Page 77 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

“Why not? I would.”

—

ROWAN TOLD me about a girl who responded to all external stimuli except human
touch. That, she did not feel at all, which was the reason why from an early age
other people scared her and kept getting scarier and scarier until they became
almost impossible to cope with. She could see and hear her fellow human beings
but making physical contact was identical to grabbing at thin air. It was like

living with hallucinations that would neither disappear nor become tangible. The
worst part was having to pretend that this pack of ghouls was nothing to be
concerned about. She quickly learned that getting upset was counterproductive
because then there were attempts to comfort her with hugs and the like. She said
whatever she had to say and did whatever she had to do to circumvent

unnecessary physical contact, but her situation was further complicated by the
effect that her touch had on others. She was walking pain relief. She didn’t cure
or absorb the source of pain—it was more that she dismantled the sensation itself
for a few hours, or up to half a day depending on the duration of skin contact. It
didn’t matter what kind of affliction the other person suffered, if the girl held his
or her hand pain departed and all other impressions expanded to fill the space it
left.

—

THIS, MORE THAN her numbness, twisted her relationships beyond imagining.
People in her immediate vicinity somehow sensed what she could do for them
and reached for her without really thinking about it, then clung to her, friends,
family, and strangers, making use of her without perceiving that they were doing

so, clinging so tightly that her ribs all but cracked. It seemed everybody was in
all kinds of pain all the time. Shaggy-haired young men camped on her doorstep
with their guitar cases and the girl’s father resorted to spending a part of each
evening standing backlit in the sitting room window with his arms folded so that
the doorstep campers got a good view of his lumberjack biceps. The incongruous
combination of white hair, beard, and powerful arms usually caused the boys to
scatter with the muddled impression that Father Christmas was angry with them.

—

AS A FORM of escape from involuntary giving, the girl tried to identify those who
were in the most pain and spent evenings at her local hospital just sitting with