Cycle I: Coming on Strong
The Hidden Voice
The Hidden Girl · 01 (v1.00)
THE HOUSE OF ZAN — Zan
Playlist Track: Caroline Polachek — “Pretty In Possible”
There’s someone, let’s say she for now, lying on her back in the dark, phone above her face, thumb hovering over an empty message field.
She came here to say something. It felt easier before the box was open.
The other conversations are still there beneath this one, lingering like unfinished storylines.
Someone sends long messages she reads quickly, then answers slowly so it looks like she thought about them. Someone else wants another picture. As if she were unique or important enough to matter after eating that extra sandwich so late in the day. Another person has gone quiet. It should not matter. Why should it, when there is always someone else?
She tells herself she knows what each of them wants.
An answer they can pretend to care about.
A picture they can get off to.
Someone bored enough to stay.
What she wants from them changes depending on which conversation is open and what mood she is in that day.
The newest person is easier because almost nothing has happened. She knows a few things from his profile and has already filled in the rest. He seems kinda nice. Probably not a serial killer.
He wrote no pressure when she stopped answering for a while. That is not proof of anything, but she has trusted people for far less.
Before she decides what to type, a message appears.
Are you awake?
She thinks, “awake and ready for you bb,” but it sounds like a line she borrowed somewhere else. “i can’t sleep, please make me feel safe” feels too honest. She writes, “hey, what’s up” and then adds the question mark before sending because she cares how it looks this time.
The person asking for a picture sends another question mark, covering the top half of her screen. She swipes it away with zero emotion.
She leaves the new conversation open. Closing it would only mean opening it again. After a day of feeling next to nothing, even that can feel like work.
Typing dots appear…
Disappear.
Then return…
Some random playlist shuffles through her headphones, keeping the anticipation from becoming too much. She moves the phone closer to her eyes, as if holding it closer might show her something that cannot be seen from a distance. Whatever he is writing has not arrived yet, so it can still be almost anything.
Something she has not already decided he means.
Like with anyone else, it probably will not be what she wants to hear, much less what she needs. If it is, she will probably decide he did not mean it.
Despite her brief optimism about strangers, she is bored, again.
She would rather be somewhere else.