The Perfect Silence Of The Stars (También en Español)

Chapter 1. Listen before I go 💫

People take reality for granted. That's a fact. They go about their lives in total sync with it. Like perfect puzzle pieces, what they see clicks with what they think they see.

Not me, though. Not even a little. Not even at all.

I don't know a lot of things. I don't know why this happened to me. What wrongdoings I'm paying for or who am I paying it to. I don't know why neon butterflies roam my garden at exactly five every afternoon, or why the eldest oak tree in the backyard can spread its branches like eagle wings and lift centimeters off the ground on stormy evenings.

I don't know how long I hold my breath until my camera snaps a real capture of what's going on around me. Glitzy butterflies are not a thing nature is interested in having. The ones that were right in front of my face yesterday, sniffing pollen from Mom's most fragrant jasmines, were but a figment of my imagination.

Not real. Not real. Not real.

Should I cry?

Don't be stupid, Imogen. There's nothing to cry about. There are plenty of other reasons for you to smile. If you are having trouble finding such reasons, that's entirely on you.

That'd be Anamathea, the emo voice in my head. Her name is a reference to the word 'anathema' aka something or someone that one vehemently dislikes. She's a little pretentious, the more consonants the better. She has a blast trying to bring me down and cheering me up at the same time. It all depends on her mood swings. The girl is a breathing rollercoaster spiraling out of control with each swerve over the wrinkly, walnut shape of my brain.

Naming the frequent voices I've come to love-hate makes me freak out less. I know it sounds crazy, but then again, I am.

Music from the great hall beneath reverberates around me, making the clouds bounce in unison. Frowning in distrust, I take my camera and snap a picture of the night sky. Cloudless, of course. Stars, the only witness to my dangling legs on this rooftop. I'm so far up, the mesh from the hem of my black dress flutters as if it were a part of the sky. I focus on the movement from my black combat boots and the world tilts.

The idea of attending Prom being a Junior was one of the stupidest thoughts I've had in a long time. Even more than when I was convinced a goblin ran the school library, messing up all the pages from the most boring textbooks. Making it even harder to focus on the learning of whatever crap was in there.

It took me quite a while and skill to get him on camera. Mr. Fitzgerald popped into my screen. And he was no magical creature but a very earthly one—into French fries and chocolate milkshakes—so his short chubby fingers would grease up chapter after chapter, leaving fat stains left and right. His nasal voice droned on and on about students being the careless ones whenever someone complained. I should get him fired, but then again, who am I to judge his work ethics?

What am I doing up here tonight? I have a reputation to uphold. Average high school Junior, head of the school newspaper—see what I did there? I got myself a free card for photographing pretty much anything I want and no need to explain why. I should hit the dance floor. My head bobbing to a cool tune, dancing the night away.

For what is worth, I tried it which lasted about five minutes before reality came crashing down like a train wreck without the need of the flash from my cell phone.

Sometimes, I fight this recent version of myself and struggle to get back underneath the skin I inhabited for fifteen years oblivious of terms like 'mental illness' or worse 'insane'. Can't power through those.

Whatever. Sobby girl. It wasn't your scene at all. You didn't belong, not like before, at least. Fuck the world and fuck Prom night.

Anamathea is spot on. The girl I used to be before my diagnosis would be downstairs, swaying her hips and taking phone numbers home. She'd wake up to many texts from boys and invitations to hangouts and pool parties.