in my fantasy life

i am an international action movie star. i am, in fact, umma thurman, which gives me the advantage of being beautiful, tall, and slender, and, of course, in incredible shape. which i am, because i secretly consider myself more of an action movie star than simply an actress. well, really, i am an artist most of all. this is why i live in paris. well, the paris suburbs, where i am relatively unknown.

generally, i wake at 6:30, drink a bracing cup of exquisite, rare tea, and jete un coup d'oeil sur le monde, my favorite newspaper.

then i change into my workout clothes and walk the short way to my yoga studio for the two hour session that maintains my movie-ready flexibility and the core body strength that gives me such grace in front of the camera. then it's off to my daily workout session. i meet my personal trainer outside the studio where he surprises me daily with different martial arts, sometimes with sports and games, and occasionally with a good, bracing, long trail run in the autumn air. today it's fencing.

afterwards, i head back to my perfectly-appointed apartment for a shower and a change of clothes. this season, it's texture. i've had it fitted with all manner of gilt and falderol and have painted it all white. the furnishings are minimal, all white as well. a florist comes by and fills it with a rotating supply of seasonal flowers. they seem to float against the colorlessness and the place has such a fresh, green smell.

my stylist has chosen a quiet, neutral ensemble for today. as frequently as i am photographed, it is also an opportunity. i've asked him to draw from the smallest of design houses, people who would be happy and surprised to see him at their door, shopping for me. he really keeps the fashion bloggers busy. he also keeps up with them-- apparently they are tired of seeing my mustard alexader mcqueen novak bag, but it's my favorite and it's hard to give up such a good, old friend. he has, however, not only laid out but also filled an exquisite, tiny clutch for today from a designer i have never heard of. a pop of surprisingly vivid blue adds something to the outfit it can't quite do without, i think, so with me it goes.

my personal chef, bernard, has left another one of his avant garde vegan raw creations on the pristine kitchen counter, with a list of the major ingredients, which i like to read, as his creations tend to be complex and ever-changing. he has been chosen for his endless variety. weight-obsessed hollywood and its press are not easily convinced that one's naturally slender figure is, as advertised, natural and not, as they suspect, the result of a terrible eating disorder. my solution to this, and to the craft tables at the shoots, is to make it known that i eat a raw, vegan diet. it is equally well-known that i cheat on it endlessly with my two vices-- tea and tomato soup. in hollywood, it is a good idea to have acceptable and well-known vices. if you are female, these should be food-related and, among guilty pleasures, i think everyone can understand good tea and tomato soup.

the afternoons are for art, which is my true passion. i am meticulous about my attendance at the constantly rotating exhibitions of paris' legendary museums. the murikami at the louvre is my current favorite, but there are so many more to see. i try to make it to the debuts. today, comme d'habitude, i'm meeting two old friends, gallery owners and artists themselves-- such a different way of looking at the work they have.

in between gigs, i spend the evenings at the theater. i choose performances at tiny theaters and sit in the back. you never know what is going to happen in these shoebo theaters. the material is fresh, the actors are committed, everyone in the room is there for the love of that moment, that one moment of communicating, of reaching into another person's heart and placing your hope, your fear, your inimitable uniqueness there.

next month won't be so easy. i'm off to new york for my broadway debut. it's a moliere-- a huge foreign language gamble for the great white way. and soon it will be time to immerse myself in the time period. for tonight, voltaire's candide, again. a few chapters of my favorite before bed.

#13

and to be honest, for all my tragic posing, i hardly even think about it anymore. i'm not even sure i remember being passionately trapped here. there are echoes, like the night after a good sleep when you remember what you were so pissed off about the night before. sometimes i remember that i used to be all worked up about being trapped here, inside my body, locked out of heaven.

now i'm just bored.

#12

generally, the less said about the desert the better. deserts are not to be enjoyed during the day, not even in the fall, when "liveable" is a reasonable descriptor. suffice it to say that i remember something about people eating prickly pear pads, that you can scrape spines off with a flat rock, and that shade is your friend.

but the shack was a surprise. who lives in a place like this? the dog and the shotgun made sense, it was the shack itself i couldn't quite get over. are there really hermits? it didn't help that we didn't share a language. that was unfortunate. and i couldn't really figure out what it was that he was speaking-- not even a language family: nothing. however, for a hermit he was surprisingly reasonable. i guess that while you may have left society for a reason, after a while you sort of get over it. and he must have been at least sixty, which tends to mellow you out.

trust really should have been one of my issues, but as thirsty as i was i kind of only has that one issue. water was a universal language and after rather more than my share of his sitting on the little patch of hardened dirt that served as his porch i was able to take stock of my new world. the dog, it turns out, was also fairly old and arthritic and, strangely, fat. i scratched her belly, which she rolled up at me, lolling her tongue. this, too, is a universal language. we smiled at each other and watched the afternoon sun slide down the sky.

#11

getting warmer. and lighter. and boring. very hard to tell how long this is going to go on, but easier to see. and there's a choice to make-- lines heading out into the distance, to further along the range, way off in the distance, across a broad, flat, yellow plain with almost exactly nothing on it. and, obliquely, they cross a road-- paved, two lanes across, the central paint well-faded from years and years of sun. little cracks. waves of dust across the road, like foam on a shore.

water very much on my mind at this point.

hard to figure out which one to follow, but i'm sticking with the power lines. more likely to see someone on the road, but people who are looking for me are likely to use roads to do it, so i just can't shake the feeling that it's suicide to try.

and it hardly matters. they don't quite meet at the far side, at the mountain. and i'm not marching across that plain like an idiot. there's no shade, just an oven with the sun on top pointing straight at me. follow the curve of the range, stay in the shade. can't be more than a day's walk. and something around here has to store water. i mean, it's a desert. nothing lives without water. don't know if any of them are edible, but i bet i can squeeze some of the cactuses and at least wet my shirt. that's got to be worth something.

#10

it's hard to be fast and silent. and it's harder to do that when you can't see a @#$^ing thing. and when there's blood in your head and you're trying to breathe quietly but move a lot of air. but there are shadows, and shadows are good. and they can hear each other, and are closer to each other than to me, so maybe that's louder. and they're shouting, which makes them easier to count: four. all men. heavy, too, which should work to my advantage, at least until they catch me. no thinking like that now, no thinking about catching and shacks and the smell of rusted metal that mixes with the smell of hot excrement and sweat. and blood. and the hood over your head.
shake it off.
focus on the shadows, the starlight, the scuttling of little desert things as you float past, trying not to break off twigs, trying not to brush against the bushes, trying not to let anything move on your wake. just focus on the breathing, long, deep breaths, as quiet as you can-- running low against the ground, eyes on the ground ahead, ears on the feet behind you.
distance. they have to look; i don't. i think i'm getting distance. hard to tell. also hard to lose somebody if you're running in a straight line. they've got to have figured out that i'm heading to the mountains. there is no way to be sure how many of them there are. hard to figure out if the road went through this range at some point, but i don't think so.

songs run through your mind at the stupidest times. i start timing my feet to genesis. i can't dance. i can't talk. only thing about me is the way that i walk. breathing gets regular, too. rocks approaching. more cover, advantage: me. quickly zagging behind a set, working from them to the first crag. scree. hard to get purchase, but deep. narrow. pick the left side, steep but managable. dusty, loose soil. scrabbling up further, just beneath the ridge.

listen.

slower footsteps, farther away. searching.

further up the side, just beneath the ridge, lots of shadow on this side. rocks. irregular. harder to pick out shapes. getting fairly irregular up here, and, to be honest, fairly steep. hands and feet now, scrabbling. they call it scrabbling. i forget what number they put on a trail when you're scrabbling.

backing into a slot, rock overhead-- perfect. just one turn, long listen. nothing. which is kind of even scarier than something. nothing still. strangely reluctant to leave. flop sweat forming, rivulets and dust. sticky shirt, little hairs sticking on the back of my neck. wipe my face on my scarf. not a bad place to stay, but would rather get to the other side of the mountains first, before the legs lock up, before the mind starts to slow, to tell me that it's okay to sleep. preposterous.

long look up ahead. crag continues as far as the eye can see, which, truth me told, is not very far at all. crag and a bit of sky, but that's it.

footsteps, suddenly. above. dust, sliding onto my head. sneeze aversion suddenly top priority. but they're passing, off to the right-- uphill. maybe best to stay here for a very very long time.

too long.

grey predawn. hands on dirt and two extremely silent prayers delivered shivvering against the mist. i ask for forgiveness for the postures i'm not about to do. the only parts that come to mine at the moment are the braided rope, the braided rope again. in my mind, i exclude the gunmen from the forgiveness i'm begging for all of us, and am immediately ashamed. somehow i've got it all wrong again.

my body is a series of warning lights, all red. creaking out of my crouch and extending into the silence, slowly up the crag. far too light out. can't believe it's so bright out.

eagle up there. at least i think it's an eagle. or maybe a hawk. never been good at those things. circling in a thermal. wonder what that means. i think it means we're near a mountain, which i already knew.

looking back, i can just make out the road, across the valley, weaving in and out of the mountain range as it turns south. nobody on it now. not even dust trails. nothing. am i dead? no wait, there was the bird. can't be dead if there's a bird, that would be crazy.

and thirsty. not hungry, just really thirsty. probably will end up hungry once i get something to drink, which will be when exactly? which reminds me to look for towns on the other side of the range. someone has to live out here. people live everywhere. there has to be someone out there.

are those power lines?

power lines!

just past the crack, over on the other set of little hills over there-- power lines! higher up so i can see. wind farm. hard to make it all out, fading into the grey nothing currently creating a little bubble of reality with squishy, impenetrable borders, receeding into the distance, retreating in the moving light, now taking on an orange tinge, like being on fire.

maybe it's the dehydration talking now.

heading downward now. cutting across a small valley, a gap between the little rows of hills-- a shortcut: the fastest way to the power lines leading away from the wind farm. leading to people, to a town.

#9

i looked back. i shouldn't have, but you can't help it. there were four of them, i think, but i couldn't hear anything-- just the roar of the freeway, little scraping sounds from the brush in the wind.

slowly, i got to my feet, crouching behind the berm, staying well below the headlights. something tickled down the side of my head-- sticky-- taste it: blood. blood and dirt. no idea where i am.
had to be past eleven, but beyond that it's hard to say. farther from the road, there were stars, millions of them, but only a sliver of the moon. footsteps.

crouch. it's instinctive. everything freezes when it senses danger, when it hears footsteps closing in. not enough brush cover, but at least there's some. at least i still have my glasses. there are a lot of little favors tonight.

regular. not stuttering, not darting-- regular. they know where they're going. one set in front, but it sounds like there are more behind. hard to count the faraway ones.
tiny scuttling noises-- night creatures, at home. strange to think that everything everywhere else is normal.

somewhere someone is eating a sandwich and i'm running for my life. so dramatic tonight here in my head. i hit it on something. maybe that's why nothing is making any sense. it had something to do with books, but that doesn't make any sense at all, and frankly right now all the things that don't make sense aren't helping. breathing quietly is helping-- how quietly can you breathe?

snapping into focus, it's been too long out of focus-- not listening. listen again; focus. the steps are still regular, as fast as they were before, or as slow-- regular and moving kind of diagonally, maybe parallel to the road. crunching, like on gravel or sand. lights swinging along the turn-- hard to make out the terrain ahead in the lights. have to stay out of them anyway. follow the swing-- high brush ahead: water. i can follow the water. somehow, it seems like there could be people along the water and most people are good; people are what i want. night won't last forever-- one person in a bright, hot desert is obvious; one person in a town is invisible.

the steps are fading somewhat. can just make out the edge of the light, just make out where the curve swings away. light, dark. wait. light dark. there-- off to the right. slowly, silent is better than, well, not silent. hard not to crunch against the dirt. sharp twinge in the right ankle. didn't realize that before. pushing against the inside of the boot a little; swelling. how bad will that get? still walk okay, though.

loud animal noise. startle. involuntary yip. horrible to do that. have to keep quiet. freeze for about a million seconds before it's quiet and i feel alone again, but there's no real knowing that. grey against the dark, and water noises. small water noises. a trickle, really, but water.

reach down to put my hand in the water to try to tell the direction. left. right into the sweep of the lights. just like jumping rope-- sweep, dark. sweep, dark. follow the sweep.

too far. freeze. horrible, horrible wash of light. blind, eyes closed, waiting for the wash of red against the retina to fade, fade.

shouting.

not very far away.

male voices, two or three. uphill, and not far enough away.

cold sweat. unable to stop. running again. headlong, splashing along the rocks. very slippery, very uncertain. horrible, horrible idea. struggling for purchase against the far side, pushing through the rim of brush, straight away from the road, perpendicular, logical. this is the fastest i can go the farthest. give up on the stream. mountains against the horizon; there has to be a place, a crack in the mountains, a way through, a way out.

#8

so i'm on an easy rotation, which is kind of hard for me. i'm not a big fan of me, frankly, and it's kind of hard to figure out why. i mean, if i met me at a party, i think we'd hit it off. i think we'd be friends. i think i'd call me if i were having an off day just to hear what i had to say-- i'd say something comforting ad it would sit just right. i even think that if i were stuck in an elevator or on a long car trip with me i'd have a good time. but it's been a very, very long car trip-- years and years and years of me droning the most boring uncensored crap in my own ear and i'm just sick of me. and on an easy rotation, i've got nothing to do but ruminate and i'm driving me crazy.

and it doesn't help that the people i'm on with bring up my issues. like i was looking at the rotation schedule and my heart just sank. all the party people were on last month. i'm on with, to be fair, one of the party people, a guy i hardly know, a guy who's not even in our class who's rotating with us for shadowy/scary/remediation-style reasons, and two people who are like ghosts to me.

one of them is the only person in our class with a kid, and that kid is all she needs in the world. her whole world is her daughter and nothing else matters, which is sweet. but i'm trying to figure out if my life without children has any meaning at all, and i look at her and think no.

and then there's the born again christian guy. the really wound up born again christian guy who never goes to any of our parties because he has something planned with his church group every single night for infinity. and the thing is that even though now i'm a pagan who's going to hell i used to be him until some guy divorced me and i ended up excommunicated from the only place that will ever really feel like home. i used to be him. half a lifetime ago i used to do everything with my church group and no one else in the world mattered. and there he is, sitting across the room wrapped up in his church van going straight to heaven and here i am tugging at my hijab, putting off noon prayer again.