Back home, after Christmas, Rhaya decided to get her act together and start over. With the holidays behind, she’d be sucked back to the dreadful routine of school, and homework in the afternoons. It was inevitable. But she could, at the very least, look pretty for her crush, maybe feel good about herself for a change. So, once again, she dove into tables and menus, serving sizes, ounces and calories. Rhaya threw herself furiously into aerobicize, two hours every day, believing this time the excess fat stored in her potbelly would be gone for ever.
“I will chant his name every night” she heard someone say in her mind, as she settled for bed, after an exhausting day of school and aerobics class.
“That’s silly” she thought, “Loud Thought is making fun of my crush, I can’t believe him” she told herself. “That’s his thing, bothering me at all times” she concluded.
“I cannot stand that man!” the new voice added with a sting. The skin on the base of Rhaya’s neck tingled, a sudden shiver travelled up her spine to the top of her head, prickling her scalp.This was not the Loud Thought she was familiar with, and ¿Why the warm sensation on her right cheek? ¿Why the sudden burst of contempt oppressing her chest? Loud Thought obviously wouldn’t say this of himself. Soon after she felt groggy, exhausted. The day had probably been too much, for sure. As she dosed off, a very pleasant, womanly voice spoke to her right ear, precisely at the point where reality meets the dream world, when Rhaya could neither awaken completely of pass to the nightly realms entirely.
“I will chant his name every night, until I feel I have ordained his will. I will chant again, each night, exhausted, until his words speak your name.”
Rhaya managed to utter one last conscious thought before the wave of sleep took over completely “she sure knows what its like, she must be a poet”.
Next morning the verse resounded with the same fresh might of desire. Feelings such as these, Rhaya only kept to herself. She understood the romance in that improvised, unexpected verse, so different from her own usual structure. She was more of a haiku type gal. I understood, of course. Rhaya was at that age where raw emotions need innovative words, and someone was giving them to her.
The young lady was slimming down again, but at a much slower pace. It wasn’t as easy now; hunger and hard work didn’t reflect in her body like before. As a full-blown teen, hormones did their work, making sure fat prevailed in key zones. Also, her body fought for its right to pleasure of taste bud, the comfort real of creamy textures. No more pretending that foodstuffs stripped of their original flavor were good enough. No more assuming discomfort would pass and soon be forgotten. This feminine organism didn’t believe Rhayas silly arguments anymore.
But somehow it didn’t matter as much. She was now scribbling regularly in her Venetian handmade notebook. In the back of her mind, the anxiety about being slim and beautiful was still present, but even as Loud Thought talked away she could barely hear him. At this stage Rhaya spent her days residing alone in her cool bedroom, administering her life. She managed the first half of the day’s worth of dull school work, in the most efficient way possible. She found it easier to achieve the unworthy task by snacking, while attempting to insert useless information into her already cluttered head. If the data stuck for some 12 hours, that was enough for a pass on any surprise quiz that might come her way.
Then came the good stuff. Opening her notebook and scribbling all about her destined loneliness, the love that wouldn’t be; why he would never call, because they were nothing more than casual acquaintances; he barely remembered her existence. Rhaya was sure her dark haired boy couldn’t possibly find in her what he saw in lanky legged Lory.
“Its just natural. If I were a man I’d be looking her way also. Such is the tragedy of our plainness” said Loud Thought number 2, the new phenomenon born after the holidays at Henrietta’s. It wasn’t the same as with Loud Thought 1 though, this much was true. It didn’t make Rhaya feel bad, at all. To de contrary, the young lady felt accompanied, as never before. The stillness of her bedroom, with its dainty little balcony looking over the garage, and the silent residential street outside her window, were now part of her life. A real story, in real time, told by an entity outside of her, watching it unfold.
“It’s only us now. We are in everything we have left in place, its our world ” It concluded for Rhaya.
“Its her, again”
“Dear, now its the two of us against that ghastly old man”
Rhaya let go an involuntary giggle.
This new Loud Thought couldn’t be called a realization. ¿Imagination then? In her mind Rhaya imagined a composed young lady, of dark determined eyes and chestnut hair, made up in a style from another time period. She wore a long gown. It hugged the whole torso down to the waist and then opened up to an ample flounce, down to her shoes. Very much like the drawings from the Little Women children’s book, the one she got on her 8th birthday, and thought quite sappy.
“It has a beautiful pattern, vertical stripes or maybe little floral print; she may have a huge closet full of amazing gowns” the girl fantasized, enticed by the idea of having a direct connection to her favorite novels.
“I’m Emily” it said, gently.
“¡Oh it’s a perfect name!” answered Rhaya immediately “you do sound as an Emily.”
Her days were sure to be different now, she wasn’t alone anymore. She had an allie, from the times of elaborate dresses, leather bound journals, fountain pens, tresses arranged with care, good conversation.
The Venetian notebook soon began filling up with lines that slanted upward; little poems spread in groups of three or four in a single page. Arrows pointed to continue reading at the top of the page, at the bottom or to the back of it, with unpredictable structures.
The new feelings had new words, Emily made it so.
The woman poet was clear to me now, I could see her, just as Rhaya did. Her gown, the soft hairdo clasped with metal pins, and the stillness of her gentle stare. She seemed almost in a permanent state of contemplation. Often, she led Rhaya outside to the porch, late at night. They sat on the brick ledge above the huge crotons and listened to the curious sounds emanating from the city. The echoes of barking dogs, the passing cars a few blocks away. They stared at the silky shadows ruffled on the pavement; they found faces hidden in the dimmed leaves of the evergreen trees.
Even Rhayas body was more tranquil since Emily, and though still an exercise freak in her head, the obsession had toned down. My commissioned human found herself in a slump, where her body wouldn’t comply anyway. An invisible limit had been set, it wasn’t under her control anymore.
One day, the girls in Rhaya’s classroom were a stir. Lory had news. She recounted how the dark haired boy had finally kissed her on the lips. It had happened on someone’s porch. Two wicker chairs had been pulled closer, the air had grown still, the night made a pause in both their eyes, and he reached for the nape of Lory’s neck to press her to him. And a pair of grey eyes were gleaming, on fire, all the while.
“Not ready, still too thick.” Loud Thought 1 uttered in the sternest of manners. It was almost as if he didn’t speak native English when his words came out sharp like that, without the cushioning of additional words to wrap up the message.
“No good to have the boyfriend now, waste of time, boyfriend makes fat” it grunted on.
“Aaron you are mad, we won’t take you anymore!” spilled Emily.
As Lory recounted the kiss, Rhaya imagined her own lips meeting her crush’s. She imagined the taste of him, wonderful, alien. She immersed in the warmth of her sorry fantasy, to dull the pang of jealousy scraping her insides.
But that name didn’t escape her.
“His name is Aaron, Loud Thought has a name too”