“Medusa?” Jenny said as I stood outside her front door. “Why are you here?”

“Can I come in? I’d like to talk to you,” I said.

“Where are my manners? You can move into my room if you need to. Come in.” She lived in a larger than normal home in the wealthy part of town.

We sat down in a breakfast nook of the kitchen.

“To what do I owe the honor of my savior visiting me.”

“Please don’t refer to me as any kind of savior.”

“I owe you my life. I’m sorry. I suppose savior is a bit creepy. How’s Ross?”

“Ross is great. He just dropped me off.”

“He could have come in.”

“I wanted to talk to you alone.”

“Oh. Is it going to be unpleasant? Can we get the unpleasant part out of the way?”

“That’s up to you,” I said. “I wanted to ask you about when... when your head came off, what do you really remember about it?”

“I’ve kind of tried to block that out,” she said after a moment’s pause. “I died.”

“How do you know that?”

“You probably don’t know. You should ask Elliot or Marie about being a statue. When you’re a statue, there’s a vibe to it. I wasn’t a whole statue long but I felt a vibe to it. I could kind of understand why Marie loves it so much. It’s chill. The second my body hit the floor, that vibe disappeared. I felt cold, empty. The world became distant. The sound of you screaming and Tommy flipping out, I was vaguely aware of it. Being made of stone feeling lighthearted disappeared. It was dull. Final. I was gone. I felt like my life was spilling out me, perhaps how it would feel for your blood to gush out of you. I don’t know. Why?” I didn’t reply and she said something quietly, “Is it about the animal statues?”

“You know about that?”

“Butterbuttons the cat belonged to my aunt. I’ve seen the statue a few times. Never again. I can’t go back into the room where she has it on display.”

“I’m so…”

“Don’t be sorry. Her precious Bee Bee Cat was so old. My aunt is so proud that she was able to do this to the cat. Did you really make all that money?”

“It all gets donated to an animal shelter as charity. I don’t see a dime from doing that. Neither does Dr. Hauser. I couldn’t.”

“I have to ask again. Why?”

“I have a strong suspicion that someone’s going to ask me to do it to them.”

“To a person?”

“Yeah.”

“And you want to tell them the experience isn’t as pleasant as your normal ability?”

“Exactly. Anything to discourage the idea.”

“This person must be really sick if they would put you in this spot.”

“Or they don’t know what they are asking me.”

“Oh. Probably not. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“You already helped. I’m sorry I brought up what happened that day.”

“It’s no big deal.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. And she ended up filling the awkward silence.

“I relive it in my dreams every night,” Jenny said. “No, no. No sorries. I’m working on it with my therapist. It’s better to relive it every night than to not live at all.” After a moment she said, “Can I get you a beverage?”

I asked for a soda. When she returned to the table she had the biggest smile on her face. “Guess who I’m dating.”

“Who?”

“Pete.”

“My friend Pete?”

“Yes. He was actually a very good dancer. And he had me laughing the whole time I spent with him.” She spoke for almost an hour about a guy I thought I knew but apparently Pete was much deeper than I ever knew.

Way to go, Pete.

“You’re giving me everything I want?” I said.

“Sure. Why not?”

“Because artists don’t get this kind of break usually.”

Gillian O’Malley and I were in her office at the back of her gallery. She had invited me in to look around and get a feel for the space. She hoped it would help inspire me to finish the clay statues so she could sell them. Though it was an office, it had a nook with comfortable chairs and a sofa. She was on the sofa and I was in one of the chairs.

“If that makes you one of the lucky ones, so be it. You’ll get to show off your clay sculptures, which I’m still not sure how to price. I don’t want to make them too expensive. But I want to be sure you get a good profit out of them. And your friend gets to be a statue any time she wants. I’ll set up a little display like it’s performance art and sometimes the performer is unavailable. Any time you want to set her up, you just let my assistant know and they’ll be sure the gallery is available to the two of you.”

“Why are you really doing this?”

“I understand this is unusual and you’re right to wonder at my motives. I just want you to be happy.”

“How long do you have?”

“Have?”

“You have some kind of cancer, I think. How long do you have?”

“A few months. How did you know?”

“I won’t do it.”

“I haven’t even asked.” In hindsight, I wish I had noticed how crestfallen she had appeared when she said this.

“No, you’re buttering me up first.”

“Is that what you see?”

“Is it an invalid assumption?”

She was going to defend herself but stopped. “No, I suppose it isn’t. I’m so… I suppose apologizing sounds like part of some kind of pitch if you already think this is a pitch. Okay. I give up. I won’t ask.”

“And no show, no performance art gallery.”

“Oh, no, none of that changes. In fact, since you know I’m dying, I’ll also tell you about my will. Part of the charter of the gallery and trust I’m setting up to run it will require that you can use the gallery any time you want.”

“Why?”

“I like you. More importantly, I wanted someone who would care about me and remember me to look after the statue I was hoping to leave behind. I never had children. And my brother’s kids are completely uncultured. I can’t leave them a gallery. The trust already has provisions that allow you to decide your role in the gallery. You can be as hand-on or off as you’d like. Originally I was going to just set up a trust for some scholarships, still am. But knowing I can leave the gallery to a local artist makes it even better.”

“We haven’t spent much time together. I’m only seventeen. Do I want to run an art gallery for the rest of my life? Will I still be sculpting when I get married? It’s all so sudden.”

“So is stage four cancer when you don’t catch it sooner.” She was looking at me funny and I wasn’t sure why until her head drooped and she started to weep. “I’m so sorry. You’re just a kid. I shouldn’t be dumping stuff like this on you. As I said, you can use the gallery like it was your own. My assistant will contact you in a few days with details. You don’t have work with me. I should never have even considered it.” She got up and poked her head out of the room. “Arturo?”

“You don’t…”

“Yes, Ma’am?” Arturo said. He was a man in his twenties, her assistant.

“Arturo, this is Medusa. I’ve already told you about her. I’m leaving for the day. Help her out with anything she needs before she leaves.”

“Of course, Ma’am.”

“It was good to see you again, Medusa. I’m sorry I tried to dump my burden on you.”

I was so overwhelmed I forgot Arturo was there.

“Do you really turn people to stone?” Arturo asked.

“Yes. Lasts about an hour normally.”

“Forgive my being forward about this. Gillian is an amazing woman. When she told me about you and what she hoped to have you do, I thought you had warped her perceptions somehow in order to steal the gallery. But, I was eavesdropping just now. You had no idea. I’m sorry I thought the worst of you without even knowing you.”

“You didn’t have to tell me any this.”

“No. I didn’t. But I think I should. I also think I should ask you to do what she said she would not ask. She told you she has months but as I understand it, she only has a few weeks. She stopped chemo a few months ago when she wasn’t responding to it. She only has hair now because she’s good friends with someone who has a hair growth trick.”

“I’ve decided I want to help her. But I believe euthanasia is illegal. I’m not willing to go to jail to help her. What should I do?”

Five minutes into my telling the tale, Dr. Parker stopped me and invited Dr. Lewis and Dr. Adelaide into his office. Five minutes later, they stopped me again and asked if they could schedule a meeting with a few more people. Daddy came in and asked who those other people would be.

“We know a few politicians and judges,” Dr. Parker said. “Whether or not Medusa decides to assist Miss O’Malley, we think a legal decision should be reached about the concept in general.”

A few weeks later, we were in a meeting room at town hall with the mayor, the city council, several state level politicians, a circuit court judge, Gillian, her physicians, her lawyers, the doctors from the clinic, the clinic’s lawyers, my parents, my lawyer, me, various town hall staffers, and several people I still don’t know what their affiliations were.

Before the meeting, I met with my lawyer, Lionel Barber, alone for the first time. He asked me one question and I answered him: was I willing to kill someone? We then discussed how I would proceed if I were asked.

I thought the graduation ceremony was boring. It was a Mardi Gras event compared to this. That was until the lawyer from the clinic stood up.

“While it may be unusual for doctors from the Spiral Clinic to provide medical treatment for someone, such as Miss O’Malley, who is not twisted, we believe we have a solution to the problem that will work for everyone represented here.”

“I’m all ears,” the mayor said. He had not been happy to be blindsided by a case for or against euthanasia in an election year.

“It has been medically proven that the trick possessed by Miss Medusa Harrison is a Darrington Field phenomenon that induces a suspended-animation-like state in living beings. It has been medically proven that this state is reversible. It is therefore, the recommendation of Dr. Lewis and Dr. Adelaide of the Spiral Clinic that Miss O’Malley could be placed into this suspended-animation state for medical purposes. At the moment, only Miss Harrison is capable of doing this. And she would only do this under the supervision of our medically trained staff. We would be able to study this phenomenon and perhaps someday reproduce it without the assistance of Miss Harrison.”

A murmur rose among those in attendance. Gillian looked to be on the verge of tears. After a few more hours of back and forth, the judge was willing to sign a court order permitting the use of this suspended-animation technique on Gillian. The state senator was going to attempt to make a state law endorsing the technique. That would take more time than Gillian had left.

As the meeting was about to adjourn, my lawyer, who hadn’t said anything during the meeting stood up. “If I may, Lionel Barber, counsel for Medusa Harrison,” he said. “This is a wonderful outcome for people who believe euthanasia is a human right. There is just one thing that hasn’t been addressed here. No one has asked my client if she is willing to kill someone.”

“That’s rather blunt,” someone said.

“Dead is dead. Murder is illegal. There are circumstances were killing is condoned. But, no one is forced to kill. All of this is for naught if my client is unwilling to do it. And no one has asked her. What happens a year from now when someone goes to the Clinic and asks to receive this wondrous new ‘medical procedure’? What happens when someone behind a court bench orders the ‘medical procedure’ to be performed under penalty of contempt changes?”

“No one would ever do…”

Lionel slammed his fist on the table. “Never say the words, ‘No one would ever do something to your client.’ There is always someone who is willing to do what we think is unthinkable. What protections does this minor, this minor child have that she will never be conscripted to euthanize someone against her will?”

I had never thought of that. I had thought I had nothing to fear in this meeting and now I was scared to death. My hairsnakes were getting angry. Whatever Mom and Daddy were paying this guy, it wasn’t enough.

Lionel sat down as the room erupted in a cacophony of everyone speaking at once. The mayor eventually reestablished order and immediately threw the ball into the judge’s lap.

“Mr. Barber brings up an important legal point that is further complicated by the fact that Miss Harrison is not a medical practitioner. Since I was going to sign this court order, it behooves me to ask you, young lady, are you willing to use your trick in the manner presented by Doctors Lewis and Adelaide for the experimental treatment of Miss O’Malley’s stage four lymphoma?”

I looked at Mr. Barber and he nodded.

“No,” I said. Before everyone started speaking at once again. I held my palm out to keep them quiet. “There is another choice. In some ways, it is more burdensome for me. In other ways, it is not. The suspended animation state that is at the heart of this discussion does not have to be permanent. As long as I have access to the statue, I can renew the effect of my trick prolonging the duration. A friend of mine spent eleven days as a statue at the beginning of the summer. I only had to be present to maintain her suspended animation three times in that eleven day span. Ultimately, I believe Miss O’Malley would prefer to spend her time as a statue in her own gallery than locked away in the Spiral Clinic under the fiction that she is undergoing a medical treatment.

“My only regret is that I didn’t offer this solution to her before things reached the point of involving all of you. But I’m glad to know where I stand in terms of the law.”

“I accept,” Gillian said.

“We’ll talk later.”

I stopped paying attention at that point. Mom took my hand and held it. Eventually we were standing in the hallway outside of the meeting room.

Gillian approached me. “I’m going to make a few changes to the trust. Nothing will change for you. It will just become a living trust instead of an estate trust. I’d also like to speak to you and your parents and our attorney’s about forming a legal partnership in order to make you co-owner of the gallery for the time when I’m... indisposed.”

“I suppose that’s a good idea,” I told her. “I have good news. I have a dozen pieces ready for you to put on sale.”

“That’s wonderful. Bring them by tomorrow and we’ll get that started as well. Though, you may end up selling them yourself.”

Fallout from the big meeting was limited. Somehow both sides of the euthanasia issue had reason to like or dislike me. Thankfully, it wasn’t a topic embraced by many high school students.

My senior year of high school was set to start a few weeks after the meeting. A week before that, I met with Gillian and our lawyers at the gallery. Mom and Daddy were there. The paperwork was completed and the limited liability corporation we were the officers of now owned the gallery. Gillian’s role in the company was as a silent partner.

Her time was nearly up. She threw a going away party at the gallery that evening. A few of her friends arrived and she said goodbye to them all privately and individually. When she was ready, the two of us slipped away from the party to go into a back room. She said to me, “Thank you for this.”

“No need to thank me. You’ve done so much more for me.”

“The fact that I will know what you do with my gifts to you is a far greater gift that you give to me. Even if I’m just a block of stone, as long as you live, I will go on. It is more than I could ever ask for. Let’s do this before I cry.”

“Okay.”

She disrobed and stood on the plinth she originally commissioned to be her final resting place. Now, it was going to be the display stand from which she will watch the world go by. Standing in a classic Roman statue pose, she recited her final words. The same words were already carved into the plinth: “May Euryale keep me from Hades’ grasp.”

I was glad she had chosen Euryale over Medusa for the not-an-epitaph. I flashed her to stone. The swirls in her body were awful. I took several sips. Even close to death it was still ambrosia. I pulled a sheet over her and called Arturo in to use the hand truck to move her back into the main room of the gallery.

The room was packed. The number of people had tripled or more in the time since I had left the room to turned her into a statue. I found out later Arturo had been keeping the pre-reveal party private. Once she and I had left, he had allowed others to enter the gallery. The guests fell silent as the covered statue was moved into place. Arturo picked up the edge of the sheet and announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen, Gillian O’Malley’s final commissioned work of art.” He flipped the sheet off the statue.

The room remained silent for a few heartbeats until someone shouted, “Long live our art maven, Gillian O’Malley.” Applause broke out along with other shouts of long life. Several people turned to me to compliment me on how regal she looked. I just smiled and nodded at whatever anyone said.

“My girlfriend is a real work of art.”

“Elliot, that’s the third time you’ve said that,” I said.

The gallery had closed for a few weeks after Gillian’s statue reveal party. We rebranded it as The Gillian O’Malley Gallery. We were having a small opening party on the eve of reopening the next day.

“Sixth or seventh time. You missed at least half the times I said it,” he said. “In all our testing, I rarely had the chance to really look at the statue of Marie.”

“She is very beautiful. And she looks great standing next to Gillian. It’s too bad she wants to spend time with you on weekends.”

“Not so loud. It’s bad enough she spends every weekday here while we’re in school. I only get to talk to her on weekends.”

“You could talk to her right now.”

“Ha ha.”

Ross tapped me on the shoulder and when I turned around he kissed me. One of my snakes left its eyes open and watched Elliot trying to figure out how to occupy himself as he waited for the kiss to end. When it did, Ross said, “Elliot, your girlfriend is a real work of art.”

“Not you, too,” I said with a pout.

They high fived.

“I still can’t get over the idea that this is your art gallery,” Ross said.

“I barely believe it myself,” I said. “And look at the room I have for more statues.”

“More statues?”

“I’d be a lousy gorgon if I didn’t collect statues. It’s supposed to be a garden in a remote mountain location, isn’t it? I have time. I can work my way up to that.”

At that moment Dr. Parker from the Clinic approached the three of us. “It’s good that you can joke about that.” Dr. Adelaide was with him.

“I think I finally like who I am.”

“Is that a new feeling?”

“Aren’t you off the clock?”

“I can practice psychiatry in my spare time.”

I giggled. “Yes, it’s a new feeling. As Gordon, I was the ugly misfit.”

“You weren’t ugly,” Elliot said.

“Say that as much as you like. My face was ugly and I felt ugly inside no matter how many people told me not to.”

“You aren’t a misfit now?” Ross said.

“Will you be disappointed if I am or if I’m not?”

“Figure it out.”

“I’m still a misfit. But I’m a misfit who owns an art gallery. I’m a thriving member of society. I make art. I’m not just a pretty face. It took a while to get comfortable in this skin. But now that I am, I like who I am.”

“That’s wonderful to hear,” Dr. Parker said. “I was going to suggest at our next session that it be our last. But, you can cancel that session if you like.”

“I’ll miss our talks.”

“No, you won’t. I use to visit Gillian’s gallery at least twice a month. Now, it’s your gallery I’ll visit.”

“And how are you?” I asked Dr. Adelaide.

“I’m, like, just here with Francis.”

“Francis?”

“Like, duh, Francis Parker. My husband.” She kissed Francis and he kissed her back. For some reason I thought he’d be against public displays of affection.

“I had no idea.”

“Get a room,” a voice said. Tara Parker joined us. “I thought you said you’d just be a minute.”

“You know my daughter, Tara.”

“I never noticed you had the same last name.”

“It’s not like any of us were friends with Tara,” Elliot said.

“Is there something I don’t know?” Francis said.

“I believe Tara was, like, dating the young man who, like, assaulted Gordon and Medusa multiple times.”

“I dumped him before she twisted.”

“You dumped him the day I twisted,” I said. “I suppose I should thank you.”

“Thank her?” Ross said.

“If I hadn’t had such a radical twist, or worse, if I had become Gordon 2.0, I wouldn’t have all of this today, I wouldn’t have Ross, and Ryan would probably still be picking on me.”

Ross put his arm around my waist and held me.

“I still don’t know if I want to be thanked for all the other stuff Ryan probably did to you because I dumped him,” Tara said.

“No worries. You’re always welcome here.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate that,” she said to me before turning to look at her father. “Are we ready to go?” She looked at her mother and added, “Oh, I suppose not.”

“You did interrupt prematurely.”

“Talk like a normal person.”

“What did she interrupt?”

“I was, like, hoping you might, like, squeeze me in here between your two statues. I’m hoping a few days, like, as a block of stone will, like, help me figure out the morphic transformation so I can, like, do it to myself properly.”

“Is that really the reason?” Elliot asked. “Or do you just want to be a statue? It’s not as rare a desire as you might think.”

“There’s some literature on the subject I could send you links to,” Francis said.

“No, thanks, Dear,” she said. “So? Can I?”

“Sure. I was just talking about gathering a statue garden when you arrived.”

I didn’t mention it before. I had decided to write this memoir before I turned 40 in a few months. Being able to look back at this time in my life with the perspective of being my age now is a gift. Let me catch you up on where I am and where my friends from this time period are today.

I still run the gallery. More on that later.

Ross and I had a falling out my sophomore year of college. We didn’t speak to one another for eight years after that happened. I could probably write another book about all that. We will celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary around the time this memoir should be released. The years we were apart were very important for me. I had other relationships that showed me I had been a fool for allowing us to break up. On occasion, Elliot continues to chastise me not making up with Ross sooner.

Mom and Daddy are still living in town. They’re both retired. Mom likes to help out at the gallery. She’s still a whirlwind with no signs of slowing down. Daddy has settled into the role of grandfather rather well.

My son’s name is Everet. It sounds like Elliot without actually being Elliot. He’s four years old. He looks like a clone of his father at that age from the photos I’ve seen. All through my pregnancy I was worried what would have if I were holding my baby and he grabbed at my hairsnakes. I needn’t have worried. My hairsnakes are more smitten with Everet than even I am, I think.

I haven’t told Ross, yet. But by the time this book is released, we’ll have a second child. I hope it’s a girl. Who am I kidding? Ross will probably figure out I’m pregnant before I tell him. (He did.)

Thomas Radner is a respected member of the community. He’s a lawyer known for his pro bono work. He runs a youth group out of his church. And any time I have a showing of up and coming artists, he’s there to purchase at least a couple of the pieces. I have no idea where he stores them all. We aren’t friends. But we can talk to one another. I don’t know where he met his wife but she seems like a nice person. When he introduced us, she gave me a hug and thanked me for the impact I’d had on Thomas. I didn’t ask for a further explanation.

I don’t know where Jenny Wu lives. But I’ve heard she is doing well.

I keep in touch with Stacy, Melody, and Tess. We have a chat group that we started in high school. They asked me not to get into their private lives so I won’t.

It turns out Elliot and I are separable physically. We live on opposite coasts now. We make it a point to talk on the phone for a couple hours each week. That happened shortly after we graduated from college and I still miss not seeing him every day. He’s married to Kelsey, a woman he met in college. They have the most lovely daughter, Oriole.

The Hausers, Douglas and Betty, use to visit the gallery infrequently. Douglas died a few years ago. In his will, he donated the statue of Duke to the gallery. I placed him by the front door. Everet pets him every time he sees the statue. Betty moved away from town shortly after Douglas died. I think Mom still talks to her occasionally.

I’m still an artist. I still own the gallery. Even though it’s named after her, there are fewer people who even know the statue of Gillian is Gillian.

Hers isn’t the only statue there. There are a handful of people I’ve met over the years who love to be petrified. One of them was so pleading that he pays me to be a statue for a month at a time at least twice a year. Other people found out and I have a handful of people who spend time in a special room in the gallery that I had decorated to look like a garden: a statue garden. When Ross first saw the garden, around the time we made up with one another, he couldn’t stop laughing.

The number of petrifications and the frequency with which I prolong them has meant I no longer need to find a source for my unusual feeding. It’s been a long time since I slithered into the forest to create a menagerie of small animal statues.

Gillian O’Malley’s statue stands in the gallery to this day. I moved her into the statue garden where she is the centerpiece. The other statues have positions around the perimeter of the room.

I’ve even had a wedding there, once. The bride and groom spend a week as a statue between the being told they can kiss and being pronounced husband and wife. Every year on their anniversary, they have me zap them for the whole day. It’s on my calendar. I look forward to it each year.

I get to see Marie Applebottom most days. She is a semi-permanent fixture at the garden. She went to college with Elliot for a year before they broke up. After I graduated, she showed up at the gallery. I hadn’t seen her in four years. She asked if she could spend a few months as a statue. At the time I didn’t think the request from her was unusual. When her time was up she left and came back a few months later and asked again.

It took three years for her to tell me she had dropped out of college, that she still loved Elliot, and that she didn’t want to do anything but be a statue forever. She spends all but a week of the year as a statue. She owns a couple properties around town that she rents out. I suspect she’s very wealthy. When she found out people pay to be statues in the gallery, she gave me a million dollars for cover the next twenty years as a statue. The gallery will never go bankrupt because of that.

The one week of the year she spends as a person she meets with her lawyers and business partners to ensure things are running smoothly. And then it’s back into my garden for another year.

She also stands in the center of the statue garden with Gillian. She always poses in a manner that it looks like she and Gillian are supposed to be paired together. Everet calls her Statue Marie whether or not she’s a statue.

Even I spend time as a statue in the gallery. During a heated sexual encounter I accidentally zapped Ross. I felt bad about it and joined him by pushing some life force back into him. I overdid it and he ended up no longer being a statue and I was stuck for a couple hours. He joked I could spend time in the garden. It was near Halloween. I spend a few days before Halloween in the garden snaked around the room. People loved it. It’s a tradition now for me to spend a few days – last year it was almost a week – in my snake form as a statue in the garden. People take pictures and we charge admission. A few other “monstrous” twisted have joined me for the Halloween exhibit. We donate most of the proceeds from that to charities decided on by my fellow “monsters”. Everet loves Statue Mommy.

He also loves Snake Mommy. I’ve spent a lot of time the last couple years in my snake form. He likes it when I coil around him and then he climbs out of the pit he’s in. It’s fun now but I hope he outgrows it soon. He’s starting to get too heavy to be stepping on my tail.

And that’s about it. I’m sure there will be folks who tell me later I should have included something about this or that. But, that’s what going on late night television is for, assuming the book is popular enough. None of that matters. I love Ross and Everet and many other people. I love and I’m loved. When I was sixteen, I never thought I’d be able to say that twenty years later.

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That's all folks. Thanks for reading. Comments are always welcome.