The Incredible Disappearing Woman

There was nothing special about the day that Sophie Rhodes first noticed she was fading out of existence. Her pre-work routine had unfolded with the same rigorous discipline that she prided herself for sticking to every morning: up by 6, homecooked breakfast at 6:20h and a forty minute run around the park right after. The physical exertion had revealed nothing different about her body, no signs of abnormal fatigue or sickness, which was why the paleness she saw reflected in the mirror was so startling. Although “paleness” was an inadequate euphemism; when seen by the early light of dawn through sleep-addled eyes Sophie had soothed herself by describing her appearance as such and leaving it at that, but as she returned later to the mirror to apply her make-up, then fully awake, even the most artful self-deception wasn't enough to disguise reality: she was nearly translucent.

Rationalizing that she really did feel perfectly fine even if she didn't look it (and considering that she had a job in a place where “calling in sick” wasn't part of the corporate vocabulary), Sophie went to work. Under normal circumstances she could easily disappear inside the gargantuan premises of Astor & Co., the investment bank that for the past five years had been the stage for her rise from junior trader to top financial advisor. Lost amidst the cacophony of phones and meetings that were omnipresent in the place, any one person became unimportant. Alas, Sophie didn't even have a few minutes' respite before her hopes of going unnoticed were destroyed, for as soon as she walked into the office, Jimmy, the most unpleasant of her colleagues, was ready with some remark about her being so thin she was see-through; and while she was accustomed to his brand of abuse-through-humour and could therefore ignore him, the looks of shocked bewilderment from the rest of her coworkers were harder to dismiss. But the final humiliation was the worst one, when later in the day her boss walked into the room and disgustedly said: “Jesus, you look fucking bizarre. There's no way I'll let you get in front of a client looking like this. Don't bother coming back until you seem like a person again.”

Despondency wasn't ordinarily a part of Sophie's nature, she had always had an inclination towards seeking challenges, which, aligned with her high-pressure career, only strengthened her resolve to see problems as opportunities rather than obstacles. Still, it was hard to maintain that spirit standing for hours in an ER waiting room with absolutely no idea what's going on with what you thought was a perfect body – especially when the actual doctors (when they finally get to you) seem to know even less. The general practitioner who first saw Sophie was a young man trying and failing to hide his exhaustion through a professional smile; an expression of mild politeness that in a matter of minutes transformed into puzzlement as he performed the examination. “God, you're transparent. I can literally see the stretcher you're lying on through your skin”, he said in a half-fascinated, half-scared voice. The physician admitted he had never seen anything like this, so he wanted to order a robust batch of exams to be as thorough as possible and discover the root cause of this strange ailment. Sophie assented, feeling some relief that, whatever it was, a cure might lay in her immediate future. Unfortunately, however, they didn't even get past the first exam that day. When a nurse came in to take some blood samples Sophie was distractedly on her phone, and only upon hearing the note of fear in the woman's voice did she snap into attention.

“Hey, doc”, said the nurse. “You gotta see this”. She then asked Sophie to lift her arm, to which she complied. No further words were necessary, the nurse's next actions were eloquent enough: when she tried to insert the needle into Sophie's arm it went clean through. The needle couldn't stick to skin or flesh, because, despite the faint appearance of a human arm, there didn't seem to be any actual physical body there. The three of them remained for a moment in perfect synchronized stillness, not even daring to breathe for fear of awakening another dimension of this impossible, sensational new reality they had just witnessed. Sophie was the first to break the silence. “Do it again”, she said. And sure enough, there it was: a solid object passing through the body of a human being as if it didn't exist. Sophie wished harder than she had ever for anything in her life that it was all a dream, a shared delusion, a glitch in the collective simulation they lived in that would soon be fixed – but there was simply no denying the truth literally in front of her eyes: not only was she transparent, she was intangible.

And that's when the circus began.

From the ER Sophie was immediately referred to quarantine, and the game of medical musical chairs started. The young doctor who first saw her deferred to his Senior Attending Physician, a grave man whose air of confident expertise crumbled within seconds of examining her. He called the other experts in the hospital for help, each of whom faced their own defeat in turn. What little they could gather was that certain parts of her body were still more tangible than others, and they were therefore able to perform an ultrasound and a CT scan; which could have been a major breakthrough if what was discovered didn't shock them even further: her internal organs were seemingly invisible too. Or rather: disappearing along with the rest of her body.

Collectively sensing that they had stumbled into a discovery that defied centuries of certainties and could alter the very foundation of modern scientific knowledge (not to mention more metaphysical concerns that would rattle every aspect of society) the medical team decided to keep Sophie in quarantine and reveal their discoveries to higher authorities. The State Medical Board was informed of the situation on the very same day and within a matter of hours after that the Surgeon General himself was made aware. Fearing that this might be a radical new type of virus, he ordered a special containment facility be built in the city, and had Sophie transferred immediately. He conferred with the president, who agreed it would be wise to get ahead of inevitable leaks and released a statement to the press the next morning. Over the next few days all manner of medical and scientific experts from around the globe flew into the facility to personally witness and investigate the reality-altering case. Before the week was through Sophie became the primary focus of national interest and by the end of the month she was a worldwide sensation. It was truly no hyperbole to say Sophie Rhodes was the most famous woman on the planet.

For the duration of her confinement Sophie was, in every sense, alone. Since the danger of contamination couldn't be ruled out she was placed in an aseptic room and every human being that came into contact with her did so either under cover of heavy coating (gloves, masks, shields, isolation gowns, the works) or on the other side of a protective glass placed at the end of the room, through which specialists asked her questions and periodically consulted on her well-being. That was how she gave interviews as well, sometimes to several reporters cramming into each other in the constricted space, and eventually to some luckier (more powerful) players who managed to get an exclusive. Either way, the questions and answers didn't vary much, Sophie eventually settled into a kind of rote recitation of the basic facts of her case, since that was more soothing than lingering on its more existential implications.

After that first ultrasound and CT scan physical evidence became harder to get. On her first day Sophie had already ceased to produce any kind of bodily fluids whatsoever; no saliva, urine or stool samples could be obtained. Scientists did manage to get some hair and skin fibers from the areas of her body which still maintained some level of tangibility, but analysis of them revealed nothing at all anomalous, and no further specimens were collected since a few days later there was no longer a single part of her body that could be touched. Therefore, the rapid progression of Sophie's condition became the primary concern of the experts.

Cameras were set up all around the room to observe and record every second of her transformation. Information was gathered, but knowledge wasn't necessarily gained from it. It became clear early on that certain body parts were fading faster than others, but nobody could discern a physiological logic as to the reason. Why, for example, was her right arm almost entirely gone in two weeks, but her left one remained somewhat visible for much longer? Could it be that the condition more intensely affected the right side, in general? Why, then, did the left side of her chest fade completely in a matter of days? And more importantly, how was it possible that she was still “alive” (whatever that meant in this predicament) with her heart entirely missing? These physical impossibilities thrilled and fascinated the reporters, who made no attempt to disguise their excitement at her misfortune – nor did they have to, since Sophie didn't mind their enthusiasm. What really bothered her was the exact opposite, when they tried to perform the socially appropriate pantomime of empathy. Their voices became tainted with strained sweetness; their expressions disfigured into their idea of “understanding” and inevitably the million dollar question dropped: “But how do you feel, Sophie?”

Whenever confronted by the big F word, Sophie retreated to reciting her subjective but still somewhat concrete physical sensations. She told them she felt no pain, only a bizarre sense of weightlessness that couldn't quite be described to anyone who had never had their body fade away inexplicably. She experienced no phantom limb syndrome, once a body part was gone she didn't feel its presence anymore. Certain normal physiological needs no longer plagued her, she felt no hunger or thirst, no need for sleep, and didn't have to use the bathroom. What she missed the most were the smallest daily thrills they all took for granted, such as the feel of warm water on her skin, or the ability to touch something and feel its texture through her senses. As the condition progressed clothes could no longer hang on her body, which meant she had to be naked while missing random body parts, so she requested all reflective surfaces be removed from her room to spare her the horror of knowing what she looked like, even if by that point she was so faded that it was difficult to discern much of anything anyway. The people in charge of the facility also changed the protective glass so that anything below her neck would not be visible to outside onlookers; for the protection of both hers and her visitors' sensibilities (friends and family were allowed visits, but seeing her parents in despair and her pals embarrassed didn't exactly bring her any comfort). When questioned about this onslaught of indignities, Sophie admitted it didn't make her feel good.

But of course that wasn't enough. What they were really looking for was a profound, revelatory statement of the emotional effect of this unheard-of new facet of the human condition. They were in the market for raw vulnerability and, unfortunately for them, Sophie wasn't selling. In all public statements she simply defaulted to a generic “I trust the doctors and keep my hopes up” spiel, and guarded her real feelings. How could they possibly expect her to say anything to them, when she didn't even know what to say to herself?

For a large part of her confinement Sophie appealed to all manner of distractions. Since she couldn't personally hold any objects, a lab assistant was tasked with being her anchor to the physical world. He read her books, played her music, told her the news. At times he walked into the room (duly garbed in protective garments, naturally), and just moved the mousepad according to her instructions, so she could surf the internet. That was how Sophie became aware of the larger consequences of her condition. Social media was teeming with theories, discussion boards, serious debates, mocking parodies; fights, and stories of the unfoldings of the Sophie Rhodes Disease. Every major religion had taken a stance, some sects believing her to be a servant of Satan, others hailing her as a herald of God, his message of the coming rapture. Cults of a non-specific denomination also appeared, claiming her as a prophet of our alien (and/or lizard) overlords; or the first coming of the New Human Form (the name of one of the larger and most popular groups). There were, of course, innumerable conspiracy theories, ranging from the standard “government experiment gone wrong” variety to more elaborate and creative imaginings (Sophie's favorite was one that claimed this was a globalist plot to make everyone question their reality to see how strong our collective belief in the Matrix really was).

The Sophie Rhodes Disease was also an opportunity for comedy and marketing. Late night hosts, stand-up acts and improv groups squeezed tremendous juice from her; she spent hours alone just consuming the various bits inspired by her. Ad agencies also took inspiration from the public fervor and ran several commercials with some kind of riff or another (Sophie had liked one about a new cosmetic product that promised to “make your blemishes fade faster than Sophie Rhodes!”). Finally, her situation had provoked serious sociological and philosophical analysis from many disciplines of thought. Sophie read feminist essays explaining how she was symbolic of the female condition, signifying how women were doomed to be erased and exploited by society; psychologists saw her as a metaphor for the effects of depression, making one feel as though they weren't even really there.

The latter possibility (that this was a psychosomatic condition) had been explored and disregarded. Many mental health professionals had talked to her and all ascertained Sophie had never had any major traumas and no mental illness issues, on the contrary, she had always been a highly functional and well-adjusted member of society. Only after her condition did she begin to display signs of depression which, of course, was to be expected – nobody was surprised by her melancholy except Sophie herself.

Eventually all these distractions became insufficient and she could no longer outrun the shadow of her own despair. The five stages of grief came and went seemingly several times a day. “Why me?” was a common refrain inside her head at all times – a question designed only to torture, since it became clearer every day they would never find an answer to that, not before she faded completely anyway. Having to face one's mortality and the unknowability of what comes next is a hellish experience under normal circumstances, but there was not yet a word invented to describe what Sophie was facing: the idea that maybe she wouldn't die since she was not even alive in any biological sense of the word, that maybe she would fade from physicality but her consciousness would remain eternally floating in the ether with no way of communicating. She was facing the possibility of not being human anymore.

Sophie had worked so hard for so long on achieving the perfect life she had no idea who she was outside of these external signifiers. A high-paying job in a competitive field, a beautiful body – what was left when those things were gone? A person should be something concrete, they should have an ineffable essence that told them always who they were regardless of whatever outside forces interfered in their lives. Sophie realized too late that she had been so singularly focused on becoming her idea of a successful person she never stopped to find out who she actually was.

Time was running out. She had faded almost entirely and by now was essentially just a phantasmagorical floating head that even scientists avoided looking at too closely for too long. All that was left to do was wait for the final fade-out. Sophie wished to let go but there was a thought that couldn't let go of her. As she braced herself for the possible end of her life and pondered these introspective existential notions, she couldn't help remember the creative passion she had as a teen that was abandoned when she realized there was no money in it. She had always loved to write, but hadn't committed a word to paper in many years.

That's when she had an idea.

She asked the lab assistant to write the words she dictated, which came flowing out in a furious rush, as if they were fighting to get out while there was still time. When she finished, the young man read her back the story she had created. It was a silly little tale of a princess trapped in a castle who had to save herself because the prince who'd rescue her had slipped and fallen going up the stairs. She could tell it was derivative and that the prose was amateurish but hearing it was the first thing that made her happy in a long time. Just at the end, she had reconnected with a true side of herself that she'd forsaken and was glad to have done so before it was all over.

Just then she looked down and saw the faintest shape of a hand start to materialize in front of her. Could it be that she had discovered the cure to her ailment? Would she have time to explore herself, and find out who she was? Or was this just a wishful mirage from a dying person?

It didn't matter. She had another story idea. And for now, that was enough.