There is a legal doctrine called adverse possession whereby one man \u2013 in absence of legal or moral claim \u2013 may come to own the property of another. In its simplest terms, it requires only that the trespasser take hold of the land and cling to it as long as possible. By sheer force of will and the passage of time, he can take the ground right from under your feet.<\/p>\n
Perhaps this principle is a vestige of our flag-bearing forefathers, who declared themselves founders of a land that had already been found. As a child learning American history, this irony had troubled Madeline. She could not understand how something could be discovered that was already known, anymore than something that was seen could be unseen, heard be unheard, or any sensory phenomena be erased from memory.<\/p>\n
It was only as she grew older that she began to appreciate the duplicitous nature of existence and even observe the dichotomy within herself. She was twenty-four, therefore above the age of majority but uncomfortable identifying herself as an adult. She was neither tall nor short, neither thick nor thin, and hair that was neither straight nor curly but rather overtaken by a slight wave and frizz. Even her eyes were unable to reach a definitive conclusion as they alternated between gray and blue depending on the light and time of day.<\/p>\n
As physically unobtrusive as she was, Madeline was even more nondescript as a personality. At work she was an office automaton, her desk serving as a way station for memos and reports that passed under her purview without remark or notice. In the few social events that she attended, she invariably found herself standing at the edges of conversations, listening and nodding but utterly ambivalent about whether to participate herself.<\/p>\n
In short, Madeline Greene was sure of nothing except that she existed and about even that she was beginning to have her doubts.
\n<\/p>\n
On Tuesday morning, Madeline woke up to the sound of rain. She kept her eyes closed tightly for several minutes, savoring the weight of the blankets over her body, the heavy warmth pressing her into the mattress until she felt as though she had disappeared into the fluff and feathers that cradled her. Unwilling to let the violence of her alarm violate the peacefulness of the moment, she opened her eyes and reached for the clock only to see it was well past the time she had set for the buzzer to sound.<\/p>\n
And it wasn\u2019t raining.<\/p>\n
The sound that woke her was not the crash of rain against the windowpane but the clatter of water against the shower tiles. Her heart thudded in her chest and her breathing became quick and rapid. She clutched the comforter to her chin and tried to lie perfectly still. Terrified but unsure of what to do, she found herself defaulting to the childhood belief that nothing sinister could reach you if you hid under the covers. The bathroom door opened and the trespasser appeared amidst a gasp of steam, wrapped in one of her powder pink bath towels.<\/p>\n
It was Madeline. And yet, it was not.<\/p>\n
It was a version of Madeline.<\/p>\n
The eyes were a piercing bluish-grey, like the ocean sky before a storm. The body was firmer, the muscles more defined and toned, perhaps after hours at the gym she had always resolved to spend but never actually accomplished. Even her skin seemed different with a glow as if a lamp had been lit and was radiating from within her; casting its subtle incandescence through the blush on her cheek and the curve of her bare shoulder. But these were only minor differences; slight alterations that Madeline recognized from the years spent seeing the figure, now standing in the doorway of her bathroom, staring back at her from a mirror.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you still here?\u201d The trespasser sighed and dropped her towel onto the bedroom floor. Madeline blushed and felt strangely embarrassed at the sight of her own naked body from this voyeuristic perspective. She crossed to the closet and began to sort through the hangers of her work clothes as Madeline continued to watch in shocked silence. The trespasser selected a low-cut green blouse that Madeline had bought on a whim but always been too timid to wear outside of the dressing room. She then turned back to address her duplicate cowering in bed. \u201cI said, are you still here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course I am,\u201d she managed to whisper. \u201cWhere else would I be?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, I don\u2019t know,\u201d The trespasser sighed again as she began to dress. \u201cFloating as a wisp of consciousness lost on the abstract plane of existence? Dissipating among cosmos in the vacuum of space? Whatever happens to people who get replaced.\u201d Madeline sat up with a start.<\/p>\n
\u201cReplaced? What, like, is this invasion of the body snatchers?\u201d<\/p>\n
The trespasser laughed slightly as she turned to the jewelry box and began sorting through a selection of earrings.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, nothing so fantastic as a Jack Finney novel. I\u2019m not an alien; I\u2019m you. Just\u2026well, I\u2019m a you that exists.\u201d She slipped tiny silver hoops through the holes in her ear lobes, which surprised Madeline since she had never had her ears pierced. She had planned to when she was twelve but lost her nerve at the last moment and never gathered the courage for a second attempt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI exist!\u201d Madeline protested, beginning to find her voice within this absurdist nightmare.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, in a purely physical sense. Which is strange but I suppose these things take time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you hear me? I said I exist!\u201d She stepped out of bed now and took a couple steps forward, her fear being steadily displaced by an anxious anger. The trespasser turned and regarded her sternly.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, you do not. And you have not for a long time. Maybe you never did.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, I do! I\u2019m here! See?\u201d Madeline grabbed the lamp off the bedside table. She held it forcefully about an inch from the trespasser\u2019s nose. She thought of smashing it for dramatic effect, but after a moment of impotently waving the lamp before the amused, pitying eyes of the trespasser \u2013 her eyes only not her eyes \u2013 she set it down weakly.<\/p>\n
\u201cCouldn\u2019t even do that could you? In your last desperate moments, you couldn\u2019t even break a lamp.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if a break a lamp! I can touch it; I can move it! That proves I exist!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it does matter. It matters very much because it\u2019s the difference between being and existing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the hell does that mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means you’re nothing but space! At least if you\u2019d smashed the lamp you would have done something! For once in your life you would have done something!\u201d She scoffed, \u201cAlthough I suppose it\u2019s my life now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve done things!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, you really haven\u2019t. You\u2019ve spent twenty-four years on this planet being nothing but a blip on the physical plane. That is not existing. Think about it. Socrates said, \u2018To be is to do.\u2019 Sartre said, \u2018To do is to be.\u2019 Whichever way you look at it, the result is the same \u2013 existence and action are correlatives. You can\u2019t have one without the other. If you don\u2019t exist, you can\u2019t take action. And you can\u2019t refuse to take action and expect existence to continue right along. That\u2019s what it comes down to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI take action!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBreathing is not an action. Neither is sleeping or eating. Those are bodily functions necessary for survival and no more make you a conscious creature capable of deliberate self-determination than steamed broccoli. Your life has been a series of false starts and unrealized notions. You\u2019ve had your chance and done nothing with it. So, now it\u2019s my turn to be Madeline Greene. It\u2019s my turn to be and to do.\u201d The trespasser looked to the clock, \u201cDamn, I\u2019m late for work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I\u2019m late for work!\u201d Madeline insisted with hot tears burning in her eyes and her face becoming flush with indignant fury. The trespasser shook her head and heaved a frustrated sigh.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou still aren\u2019t getting this are you?\u201d She slipped her feet into a pair of black pumps and grabbed the purse off the dresser. \u201cI am you, only I\u2019m the you that exists. So enjoy whatever fleeting seconds of physical presence you have left. Sit around, watch television, or smash a lamp if you can muster up the gumption. But your time is over.\u201d<\/p>\n
She turned and walked down the hallway toward the front door. Madeline followed quickly after, the slap of her bare feet on the wood floor echoing the clack of the trespasser\u2019s heels in perfect time, shouting protests at the interloper. But the trespasser did not turn around or glance behind her, just opened the door and stepped out onto the breezeway. Taking a deep breath of the morning air, she closed her eyes and stated plainly, \u201cIt\u2019s my turn.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was that, Madeline?\u201d She turned with surprise to see her neighbor picking up her newspaper.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, nothing Mrs. Chambers. Sorry to bother you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo bother at all! Although, um, is everything all right? Walls are thin in this building, you know, and, I thought I heard arguing this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
The trespasser looked behind her but saw no one and nothing \u2013 just an empty apartment. \u201cNo problem at all! Just talking to myself.\u201d She closed the door and locked it before turning to her newly familiar middle-aged neighbor, holding a newspaper in one hand and clutching her tattered old bathrobe closed at the chest with the other. \u201cI\u2019ve decided its time to make some changes in my life for the better. It\u2019s time to stop sitting around and waiting for my life to start.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s wonderful, Madeline! Good luck!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you, Mrs. Chambers. I appreciate it.\u201d With a smile and a wave, Madeline Greene went off to begin the first day of the rest of her life. <\/p>\n
Tessa Bennett is the pseudonym of a legal services attorney recently moved to the East Coast, thus completing her third cross country move in the last ten years. In her free time, she scribbles furiously in her note book and is working her way through the entire works of Kurt Vonnegut.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is a legal doctrine called adverse possession whereby one man \u2013 in absence of legal or moral claim \u2013 may come to own the property of another. In its simplest terms, it requires only that the trespasser take hold of the land and cling to it as long as possible. By sheer force of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,21,445],"tags":[1342],"class_list":["post-1802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-slipstream","category-tcl-6-winter-2013","tag-slipstream","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1802"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139681,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1802\/revisions\/139681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}