The Light (2022)
I’ve seen so much, but I don’t feel wise. My brain is a dizzy mess of too many memories.
BY ARIESHA MAIS
IMAGE BY JASMINE COWAN
I don’t like using the word immortal to describe myself. It feels too divine a word for someone with a life like mine. Immortals are powerful—they’ve killed monsters or are monsters themselves. I’m a speck of dust on the globe that hasn’t been blown away yet. As far as I know, it wasn’t a prize or even a punishment. I honestly don’t know how it happened.
On my 10th birthday, it felt like my life had finally begun. I had stepped into the jaws of double digits, daring life to bite me. Ten was the age I made the grown-up decision to not blow all my birthday money on candy and toys the next day. I was going to be responsible. I felt like I was on top of the world. I had a chocolate ice cream cake that left my face frozen and numb after my twin sister, Demetria, shoved my face into it. I licked the chocolate fudge off my face as I chased her down our cramped hallway with my shoe. We screeched like banshees and ran wildly around the house. I ended up rushing back into the kitchen and smashing my shoe into her vanilla cake. I can’t imagine how my parents stayed sane. They stood watching us with exhausted eyes and amused smiles. I figured they didn’t get upset with us because it was our birthday—our “special day,” as they called it—but watching them silently clean up our pointless mess made me feel worse than any punishment could.
That night, while my mom tucked me in, I tapped her hand and said, “Thank you for taking care of me and Demetria. Tell Dad too.”
She smiled, and before she could respond, Demetria corrected me from the top bunk.
“It’s Demetria and me,” she said.
I didn’t understand why, but I knew she was right, so I didn’t argue. Instead, I stuck my tongue out at the bed above me. My mom laughed, but when I looked at her, I saw tears building in her eyes.
“Don’t thank us for that,” she said with a sad smile.
She kissed me on the forehead and plugged in the night light. Her sudden emotions confused me, but I soon fell asleep.
On my 22nd birthday, it felt like my life had really begun. I’d moved out of the house and was living with Demetria, soaking up all the bliss of adult independence. I had a decent celebration; I went drinking with my friends and that was that. It was my first time drinking, yet I outdrank everybody in the group and barely felt a buzz. I became somewhat of a legend in the bar that night. However, any pride I felt was overshadowed by confusion. It was then that I suspected there was something different about me.
When I got back to our apartment, Demetria was already asleep. Unlike me, she didn’t take the day off. She spent all day doing god knows what at the lab. She was the impressive one, skipping through grades like a pebble over a lake and landing a job doing science-y stuff that I had never cared to understand. Our parents convinced her to get me a job at the lab so we could stay close. I worked as a receptionist, and if we didn’t walk in together every morning, people would never have guessed that we were related, let alone that we were twins.
Around six months after our 22nd birthday, I could feel Demetria getting sick of me. I felt like a waste of space in the front seat every time she drove us to and from work, and I could hear the growing resentment in her voice every time she asked me to take out the trash. I soon realized that she didn’t live with me and help me get that job because our parents wanted us to stay close, but because they wanted Demetria to keep an eye on me.
On my 30th birthday, my life felt frozen in place like the cake on my face 20 years prior. Demetria moved out of our apartment when she got promoted to a new position at the lab. I stayed, met a guy named Stan, and eventually moved in with him. He liked me a lot and I tolerated him because he cared about me. Demetria and I spent our special day working, without even a phone call to ask how the other was doing. My coworker brought vanilla cupcakes at lunch, and I thought about Demetria. She loved vanilla so much more than I did. It felt like a crime to eat even a slightly stale grocery store cupcake without her. I ate a second one in her honour, but also half in spite because she hadn’t called.
On my 50th birthday, I felt like my life was beginning to end. I no longer had anyone to share my birthday with. Two weeks before our birthday, Demetria died in a car crash. I couldn’t help but feel guilty. I felt like the world would ache less if I was the one to go. Demetria was the one helping others and making a difference, not me. At my birthday dinner, I ordered a slice of vanilla cake. Stan paid the bill and had a designer purse waiting for me when we got home.
On my 90th birthday, I still looked 50 and felt like my life was dragging on. Stan’s family threw me a party because I had no one left. Everyone asked me what my skincare routine was, but they didn’t seem to believe my answer—soap and water. I napped in my chair while everyone else celebrated my birthday. They feasted while I sat drinking tea, though I still had a slice of vanilla cake.
On my 100th birthday, my life truly felt like it was stagnant. I still looked 50 and didn’t feel weak at all. I didn’t have a birthday party that year; I didn’t have anyone to throw one for me and I wasn’t going to throw one myself. I had distanced myself from Stan’s family. Every person I wanted to celebrate with was now gone.
On my 120th birthday, tears rolled down my 50-year-old-looking face all day long. I thought about the bar on my 22md birthday, and about how I recovered faster than Demetria when we caught colds as kids. I thought about how I chugged slushies as a teenager and assumed people were overreacting about having brain freeze. I thought about how every injury I got never hurt for long. I finally thought hard about how different I was, and before long, I began to panic. I wanted to know what was wrong with me, but I didn’t want to wind up as a research subject. So, I decided to ignore it all and live a simple life while awaiting death. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. That year, I moved to an ugly little town and started using a new name. I knew no one and did my best to keep it that way. I still felt no weakness.
On my thousandth birthday, I just wanted to leave. I was sick of living, but I couldn’t die. I’d lost track of how many places I’d moved to, how many names I had gone by, and how many people I’d met and jealously watched as they passed on. The world had become so different. Everything was constantly changing, and I was stuck with making myself easily forgettable. I felt abnormally healthy and nowhere close to death.
Now, here I am on my 3,402nd birthday. I’ve seen so much, but I don’t feel wise. My brain is a dizzy mess of too many memories. My body feels strong, but my mind feels strung together by cobwebs. I’m eating a slice of painfully sweet vanilla cake and hoping, yet again, that this will be my very last “special day.”
Ariesha Mais is a writer and poet based in Toronto, Ontario. She is a student pursuing a Bachelor of Creative and Professional Writing at Humber College.
Image: The Light (Jasmine Cowan, 2022)
Edited for publication by Pina Troisi, as part of the Creative Book Publishing program.
HLR Spotlight is a collaboration between the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario. This project is funded by Humber’s Office of Research & Innovation.