FaceFic

To hold your shape, come what may. To be admired, studied, and have none of your facets found undesirable. To become entrenched in a setting that keeps you secure, and allows you to shine. To always be surrounded by precious things. To be hard and cutting, yet bring unbridled joy to someone’s life. To always know that you are the brightest and most beautiful thing in the room. Women love diamonds. No. They envy them.

She loved remote central locking. She knew it wasn’t something you should love, but it gave her such joy that she couldn’t help it. She adored the feeling of power she got as, with the press of a button, her car would yield to her self-evident sovereignty and reveal to her its secrets. She lived for the feeling of absolute, unquestioning obedience. Wrestling her three children into the car she finally understood why.

Looking silently out the window the little girl watched the world pass by. As she sat, she wondered about the people – did they have children, what did they do, where were they going? The people she saw everyday she gave names to and started to imagine lives for them – a busy mum, a single man with no life, a grandmother of 6 who loved to cook. Moving slowly away from the window the little girl wished she could live.

The stories said that doors to the Fairy Realm were on the edge of things. Where light met shadow or water met stone you could break through to the Other World. He knew he didn’t belong here. He had dedicated his to life finding an entrance. And he’d done it. He had found the ‘edge’ shining in his hand. His head reeled. Shapes and colours swam together. His heart slowed with loss of pressure. He crossed over at last.

Firing into the void was futile. She wasn’t so crazy she didn’t know that! But the ghost was out there somewhere, something might hit. Another round pierced the aether. “Take that Spectre!” She could do this forever. The rifle was tireless. “Haunt me, will you? Hah!” Fury flared and the weapon discharged again. “Paranoid delusion” said the Psychiatrist, as the phantom’s hands softly caressed and closed on her throat.

The Librarian looked at her domain. History, literature, knowledge; her place of learning and contemplation. Or so it seemed. Her torturer was here, lurking, hiding in the shadows that she used to hide within. Ruining the harmony that once existed. This torture was something most took for granted. But it was destructive like a storm – with no meaning or reason. That haunting cliché: Progress for the sake of Progress.

I was twelve when I first realised that nobody else was real. Oh sure, they thought they were, and they got so huffy when I mentioned (casually, in passing) that I was the only real person in the world. But I knew. I could tell, because none of them knew how to slorf. Do you know how to slorf? Well then, you’re not real either, obviously! And slorfing is so simple, it’s — hmmm, that’s odd. I’m sure I used to know…