I was born an invisible woman in a life so long ago that I’ve forgotten everything but four things: that underwear matters, that it is impossible to crack egg shells in even lines, that you should never brush your teeth at 5am, and that soggy tortillas soaked in chicken broth taste epic. I live in a horse pen near a city with two hills and once when I accidentally fell asleep while searching for my two-inch hair comb, I woke up at 5am and remembered that I hadn’t brushed my teeth the night before. And so when I stood bent over a sink at 5am like a street lamp and brushed my teeth, mouth foaming with Colgate toothpaste, I saw the sun rising from behind the trees and couldn’t thank God for blessing the Earth with such beauty because my mouth was foaming with toothpaste. So I quickly swallowed my toothpaste (and it didn’t taste nearly as good as soggy chicken broth tortillas) and stood on the sink just so that my Lord can be thanked for his artistry. Another thing, I’ve come to notice that when I wear my favorite pair of underwear, I’m talking 100% cotton lining, classic fitted, athlete boxer briefs, I can swallow two pounds of chocolate from evenly cracked egg shells without cursing the coco lords once. Underwear is the underappreciated hero of comfort, I’ve come to learn in my time spent riding flying squirrels.

This is a simple narrative of what my life has been thus far, or, at least, since I’ve embraced the full force of my invisibility. When I was a little squirrel blowing blueberries, I was often confused with how unattracted my dear mother, the smoker and vaper, and my dear father, the wine taster, and my dear classmates, the ones who were friends with each other, were to me, until I received enlightenment from my Lord and was able to realize that it’s not their fault that they don’t loiter with me. I was gifted this innate nature of invisibility from my Lord who chose me like Mary so that any norm’s eyes are simply unable to see me and since this realization, my life has been as such narrated above, with only God, the divine being, the most gracious, the all-loving, seeing and hearing from me.

Nowadays, what I like best to do with my life is strutting down to the city of two hills everyday at half past five where great crowds of people stream across the concrete sidewalks. Here, even if the people crossed their eyes over the sea of their noses, know that they would only see the shadow of a hollow woman. And I never heed about their gaze because their gaze does not make me any more real or any more fake. I like to sit on the steps leading to the brick-oven Latin American tortilla place on 113th Street and watch how the people who cannot see me hurry although it’s only half past five. Some nights, when I sit on the steps at half past eleven, I see how the hurrying crowds are hidden from view, shut in their silent buildings, cowering behind the solitude of glass and metal to feel at home. I’m very much glad that my invisibility granted me another life for I knew so long ago that I did not belong to such a world.

But, now, here’s the story because one day, years of this lifestyle brought me to the esteemed conclusion that it is awful to sleep at half past twelve with nothing save the breaths of the earth, with only God to look upon my entertainment. So one fine specimen of a day, I made hats out of fruit for my toes, and I sat in my horse pen, and I prayed to God that I should no longer be invisible. And I felt personally that if I were to give God a good 24 hours to fulfil my wish, he could be trusted to make my dream a truth. And I was not disappointed for when I awoke in the morning to the first light, I felt physically different, as if I took up space and I knew immediately that I was no longer invisible. And so, interested to experience what it’s like to loiter with the other people, I left my egg shells and my nest with the horses and I packed my toothbrush and moved into the city of two hills.

A new resident of the city, I sat at my ordinary station at half past one by the tortilla place. I expected a welcome parade, a tour guide, but I suppose that since I already visited the city regularly, the people here decided that I needn’t required an extravagant welcome and felt no need to pay any special attention to my arrival. Now that was somewhat alright with me, I suppose, though I would have liked a welcome.

So I sat with my toothbrush and scrubbed the underside of my Pokemon-yellow fingernails until, here, I promptly saw a man strutting down the runway, his thick gaunt arms hugging an envelope, his lips chapped like dried clay and his countenance cracked. His square fingers unwittingly let go of a dollar bill and in the thousand winds that blew afterwards, the fresh dollar bill glinted and jumped like a ripening grain and the people who rushed to their silent heavens did not see it, so for a few moments no one snatched it. That is, until I rolled and tumbled from the stairs of the brick-oven Latin American tortilla place and leaped up on all fours and swiped it from the hands of the wind, thanking God for this gift. Satisfied with my hostage, I decided to thrust the dollar bill into the air with arms extended straight to show the world my plunder, but the people around me gave no attention or heed, though one young boy, in a caramel Santa Cruz sweatshirt with white blocky sans serif letters, gave me a brief glance before continuing to lick his dyed lollipop. So that young fellow’s glance proved well enough that I was no longer invisible, but that, for one reason or another, the people do not pay attention to me.

I took on another feat then, and sat on the side of the sidewalk, cross-legged, ankles tucked in underneath knee, head in hand, shoulders bent forward like teardrops, and I pouted and curled my lips into the curve of my chin so that it appeared that I was upset. I thought to myself that whatever poor soul would come over and ask what was the matter, I would spring out like a jokester and enjoy a great deal of hilarity at telling them that it was nothing more than a prank that they fell for. But the people continued walking along the fissured concrete sidewalks, heels and shoes clicking on the gravel, all of them with purpose and with somewhere to go. They gave no heed to me, even after my loud declaration that I shed my invisibility.

So with that failed prank, I came back to the dollar bill and attempted to brainstorm good uses of the thing. But the green mint paper seemed to have no practical physical purpose (for it did not make a good tissue or blanket, believe me, I tried) and so I finally decided that since the physical bill is useless, I should find value in the power of this dollar bill. With this idea, I ventured into the Latin-American tortilla place on 113th Street with the intention of buying a soggy tortilla soaked in chicken broth. So I twisted and turned and sprung to my feet and I cartwheeled up the concrete steps into the restaurant. The warmth and aroma of the cuisine slapped my cheeks red as I collapsed into a criss-cross-applesauce position in the entry space of the restaurant. I looked up and saw a man at the far end of the dining room, paused from shoving a 13 inch caramel chocolate peanut musketeers bar in his mouth, looking at the crazy uninvisible women dwelling on and licking the floor. So seeing that I had his attention, I decided to give him a show, and I put a foot on the withered bamboo welcome carpet, placed my arms on the frame of the nearby dining table, and then used my feet and arms to spin up into a standing position, like a true master of spinjitzu. I then threw my hand into a fist and sang, “Oh, say can you seeeeeeeeee, the home of the braavvee”

But I abruptly paused in my show when I realized that the man had fed his tongue the 13 inch caramel chocolate peanut musketeers bar, clearly observable due to the string of frozen taffy-like caramel that hung from his lips like a swing, and was now looking at the BBC News Station broadcast about british white boys and a token brown boy.

So, in spite of my boiling frustration with the man’s lack of attention span, I then marched, knees rising up past my hips, to the front counter and stared intently at the citizen manning the cash register, a portly fellow with a complicated phoenix tattoo underneath the crook of his elbow. He gave me a quaint smile and asked what I would like to be served, but, seeing that there was no traffic at the diner, I decided to serve the man a rather peculiar tale about how, the other day, the SWAT team piled into the tattoo shop while I was being tattooed because they had found a van — supposedly belonging to a man who murdered two university girls — in the back parking lot of the tattoo place and guessed that the murderer must be hiding inside. He looked at me strangely, and his smile became coyish, so I then hoisted up the counter, sat myself right next to the cash register, and announced to the empty dining room (save the man with the musketeers bar) that I had a fresh crispy dollar bill and that I expected a steaming hot smoky tortilla soaked in the finest chicken broth. Now the man with the 13 inch caramel chocolate peanut musketeers bar was looking at me again and I suppose it’s because he finally realized that I’m more entertaining to watch than those british boys, One Direction.

The man behind the counter was massaging his oily, greasy mustache with his thick chubby fingers that resembled roots of ginger. He was watching me carefully (which I liked, admittingly), but I couldn’t understand what he was doing here using his old hands to curl out his mustache when he should be toiling for my tortilla soaked in chicken broth. So I suddenly lashed out and pulled his mustache, expecting it to tear from his upper lip like a sticker, but there must have been some type of gorilla glue on that fine mustache because it didn’t peacefully peel off and, instead, my hands pulled his massive stomach against the cold granite counter of the cash register. The man with the 13 inch caramel chocolate peanut musketeers bar, who had, by the way, finished his chocolate, couldn’t peel his eyes from me so I kicked the poor portly fellow back behind the counter (for he truly was stealing my lighting) and I yelled, “I Love My Hooooot-Dogs!” I then slid like slime from the counter and quickly crawled out from the restaurant, leaving my dollar bill to the portly man. I rolled down the stairs and right to the mouth of a street gutter, where I then found a silver token belonging to a casino on a nearby beach.

But oily mustache stomach guy came out to the streets where I was bent over observing the silver casino token and he said to me that if I didn’t scam quickly, I would be headed to the slammers. I thought to myself then that what a wonderful entertainment that would be, to be arrested and then resist arrest and then be shut in the slammers. But it was my first day being uninvisible and being in the city of two hills, anyway, so I thought that perhaps the slammers should be experienced another day. But what a mighty crowd I already attracted, with that portly man spewing curses and threats like a mad cartoon to me, a dainty uninvisible women bent over by the wet gutter. The people, they looked and gazed at me as the portly man yelled, and I waved and smiled at them, but they returned no kindness. I thought to myself then that, at least they pay attention to me now and realize that I’m visible.

So after the portly man had finally given up, I traveled to the ocean then, to this casino of which the silver token belonged to, only to see standing seagulls outside, parked on top of 60 feet jagged rocks like cars at a gas station, none hovering like paper airplanes over the ocean. When I looked at the sunset, the yellows, pinks, and blues appeared so ugly that I prayed to God that the Earth will tilt so that the oceans would cause a lot of things to be soggy like the tortillas I bought later that day, the tortillas that suddenly tasted awful at a time when, even though I was wearing my favorite pair of underwear, everything was uncomfortable because I came to understand that my life’s misery hasn’t healed itself when my being invisible and visible deliver the same music from the same instrument that plays on the world’s radio, when the same moon laughs, when the city of two hills is full of the same heedless squirrels who walk across concrete sidewalks. Dear, young audience, I find it difficult to understand why somehow the people find no fascination in my entertainment, as if they and the world give no heed to me even after all these things I’ve done. Well then, I will show those uncultured peoples of this city by shattering their rhythm by climbing and kicking the standing seagulls, by all means necessary.