Ah. Finally, tonight I got a chance to write down what came into my head for this draft story (with only about 13 or 14 interruptions). It turned out to be longer than I thought (but not too too terribly long, I hope). The mood is a bit of a departure for me, which I was pleased about. I based the name of the main character on a French ancestor of mine, Emma Champagne, whose name I have always wanted to use in a story, because I just love it.
I'm not saying the character is sane (or not sane), but this is just how it is -
Through The Eyes Of Gemma Champagne
The world loved Gemma Champagne (loved, stalked, imitated, envied), the slender white-haired, silver-eyed supermodel that had burst in on the celebrity fashion scene like a diamond Venus, remote and untouched in the capricious firestorm that was life.
Her agency, Zipper & Zim, had the usual line-up: the one-armed pianist, the Siamese twins who refused to be separated (one a ventriloquist, the other a podiatrist), the celebrity chef who lacked taste buds, the tone-deaf opera singer (the list went on). But a blind fashion model with the beauty and grace of Ms. Champagne was truly an exquisite find.
As medical science progressed throughout the century, many advances had been developed for what were once serious physical handicaps. In the year 2065, a person with visual disabilities no longer carried a white cane or clung to the leash of a seeing-eye dog as in days of antiquity. Yet, there was currently a fascination.
The latest craze was viewing "people with differences"—peeping into their daily lives via hidden camera. The major networks soon picked up the scent of the newest underground scene and ran with it (skirting potential lawsuits, signing contracts, and turning a profit via full-blown weekly episodes). Gemma Champagne was definitely a major draw. Zipper and Zim's number one moneymaker!
"Gemma," one of her friends had asked, worriedly, "how can you stand to have your privacy violated like this?! I just wouldn't be able to bear it!"
Gemma had shrugged listlessly, her white fox cape draped carelessly over one slim bare shoulder. She didn't care. It didn't matter. Very little mattered.
She didn't know why she was so blasé, but she felt more remote from the world with every passing year. There was a barrier between her and other people (she visualized it having much the consistency of marshmallows) that grew wider every year.
When she was younger, much younger, there was a feeling of anticipation—as if something momentous was going to happen any minute. But life just went on and on and on with very little that touched her. Even her celebrity meant no more to her than a can of vichyssoise (top brand vichyssoise, but soup just the same).
As an adult, she no longer lived in such naïve anticipation and yet she couldn't shake the feeling of waiting for something important to happen. Waiting, waiting, waiting, with every breath. She hated the feeling. It was stupid. So stupid. It made her angry. Towards her own existence. Towards life itself. Somehow she had been made a fool of.
Her best weapon against the prison of being alive was sheer disgust. So she wrapped the cocoon of disdain and boredom around her and glided, emotionally muffled and removed, through her days and nights.
It was actually a relief to her when she was kidnapped by one of her stalkers.
At last something of substance was happening. Something that MATTERED. Something dangerous and so terrible that it might cut through the wall that stood between her and all the universe.
He was clever and sneaky, it seemed. He had got a job with the camera crew, chatting her up in a friendly manner now and then, and this morning at 4 a.m., offered her a ride home after the session wrapped. As he slapped a skin patch on Gemma with the drug that would (he said) temporarily incapacitate her, he explained how he had sabotaged her usual ride.
Slumped in the other seat, looking for all the world like a supermodel that had had ten too many drinks, she started to feel … disappointed. The stalker was not so special after all. He was boring. Ordinary. Stupid, really. Blah, blah, blah. Bragging about how he planned things. Saying how special she was to him. How incredibly wearisome and uninteresting he was!
She fell into a drug-induced stupor, happy to escape the sound of his voice.
But then it happened. The moment she had unknowingly been struggling towards and seeking all her life. The moment of self-recognition. Sharp, painful, tearing through all the veils. Ah. She saw! She knew! She remembered as she now became the recipient of a great stream of knowledge.
She had lived many lives. She watched a long line of faces, all hers, all different, that ran from her current visage to those that went so far back in time as to lose count. Different races, genders, familiar, alien. And now? She had business with this lunkhead. They were tied together due to some karmic incident that happened in a past so distant, she could scarcely see it.
Some cosmic imbalance had kept her from moving forward, chained her with the all too frequent feeling of fruitless anticipation, waiting for this lout to appear and make his move. That was what it was! Life had been at a standstill waiting for this criminal birdbrain to walk onto the stage.
Gemma sensed she might suffer a great deal in her encounter with him, but she would gladly pay such a price in order to rip free of the shroud of her half-lived existence. Too bad her opponent was such a loser, but then she supposed she hadn't been very nice to him either when she drew out his entrails and wrapped them around a tree one frosty morning before sunrise during her life as a druid.
Gemma hoped the fact that it had just been her job back then (nothing personal) would purchase her some small credit with the celestial powers. But seriously, she wasn't counting on it.
Everything went dim for a little while. She had a vague impression of being carried into a cabin in a deeply wooded area. Where on earth, she had no idea. Lout-man (or entrail boy as she was starting to call him in her mind) had injected her with something new that brought her to full alert. She was naked and tied down. Classic, she supposed! No imagination. Not that nudity bothered her, she had done dozen of shoots sans clothing.
Through her implants, she could "see" that he was grinning at her, hunched on a stool with the full works of an old-school tattoo artist at his side. "You're mine now, Gemma," he purred. "I'm going to write my name over every inch of your body." His voice quivered with lust and something bordering on insanity as he picked up a needle.
She sighed. She just hated waiting for things to reach a conclusion. There wasn't even a magazine to read.
Two incredibly boring days later (the sex was happily non-existent, the tattooing meaningless, his chatter banal, and the food almost inedible), she stared with sightless eyes after his ugly crappy mug as the federal agents dragged her captor away. And so. It was over. She supposed he had done her a favor. Balanced the scales.
Representatives from the press and her agency strained to get to her, past the officials and her two apologetic bodyguards, but were chased away. A car was ready for her. She signaled her employees to wait.
She strolled away from the cabin in found boots too big for her, deeper into the woods, as night fell and impudent snowflakes cascaded down. Her long moon-goddess hair fell in tangles over her shoulders and down the borrowed scratchy jacket of red and white that she had slipped on over her days' old black dress with its built-in sensors.
She inhaled the icy air deeply, happy to feel it cut into her lungs. Yes, cut, burn, feel!
Now that she was born again, who would she turn out to be?
