Work Text:
Care went into the school. Paul left the school. Care never existed. Paul always has.
Not difficult to figure out.
Marvin only wanted Care, he wanted Care, he wanted Care, he wanted Lina back, and Lina was gone, he’d never understand that though, what happened at that windmill was never going to be assuaged. He didn’t understand it.
Why would Lina run away from him? Why would she say that she hated him like that, why would that happen? Why why why did she vanish into the windmill and why did she do that to herself and why did that happen, he told her she was a woman. She was a good woman, a nice woman, and he wanted her to be friends?
Why didn’t she want them to be fucking friends?
But it was okay, it was alright, he would make another Lina and he would make Care believe she was Lina and he would put everything right. He would put everything right.
He would fix everything.
Care wasn’t growing eyebrows and that was a cause for joy.
Now she could be fixed and corrected and massaged back into place and later on when she was old enough she would become his replacement Lina because she had to be.
She had to be.
Care knew he wanted Care and Care didn’t want Care and everyone wanted Care, everyone wanted Care, everyone wanted Care everyone wanted Care but they didn’t love Care, they couldn’t love Care, they didn’t love Care.
Care never existed, did she?
The limbo of pregnancy would stretch on underneath the school. Lina’s grave would stay as a mockery. Unknown.
"She is not here anymore," the grave would announce. " She is gone. She has gone the way of everyone like her.
"41 percent. Like everyone else before her.
"Even though nobody saw her do it. We just assumed.
"Even Daniel, Rainer, assumed.
"Despite how important he was, how needed he was, how good he was.
"He assumed, and later he was ashamed of how he had treated everyone.
"Despite his gifts."
Do you remember being born?
I-I don’t know. What kind of question is that?
I don’t. I can’t.
Why not?
You can tell me Paul.
Because– I have this horrible feeling that I had to birth myself. I had to crawl through that birth canal myself. There were no contractions to help me, just the rock hard will and grit and determination to leave, to leave– something.
To leave what?
I can’t– I can’t really– remember.
Do you remember what the game told you?
What does the game have to do with- it.
Some of the layouts were the same but-
Couldn't be.
Right.
Whatever it was, it's- right there I just can't-
Contractions began suddenly and unintentionally. The father was not meant to give birth.
Care looked in the flower vase and heard how ugly she was but she did not see it as ugliness, she saw it as clarity.
“Look how masculine your jaw is” Marvin said. “The disgusting way your nose slopes down. You’re an ugly ugly girl. You look like a boy. Nobody will love you.”
Care decided he was right. She knew he was right. Nobody would love Care. Nobody would love Care. Care was an unknown body.
She is dressed in a skort which is both too long and too short and too tight and she starts crying because Marvin’s words are hurting something inside her that she does not know what.
Does it even hurt. Yes, it does hurt the words hurt but something else is mixed along with them and it’s unknown what is being mixed in.
“You’re disgusting,” he says. “A disgusting boyish mess.”
And it’s true.
Care B is scared and pounding on the door. Her photographs are scattered in unknown graves because she is an entity that is not tangible.
She has been intangible for almost three months and she would remain intangible for another three months but she had been intangible for her entire life.
She didn’t know why but she had the sense that she didn’t exist here, in this moment, that the pounding and screaming and fear was happening to another person, a girl named Care that just so happened to share the same face as her.
Another girl maybe, one that actually liked sweaters and skorts and long hair and no eyebrows and everything that she felt she had to put up with.
And she realizes that Care is not her name. She does not know why but she realizes it’s not her name. She doesn’t know her name yet but it’s not Care. Or Carrie.
Care is a label programmed onto her by someone unknown. By someone she did not pick. Her father held her in his arms and called her Care and he is grabbing Care and pulling Care out.
The sun is hitting someone’s face. The face doesn’t feel like the face. Someone is crying. Is Care crying?
What is she, a nothing girl? She is unknowable. She is not a girl. Care is a vessel now, Marvin has told her so. Care’s body is not her body.
Care’s body is not Care’s body. Care’s body is not Care’s body.
He smacks and tells to be quiet and hisses at Care to do the song again.
Do the song again.
Practice the song on the keyboard again.
What is Care What is Care What is Care What is Care What is Care What is Care What is Care What is Care What is Care What is Care What is Care
Contractions are five minutes apart.
What’s right there, Paul? What did you want to do?
To leave– leave– leave– that fucking music and the fucking nightmares and the fucking vase and the fucking room and the fucking fear– and I– I can’t get the words out–
What the hell is–
Oh my god–
What the hell-
What happened to me?
She doesn’t play the song that he wants her to and he leaves the room. Leaves Care alone. Leaves Care to keep playing.
Playing.
Playing
Playing a song that Care made up from Care’s head and Care alone knows and she does not know what a Care is anymore nor what a she is and she is alone in a skort and sweater too big and too tight at the same time.
Care wants out. Care wants something else.
Carrie is not Care or Carrie or she. No she. No nothing.
Something.
Something wants out.
Wants out. Wants out.
Marvin has left the school and he is sobbing nearby and his cries echo through the woods.
Echoing and echoing throughout the trees as I walked by them and it echoed and it hurt, but I walked. I remembered the way home because– I’d walked it so many times. I opened the door to MY house and I looked in the mirror and–
Yes yes, do you remember Paul, do you remember?
I was so excited to meet you! The real you!
Lina was too, that’s why we took you! That’s when I met you!
My best friend.
When Care crawled back out of the birth canal of the school and ascended the staircase Care looked in the mirror for the first time and saw himself.
Care told the counselor at school that and of course he told his parents and yet Lina stepped in.
Lina. Pure, perfect Lina. She was back.
She was back.
She was back back back.
She took him with her, and he remembered how the house faded from view . It was nothing to him now. Nothing.
Lina was trained, she was a special worker with kids like this, and she agreed to stay in touch from now on.
Sorry for giving everyone such a scare! I didn't know- what was happening, I swear.
I'll take good care of him. I promise. We'll stay in touch.
She asked him what his name was to be. She gave him a book to pick one out. A book of baby names.
He stared at the printed page. Paul. It was a nice, nice name. It meant small. It meant humble. It belonged to a great apostle of Jesus.
He picked it and attached it to himself and forgot the circumstances of his birth.
It was too painful to remember.
Babies do not like being born. That’s why they cry. And that’s why they forget.
Until the scabs on his brain were picked open, Paul did not remember being born, not until now.
Not until now.
Not until now.
Marvin's finally going to trial. They want you to testify, Paul. That’s why they did all this.
We’re so sorry Paul, but every counselor we took you to– my own tries– it didn’t work, the game was our only choice.
Paul.
Paul.
Paul.
Do you remember now?
Yes. I think I do.