Miracle Girl Part I

 

 

 

To my sister:  the one who wandered into my life for three days, changed me forever, and then wandered back

 out again, as it should be; who I will both pray for and thank God for throughout my life;

 who thinks more like I do than any mortal I have ever met.

You know who you are.

 

 

 

Author's Note:  The following is the first part of a fictional story that portrays the truth as I know it.  It is not intended to be symbolic.  Rather, it illustrates how real principles can operate in everyday contexts.  none of the characters represent real people.  However, the events of my own transformation while writing this story are in some instances both unintentionally and uncannily similar to those of the main character. 

 

 

 

          Kingdom, Class, Phylum, Order, Family, Genus, Species.  I look up from my notes, tapping the end of my pencil against the front of my binder pensively, struggling to think of a way to pound the information deeper into my skull.  Kangaroos Catch Polliwogs On Freeways Going South.  No.  I don't really like that one.  I'd never remember it.  Killing Cat Philanthropists Obviously Facilitates Good Sense.  Still no.  Too weird.  Maybe I should trash the whole mnemonic device thing and just memorize them as they stand.  I stare absentmindedly at the cluster of tables a few feet away from where I sit, next to the European language collection on the fourth floor of the university library. I feel slightly off kilter.  Scratching the back of my head, I exert all the faculties of my mind to bring my thoughts back into focus.  I succeed marginally, but my attention is still scattered about like so much dry alfalfa on a windy day.  Then I see her.

          She's sitting on one of the far tables on the right, long blond hair tucked behind her ears, laptop kicked up onto one leg that's pulled into herself on the chair while the other stretches out beneath her under the table.  Her left hand sputters over the keyboard, the other dangles limply over the back of the chair.  She's alone and she doesn't care.  She's staring right at me.

          She has purple eyes.  That's striking just by itself, but there's also a deep, dark sadness to them that takes me slightly off guard.  Our irises crash in an exploding kaleidoscope of awkward mental flinches and we both retreat hastily back to wherever it was we came from.  I wonder briefly what kind of contacts she wears to get that kind of color.  Then I finally remember that Phylum comes before Class, not after, and absorb myself back into studying.  A few minutes later I get up and leave.

          The school routine settles so deeply into my bones that I don't even have the strength to fight it.  It crawls through my veins like an amoeba, draining life from my every thought.  I enter the Northwest door of the building affectionately called "The Frigate" for some long-forgotten reason that is probably still hiding six feet under with the remains of alumni of centuries past.  My hand hits the railing at the same spot that it always does.  My feet thud from one stair to the other in a steady rhythm, leading me slowly downward, down into the miry depths of my own normality.  I take eleven more steps down the hallway and reach for the door handle without looking.  Everyone is already there, but I don't bother to check my watch.  I'm always exactly two minutes early.

          Professor Blinns is at the front, running a bent index finger over his notes for the day's lecture.  I crack open a purple notebook and fish around in my backpack for a pen.  Beside the whiteboard, the teacher fixes his gaze on the class.  I wonder he's going to come up with this time.

          "You are dead."  His arm flashes across the board in quick, swift strokes.  D-E-A-D.  "You're passive and inert.  You have no life of your own."  He sets the marker down.  "Prove me wrong."

          My mind's turned on but my heart's turned off.  To me he's just one of those egoistic professors that spout out their opinion every chance he gets because he can.  I just hope I can remember what he says for the test.

          Up front, one of the more headstrong students raises his hand to answer the professor's question.  "We're breathing, aren't we?"

          "Are you?"  Asks the professor.  "For what purpose?"

          "To survive."

          "That's circular thinking.  The idea that we breathe because we live does not prove that we live because we breathe.  Unfortunately that kind of logic doesn't exist outside novels or our judicial system.  Other thoughts?"

          The class sputters with laughter and another student raises his hand.  "I think, therefore I am."

          "Do you?"  He returns. "When was the last time you made a decision that directly contradicted everything that society predisposes you to think?  Who is doing the thinking?  You?  Or the society?  How are you any more alive than the organizations that create us?"

          I'm more interested than normal.  There's something different about the way Professor Blinns is talking that I haven't seen before, something I can't quite put my finger on.

          The man walks back up to the board and draws a big sweeping curve with a large hump in the middle that flattens out quickly to either side.  He draws line down the middle for the average, with two marks on either side.  I recognize it from Statistics as a bell curve.  About 95% of the variation for a particular trait in a given population will tend to fall into the large portion of the graph, with about 5% on the outskirts.

          "Where are you on this graph?"  From the whispered comments around me, I can tell that I'm not the only one who's seen it before.  Professor Blinns continues.  "Some people spend their whole lives in the center section.  This is average.  This is acceptable.  This will get you a decent job and a boring life.  But then what?  Why does it even matter?  If you ceased to exist at this very moment and everyone else forgot about you, would you have had any effect on this world at all?"

          Out of the blue, something strikes a chord.  I'm not sure what it is, but it speaks to me in a different way than a lecture has before.  Maybe it's because suddenly he isn't just lecturing any more.  Something fiery sparkles behind the man's eyes and I realize what it is about his argument that's new to me in a university setting.  His words aren't coming from his textbook, but from his heart.  It doesn't make what he's saying any different, but it does change how I feel about it.

          He turns and jabs a finger at the graph, at the top 2.5% outside of the highest hash mark.  "These are the ones that really get it.  These are the ones that change people instead of being changed by them.  These are the ones who are truly alive."  He swivels sharply to face the students.  "How many of you believe in miracles?"  A half a dozen of the class raise their hands tentatively.

          "How many of you have seen one?"  The hands drop.

          "I heard a joke once about Statisticians.  They believe that improbable things happen but never to them.  It messes up all their models.  The opposite should be true of us.  We have a propensity to think of the ideal as unattainable when in reality." He taps the top 2.5% once more.  "It happens all the time.  But the trick is that we have to be the ones to start the process.  We have to choose to be the outliers of humanity.  We must defy the consensus.  In short, we must become the miracle that we want to see in our lives.  We have to believe that not only do miracles happen but that they will happen to us.  That they will happen because of us."

          For the final project of this class you will change the life of another human being.  I expect a 500-word paper outlining what you did, what miracles you saw, and how you are different for having completed this assignment."

          Some of you will try to skate by with the minimum but if you do, you do yourself a disservice.  This isn't about a school assignment at all; it's about your lives, and your willingness to claim your ultimate potential or to be content with mediocrity.  That is all for today.  You may leave early." 

          I stay seated a few seconds longer and the echo of the emotion behind his words crashes over me like a wave.  Despite my initial misgivings about the man, something about what he said strikes me deep.  Something you don't see every day.

          I push back through the door I came through just a half an hour before and the dazzling pre-sunset glow of the sky, the warm breeze brushing over the skin of my face, and the memory of the melancholy purple-eyed girl in the library blowing through me like a friendly hurricane, invading my every human sense.  I'm so entranced by the moment, which stands in such sparkling contrast to the atmosphere of my mind right before class started, and yet so in-line with Professor Blinns' train of thought, although I can't really identify why, that it catches me completely off-guard.

  Miracle.  The half-whispered thought escapes my mind before I can stop it.  I pull my backpack up higher on my back and start walking.

 

 

          Back at the apartment, I find two of my roommates are already there.  That's unusual for them.  Highly unusual, in fact.  I've never seen them back so early.

          "Are you going to do it now?"  asks Brandon.  He doesn't have to explain further.  My insides go all tingly.

          "I'm not sure this is a good idea.  She hasn't exactly been giving me the most positive of signals..."

          "Come on, man!  You can't make decisions like that based on what you see on the outside.  Everyone reacts differently.  For all you know she could be waiting for you to call right now."

          "And the first date wasn't amazing..."

          ”And what were you expecting, something out of movies?  Real life doesn't work like that.  It isn't perfect."

          The comment throws me off-kilter and for an instant I wonder if he somehow heard about Dr. Blinn's off-the-wall lecture, before remembering that that is impossible.  Quite the coincidence, though.  Brandon uses my silence as an opportunity to pull out his phone and proffer it towards me.  My spirit's willing, but my flesh is weak.

          "I'll call her tonight.  She might be in class right now."

          Brandon cocks an eyebrow but backs off, phone still clasped tight in his hand.  "Don't wait too long.  You don't want this one to slip away."

          I glide down the hallway to my room, trying to make myself believe I'm not retreating.  The problem is that I have the annoying tendency of being spectacularly honest with myself, so it doesn't take long to give that one up.  I do really want another date with her.  Tonight, I decide.  Brandon is right, I 'm not about to let this girl slide away.

          My conscience satiated, I tug my filled-to-overflowing trash bin out from under my desk and head back outside.

          The sunset is in full bloom now, and I have to squint and turn my head sideways to keep it from getting in my eyes.  A tangy barbeque smell wafts toward me from somewhere over by apartment 9.  Girls' voices clatter on in the distance.  One of them even sounds a little like her voice, and for a second I pretend that it is, but I quickly shake the thought off.  She's just getting in my head, that's all.  There's no way she would actually...

          "And then she was like--Oh, hi Nick!"  It's her.  My insides freeze over.

          "Hey, Mara."  Her friend glances down at her watch and jerks back in surprise.

          "How is it 3 o'clock already?  I'm going to be late for work!"  She scurries off, leaving the two of us alone.  Coincidences never cease.

          "What are you up to?"

          "Oh, I just happened to be looking out the window and saw Sarah outside.  I couldn't believe it at first.  I haven't seen her since grade school."  She smiles at me and I try not to stare too hard.  "How about you?"

          "I was just taking out the trash."  It's the perfect opportunity.  I don't have any excuse not to take it.  I have to ask her.  Now.  I will my lips to form the required words but they won't budge, so I stall for time.  "How did your calc test go?"

          "Pretty well.  I think I messed up the derivative of arccosine, but I thought it was going to be a lot worse."

          "That's good."  My frozen insides start to crack under the strain.  Ask her now! I scream at myself.  Now!  "Anything else new?"

          "No, not really."  We stand there a few more seconds until the silence rots and turns awkward.

          "Well, I'd better get inside," she says.  "I have a lot of homework to get done."

          I nod dumbly as she ducks inside the door.  I am a total failure. How did I let that happen?  I turn back toward the dumpster behind our apartments.  I'm not one to commit to things very easily, but when I do I always follow through.  Always.  Except this time.  Except when my whole future could be riding on what I do with a few seconds.  I know, it's melodramatic of me to think that way, but that's just how I am.

          I'm knocking loose a lonely scrap of paper that's stuck to the bottom of my trash bucket when a line from the day's lecture comes back to me, suddenly, and without introduction.

          This isn't about a school assignment at all; it's about your lives, and your willingness to claim your ultimate potential or be content with mediocrity.

          It's exactly the same as I'd heard it before, except now it's accompanied by a new question.  Am I mediocre?  I give the trash can a particularly hard bang and the loose piece of paper disconnects from it, gliding gently downward to settle on a pair of worn-out shoes at the bottom of the dumpster.  What have I ever done with my life to prove otherwise?

          The question disturbs me.  Not because it isn't valid, or because I don't really want to know the answer, but because I can't think of anything.  Not a single thing.

 

 

          I think about it the rest of the day.

          I think about it as I slowly pummel my way through a large stack of homework that my Intro to Physical Sciences professor gave me and an even larger stack that I gave myself to stay on target for the test.  I think about it as I chow down on the heaping plate of spaghetti that I make myself for dinner.  Around nine o'clock I slide out of a second attempt by Brandon to get me to call Mara decide to head to bed early.  When I get there, however, the question I asked myself at the dumpster drives sleep from my mind.  I lay there, staring at the wall, until my other roommate, Porter, flicks the lights out and I can't see the painted sheetrock in front of my face any more.  Why do I care so much about the answer to that question?

          Finally I can't take it anymore and I'm up out of bed, fumbling around on the floor for my sneakers.  I find them beside my nightstand and put them on.  I know deep inside that what I'm doing is idiosyncratic to the nth degree, but no one's watching me right now so I find I don't care.

          The front door opens, then closes, and I'm outside once more, staring up at the dark sky.  The light is on in apartment 26, but other than that there are no signs of life to be found.  I wander off a hundred yards or so, just far enough away that no one will be able to see me if they look out the window.  I tilt my head back and gaze up at the stars.  They fill the air with such depth that I see more clearly than ever before the shallowness of my own existence.  Who am I? I think to myself.  How is it that I've been living on this planet for 21 years and never once, not ONCE have I ever done anything of any lasting significance?  Art projects and video games don't quite cut it.  I've spent so much time living from day to day that that's all I've ever had to show for it:  another day lived.

          When is that going to change?

          We have to choose to be the outliers of humanity.  In short, we must become the miracle that we want in our lives.

          It starts with me.  When do I decide to become the miracle I want in my life?  How do I even start?  Then I remember the girl with the golden hair and those sad, dark violet eyes.  An idea sticks in my head.  I don't know where I'm going with this, but I have to feel like there's something to it.  Caught between the stars and the twinkling radiance of my own idealistic imaginings, this is a night for only the most peripheral attachment to the physical world.  For dreams, not for pragmatics.  I reach out with my mind into the far expanse of eternity.  I want change the world.  To change a life.  I reach back inside myself and find something I've never seen before; it's exhilarating, and it propels me to make the last, long leap of faith.  I don't know who the girl in the library was.  I've never seen her before in my life.  In fact, there's no reason I should ever see her again.  But I will.  With a surge of determination like a tidal wave I promise myself.  I will find the girl with the violet eyes.  I will feel her pain learn her story.  I will walk in her shoes and become her friend.  I will dream her dreams and find her potential.  And then I will change her life forever.

Stay tuned for Part II on Thursday!