It was a cloudless day, I was standing by myself in a corner of the school yard and trying to look busy counting rocks. You’re only fooling yourself if you think you can’t be lonely just because you’re busy, but the most important thing is that no one else thinks you’re lonely. While I was standing there, dark clouds suddenly rushed in, the heavens opened up, and bolts of lightning struck me in the forehead twice. I fell back and everything was dark and very far away, I could hear ambulances and this time I knew they were coming for me. “While you wait,” a faceless man said, “I want you to draw a diagram of your life, here’s a red pen.” So I took the pen and drew a line from one ear to the other, straight across my face, and then I pointed at my nose and said: “This is where I am now.” I heard sirens and opened my eyes and saw that the whole school had gathered around me, there was a burnt smell and the principal was there. “I think she’s hurt her nose, she’s pointing at her nose,” he said. Two men in white jackets came into view, they put me on a stretcher and carefully lifted me into the ambulance, as if I was someone they cared about. Then we drove away, sirens blaring, and it was as beautiful as Beethoven’s Fifth.
Everyone at the hospital was attentive and kind, the nurses looked at me compassionately and said that it probably wouldn’t take too long for my eyebrows to grow back. The other patients were also nice, it seemed like getting struck by lightning earns people’s respect, as if we lightning survivors are God’s chosen. Kind of like Moses. “You were so lucky,” the doctor said, and I felt lucky, I only cried whenever I looked at myself in the mirror and when I had to go home.
During my stay in the hospital, I’d practiced what I would tell the other students, who would surely flock around me when I came back. “I’ve never experienced anything so painful,” I’d say. “The doctor said it’s a miracle I survived.” They’d all gasp and thank God that I was still alive. I practiced hiding my scorched eyebrows with my hands so that it looked natural, either by placing a forefinger over each of them, like the sign language for “ox,” or I could pretend I was shading my face from the sun. “I’ve gotten so popular it’s really starting to wear me down,” I’d tell my mother and father, who couldn’t be more proud.
But when I went back to school, my Moses complex had disappeared, because the news on everyone’s lips was that the crown prince was back from London after the war. During first period, the teacher forgot to call my name, like always, but instead of saying “Mathea — here” to myself like I usually did, I raised my hand. “Excuse me,” I said, “but I’ve returned.” The lightning had apparently given me a positively charged dose of self-confidence. The teacher lifted his eyes from the attendance list that lay in front of him on his desk, the other students turned around and stared at me where I sat in the back row, and I laid my hands over my scorched eyebrows and pretended I was shading my face from all the attention. The teacher had to think a minute, but finally he remembered me: “Oh, we thought. ” Then he didn’t say anything more, and everyone turned back around towards the blackboard, and during recess I was alone counting rocks again.
I’d reached one hundred and seventy-seven when I saw two big ears coming my way from across the schoolyard, it was the skinny boy they called “trophy cup.” He was in the same grade as me, and I knew I was the one he was heading toward, because I was alone within a radius of twenty meters, I was always alone within a range of twenty meters, sometimes more. He walked with determination, as though he was afraid he’d change his mind if he hesitated. I got nervous and started counting rocks faster and faster, and I tried to look surprised when he stopped beside me and cleared his throat like he was about to give a speech. “The chance of being struck by lightning twice on the same spot must be less than ε, if ε equals a microscopically small quantity,” he said with a serious expression on his face. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything at first, but then I remembered my missing eyebrows, so I made the sign of the ox. I mooed so that it would seem more natural. He had innocent eyes, and I knew he wasn’t the type who tears the legs off spiders or cuts earthworms in two to see if the parts will become two new ones. “I wondered how you were doing, and I’m relieved to see you on your feet again,” he said. “And you know, you look good without eyebrows, it makes your face so open.” At first I was embarrassed, but then I realized this was the first time someone had lied to me to make me feel better. “Thank you,” I said and dropped my hands. “I think you look good with big ears too,” I said. “Well,” he said, “they’re not so bad, it’s just unfortunate they get cold so easily.” “Yes, that’s unfortunate,” I said. “But in any case,” he said, “if you don’t mind, and if it’s not too hard on you, I’d like to hear what it was like to be struck by lightning, and I can even show you some probability calculations I’ve done about your experience, it really is unbelievable.” “I’d like that,” I said and smiled. He smiled too, then turned to go. He took two steps, hesitated, and then looked back at me. “You know, Mathea,” he said, “if you count both big and small ones, there are three hundred and forty-five rocks here. I counted them yesterday.”
As soon as we were finished with school, Epsilon got a job and we got married and then it was just Epsilon and me.
~ ~ ~
“EUREKA,” I SAY when I read about exposure therapy in the newspaper, that’s obviously what I need. Anne Norunn (37) is terrified of bacteria and gets scared to death when her husband — he’s actually younger than her — Kent (35) sneezes. Anne Norunn spends a fortune on soap and detergents and is even considering divorcing Kent, who’s a walking time bomb of filth, she’d rather have an air purifier for a husband. “Exposure therapy is what you need,” the psychologist says. “You have to gradually expose yourself to bacteria more and more until finally you can be with Kent again.” “I don’t think that’s possible,” Anne Norunn says. “But it is,” the psychologist says.
I need to expose myself more and more to death — without going too far, it’s a delicate balance — but then at last I’ll be able to live with the fact that I’m going to die. I figure this can be done in two ways and so I draw up a list.
1. I can visit graveyards, go to funerals, or I can plan my own funeral. When I told Epsilon which song I wanted played at my funeral, I was laughing because I wasn’t going to die. I stopped laughing when he took out a pencil and wrote it down in his almanac.
It must be terrible to plan your own funeral. It’s probably easier to plan other people’s.
2. I can begin living dangerously. I can cross the street without first looking left, then right, then left again.
The last possibility I can think of is to “forget” to turn off the hot plate, and I decide to get right on that. In the news, you read about houses and apartments burning down because old people forget to turn off their hot plates, but then again, maybe they don’t forget, they “forget.”
I switch the hot plate on high and then I sit on a kitchen chair and wait. I wait a long time, but my fear of dying doesn’t let up, I just get hot, like Pol Pot. In fact, the whole apartment is getting warm and oppressive, and I’m tired of the green carpet and brown wallpaper, I want to get out, I want to live, I want to go to the salon, but I can’t go to the salon, I went there before my wedding and every time the hairdresser dragged a comb through my hair and it hit my ears, I flinched and thought “never again,” but I have to get out out out, and I stand up and run out the door without bothering with the peephole, I couldn’t care less about the peephole, and I take the stairs in slippers, I throw myself against the heavy outer door and run over the sidewalk to the grass where I lay down.