I was crying, alone, in my bed one night. It was not the dark that I feared. A nightmare was not keeping me awake. It was the way of the world to blame for my terror riddled insomnia. The door creaked open slightly allowing the light from the hall to seep into the darkness.
“Darling? Why are you crying?” Her face hidden in the dark, but her presence calmed me immediately.
“I don’t want to disappear, Mama.” I whimpered into my tear-soaked blankets.
“Oh, my sweet child that is nothing to fear.” She swept across the room to cloak me in her comforting embrace. “There is nothing more beautiful than fulfilling your purpose in the world.” I could see her smile pierce through the shadows. She smelled of peppermint, fresh and soothing, as she tucked me into bed. “Your purpose is everything dear. Don’t live your life trying to avoid it. That’s not a life at all.” With a forehead kiss, she made her way out of my room. She was gone before she ever reached the door.
My mother was gone and she spent her final breath telling me to find my purpose. Those words were hers and so I spent the rest of my life in search of mine. I couldn’t let her passing be in vain.
School became my main focus on the very first moment of the very first day. I was going to be a doctor, a surgeon to be precise. What could fill a life with more purpose than spending it saving others? Growing up I heard story after story of doctors and nurses disappearing over patients. And so it became my goal. My destiny. My purpose to live.
“Come on Alice,” Lily exhaled collapsing onto my bed, “you never do anything! It’s just one night.” She rolled over placing her chin into her hands. Her long blonde hair cascaded down around her elbows, as they formed boney indents into my mattress.
“No, I can’t. I’m sorry.” I repeated myself for the fiftieth time that hour. “I already told you, I have to finish filling out my college applications.”
“Yeah, but last week you missed Danny Lowell’s party because you had some stupid math test to study for. And last month you wouldn’t even go see a movie with me!” She whined.
“I had a biology project due,” I told her knowing well she wouldn’t care. She just rolled her eyes and flipped her hair with her left hand from the right side. “Lily you know getting into Med School is important to me.” I reminded her. “Now please can we talk about something else? Anything else?”
“Oh did you hear Noah Fleming disappeared last night?” She asked. “Oh wait, of course, you didn’t because you missed the game.” She teased. “You’re going to regret not doing any normal teenage stuff one day. You never do anything fun. You just study all day and live for tomorrow, but what about today?” She began to ramble.
“What?” I asked looking up from my desk for the first time since Lily busted into my room demanding we go out.
“Yeah, one day you’ll wake up and be all ‘where did my life go?’ just wait.” She continued to babble.
“No, about Noah, what happened?” My ears perked up listening intently.
“Yeah, it’s crazy right?” She started. She was always slow with the information when it was something I actually wanted to hear. “He caught the winning touchdown at the game last night and POOF he was gone.” She fluttered her fingers dramatically around her face. “Could you imagine winning a stupid high school game being your whole purpose?” She mocked, but I didn’t find it amusing at all.
“That’s what, 33 kids in our class since kindergarten?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she shrugged, “I think you’re the only one keeping count. Now come on! What are the odds you’re right and a job is your whole purpose anyway? Just live your life and it’ll find you.” Lily rolled her eyes, and forty-seven years later Lily disappeared the day she retired from teaching.
My hands shook so bad that even if my vision wasn’t blurred with tears I still wouldn’t have been able to read the letter they held. We regret to inform you… those five little words and my world came crashing down around me. My heart couldn’t handle the blow as I crumbled to the ground. What would I do now? Who was I even? What could possibly be my purpose?
It didn’t take very long to realize I just didn’t have it in me, I dropped out after two short semesters of community college. It was clear that a career was just not what life had planned for me. My purpose lied elsewhere. But where?
“Ahhh,” I screamed leaping from my seat, hot coffee streaming down the front of my shirt. “What the hell? That’s so hot!” I frantically began wiping the steaming liquid from my white silk top. The person responsible stuttered apology after apology somewhere in a near distance, but the burning clouded my ability to hear. They kept handing me napkins, but I still failed to look up at the face responsible. “What is your prob-,” but then I saw him. He was tall, so I strained my neck in order to see his face. He had a sharp, strong jawline. His plump lips curled into a faint smile as our eyes locked. His dark hair and skin made his icy blue eyes nearly hypnotic. I could stare into those eyes for the rest of my life.
“I am so sorry.” I heard his husky voice for the first time.
“It’s ok.” I giggled. “I never liked this shirt anyway.”
“Let me make it up to you, how about dinner?” He suggested with a gallant smile. “I promise not to spill anything else on you.” I looked down slightly, tucking my hair behind my ear before graciously accepting his offer.
Chris and I immediately fell hard for one another. It was a passionate affair. My heart was never so whole before. This is it, I thought. My purpose, it must be love. You heard about it all the time; couples fall in love and disappear together as they kiss on their wedding day. Or while in bed together on their 50th anniversary. He was everything I was waiting for.
The snow lightly fell from above, my hands rose to my mouth as he fell to his knee.
“Will you marry me?” Four tiny words formed the question, one simple word in response.
“Yes!”
We spent five years blissfully in love before accepting, although Chris was the love of my life he was simply not my life’s purpose. I easily remained in love with my husband while my search carried on.
“Have you given any more thought about what we talked about?” Chris asked me one night as we lied awake in bed.
I sat in reflective silence for a moment. A baby. A family. I never gave it much thought in the past, but now I could think of nothing else. Bringing another life into the world, what could mean more? You see it happen, mothers disappearing after giving birth to their child. My own mother’s disappearance simply came from being a mom, after all. And with that decision, a child became my purpose.
“I am sorry, but it doesn’t seem very likely that you’ll be able to carry a child.” His words like a million hot needles piercing through my entire body.
“But we’ve only been trying for a year.” I pleaded, but he continued to shake his head denying me my desire.
It was only three months after the doctor visit that Chris filed for divorce. I was alone again. My heart shattered beyond repair. I heard that Chris disappeared twenty-two years later as he walked his little girl down the aisle.
I grew bitter and alone over the next couple of decades. I fell into a job I despised at the local grocery store. Forty-five years old and scanning groceries for a living. Pathetic, I thought. I became everything my mother had tried to prevent. I let her down, she died for nothing. My life had no meaning. I wasn’t special at all. I was nothing more than a failure.
She was young, the girl who was placing her items on the conveyor belt. Her beautiful face cast in sorrow. What does this pretty young thing have to be so down about? I thought to myself as she dropped an assortment of bathroom items on the belt. The items slowly glided towards me as resentful thoughts formed in my head. She has the entire world ahead of her. I scanned the three bottles of shampoo she picked out. She wasn’t forty-five and single. As the razor blades made a little beep I thought, she could still have a family. I placed her bubble bath and candles in the bag thinking, she isn’t going nowhere, stuck at a dead-end job. Her body wash fell into the bag with a thud. Why should this child have every opportunity while I have nothing?
“That’ll be $47.63,” I informed her after ringing up a bag of Skittles, her spontaneous final item. She handed me a fifty-dollar bill with a sweet yet sad smile. Beginning to feel guilty for my harsh judgments of such an innocent child I said, “You are a very pretty girl.” The smile on her face suddenly held a little less misery. Handing back her change I added, “You are very lucky. You have the entire world ahead of you.”
“Thank you,” her voice was as delicate as her porcelain face. She collected her belongings and with a genuine smile said, “Have a nice day.”
Glancing down I noticed she accidentally left an item behind.
“Miss you forgot your razor blades!” I shout as I slowly disappear…
