This is a fictional story suggested by a news article—"Ripped from the headlines"—as some television programs say. The names here are not taken from any actual person, living or dead.
Chapter 1
There was a time when I wasn't a quiet, uncommunicative person, but I had a hard time remembering that far back, it was so long ago. My ten year old brother, Matthew, and my two sisters, Sarah, nine, and Rebecca, eight, were also fun loving, laughing kids. At seven, I loved my siblings, our days often filled with the joy of our being. That was no more though. Everything suddenly changed.
Many years later, I found myself working in a distribution warehouse. It kept me in food and rent, paid my few bills, and best of all the workers were female including our supervisor, thank goodness. It was the environment I needed. Men still scared me. It may always be that way for me. No, I didn't consciously desire to be as I was; no one would want to be as I am.
We all used to go to church regularly with our parents. That too is a thing of the past, though not for our parents who have always been devout Christians. I hardly remember them, but when I was seven, they decided to be church missionaries, and took us along. It was like the Peace Corp, we were told; it was made to sound so exciting, an adventure that we could look back on and say that we had helped do our part in the Lord's work. That was when we were so lively and full of the joy of living and being young and carefree.
Much later, after I'd graduated from high school and left home, I found this job. It provided me with the wherewithal to survive. My life wasn't much, but I was alive, though no longer a happy, laughing person. I'm sure that many of the workers thought I was sort of standoffish since I didn't socialize with them. When any greeted me, I would return it, but I had no smile, nothing additional to say, like asking how their weekend was; I just went on.
I'm not sure if I hoped for anything other than staying alive, if barely. There were no thoughts of finding love and living happily ever after. In fact, thinking was something I worked hard at not doing, and I was pretty good at it after all the years of practice.
* * * *
"Rachel, honey, are you okay?" I heard Janet's concerned voice. She must have caught me in one of my times of being too quiet.
"Oh, yes, I'm fine. Just thinking," I evaded. She was my close co-worker that I occasionally spoke to as needed. As much as I could, I tried to be friendly with her, but it was difficult for me.
Janet was a good person, very friendly, yet not overly so. She was here when I started, and probably just a few years older then me. Still, I couldn't bring myself to open up to her in any way other than as needed for work, but sometimes I knew that I wished that I could, she was so nice. She didn't seem to mind my quietness, and I appreciated that.
I did force myself to talk to her on occasion, but I knew that my part of it the conversations must have sounded stilted to her. It was the best that I could do, and she seemed to think that it was just a peculiarity with me. That's what I told myself was what she probably thought about my obvious reticence. Yet I knew that some inner part of me wished that I could talk more freely, be sociable, but I felt that I didn't dare.
After many months I found that I was working to be freer with Janet, I began speaking a little more than I had at any time before. She didn't pry though goodness only knows some of the others wanted to. How she was with me though had me feeling grateful to her.
Maybe that was what started making me to feel a little more sociable with her. Indeed, I'd been there a couple of years when I finally started to talk to her, little though it was. Perhaps that was what made her to keep trying to get me to talk more than I did, at least with her.
For ever so long I had lived day and night making sure that no unwanted thoughts entered into my consciousness. At night, as I tried to sleep, I was so good at forcing myself into a limbo-like state that it had become too big a part of me. Still, there was something in me that wanted more, something different, but I had no idea what it was. All I knew was that not allowing thoughts to come freely within me kept me safe, but from what? That I had no answer for, but safety was paramount to me.
Yet Janet's continuing smiles and soft voice, her always being the same friendly person, was pulling at me though I tried to block that out too. My mind could, for the most part, but a sense, a feeling, kept trying to come through. Some part of me, I began to sense, wanted, desired, Janet's friendship, her voice, her easy words, few though they were.
I wasn't cold toward her, not unkind, just not...not anything. Dull? Did I sense myself as being dull? It was nagging at me. I knew that I didn't like the shell that I was becoming. That other part of me, the one that sensed that I wanted more, pulled at me; Janet's friendliness was what was calling to whatever I had that wanted to be other than the fearful person that I'd become. Though I refused to openly think of it, I felt the pull, the desire.
Chapter 2
"
Wow! I'm bushed! How about you, Rachel?" I heard Janet's voice as our work week was about over.
Like her, I was tired too, but dreading the night and the weekend of nothingness that I had forced on myself. For some reason, I responded in as friendly a voice as I could muster, all of my past considered.
"Me too. It has been a rough day."
A moment later, but just a moment, I heard her again: "You know, I just don't feel like going home though, and fighting all that traffic. How about you? What do you say we get a cup of coffee and just watch the world go by for a while?"
Something in me quickly responded, a jumping in some deep inner part of me. It was that something that was in me, but hadn't been let out in ages—now it was suddenly there and alive in me.
"Okay," I said, stunned at my word of acquiescence. For some reason it sounded good to me.
* * * *
Ordering a cup of coffee and sitting in one of the many free booths, Janet seemed quietly comfortable. For some reason or other I was content knowing that she was, and I mildly wondered about it.
"It's kinda nice watching the people and traffic go scurrying by in a hurry to get home or wherever. I mean, it's nice not to feel a part of it in a funny way," she mused. "We, people, are always in a rush these days, especially at the end of the week."
"I guess that's true," I couldn't help but agree, though I wasn't one of those ever rushing about.
I was uncharacteristically relaxed, comfortable! It was shocking to me. I couldn't remember being anything but tight and wary since we were on the mission field as it was called. I liked it, though a part of me was still on guard. Why, I wondered, did I feel as I did? Did Janet finally break through my rock solid persona that I thought was frozen into the new me?
"I'm glad you're here," she said. "I've always seen you as a nice person, though a quiet one."
I blushed, something else I couldn't ever remember doing. Still, none of what she said struck me as objectionable. Was this how it was supposed to have been all along, this being somewhat sociable, even feeling my face flush at some simple, innocuous words softly spoken? It was strange, but I found myself enjoying this newness of person.
Janet had always allowed me my space, never critical of my quietness, or my seeming moodiness as I sometimes was.
"Do you have some big plans for the weekend?" she continued, her tone casual and not intrusive in any way.
My body stiffened involuntarily and my face froze with it.
Survive! Do what I could to keep the thoughts and sights that tried to plague me for years without end from coming to the fore in me; try to keep from thinking and hope the weekend went by swiftly.
