fuck how many times has my alarm gone off oh my god how did I manage to sleep in for an hour and a half??? I’m already so fucking late UGH ok so shower is definitely not happening today maybe I can grab a banana for breakfast — gotta let the dog out oh my GOD my hair is such a mess ok gonna just turn on the shower head and quickly dunk my head under — GODDAMMIT that’s cold fuck fuck fuck ok towel towel that’s better what am I gonna wear today just gonna grab… this sweater and… those pants yeah we’ll call that good though kind of boring ok letting the dog back in now and oh yeah I need a bra stupid patriarchy where even is it??? Oh right in the dirty clothes pile fuck why haven’t I done laundry in three weeks just gonna dig until I find — THERE it is ok gotta wash my face and slap on some cream cuz this winter is DRY AF — oh yeah and my meds — and throw on some eyeliner and sparkle eye shadow and grab my shoes… ok phone keys wallet mask am I missing anything? think I’ve got everything here we go! Shit I forgot to feed the dog ok wet food dry food meds ok love you bb I gotta run — goddammit I’m thirty minutes late ugh why am I like this no you gotta be nicer to yourself just text them that you’re late — damn I forgot my computer but that’s probably ok — and try to focus on the road — SHIT I forgot to eat breakfast — too late now let’s GO!!!
“Right hand red!”
I had been dreading and dreaming of this moment. There was Taylor, right between me and the red dot. There was no way to avoiding touching them as I drew in a deep breath and reached across the plastic sheet, trying to keep my balance in the scuffle of bodies. And then there I was, hovering above them as they did an awkward back end to reach the colors, their face inches from mine. Our eyes met and I fought to hold eye contact, afraid my eyes would write my every thought across my face.
“Hi…” they laughed breathily, color rising to their cheeks.
“And then she woke up, and it was all a dream.” My third grade writing teacher told me that it was lazy to end a story this way, that it kept the characters from having to deal with their actions in the waking world.
If only that were true.
I’ve always had vivid lucid dreams, dreams of flying, escaping evil scientists who wanted to experiment on me, ducking and running through apocalyptic, bombed out cities below grey purple skies, weaving and dodging bullets shot by men in scary uniforms, always running, always trying to get away. Even when I knew I was dreaming, it felt like I was there, trying to make my body move faster, my thoughts and actions translating to my limbs as though through mud. Each dream was a terror, and one would imagine I would have been relieved to wake up from them. And yet the dreams would cling to me throughout the day, dragging me down, bruising circles under my eyes, and making me feel as though I had one foot in each world, fading only when I would try to fully remember them.
I only ever told one person about the dreams, my therapist, who brushed them aside and suggested I cut down on watching tv before bed. They assured me that that’s all they were, dreams.
So one can imagine my surprise when I heard frantic knocking on my door one twilight evening, and opened it to find a ragged person who seemed to be in some sort of torn-up cosplay costume, with realistic-looking fairy wings, pointy ears, and a sort of patched-up steam punk outfit. Very little tends to phase me when it comes to people’s self-expression, so the real shock came when their wild eyes locked with mine. Their face was thinner, cheekbones jutting out with a peculiar sort of angularity, but there was no mistaking it. I gasped involuntarily and took a step back.
The person on my doorstep… was me.
“Hello, I’d like to put this carrot in my snatch.”
The cashier gives me an incredulous look. “Ma’am?”
I blush as I immediately realize how it sounded, “No, no, I meant I’d like to use my purse as a bag instead of the plastic ones please. Clutch — I meant clutch!!”
I pay as quickly as possible and bustle out the door.
All day it’s been like this. At the butcher’s, I said I wanted to put his meat in my mouth. At the farmer’s market, I told the fruit vendor I wanted to lick her pomegranate, and I told the car mechanic that I needed her to lube me up.
If I can just make it the rest of the day without making so much as eye contact with another human being perhaps I can make it home without dying of embarrassment.
A deep indigo velvet envelops the sky, fading to a smoky pink on the southern corners, where Phoenix fires up the sky a hundred miles away, like a never-dying bird. Slicing silver starlight pierces the inky surface of the lake, bright pinpoints bouncing and shattering across ripples and waves from the indecisive wind. Bristly silhouettes dance darkly on the edges of sky, leaning towards one another to whisper pine needle secrets to one another. I am nothing and everything as my body melts into darkness.
The woman across from me was sobbing hysterically, snatching her hand away from me and sobbing harder when I reached out to try to comfort her — I had been on bad dates before, but never one that had ended quite this dramatically.
It had started when she mentioned her cat. “Ah yes,” I had replied, “human’s narcissistic asshole best friend.” Turned out her beloved cat of 17 years had just died the week before. And it was only downhill from there…
Hidden in the back of the cabinet was my toothbrush. 2. Brush your fangs. I took out my invisibility toothpaste and carefully brushed the tips of my fangs so they wouldn’t be visible to the average human.
Guilt swept over me as I remembered the last time I had forgotten to brush my teeth and take my pills. Slashes of red tore at my peripheral vision, the memory threatening to overtake me, before I shook my head and headed to the fridge. 3. Eat your breakfast. I pulled out the nondescript white container, and swallowed the contents in three gulps.
It’s the warmth of the sun on your skin. That feeling when you jump into the pool and it’s the perfect temperature. The tingles that warm your insides when you cuddle up close to someone you love. It’s biting into fresh banana bread with melted butter, a dog falling asleep on your arm, the euphoria of catching your breath after dancing all night, the smell of rain and great big monsoon drops on your tongue…
Change is in our bones. Our power grows on the winter solstice, in the new year, when tender buds first taste the sun, when we smell the first decaying breeze of autumn. Sameness, conformity - these are our quiet killers. Put us in a box and we wither, our spirits sapping from fingertips. Death is preferable to the shackles of monotony.
Yet woe be to our captors on a Midsummer’s night, on a child’s birthday, on the passing of an elder, on a butterfly’s first flight. Woe be to our captors when we remember that Change is God! When we remember that We are Gods…
Ella is heartbroken. The world is heart breaking. Fae had hoped this job would be different, better. It was supposed to be faer dream job. Sure it didn’t pay much but fae could scrape things together, make things work. Turns out fae couldn’t though. Instead fae was left with heartbreak, sadness, and a hot but quickly fading anger. Life is exhausting.
Ella would try again. But not today.
