The Identity: Part One
Kristina Villarini
Copyright 2009 - 2012 by Kristina Villarini
Smashwords Edition
Chapter One:
Drip. Drip. Drip.
I wish it were a dream and the sounds were from the faucet inside of my head. The last week has been hell, with the endless, wretched sound of a fingertip-sized droplet hitting the marble slope and bursting into tiny, clear soldiers racing toward the drain. I try to keep my eyes closed, as if it will change the sound. It changes nothing and I am here; rolling around in my sheets, boxers riding up one leg, hair tossed about – still pretending I am asleep. Sad. I am desperately trying to hold on to that last…
I opened my eyes and shut them quickly. Still holding on to that moment of sleep. Wringing the sleep dry. I open my right eye, scrunch up the left side of my face as if peering through a rifle sight, and then slowly move my blurry right pupil to my nightstand. I was really trying to hold on to that last minute, I thought. Sad. Maybe I should set my alarm clock to 6:01AM, so that when I wake up at 6 everyday I will be right on time. That is something to consider. Maybe I’ll try it next week.
When I’m brushing my teeth and staring at myself in the bathroom mirror over that dreaded faucet – that I’ve had the superintendent look at TWICE – I count my beauty marks, scars, look at my eyebrows… Typical female stuff, I guess. Except for the fact that I am in no way the typical female, am I? I pull my hair back into a ponytail and I wonder what to wear to work, where I put my keys last night, where my calico, Roses, is. Some mornings, when I look at myself, when I’ve put my toothbrush in the holder and I know what I’ll wear, and I’ve fed the cat, and I know where my keys are… On those rare occasions when I’m unusually organized, I take the extra five minutes and stare in that mirror. I stare very, very hard, as if I’m looking for something. God knows what. A new blemish, maybe? Or something deeper?
I know what it is, but I am afraid to say it aloud. Like if I say it out loud it becomes more real than if it ferments in my head for years. I’m wondering who I am, and whose life this is. Is this really mine or is it what I accepted as a subpar substitute? Gone are the loft dreams and the six-figure income of a tenured English professor at a reputable University. Insert recruiting job. Insert one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. Insert cat. Insert long nights out and difficulty finding a taxi. Insert a benefits package Charlie Chaplin would audibly laugh at. Insert life videotape and feel your fingertips roll over the sideways triangle, daring you to press it. Press play and insert me. Insert you. Insert thoughts of “Why I can’t just hit the rewind button, then hit the record button and start again?” I ask myself every day; don’t I deserve to try again? Don’t I deserve a crack at the perfect life? The perfect person? Or just a shot as a professor with my cat, a better paycheck and a more satisfying feeling when I throw my Prada briefcase on the table after I proudly walk into my apartment?