Glimpses of Normalcy

I'd spent so much of my life wanting to be something more- someone famous, rich, beautiful, and cherished for just how unique and special I was, and when fame did come, oh boy was I wrong.

You never realize what it's like to really be alive until you've almost died. When you're holding in your own lungs as you choke on smoke and ash tell me what living is like. The whole air was alive with fire, and my hands were sticky, wet, and red. Cough. Choke. Wheeze. Repeat. I shouldn't have come up here to the reactor; it was stupid. So stupid. The phrase "I shouldn't have" is the adage of my life.

But, mistakes do happen I suppose.

There was someone coming up the stairs, someone calling my name. Old cadet's boots scraped against metal; hearing was all I seemed capable of by then. Cough. Choke. Wheeze. Have you ever felt like you've had bursting balloons in your chest? Pretend those balloons were your lungs rapidly deflating as you tried holding them down, adding pressure just to keep them pumping as you struggle to breathe. All I can taste is blood. It's like having a mouthful of rust grating your gums. Now I'm dying here mind you, but god, did I have to die looking so ugly and pitiful?

As I lie there staring at nothing, seeing nothing I can only think about how I've done nothing, but I was going to be…I was going to be a traveling concert pianist, a real master of the keys. Then, I was going to be a martial artist extraordinaire after my pa told me he couldn't afford any fancy education after mama died. I was going to be…

I blinked. The alarm came into view. 10:30 in the morning. It must have been blaring for at least ten minutes. I let the alarm go on for a good and long time before I turned it off half tempted to smash the damn thing. I screwed my eyes shut against the bright yellow light of day. Cloud was a few rooms over, shuffling around. Some mornings I just didn't have it in me to leave bed. The dreams, they come and go; I can spend hours thinking about them, Nibelheim, and the rough scar etched over the entire length of my front…but that was then, and this was now, Costa del Sol, a paradise complete with sand, palms, and sea.

It's been three years since anyone has needed me to play heroine, three since meteor. I count each day.

Cloud and me, we're something like celebrities here. We get special favors, and the bar we opened up in town is booming, and I mean really booming. With the money from our travels and this, we could've started playing in politics if we wanted and won being saviors of the planet and all. Pretty much anything that I wanted I could buy or get. Aren't I a success? I have everything I've ever wanted: a life beyond my backwater hometown, a name for myself, and of course Cloud, though he hadn't been a part of the plan in the beginning, but I'm not happy.

Sometimes it's just like everything fell together just too easily, like my life here is something phony. I don't know what I feel like. Living here is like watching myself at the end of a boring film, and it definitely wasn't the premier blockbuster but rather some really rotten sequel that has you pissed off the moment it's over because it was just so bullshit, so unreal…so I don't know what.

Cloud knew I was awake but he didn't come in the room, not like he used to come rushing in, pulling me close like I was going to disappear. Then when my nightmares still fired up his sentimentality and misplaced male chauvinism, they weren't just irritating, tiresome, and so blah. Today, he just called out a quick goodbye and left the house to go open the bar. I'm sure I'd be down there eventually to help. Our house is so impersonal. It's like being in a hotel where everything is someone else's, and you're really afraid to touch anything lest some letter falls out of the sky with impossibly polite wording, very politely billing you out of your every last penny and politely threatening to sue if you don't pay up. Yeah, our house was pretty much like that. With our complete lack of intimacy, you'd think that we hadn't been dating for the last three years, that we hadn't gotten married last month, and sometimes I wonder why we ever got married at all. It was expected, I suppose.

I always crumble to others' expectations.

I finally pull myself out of bed and stagger into the kitchen looking like some sort of monster churned out of one of Hojo's old experiments, but you wouldn't be looking exactly glamorous either after only two hours of sleep. I groggily followed my nose to the still simmering pot of coffee Cloud had left on the stove and pour myself a cup. I swished it around a few times not bothering with cream or sugar like I would've done on one of my better days. There's something almost poetic about old, burnt coffee. I watched each black velvety layer fall over and engulf the other, a long rolling darkness like my dreams should've been after that last handful of sleeping meds a few hours ago. My doctor had put up quite the argument when I asked for them telling me to try changing my point of view, to get out more, but I'm charming, rich, and famous. It doesn't take too much convincing to get an old creaky man in a patched-up lab coat to prescribe you pretty much anything when you have money.

I open the fridge next because I'm ravenous, and I mean really voracious like Wutai refugee starved. When was the last time I've eaten? Can't remember. Nothing was even in there besides those faux chocolate protein drinks that Cloud likes so much and crumbs from some unidentifiable source. More liquid breakfast then it seems. I spike the next cup of coffee with rum. Don't worry about me getting drunk this early. My tolerance is monstrous, one of my many hidden little talents.

The phone rings, and I curse. I have an almost uncanny sense for who's calling whenever I hear that damn thing ring. This time, it's Yuffie. Conversations with Yuffie in the morning titillate me. Vincent, antisocial? How novel. Of course I'm listening to you, Yuffie. No, I wouldn't rather be jumping off of a cliff. I'm not rushing you off the phone. Perhaps Vincent not wanting you might have something to do with you being such an immature little girl, but of course I didn't say that. Actually, I'm incapable voicing my opinion. I'm much too subservient to actually do something or say something I want. Your prattling on for hours is the spice of my life. There's nothing I look forward to more. Every day, I stand by the phone just for you to call. Do I have to tell you again that I'm listening? Really, I am. Trust me. Would I ever I lie to you? I slam the phone down, and it rings again. I just watch Yuffie's name blink on and off the ID screen. Oh my, what's come over me? Why am I turning away, walking towards the living room to the bookcase? Stop it, you mad woman. Go back and apologize to your friend this instant, but I won't.

What the hell brought this on?

Can't we sit down and talk it out?

Are you hyperventilating?

You disgust me.

Suddenly I'm on the couch, some book with big words in my hands. I'm stuttering and stumbling over words I don't know. Most of the books on my shelf, they're for show, some tragic little display of all the things I'll never be. Being raised an eco-terrorist after your mentor dumps you in Midgar because you're useless, shell-shocked, and battered doesn't give you time to complete high school let alone go to college. I'm smart enough to know I won't find my soul on these pages.

The phone rings again, and my sudden independence now all spent has me running to answer it, but I skid to a stop just before I pick up the receiver. Johnny Costello? There's a name I haven't seen in years.

"Hey, Tifa," how he knew it was me who answered I can't be sure. The craggy baritone doesn't jive with the image I have of some soot covered boy shaking his mother's corpse, clumsy stab wounds all the way through her body bleeding out even more as he rattles her looking like a lost child. I half expect his voice to crack, but it doesn't.

"Hey, Johnny. How have you been?" Why am I whispering? Why are my eyes suddenly wet? My knees are going weak, and I take a seat in the armchair in the entrance hall taking the phone with me because this is going to be a long conversation.

"Fine, just fine," it's like he's grinning against the phone, against my ear. Oh Johnny, beautiful little Johnny, hanging onto my coattails when I strutted around being the village prima donna. You live just up the street. Really? Why is that exciting? My insides are butter. Forgive me as I ramble on like an idiot, apologizing for I don't know what. Then he says something that floors me at first, and I promptly pick up my jaw.

"Of course I'll meet you for lunch," I exhale at his invitation. Please Johnny, shake up my ennui. Tell me about your life, your ordinary, everyday life as one of time's innumerable everyday cogs in its massive invisible clock because this is one of the most exciting things to happen in months. We talk for hours then after my initial breathy awkwardness, words falling and coming together into sentences…things that have needed saying for so long like pooling rain in a cracked sidewalk. I haven't been this open with anyone outside or hell, even in Avalanche for years. We talk about Nibelheim then; I confess that I dream about it quite often, and that thick syrupy pity in his voice washes over me, making me more alive than any sleep I've gotten recently. Nothing unites two people who haven't spoken in years like a tragedy known by only a few. Most people on this planet have never even heard of Nibelheim. Nibelheim? Must be one of those backwater towns in the mountains…somewhere in the boondocks. Sorry dear, Nibelheim? Is that near Corel? Nibelheim? Oh yes, it's that spa near Gongaga; I've been there. Lovely in the spring.

"So Tifa," he really draws out of my name, "I heard you're with Cloud."

"Yeah," I mumble. Oh yes, there was something I was supposed to be doing. My husband must be absolutely swamped at the bar. Conversation falls off again, and I feel the sudden urge to ask Johnny about himself, "So how long have you've been in Costa del Sol?"

I know he's shrugging behind the phone, "Four…five years. I was in Midgar, but something brought me out here." You mean that you've been my neighbor for all these years, and I've never known?

I play at joking, "Oh my, Johnny. Midgar…and now Costa del Sol? I'd swear you're following me." He sort of half laughed and insisted that it was the other way around that I must be following him. We traded a few more witticisms and reminisced just a little about the good old days spent on the mountain trails and skipping stones across mountain creeks. My heart was constricting itself, and I felt a little moisture fall against my cheek. The last thing he gave me was the name of the restaurant, some fancy Wutaian place on the boardwalk. I'd be there.

The cuckoo whistled in the kitchen. It must have been nearly four. All this time gone and I haven't showered or even ran yet? I'm really a slob. I grabbed some clothes out of my bedroom, black shorts and a white tee or something like that, and walked into the bathroom, and it was certainly in a state…It's like Cloud is incapable of cleaning anything. I try convincing myself that I don't mind, but I can't quite stop crying, not just yet. I haven't really stopped since I talked to Johnny. Gripping each side of the sink with shaking little hands, my sighs and sobs echoed out of my throat, falling into their own little chorus, and I stared bleary-eyed in the mirror. Is that hideous creature me? Almost didn't recognize myself there for a minute. Smudged mascara and faded lipstick caress swollen red eyes and pouty lips, telltale signs of barmaid adventures from last night, serving shots, drinking shots, and mixing pina coladas and mojitos and whatever else these people like down here in the tropics. I washed my face in the sink first, and then ridded myself of that coffee-laced halitosis with a quick minty scrub.

I have to say that I love showers; there's divine about scorching water burning away your sins. It's like being baptized. There's orange and cinnamon…mhm…cinnamon. Suds in my hair, soap splashing down my back…there's no place in the world I'd rather be. I'm not even crying now because life couldn't be more perfect at the moment, because tomorrow everything is going to change.

I'm born anew…and tomorrow life is starting for real for Tifa Lockheart.