The Writer-Part 2: The Display

This is the second part of my short story: The Writer. Please critique if there's something that needs critiquing!

Story so far: The main character, Mirabelle Evans was sitting with her friends on a normal day, when a girl she had never really talked to before showed up. She asked them for a descriptive word for a poem that involved someone falling. Seeing that apparently no one had fallen from a great height before, the girl climbed to the near tip of the tree and fell twenty feet to the ground. After asking Mirabelle to fix her poem while laying, winded, on the ground, the girl got up and introduced herself as Fantyss Elizabeth Eidolon.

The Display

Wendy was into social media. When something eventful happened, she texted, tweeted, or called almost everyone she knew. News spread like wildfire. The next day, the hallways were already buzzing. “Elizabeth Eidolon jumped out of a tree…Elizabeth Eidolon tried to kill herself… Elizabeth Eidolon is a suicidal psychopath.”

I heard all this and more about the Eidolon girl, but I had a feeling most of it wasn’t true. Usually when witnessing a situation, I can confirm a truth or lie when people ask, but this was different. I could confirm very little about yesterday’s events. “Yes, she jumped out of a tree… No, I don’t think she’s suicidal… No, I don’t know why she did it.”

Our grade was pretty big, so there were a few people I never really interacted with, and rarely though about. Fantyss was one of those people, but since yesterday I had been thinking about all the times I’ve seen her. I never noticed how close her locker was to mine. Our lockers were arranged alphabetically; therefore her locker was only a few to the left of my own. We were allowed to sit outside for lunch, which was a lot of space. I don’t know where she sat, but I’m sure I’ve seen her in passing. What else? My first class today was science. Science. She was in my science class. She sat directly behind me in my science class, and I never even knew her name.

I shook my head violently. What was I doing? I was stooping to everyone else’s level; suddenly becoming obsessed with the latest trend: Fantyss Elizabeth Eidolon. I heard a locker door squeak open, and looked up. She was right there, less than five feet away from me.

She saw me staring. “Hello Mirabelle,” she greeted me. I was a bit surprised by how she looked. Her eyes were dull, not piercing like yesterday. The skin under her eyes was just a little darker than the rest of her face. She looked tired. Very tired.

“Hi Fantyss,” I smiled at her. Through the corner of my eye I saw a group of girls watching us. I glanced around for just a fraction of a second and saw more groups. They were all just staring. “How is your, um…” I tried to rephrase my question. I didn’t know if there was a particular part of the body that was injured when you fall out of a tree. “How are you doing?”

“Swell,” she responded joyfully, her face lighting up beyond the dullness of her eyes. “Just swell,” She took a binder from her locker. “And you?”

“I’m good, thanks.” People were still watching, but no one was approaching. The hall seemed quieter than before. “Do you want to walk down to science?” I asked her.

“Well, yes, walking to science class is something I will be doing,” she replied sarcastically. The hallway was almost silent. Watching and listening. All I could think was, Seriously? Okay, just make everything more awkward for me, that’s fine! I coughed to relieve some of the awkwardness and asked again, “I mean, do you want to, like,” I was stuttering horribly. “Do you want to walk to science with me?” I asked, this time more firmly.

“Oh, if that’s what you were implying, then why not?” Fantyss said, finally giving me an answer. I silently celebrated, I didn’t know why, but I really wanted to get to know her. She closed her locker, and I began to walk. “One moment,” she stopped me. Fantyss looked over her shoulder. Everyone who had been previously watching turned their heads quickly and noticeably. My stomach dropped. I felt bad for Fantyss. I would feel horrible if I saw everyone staring at me. Apparently Fantyss wasn’t as sensitive as I was. She turned back to me, a wicked grin of her face. “Science class,” she said. I nodded.

As we walked to first period, I decided to tell Fantyss what people were saying about her. “Some people are calling you a psychopath,” I told her in a low voice. I didn’t want her to hear it in another way from another person. I knew it would be malicious.

She sighed. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her. “Anything else?” she pressed.

“Um…” I didn’t know if I should tell her more. She looked at me expectantly. “They think you’re…suicidal,” I said. I pursed my lips sympathetically. Suddenly her face lit up, and she smiled.

“Suicidal?” she repeated brightly. I nodded slightly. Joy was not the response I expected. “This is brilliant! I’ll add it to my list. Psychopath is already on it, and I was hoping for a new one. I think I’ll squeeze it in besides cynical and sadistic. Lost of alliteration. You cannot argue with well placed alliteration.” Fantyss spoke quickly, but clearly. Her voice sounded like it was elevated, coming from her mind rather than her mouth.

I realized this was the reason I wanted to walk with her. I didn’t see her as the rest of my classmates saw her. I didn’t see her as some kind of display you just stare at. I saw her as someone interesting. I wanted to know her. I wanted to understand her, not to criticize her, but to marvel at her. I wanted to be her friend, but I think what I wanted more than that, was for her to recognize me as one.

Even though what she was saying seemed insane, her smile was infectious. “What are you even talking about?” I asked, half laughing.

“Oh yes,” she said, slowing down. “I forget sometimes that others don’t follow. I’ve been called many things, Mirabelle, and I like to keep track. It’s my outsiders’ description. You see, I can describe myself, but in describing yourself many things are lost in the struggle with other humanly emotions. For example, modesty can prevent an accurate self-description.” I was nodding, but I wasn’t really getting it. “Mirabelle, describe yourself,” she told me.

I thought for a few seconds. “I have short brown hair, blue eyes, I’m not very tall…” I looked at Fantyss and shrugged. She shook her head.

“I mean describe your personality. In your own words,” she clarified.

“Oh…” I thought more. “I don’t really know…maybe…” Fantyss cut me off.

“No, you do know, but you’re just too modest to describe yourself accurately. Even if you were to say something, they would be down-played by modesty.” I nodded and made some sound to make it seem like I understood. “Other people can’t get an accurate description because of their constant need to be liked by others. Not many people are willing to go up to someone they just met and tell them they’re obsessive-compulsive in a million different ways. That just not something you do. Anyway, I could go on and on about the different things that affect self-descriptions, but I’m not going to because I don’t have time. I never have time. Never enough time…” she drifted off.

“Fantyss?” I said, a little concerned. She jumped back into her explanation.

“So instead of worrying about humanly faults understating my personality, I’ll just use other people’s descriptions of me to describe myself. So far I am a depressed, cynical, sadistic, suicidal, paranoid, mentally unstable psychopath.”

“What?” I gasped, “That horrible! Why would you say that about yourself?”

“Oh no, no, no” Fantyss dismissed. “This is how other’s describe me. Outsiders. An outsider, being a person who is not me, describing me, is actually very useful. I have not yet encountered another “me”, so I can safely say that everyone I have met so far in life counts as an outsiders. I would think an outsider’s description of me would be more helpful to another outsider than a description made by me for someone who is not me. So you see, I keep an outsider’s description for the purpose of simplifying my description to other outsiders, believing they must think alike considering that an outsider and another outsider have at least one more thing in common than an outsider and myself: they are not me.”

Fantyss was done talking. I stopped cold in front of the science classroom. My brain was exploding a little bit. “So…you let other people describe you because other people think more like other people?” I thought hard. “Other people are more like other people than you are like other people? …What?” I hadn’t been this confused since fourth grade algebra.

“Yes, that’s basically the point. Haven’t you heard of universal relations?” I shook my head. “Good. Don’t look it up, it’s terribly boring. Venn diagrams. There were too many Venn diagrams…” Fantyss saw the confusion on my face. “Don’t think about it too hard. I don’t use it much anyway,” she reassured me.

“Universal relations or the outsider’s description?” I asked.

“Both,” she said. “And, don’t worry, I only really agree with about three and a half of the words used in the description.”

“Three and a half?” I chuckled. “Which ones?”

“Maybe you should figure that out,” she challenged, smirking. With that, we entered science class.

*Note: Universal relations is not actually what it's called, but I'm really thinking of some weird Venn diagram thing I learned from a logic book. When I figure out what it's really called, I will add in the real name.*