

I thought they could see it and hear it. Plain and clear, like I could. But they didn't
react. They didn't react to the burnt orange walls melting down like candles, turning
into a thick, black oil, filling the room up to our knees. They didn't react to the
piercing noise projecting from the vents. They didn't react to the mirrors, clocks, and
frames shattering — shards floating aimlessly in the liquid, hidden and ready to slice
our feet at a moment's notice. I was on my knees, paralysed in my own living room,
watching as they argued amongst the sludge and glitter of broken decor. The dark
enveloped the photograph of me and my real Pa. I sunk my hands in to retrieve it,
but I couldn't.

Ma made her way through the Vegemite sludge, aggressively waving her arms and
cursing at Steve, and slid a disc into the player. I heard the opening notes of the
Bewitched theme song, and my reality shifted. The mirrors and clocks hung
peacefully and unmoving on the walls, and the floorboards weren't covered in oil.
Just dust, mouse droppings, and half a Mars bar that Steve must have dropped
behind the couch weeks ago.

'Thank god,' Steve groaned, 'the air raid is over.'

At twenty, I was put on medication.

This was Ma and Steve's one condition to me living with them during uni. I felt like
Steve had more than one condition, but I wasn't one to fight back. I hadn't the
energy. Working part-time at Video Ezy didn't exactly earn me enough to move out,
and no one particularly enjoyed the idea of letting me crash on their couch. Cyrus
offered, but Ma said not to burden him, and that stuck with me. I had to wait 'til I
finished my film degree to find a life outside those apartment walls.

I saw a doc. And Ma's psych — the most qualified in Melbourne, according to her.
And then another psych. One who didn't make me feel about as small as The
Borrowers. They both tossed technical terms around like confetti at a wedding. I just
nodded and took the pills, hoping they would fix my relationship with Ma or ease the
tension between me and Steve.

And it all stopped. My hallucinations, as the docs define it. But it wasn't just the bad
stuff that stopped. The world lost its colour, its light. The whimsy of my every day
came to a halt. Was life really this dull? Were people this cruel? Why was everyone
okay with this? It felt like someone had pulled a sheer black lampshade over my
head that I couldn't take off.

My morning bowl of cereal didn't look like a herd of miniature people reenacting
Titanic or Jaws. It was just a bowl of cereal.

People on the train didn't smile or talk to me anymore. They just sat in a communal
tube of melancholia. Eyes down. Arms crossed.

I didn't hear fireworks when I kissed Tommy at the store. I blame the movies for that
one. Always setting unrealistic expectations of romance and lust. The first time I
heard them, I jumped back from his lips in fright, followed by hysterical laughing. He
got used to it.

Steve didn't turn into a fly and get eaten by the cat. That was one of my favourites.
Seemed to happen like clockwork whenever he yelled at Ma. I fed the cat less on
those days.

Street lights no longer shone down in vibrant technicolour, and the DVDs at work
didn't keep me company when the store was dead. They used to flip me off when no
one was looking, do silly dances when I popped them in a bag at checkout, and
sneak out of their cases and into their neighbour's. They were now frozen in their
DVD plastic under the neon flicker of the Video Ezy sign. Same expression. Same
pose. Same '7 DAY RENTAL' sticker. Amelie didn't wink at me in understanding, and
Drop Dead Fred didn't pull any faces. The Powerpuff Girls didn't steal gum from the
gumball machines, and Gremlins didn't plant tacks under customers' shoes. The
life-size cardboard cutout of Spiderman didn't shoot webs at the most irritating of
visitors. My shifts seemed to drag. Not even the cheap, surprisingly decent coffee
kept me awake.

The world seemed plain. Senseless. Boring. I felt plain. Senseless. Boring. My
nightmares stopped — episodes, as Ma says. But at what cost? Is this the normal
everyone craves? I didn't care for it.

​

* * * 

'Anything fun happen today?' Cyrus signed. I didn't tell him I was on meds or why I
didn't have any stories for him. But he caught on after a few months.
'Not today.' I signed, politely smiling as I fumbled with my keys, trying to open the
door. I didn't like disappointing him.
He invited me for ice cream after one of my shifts. Homemade.
'You alright, kid? You seem down.'
'I'm all good.' I avoided eye contact and licked a drop off my pinky, not wanting to
waste a single molecule of his signature strawberry. He nudged the table to get my
attention.
'Your Ma told me about that stuff you're on. I think it's good if it's helping.' He paused,
eyes examining my expression. 'But if it isn't helping, then —'
'Then what?'
'It's your choice, you know.'
'Doesn't feel like it. They want me to be normal. They say I'm scaring them. If
something's not right with my head, then I should fix it, yes?' I was parroting Steve at
this point.
'I suppose.' He hesitated. 'But who's to say what's normal? Leaving your kid alone for
hours on end at the age of four, never going to her school plays or dropping her off at
formal. Is that normal?'
I didn't answer.
'Bashing the mother or your stepkid in front of her, is that normal? Not letting her go
on school camps or on holidays with you, is that normal?'
He signed faster than I could keep up, but I got the gist. His words were true, but I
felt defensive.
'If that's their normal, I don't want a piece of it. And I doubt you do either. You've got
something the rest of us don't, kid. You're an extraordinary person with an
extraordinary mind. You've brought so much joy into my life. I stopped believing in
magic after my Norah passed away, but you proved me wrong. You taught me to find
beauty in the ordinary. I never knew a trip to the laundromat could be so exciting. I
still laugh, thinking about you trying to crawl into the machine, pretending it was a
submarine. Don't let anyone make you feel bad for such a gift.' He paused, rubbing
his ageing fingers in contemplation.
'Your mind is not broken, my girl.'
That was the last thing he said to me before he died.

At twenty-one, Cyrus passed away. I wasn't home when it happened. But I wished I
was. He held my hand through my childhood when no one else could or wanted to.
He taught me to sign. How to tie my shoes. How to make his Pa's infamous pasta. I
spent more hours in his flat than in ours. And now he was gone. The one man who
made me feel more than normal. Who made me proud of my mind and all its
glitches.

At twenty-one, I stopped taking the meds, and I remembered the world in which
Cyrus and I shared. An idyllic Pleasantville — NOW IN COLOUR! I remembered the
chaos and the fun. The unbelievable and mystical. I saw the white rabbit having a
tea party in the city fountain and goblins hiding in the mail holes. The tar on the road
turned to gold, and the leaves on the trees exploded into hundreds of paper planes.
My nightmares came back too, but it was worth it. For this brief period of time, I felt
like myself again. I felt Cyrus with me, pointing at Cupid in the sky and looking for
mermaids at the beach. We saw a couple.

He tapped me on the shoulder at his funeral.
'They make me sound like a saint!'
He was wearing his brown woollen sweater and maroon reading glasses atop his
head.
'You were.' I held his hand until the service ended.

I wanted to stay off the meds. I wanted to crawl into those pockets of reverie when
life felt trying or dull. But the world isn't always lenient with what it requires of you. I
know the girl who plucks stars from the sky and keeps them in a jar under her bed is
still in there. The girl who sees elephants in the bathtub and cities in her teacup.

She just has to go away for a while.

But who knows?

Maybe one day, she'll be back.

​

​

​