Storytime: "BLINK"

BLINK
by William Pauley III

Her peers called her Penny the Plank, all because her body didn’t curve the same way the other girls’ bodies did. She was athletic, but not muscular, and her clothes clung to her frame like static-laced drapes stuck to a pane of glass.

She was nineteen, a freshman in college, yet she still hadn’t gone through her first metamorphosis—puberty. Had god forgotten? Other than her intellect, which was above average for her age group, she resembled a child in every way, and her classmates made a habit of reminding her every time they caught a glimpse of her walking down the halls. She was hoping college would be different, but it was just high school all over again. Would things ever change?

Not once in her nineteen years had she ever come close to having a boyfriend. Boys didn’t want anything to do with her, seemingly. Perhaps they were just too shy, but she suspected it was more than that. Whatever the case, she’d never received so much as a wink, a kiss, or even a valentine, and her confidence was never enough to pursue them herself.

And it wasn’t just boys, either. She could count the number of her true friends on the fingers of one hand and still have enough left over to fill a glove. Everyone within her vicinity was spinning in every direction but hers. No one her age would be caught dead hanging out with a child. Even her parents still treated her like an eight year old. And worst of all, all three of her younger siblings had either already gone through ‘the big change’ or was actively in the midst of it. It was not only infuriating, but it often sent her plummeting down a spiral of deep depression.

She thought perhaps the water in their home was poisoned by the radioactive apartment building down the street. It was literally the only explanation she could come up with for her delayed growth, as it was the one thing that set her apart from all her siblings. She was the only one in the house who regularly drank water straight from the tap. Her parents never bought bottled water and her brother and sisters just fed their blooming bodies sugary drinks from morning to nighttime, and somehow they were the ones unfairly rewarded. Was this the cost of staying hydrated? She knew the thought was ridiculous, but she simply couldn’t think of a more rational explanation for her curse.

She became so desperate for change that every night, just before slipping into bed, she’d kneel and ask god to make her bleed. “Make me gush, for all I care,” she’d say to the empty space above her head. “Or even just a single drop. Please, just give me something, some sign my body’s finally changing.”

Then one morning, after varsity volleyball practice, god finally got around to responding to her many requests.