From: "Carin" Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 00:50:14 -0800 Subject: Story submission- A Small Life TITLE: A Small Life AUTHOR: Carin longneck@tminet.com RATING: PG CATEGORY: Vignette – first person KEYWORDS: Angst, mild UST ( but you need not be a shipper for this) SPOILERS: Oh God, a bunch of old stuff but more recently Never Again, Emily, and The Ghosts Whole Stole Christmas. SUMMARY: Scully has trouble sleeping on the night of her thirty-fifth birthday. FEEDBACK: Is delightful, is inspirational, is what I live for. ARCHIVE: Gossamer okay, anyone else- just let me know and all that rot. DISCLAIMER: Do I own Scully and Mulder? Heck no! If I did do you think I'd be hanging around this dump? I just borrowed them from CC, 1013 and Fox but I promise to give em back when I'm done. WRITTEN: Jan. 14th, 1999 (my 29th B-Day) ____________________________________________________________ February 23rd, 1999 11:45 p.m. I turn over again and shove my arm under the pillow, bunching it up, trying for the thirtieth time to 'get it right'-so I can sleep. But I can't and I don't. Today is my thirty-fifth birthday. I don't know if that is supposed to be a big deal or not. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. I guess I should feel something?but I don't know what it is. What do other women my age do on their birthdays? Other women my age probably have kids that serve them burnt toast and runny eggs in bed. Other women my age probably have husbands who take them out for a nice dinner and then later, in the dark, tell them that they are just as beautiful as the day they first met. I have Mulder. Mulder- who greeted me first thing this morning with a fistful of blurred photographs and an insistence that I get straight down to the morgue and perform an autopsy on some poor sap who's had his lungs removed through his throat. So, while other women all across America are packing PB & J's and kissing the kids off to school I am up to my elbows in entrails. Now, don't get me wrong- I love my work. And to Mulder's credit he did show up at the office this afternoon bearing a Moon-Pie with a candle in the middle. But still? A few months ago, on Christmas Eve to be exact, Mulder lured me out to an old, abandoned house. He was convinced it was haunted. I will be the first to admit that I got pretty caught up in the whole thing myself. But I attribute my reaction to a combination of irrational fear- brought on by childhood slumber-party legends and? "Oh you poor dear, you must have an awfully small life." That's what my ghost-woman said to me. Of course I realize she was no ghost, just a product of my own imagination, my over-stimulated psyche. And that's the part that bugs me. A small life. I have chased mutants and aliens all over this continent. I have been within an inch of my life more times than I care to count. I have witnessed horrors that most could never imagine, nor live with if they did. I have stared down cancer and beat it. I have buried a father, a sister, a daughter. A small life indeed. I dip down into the cool cotton sheets. I run my hand down my belly to my naked thigh. I could bring myself to a climax and that would surely bring sleep, but I hesitate?I can't even bring myself to do this. Am I so far outside the loop of reality that I can't even have a sexual fantasy? I mean, what would I think about? My last sexual encounter nearly led to my being incinerated alive. Mulder? No. I mean, I have thought about it but I always feel guilty then I can barely look at him in the office the next day. Besides, I don't even think he realizes there is a woman under these dark, serious suits I wear. Sometimes I don't think I realize it either. So long untouched, unknown. Barren. There will be no life beyond my own. These thirty-five years and whatever I have left are all there is. No more. I think about those other women out there, beyond these walls. I imagine one. She is sleeping soundly, draped with her lovers arm, breathing in synch- their children down the hall peacefully lost in dreams. And I know there is hope. Even for me. ________________________________________________________________ ENOUGH!