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Tommy Walker coughed a thick, mucous-filled cough, and rolled over face-first into his pillow, groaning. Today, no sound came out, as some time in the middle of the night, he'd developed laryngitis. See me. Feel me. Touch me. HEAL me!!! Oddly enough, these symptoms kind of felt comforting, or at least, familiar. He had been fighting off a double ear infection, so his hearing wasn't so great, though not totally gone. He couldn't speak much, except to get a dry sound out. All that remained completely intact was his vision, for the moment. After his brief and strange time as the "new messiah," he hated that name now, he lived a very reclusive life alone. He hadn't spoken to his mother and her husband, or his Uncle Ernie, in a very, very long time. 4 years, to be exact. After his failed holiday camp, where he'd intended to instruct followers on how to play pinball for a spiritual experience sans the 3 senses he had lacked since childhood and miraculously gained back by his mother smashing a mirror, he had come to realize some things after the followers revolted and he escaped. The first was, he didn't want to be found by his mother, stepfather, or uncle. Secondly, he realized that, while at least his mother may have been a bit more well-meaning, especially earlier on, and she may have lacked some proper resources, he actually had endured a lot of abuse and neglect thanks to her. He'd been babysat by all the wrong people- cousin Kevin, Uncle Ernie, the neighbor that let him wander, albeit straight to the pinball machine in the junkyard that awoke his consciousness. His mother never bothered to try to learn how to communicate with him or have him taught how to communicate. His cousin Kevin had physically tortured him when Tommy was left alone with him. His uncle Ernie had sexually abused him. His mother wasn't very careful about who she left him with, nor a good judge of character, it turned out. And his stepfather, well. His stepfather only ever "loved" his mother, if you want to call it love, not him. And later, his stepfather took him to a drugged out whore to try and awaken his senses all the wrong way. He always knew, even when he couldn't see, hear, or talk, who was doing what with him, if it was already someone familiar. He wasn't completely void of knowledge or awareness or some form of sense. And then there was how he lost his 3 senses in the first place... the day Captain Walker, presumed dead, came home, and his mother and stepfather killed him to make their union more convenient, rather than handle it in an adult manner somehow. You didn't hear it, you didn't see it, you never heard it, not a word of it, you won't say nothing to no one, never tell a soul what you know is the truth.
1/21/24 Sniffling and coughing, Tommy rose from the bed with some difficulty, not really wanting to move, but knowing a nice, hot cup of tea would at least help. He shuffled into the small kitchen of his sparse apartment, hoping to relieve some of his symptoms. He listened to the sound of the teapot wailing in protest as it boiled, coming out in a strange and muffled version of the sound. He marveled at the fact that the sound wouldn't have been audible to him four years ago. That he wouldn't have been able to see his way to the kitchen on his own at all. That he couldn't have spoken his mind, what he needed, wanted, or felt or thought. He had been totally dependent on his mother and stepfather. He thought of all of the strides he had made since. He had essentially picked up where he left off at age seven, with only distant memories of what sight and sound and speech were, the last of those senses and actions at his disposal being in a moment of trauma. Now he lived on his own, took care of himself. He could normally see, hear, and speak perfectly, when he wasn't sick with the flu. He could express much more complex thoughts. His vocabulary had grown much more mature, more adult, since he'd left off at the level of a seven-year-old. It was a wonder, really, that a pinball machine and a broken mirror could bring all of this about. But it was much more than that, really. It precipitated the changes in him, but he'd done the rest on his own. He'd put forth the effort. He'd picked his schooling back up, and also learned sign language and Braille, even though he could see and hear. He wasn't the new messiah at all, but he hoped he could inspire people somehow. It was all he had really wanted to do with his failed holiday camp.
Breaking out of his reverie, shaking off the thoughts, Tommy had the sudden urge to play pinball again. He hadn't in four years, but perhaps this would help to inspire him. He had lacked inspiration, these days, and needed it every bit as much as the people he'd sought to inspire. Though he'd come along way, he'd lacked a certain spark in more recent months. He was living just to live, and nothing more. He lacked direction, focus, purpose. He lacked joy and interaction, though the interaction was by his own choice, thanks to his mother and others. He lacked trust. She broke it. He needed some of that good in his life again.
Barbie stretched, looking around her mostly pink furnished apartment. She smiled wanly, admiring the fun she'd had decorating the place with her friend Gloria and her daughter, Sasha. It was a lovely sunny Saturday in California. She was happy enough, but she wasn't really sure what she was going to do with her life.
Life.
What a funny word that was, considering that hers had started in a most unconventional way. She didn't have a mother, so to speak, unless you counted Ruth- who conceived the idea of her- nor did she have a father. She didn't come from a womb or birth. She'd never been a baby, a child, or an adolescent, like Sasha. She'd been a doll, and a concept. She'd been an idea, and a plaything, and now, she was somehow miraculously human. She'd chosen it, of course, and she had no regrets. But she was realizing what Ruth had meant about life being uncomfortable, and needing to invent ideas and concepts to deal with how uncomfortable it was. She was now needing something like that, to deal. She needed a purpose. She hadn't really found that yet, though she'd taken the right steps to start. She'd been taking care of her health, seeing doctors. She'd been eating right. She'd been exercising. She'd been studying for her GED and was contemplating maybe getting at least an undergraduate degree; a four-year one. But she didn't know what she wanted to do, or what she was meant to do with the life that she'd been given, so much more instantly and easier than most human beings were given, just "dropping in" at age 25, skipping over a lot of the tough experiences. She sometimes felt a lot of guilt over just being able to drop in like she did. She thought of Sasha, and all of the girls women she'd been shown in Ruth's vision, and how they'd all had to live through the experiences of reaching womanhood/adulthood, contending with clashes with their parents, with their peers, maybe even with society. Some children, especially in previous centuries and millennia, had to fight to survive infancy or childhood, and here she was, the picture of health, living and breathing starting at an "ideal" adulthood age. It was a bit much, at times. She had, maybe not exactly survivor's guilt, but some form of that. It was an experience, as far as she knew, entirely unique to her, but it was definitely guilt.
1/30/24 This life, at times, felt to Barbie like it didn't belong to her. Like she didn't deserve it. It felt almost stolen. She knew that she had chosen it, but she felt like she hadn't earned it, like she was an imposter among all human beings with a traditional, biological beginning. Occasionally, she wondered, though it had to somehow be the case, if she had DNA. These things like DNA, a social security number, her very existence, just materialized out of nowhere, and stranger yet- no one had questioned it. The only two people in the world who even knew the truth about her, other than of course the big-wigs at Mattel, were Gloria and Sasha. Barbie was grateful for them. She was grateful to have two friends, and two people who knew and understood her full origin, even if they didn't know what she was going through. At least they knew without a doubt, because they were there, who she was, and they wouldn't call her crazy. If she tried to explain to them one day what she'd been going through, and why she'd isolated herself for quite some time now, it would not only be plausible, but they'd be able to at least try to understand where she was coming from. You could only know if you'd experienced it, but at least they would know the inception of these feelings and be able to reasonably follow how they'd developed, and imagine how this might all feel. And they'd care, of course they'd care! Still, she wished there were some kind of psychological expert she could see about this, through therapy, who would have a basis for treatment from thousands to millions of similar experiences. But she was the sole person, that she was aware of anyway, who'd ever been through anything like this. How can someone else cure a person with a unique set of problems? It required a unique set of solutions. It wasn't a problem, per se. She lived a very charmed life, incarnate as a human; she had many blessings. But it was an existential problem of sorts, trying to assign meaning to these emotions and thoughts she was experiencing- one she wanted to put to rest so she could enjoy her life to the fullest.
*UNFINISHED*
