You Can See Me

Six friends sat at a circular table in a bar. The table would have comfortably sat four, but the intimate circle knew how to squeeze in six. After sometime of greeting and talking and laughing, their seventh friend, Marley, showed up.

“Hey Marley!” most everybody greeted in some variation.

Marley smiled but immediately noticed she wouldn’t fit at the table. There was no empty space, which was particularly burning to Marley, as she could turn into empty space. More specifically, Marley had the most unusual affliction of uncontrollable invisibility.

Like how some people sneeze, burp or fart, Marley would turn completely invisible for an indefinite amount of time at a moment’s notice. While this made Marley popular at some point, years later, her friends stopped bringing attention to it; and sometimes, Marely hoped--and feared--that they had forgotten about her power altogether.

“Pull up another table, Marley” someone suggested.

Marley forced an agreeing smile and did as told--finding an empty table and dragging it over. She touched her own circle table to the edge of her friends’ table, two of whom took the awkward seat on either side of the connecting point. Both friends, ever so slightly, kept their feet pointed toward the table of six.

Thirty minutes ago, Marley had asked a friend to the movies. The friend retorted a suggestion that Marley come to the bar and be with all the other friends. Marley felt accusing questions burning inside her.

“If I hadn’t of called you, were you ever going to have invited me here? At what point was somebody going to say, ‘Where’s Marley? I miss her company. She would make our lives more fun right now’?” Marley screamed in her head, “Am I not a part of this circle of friends?”

Marley knew she had no right to be angry. She knew her friends meant no harm and she knew they were her friends. But she couldn’t conjure up a memory wherein she was a part of an established circle and didn’t fully open it up--physically and conversationally--when someone arrived later.

Marley looked at her hand. It wasn’t there. Nor were Marley’s legs or body. Marely made a face nobody could see and rolled a pair of eyes that could still see everyone else. Marley stood up and walked to the bathroom, dodging other patrons—who might as well have been blind.

But before Marley made it too the bathroom, she saw an incredibly beautiful guy at the bar watching her. Their eyes met and he looked away, embarrassed he had been caught. Marley glanced at her hand. Her hand was smooth, slender and the color of a lioness, with white finger nail polish. Marley smiled to herself then looked back up at the boy. This time their eyes met and he did not look away, but smiled.

It was actually Marley who looked away. She looked toward her friends’ table but only saw a pair of tables behind her. Marley knew her friends didn’t leave her, at least not forever; they’d be back in sight eventually. And until then, Marley was going to let this kind-smiled guy buy her a drink.