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“Untouchable.” Jane Doe is untouchable. When the choir first arrived in the warehouse, they wept. They held each other in their arms. A pat on the back, a stroking of the hair. She observed as skin constantly grazed skin, but only the cold damp air could be felt on her own. She was new to this life. She constantly reminded herself of that. Touch was an award to be earned. These children were all friends, she was a stranger. Of course, they would rather shed tears in the arms of an acquaintance than of a subhuman imposer. An unexplainable instinct brings her hand to trace up a doll’s back to feel it’s blonde coils, but she is stopped by cracked porcelain at its neck. There is nothing that Jane Doe can touch. There is nobody to be touched by her. She must exist in a contactless purgatory until she earns her place as one of them.
A conversation is a good way to gain trust, and after one gains trust, they earn touch. The girl speaks with her voice loud and steady. She approaches a person and stands beside her. She looks her in the eyes when she speaks. A steady, unbreaking gaze, just waiting for the sparks of connection to start flickering. The other girl turns away sheepishly and vanishes back into the crowd. Jane Doe is repulsive. The others talk at her, not to her. They ask her if she has seen the way she looks in a mirror with shock and disgust on their faces. Through reflective broken shards of glass she finds the blonde curls she had lost in the beginning, but perhaps the destination of them wasn’t worth looking for in the first place.
The doll-headed girl twiddles with the yellow ringlets that fall just above her shoulders. She assumes it doesn’t comfort her in the way that it used to. Although who is to say how she used to be? She curses her failing memory. She curses herself. Who is she besides a hollow shell of a woman? She has never felt love, she has never had a friend, she has never been touched. She reaches her hand towards a pale freckled girl with auburn hair, but she is only responded to with taunts. She would have loved to feel the cloth of the girl’s shirt, she wondered how it differed from the lace of her own. She pinches the cloth of the beheaded doll’s dress between her fingertips. Perhaps this is the closest she’ll get.
The strange girl’s limbs are tightly wound. Her joints creak and ache with every step. To smile is to risk cracking her porcelain face. Jane Doe is unapproachable, that is until her missteps lead her to falling onto the ground. A boy in a chair hands her a crutch to stand back up, their fingernails linger mere inches apart. They did not touch, but he also did not back away. She settles the crutch under her arm, the warmth of his palms still radiates off the handles. For the first time in her short life, she is speechless, but before she can offer him thanks. He wheels away with a smile.
The unidentified soul sits in a corner with her crutch and her doll. Worldly possessions are such a strange thing to think about. They are simply transporters of touch. Portals to contact. The heat from the boy’s hand has left the cold metal of his walking aid, but she can still remember it. Jane Doe has never felt warmth until then. She holds her hand on the handle over and over again to replicate it herself, but it never feels the same.
When it is her turn to sing her song sorrows, the girl is unsure of herself. She doesn’t have a song. How could she win the affections of a group of people when she herself has never truly been a person? A kind face tells her to speak from the heart. Does Jane Doe have a heart? Is her tense body as hollow as her painted head? Nevertheless, she tells her story. A story that started and ended moments ago. A story of confusion and pain. A story of forgetting. A story which no human being has ever lived. She expects the group to cower away from her once more. She has finally solidified her place as something apart from the rest of them. They have never been an object like Jane Doe. They have never been untouchable. An unfamiliar melody grazes her ears.
Various pairs of hands touch Jane. Large hands, small hands. Frail hands and strong hands. One ties a tie around her chin, the other around her neck. Touch. Jane is being touched. Sparks of electricity radiate through her cold skin. Flashes of heat fire at every point of contact. She is both burning and freezing at the same time. Her porcelain eyelids widen in awe, her body subconsciously sways to the music.
For the first time since her arrival, Jane Doe feels human.