Not built for this by kate cloud

Corrine lets herself in around back as it starts to snow. February, and they still have the Christmas lights up outside, slightly dimmer now. One of the strands has detached from the roof and keeps whipping against the windows, resulting in a deep thud every few seconds. A few days ago it was eighty outside.

Allison’s on the floor, over-sized shirt stretched out over her bare knees, the words “A TRANS PERSON PEED HERE” scrawled in sharpie on the front. She looks like she hasn’t left this spot, or the house, for a while. Her hair is greasy and tangled; Corrine’s envious of her new greying streaks even though she knows Allison’s not even 30.

“Oh shit!” Allison says, the reaction a few seconds delayed like she’s on live TV. “I didn’t think you’d actually come.”

Another girl’s next to Allison, huddled under a shredded duvet, eyes locked on the old box TV. Coffee mugs half-full of water are stranded around the living room; Corrine wonders if they serve some larger ritualistic function.

“I said I would come,” Corrine says, curtsying, then stumbling over a half-empty box of decaying pizza. She recovers and flops onto the scratched-up leather couch, shrugs her coat and bag off her shoulders, which pop and ache from the extended stretch. She rolls them back a few times and waits for her stinging nerves to settle. “Did you not want me to?”

“No, no, I’m just surprised, is all,” Allison says.

Corrine had heard Allison was maybe in some minor legal trouble related to her job, had maybe even been put on leave. Soft-fired, Allison had put it in her social media meltdown about the whole situation. Corrine clicked through without reacting, waiting for more context; Allison was the type of girl to tell a hilarious story at a party without ever realizing that she was its villain. Corrine didn’t trust her versions of events. Lately the bulk of their interactions consisted of Allison reacting to Corrine’s stories with a fire emoji. Corrine always double-tapped a heart back.

Until the other night. Corrine didn’t even remember posting anything the other night; all she remembered was the blinding white sun screaming her awake in her curtainless apartment the next morning, bringing with it a biting hangover that finally announced itself after a few days of heavy drinking. The only person who messaged her to check in was Allison:

damn so we’re both goin through it rn lol

if you ever need to get out of the house u know where i am

She had first spotted Allison at a friend’s show in Deep Ellum: thought she was cute, considered saying hey, had no idea how. Once in a hotel lobby, Corrine and her ex Samantha were waiting for an airport shuttle for a predawn flight when someone young and androgynous ambled over to tell them that they were Beautiful Ladies, then vanished. She hated it when other girls like her approached her in public with nothing to talk about other than their shared condition, all “I know what you are.” It made her more paranoid and it made her more guarded.

Sam thought it was sweet.

Corrine wanted to believe that she would’ve carried herself differently, that she could’ve complimented Allison’s yellow bracelets and somehow sparked a conversation. She knew they at least liked some of the same music, that was a way in. A stealth perk of Texas, she supposed, that that type of interaction could only happen so often, with so few girls and even fewer places to meet them. If you didn’t want to play a part in a larger social organism you didn’t have to.

But the timing was all wrong; when they met for real at a house show Allison hosted, all they could find to talk about was how afraid they were, how bad it was getting out there, all the terrible things the state could do to them. The lives of the party. A year or two ago now, maybe? Corrine couldn’t be exactly sure anymore; she had never been good with dates.

On the TV, there’s a woman flailing around on a unicycle, wearing a thin cloth face mask and baby blue nurse scrubs patterned with purple question marks. A bear on a chain growls at the woman and she successfully peddles away, screaming the whole time. Corrine isn’t sure if what she’s watching is a parody of something else unfamiliar or the real thing, also unfamiliar, with both possibilities feeling equally likely.

“Hey, what…what am I looking at here, exactly?” Corrine asks the girls.

“I never made you watch Dr.WHO???” Allison answers. The girl next to her packs a bowl and struggles to light it for a while.

“Isn’t that like…in space? Or England, or whatever?”

“Different show, different show. I’ve seen every episode like, a hundred times,” Allison explains, almost ecstatic. “Okay, so it’s kinda like House MD meets Quantum Leap? Each week, Wendy Hoover, a.k.a Dr. Who, jumps into the body of a different patient who is experiencing a mystery illness and tries to deliver a diagnosis, only from the inside. This week she’s helping a clown with some sort of arrhythmia.”

The doctor, still in the circus tent, takes her own vitals and glances at the blood pressure monitor, puzzled. She fumbles around in the pockets of her scrubs, pulling out a comically long rainbow handkerchief that piles up at her feet, nearly reaching her torso, before finally finding the pen attached at its end. This is where the laugh track would probably go, were it not on mute. And here’s the cut to the commercial break, except Allison pirates everything, so it fades right back in.

“So…when she, uh, jumps…into someone else’s body, it’s still the same actress as the doctor?” Corrine asks.

“Look, it wasn’t a very popular show,” Allison admits, taking the oblong pipe from the girl and lighting it for her. “But supposedly they’re trying to do a revival season now. Nu-Who.”

“Fuck yeah dude, I hope they do an episode where she becomes a trans woman and is still played by a cis woman,” Corrine says, looking to Allison’s expression to see if it landed before she even considers laughing at her own joke.

“Open-and-shut case, what would there be for her to solve? Our lives are perfect.”

The new girl starts coughing so violently that Corrine worries she’s going to vomit and preemptively covers her nose and mouth with the neck of her hoodie.

“Also they already did that episode. In the ‘90s. It’s a tough sit,” Allison adds.

The new girl passes the pipe to Allison and mutters something under her breath once she’s finished coughing.

“What was that, baby?” Allison exhales smoke, then turns to her with heart eyes.

The other girl clears her throat: “We all accept cop shows as propaganda now, but give a doctor the same function and suddenly it’s fine,” she softly scoffs, gripping Allison’s shoulder tight, as if one of them is at risk of drifting away into the wind and sleet outside.

“Real,” Corrine says, expecting Allison to introduce the girl, but both of them just stare ahead, spellbound by the program. “Hey, I don’t know if we’ve met, I’m Corrine,” she ventures, extending her hand.

The girl doesn’t move. She’s got round glasses and black leggings under a blue hoodie with anime characters Corrine doesn’t recognize on it. Her outfit doesn’t really work and her foundation makes her look a little jaundiced, which instills a motherly instinct in Corrine to protect the girl, though she’s not sure from what exactly. Her still-softening skin’s a dead giveaway that she’s at least on hormones. Corrine isn’t sure how weird she should feel about any of this. She puts her hand back at her side.

“Huh?” the girl says a second later, like she’s been woken abruptly.

“I’m Corrine. Nice to meet you.”

“Hey,” the girl says. She looks like a mouse.

“It’s kinda too absurd to be propaganda,” Allison says in defense of her favorite show.

“That’s how they get you,” the girl says. “It’s science-fiction, it’s supposed to be commentary on the way things are now, not how they’re gonna be. Even if the technology existed, no doctor would ever literally become someone else to help a patient.”

An ambulance pulls up beside the circus tent, and an abundance of clowns emerge from the vehicle.

“Basically what I’m saying is, ACAB includes doctors,” she concludes, with a nervous chuckle that feels like the start of a separate thought that never arrives.

The new girl whispers something else into Allison’s ear. Allison giggles. Corrine wishes she could fast-forward through their moments of affection with each other. Allison helps the new girl to her feet and she stumbles through a door to Corrine’s right. Upon slamming it shut, Corrine can faintly make out a sticky note on the front reading “QUIET ROOM” and a neon purple glow from underneath. The hallway next to it leads to a dark part of the house Corrine’s never hung around long enough to explore, having always found some excuse to exit the parties here before ending up in Allison’s bed.

The sudden quiet unnerves her; usually there’s at least the reliable roar of planes from the regional airport nearby to drown out any awkward silences, but everything’s been grounded tonight. Allison turns up the volume slightly.

“She seems nice,” Corrine says.

“It’s okay, I know she’s awkward as hell.”

“It’s not even that, it’s more like…is she like…okay?”

“She’s fine. She gets kinda stupid when she gets high. It’s cute,” Allison laughs, and something about the casual cruelty combined with her wry smile makes Corrine recoil a little.

“This probably isn’t helping,” Corrine gestures at the screen. Close-up on the doctor’s terrified eyes reflecting rings of fire.

“No, it probably isn’t. You can come closer, y’know, you don’t have to act so afraid of me.”

“Sorry.” Corrine slides off the couch and towards Allison on the crumb-covered carpet, leaving a distance she deems reasonable enough between them. Getting closer she realizes that the lingering aroma of weed is doing a lot of work to mask the fact that Allison doesn’t smell very good, but then again, Corrine’s still in her work clothes, reeking of burgers and spilled beer, so she supposes she should be thankful for it too.

“How did y’all meet?” She decides not to bring up the hormone gap thing for now.

“On the apps.”

“Oh. I deleted all of those.”

“Congratulations, you’re built different, I guess,” Allison says, glaring at Corrine before returning her attention to her social media feed. Corrine steals a glance, trying to see if she can see herself on there.

“I’m trying to get offline in general,” Corrine says.

“Well, you’re not doing a very good job of that, babygirl,” Allison responds.

“I just wish there was like. Somewhere else to go. Besides, the girls on the apps are all out in fucking Denton trying to outcancel each other,” Corrine says.

“It’s like if a call-out post was a city,” Allison laughs.

“Either that or they’re like, aggressively 21 years old. I hate it,” Corrine agrees.

The credits roll, and old promo banners for other shows Corrine has never heard of appear in a split-screen.

“And not because I feel like, predatory about it or anything?” Corrine clarifies. “It just makes me feel bad about like, what I’m doing with my life?”

“Welcome to womanhood, sis,” Allison says, a casual venom in her voice.

“Ha-ha,” Corrine snaps back. She leans over to give Allison a sort of teasing slap on the shoulder, but Allison flinches away just in time and Corrine ends up swatting at the air. The ensuing eye contact rattles Corrine, and she checks her phone for once, where countless contradictory weather alerts and spam texts from recruiters are piling up on the lockscreen.

“I’m serious, though. I don’t know when all the other trans girls in Texas decided to settle down here for the long-haul and fight the good fight or whatever. I thought we were all on the same page.”

“It’s not that terrible here, Corrine,” Allison says.

Another episode of Dr. WHO??? has started. Question marks appear after each name in the title sequence. Allison turns up the volume even more.

“Listen to those goofy ass synths!” Allison beams, closing her eyes and grooving along in place to the theme music, sticking her thumbs and tongue out. Corrine is admittedly a little charmed by the dance, by the purple and yellow color palette of the early CGI, before anyone had figured out how to show restraint in that department.

“How long’s this been going on, between y’all?”

“Dunno. Not that long.”

Her eyes are still fixed on the doctor, who is in her default body and her home office, at least for now. Corrine wants to grab the remote and shut the TV off, force a real conversation. She is faced with the terrifying possibility that maybe Allison’s offer of support was completely insincere, and so it comes out like:

“...I feel like it’s never gonna end.”

“Felt that,” says Allison.

Corrine takes a deep breath.

“No, I mean, like. Something happened to me and I don’t think I can die now.”

Allison gives her That Face. That “Oh shit, you’re serious?” face. Corrine recognizes That Face, not just from Allison: eyes that don’t exactly pity her, after all, you could pity someone and still find a way to try and help them. Something else lying behind Allison’s expression, closer to fear than sympathy. She hears what sounds like crying from across the house and can’t be sure she isn’t hallucinating.

“Hey, should you go check on her?” Corrine asks in an attempt to rewind the conversation to a few minutes earlier.

“Don’t worry about her. Like I said, easily overstimulated.” Allison puts her hands on Corrine’s shoulders and looks into her eyes, like she’s about to give Corrine a pep talk. Instead she adopts the tone of voice like she’s talking to a child, or a crazy person. A crazy child. “So, forever, huh?”

“You know how none of us expected to still be here, and now we’re all having to deal with how, one way or another, like it or not, we’re gonna be? Sorta like that, only in reverse.”

Allison tilts her head.

“It’s like, I know I’m never gonna die, I’ve accepted it, I just would’ve liked to have a say in the matter and to feel like I have some options. That’s all,” Corrine says.

“So wait. You see…this…as a bad thing?”

Allison is speaking a lot slower. She is trying to give off the impression of trying to understand.

“Don’t you think it’s all too precarious? Like, what is happening here is not sustainable!”

“Oh fucking hell, it’s the trans episode.” On the screen a trans woman enters the doctor’s office on crutches. Allison hits the mute button. “Sorry.”

“Seems kinda progressive to me honestly. Giving a trans woman a second, unrelated problem,” Corrine says.

“Yeah,” Allison agrees and laughs, a little more nervously than earlier, as if she’s afraid that any acknowledgement of Corrine’s whole situation will be enabling her.

“Except my thing is real. Some things are real.”

Allison finally shuts off the TV.

“So like…how does one discover that they’re…immortal, exactly? Is that the word, uh, you want me to use?” Allison asks.

Tip-toeing around everything. Like Corrine’s the most sensitive girl in the world. She compulsively pulls at the little white hairs that haven’t been burnt off her chin yet and considers each one she successfully plucks out in her hand. She realizes she hasn’t rehearsed an explanation. She didn’t expect to actually get this far.

“It’s not so much that it’s endless, more that I feel like I’ve reached the end, and it turns out it’s just this, forever.”

Corrine runs her hands through the knots in her unwashed hair and bites her bottom lip a little. A clump of hair comes loose and she claws it out. She slides it under the couch with all the other garbage when Allison isn’t looking.

“Apparently for a lot of people this sort of feeling starts with a near-death experience. For me, it feels like a weighted blanket covering my brain. Like I’m sleepwalking, but I’m awake, and it’s every day, and there’s no end in sight,” Corrine explains. “I’m tired of ending up in the same situations over and over no matter what I do. Or like, feeling like there’s something everyone else knows that I was supposed to learn and never did. Sorry. It’s hard for me to say what I mean. You know it when it happens to you.”

Corrine pushes herself up and arbitrarily chooses the various components of the stereo system on the floor as something else to look at, literally anything other than Allison to ground herself. She looks at its numerous dials and knobs and wonders if they even do anything, if her untrained ear could hear the difference. She considers the dog crate in the corner. She feels pretty sure a dog has never been inside it.

“I think something sort of like that happened to my cousin, Jason,” Allison finally says. “You remember that accident at Six Flags a while back, where those people got stuck in the water ride conveyor belt? That was him. He’s a motivational speaker now.”

Allison types something on her phone. A split-second later Corrine’s buzzes and the link to a video titled “Jason Frame: Six EZ Steps to Becoming Unstuck!” appears. The thumbnail is a nerdy millennial guy in a light blue polo facing a seemingly infinite series of red bleachers full of bored middle-schoolers.

“It was like, a catalyst for him turning his life around?”

The video starts playing automatically, and she leaves it running for a second. She fails to understand what wisdom this guy could possibly impart to her other than that sometimes certain rides have short lines for a reason, but she has to admit he’s got the craft down. He understands how to project his voice. He knows which things to emphasize and how long to pause.

“Good for him,” she eventually musters.

Corrine flicks her thumb upwards to check out the comments, which reveal that the audience this guy is actually reaching isn’t the teenagers, whose attendance was mandatory, but instead their grandparents, who are here pouring out their life’s regrets, how they wish they had received this kind of advice when they were young.

She wonders how this content even finds them in the first place, wonders about the money behind it, suspects nothing good. Maybe there’s a more-sustainable career in this grift for Corrine on the other side of whatever this is, but she doesn’t think she’s a special-enough case for people to buy it. She doesn’t know if she even believes in the message enough to sell it. She thinks that people would probably have a lot of questions for her.

“I could put you in touch if you want,” Allison adds.

“Sure, yeah,” Corrine takes a breath, resetting. “Though I think it’s maybe been good for me to finally talk to someone who doesn't get it.”

“I don’t follow?” Allison looks hurt. Corrine digs a little deeper.

“See, that’s it, though. I don’t really want sympathy, I think.”

Allison sighs.

“Then I really, really don’t know what you want me to do for you, Corrine. You can have some pizza?” She pushes the ancient box towards Corrine with her foot, picks up the pipe that looks like a vibrator. “We could smoke if you want?”

Corrine shakes her head.

“I dunno. It’s like…I read shit about this way I’m feeling online and no one ever gets what I mean but they all act like they do. Telling me I’m strong, how I’m feeling is real. After a while it just gets exhausting, being fucking validated all the time. Like this one asshole at a group thing I went to once, he kept accusing people of not wanting to move on. Saying that to really understand a problem and begin to heal from it you need to know and accept its cause.”

After a second Allison nods, processing, and begins to say something.

“Which of course is total bullshit. Understanding is so overrated,” Corrine says, cutting her off.

The loose strand of Christmas lights flickers out as a warning, then the lights inside follow suit half a second later. The TV snaps off. For a moment all they can hear is the heavy wind and the dead lights thudding against the window, and a slight creaking noise from outside. Neither girl says a word.

Everything in the house returns to life a few seconds later, with an eerie rising hum that reminds Corrine of the deep note that used to frighten her at the movies when she was little. The stupid microwave beeps. The TV starts playing the local weather on its own, dire warnings to get home from Pete Delkus in end-times prophecy mode.

Corrine puts her coat back on and throws her bag over her shoulder, all quiet, like she thinks nobody will notice her exit.

“Hold on. You just got here,” Allison says. “You sure you don’t want to stay the night?”

“Thanks, but I wanna sleep in my own bed, I think,” Corrine says, gesturing at the radar on the TV.

“Please just text me when you get home, okay?”

Corrine nods and exits. Outside the sky is yellow and feverish; despite the wind nothing stirs, save for the silhouette of someone smoking and gently swaying on the swingset that the previous tenants left behind. Her hood shadows her face, and all Corrine can make out as she makes her way back to her car is the foggy outline of the girl from earlier.

“How long have you been out here?” Corrine asks. She never heard the door open.

“Not that long,” she says.

“Aren’t you cold?” Corrine has to shout, throwing the hood on her old coat up and trudging through the gathering ice towards the girl. With a gloved hand she sweeps the ice off of the other swing’s seat and settles in, lifting herself up slightly with a firm grip on the slippery black chains, suspended inches in the air to keep her ass from getting soaked.

“I’m fine. I don’t really get cold,” the girl says.

“It’s not much warmer inside.”

“This fucking house,” she mutters under her breath.

Corrine’s phone lights up through her coat pocket. Allison, forwarding Jason's contact information. She swipes the notification away.

“I’m Kerry.”

Corrine reaches out her hand and abruptly falls into the cold, wet seat.

“Listen, Kerry. Um.” Corrine hesitates while trying to phrase her question delicately. “Tell me if I’m overstepping, or whatever, but uh, what exactly is up between you and Allison?”

Kerry shrugs; she takes a hit, coughs. Corrine watches the smoke drift into the fog.

“We’re not like, girlfriends, or anything.”

“Sure,” Corrine says.

“We’re just hanging out. It’s nice to have someone around that I don’t have to explain anything to,” Kerry adds. “That’s new for me.”

“How old are you, Kerry, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“21.”

Kerry laughs at nothing and looks at the ground, offering Corrine the blunt.

“I’m okay, I gotta drive home. I have to open tomorrow.”

“Doubtful. They’re saying we might be snowed in for a few days. 75’s already shut down.”

“Yeah, but they always say that, though.”

“Our electrical grid’s not built for this. It’s only gonna get worse each year.”

The Christmas lights have gone out again.

“Listen, I gotta go, but do you want my number?” Corrine asks.

“What for?” Kerry asks, and Corrine realizes that she doesn’t know.

Kate Cloud is a writer and filmmaker. She used to live in Texas but now she lives in Chicago.