I was the person that others didn’t see.
I wasn’t invisible, or ghostly, or anything of the sort. In all reality, I was quite tangible, I just wasn’t memorable. No matter what I did, no matter how I affected people, as soon as I was out of eyesight the person would lose all recollection of me at all.
So, sitting on a park bench, in the middle of the night, after a storm, on a college campus, I wasn’t exactly worried about being thought of as strange. I actually rather liked college campuses… there was so much motion, and change, and always a quiet buzz that calmed me. Especially the small liberal arts schools. I always felt like, if I had ever been normal, that’s where I would have found my place. But that didn’t matter, because I wasn’t normal.
I was a banshee.
I had no idea how the whole “wailing woman” idea sprang up, or even how, as a nineteen-looking male, I could be mistaken as either female or predisposed to wailing, but I was Irish. I even talked like an Irishman. Of course, there were others like me. We’d run into each other on occasion and swap stories, but there’s only so much to say about what we’d done and been forgotten for.
Not that I couldn’t make a difference. I made plenty of difference. I made it my point to nudge people onto better paths. Some might have even called me a guardian angel, but I wasn’t. I believed in God, sure well, I just didn’t have the brilliant wings or the tendency towards wearing bed sheets as clothing. I was perfectly happy with my muddy jeans and burgundy sweat shirt.
The tiniest hint of thunder echoed towards me from the horizon—even the storm made a point to try and be remembered. It’d been a pretty storm, the sort that flashed and thundered and splashed about with a healthy helping of rain. I’d enjoyed it from my post on the park bench, chuckling as the college students ducked for cover and away from the howling wind. I was always amazed by the superficialness of it all. They had all the power in the world to be remembered, and yet they rarely amounted to anything above a house and two-point-three children.
Of course, the God I was convinced existed always liked to tease me by throwing me the haughtiest, most shallow individuals. Such as the high school drama queen that was waltzing my way across the college green, a bag strangled in her hand. I had no doubt she had managed to actually graduate high school, but age and status said nothing of the condition of the mind. I stifled a laugh as she flounced by my bench, a deep seated scowl set onto her face.
“Well, darlin’, you seem to be a bit flustered.” I let my words ring with Irish heritage. The ladies always loved my lack of an accent. I couldn’t blame them, really, considering they had to listen to American accents all day long.
“Hi,” she froze, staring with a rigidity that said she hadn’t noticed me. Or at least, hadn’t remembered that she’d noticed me. “Uhm… I guess.”
“Anything I can help you with?” I asked, pushing rust-colored hair out of my eyes. “I’m Aiken.”
She glanced up and down my figure, pausing on my face. “Tricia,” she responded after a moment, charm laden on her voice. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before, are you new?”
“You could say that.” Actually, I’d been hanging around Simplicity College of the Liberal Arts for about two months. “I was just enjoying the weather. There’s something a bit magical about storms.” I pulled my coat off the bench beside me, revealing a relatively dry seat. The dampness didn’t bother me in the least, even though rivulets of water slipped down my back and cooled my skin. I was Irish, after all.
“Are you, like, from Scotland or something?” She slipped into the spot beside me, crossing her legs and resituating herself in an attempt to seem attractive. I had to hold back a laugh.
