Judge me by my size, do you?

“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you one HUNDRED TIMES, Mira…” Frederick started angrily.

“I don’t care,” Mira shot back, “I am never eating pumpkin stew again.”

“Well! Be it on your head then!”

“It will!”

“Yes! It will! Watch out for it!”

“I’ll do no such thing! YOU watch out for it!”

“Oh!” scoffed Frederick in watered-down disgust (because he had lost quite a bit of heart for this argument the moment Mira had mentioned stew). “Well if you’ll let me, I will very much oblige.”

“Don’t joke, Frederick, it’s never suited you.” Mira retorted, trying not to look at Frederick’s pants, because they were just too darn eye-catching and she would rather spend five days outside in the freezing cold eating nothing but cornflakes from the box than admit to Frederick that his pants were any good.

“I will joke, and YOU will listen, and I’ll record my jokes and put them on the internet and the WHOLE WORLD WILL LISTEN.”

“NO ONE WOULD EVER CLICK ON A LIKE.”

“There will be all sorts of clicks, Mira,” Frederick stared her down in a serious manner that was altogether too serious for this matter. “And some of them may be on a like, but others, well they will be on more interesting-”

“HA! The whole world will drop dead and then I’ll have to forage around in the apocalypse for food while you make haphazard conversation to wilting trees.”

“Don’t say the word haphazard, it makes your mouth move in an unflattering way. And trees do not wilt.”

“My mouth moves unflatteringly?”

“Very much so. I was afraid to tell you. Now I am not.”

But he did look a little sad. Mira could see the corners of his mouth turn down as he spoke, and a darkened shadow seemed to pass over his face, as if he had stood up without looking and his head burst through a rain-cloud. Mira straightened.

“Frederick,” she said as solemnly as her little frame and apparent ugly mouth movements would let her, “Know this. I shall never say the word haphazard again.”

“Agreed.”

“What, you too?”

“No!” Frederick exclaimed with horror, and hurried on with: “I’m in agreeance with your suggestion.”

“Oh, well…” Mira thought this through. Maybe she could get him to change a few things too. Some things, she thought irritably, did need to change in order for her life to run smooth, with course, and on time. “You could probably do with putting your shoes on in the correct order.”

“Correct order?”

“You know, left foot first.”

“What foolery is this?”

“It’s been proven!” Mira said earnestly.

Frederick thought this to be unlikely. He knew things. He knew of ways. He knew how the world worked and where things should be placed in order to maximise one’s own bargaining potential. There had been too many overseas trips where he had not received the correct price for goods, and this kept him awake at night. It irked his bedtime routine. It made him spread his lunchtime Vegemite sandwiches with the wrong thickness. His contacts had a way of feeling upside down. There always seemed to be gum wherever he sat or stepped. The elevator button always managed to be jammed when it was his turn to press. So, perhaps, this way of thinking was not unusual or something to laugh off.

“Mira,” he said gently and with the appropriate amount of mystery to catch her attention. He noticed her frown with suspicion and felt a little disappointed but pressed on nonetheless. “I have given this a great deal of thought-”

“Y-e-s--?”

Mira would never admit it but she was intrigued. She was so intrigued that she felt herself get a little wet. She clung to this captivation in a form of desperation so she would avoid Frederick’s pants.

Frederick was poised: one eyebrow raised, one side of his mouth perked a little in an anticipatory and celebratory grin, one foot slightly in front of the other (although that was just his natural posture, which Mira would have to also find time to correct).

Mira said, “And?”

“FENG SHUI” Frederick almost yelled in what looked to Mira like an oncoming spasm of anguish.

“A- what?”

Frederick lowered his arms and Mira realised he had raised them. Was there nothing he could do? Did everything have to be a form of ghastly re-enacted vomit?

“You’ve never heard of Feng Shui?”

Frederick should not have been surprised. He had often wondered about the limited space in Mira’s mind. It saddened him in places he didn’t know he had, organs he’d never heard of, it tested his patience like a melting ice cream on a hot day.

“I will tell you what I tell the rest of them-”

“Darling, Feng Shui is not something to be ignored.” Frederick could not believe that she had heard about it but was unwilling to partake in the sensational varying delights it offered. “There will be a time,” he breathed staring at her.

Mira rolled her eyes.

“There will be a time,” he repeated in absolution.

Mira remembered why she never talked about furniture in his presence. She liked to observe her nails in an obvious way whenever someone spoke about that Feng Shui nonsense. Any Ikea crap or motivational vase-placing, colour-matching, tea-stirring malarkey made her good vibes fall apart like grating a rusty pipe.

“Mira-”

“Frederick,” she spoke over him firmly, “Listen here. There will be no rug hung up in my living room (“our” he whispered), no thousand dollar cutlery set because the pattern is a carved lotus (“but they’re transformation!” he gasped), and definitely no three-hourly visits to a place of worship where we have to wear robes and kneel with our heads bowed over a dirty bowl of tap water praying for inner peace to a god that came from a fairy-tale book (“those gowns are made of silk” he inhaled a tortured breath).

While Mira was rattling off her demands, Frederick felt a new sensation. One overriding his current sense of doom. It was arousal. He stood in despair and watched her determined expression, her luscious hair falling past her shoulders, her one chipped nail from baking a batch of muffins earlier that day, and he suddenly knew. Feng Shui didn’t matter.

“Mira,” he announced in a flourish. “Let us bed with one another.”

“What?”

Mira often had the sneaky feeling that Frederick was a closeted stage performer. Every time he came bursting into the room where she was occupied, or started a sentence off with ‘sweetheart, there’s something important I have to tell you about my day…’ she would wait for him to confess his secret, and every time he did no such thing, causing her to enter a fury that lasted for days and that she could not explain to him for fear of sounding insane.

“I am turned on by you at this very moment,” he said in a low voice.

“Are you?” she asked, uninterested in his answer. She recalled earlier on having felt wet herself. She supposed one must carry on with that feeling.

“I am very much.”

“Well, I appear to be also.”

“Say it is so!”

“It is this very instant!”

“Let us go there!”

“Yeah, alright then.”

How do I get it to make the 'ticking' sound?

Paypine looks at me in a suspicious, narrow-eyed way for a very long time. I start to wonder if the egg in her sandwich is seeping into the bread, making it soggy and unappetizing.
"Well I'm sure there was nothing you could do," she says at last in an abrupt manner and takes a harsh bite of the sandwich.
I gape at the sudden turn this has taken. "I- I guess not."
"It wasn't a love connection," she says while chewing.
"Oh, of course not-"
"Not anything special or romantic, by the sounds."
I frown. "Well, there were som-"
"Entirely unworthy of mentioning, I daresay."
"Hey, it was a-"
"Totally void of worth. Can't imagine why I had to hear it."
"Oi! I'm sharing my experience-"
"Probably best you didn't, I'm a delicate thing."
"Delicate?"
"I'm old. Old things are delicate."
"Not all ol-"
"Avalon!" Paypine exclaims in a high rasp. "How startling to see you out here when there's church group going on."
I turn to see a tall, thin elderly lady with bright red hair and a black and white overcoat walking up to us, tripping a little as she walks, as if she's tipsy. Or having trouble with her high black sandals.
"Paypine! How gorgeous to see you! No, I don't see those old biddies anymore," Avalon says in a high and hurried voice. She stops in front of the bench and I notice a round wine glass in her hand half filled with some sort of pink liquid.
"Left, have you?" Paypine asks with scorn.
"Oh, Paypay, keep up, that was ages ago. Months and months. You'd know if you called, or came round, or even sent a letter, I do appreciate a good old pen to paper transaction." She turns her green eyes to me and asks in a hushed flourish, "My, who's this lovely young chicken?"
Paypine makes a 'humph' noise and puts on a great show of carefully arranging her sandwich next to her on the bench, leading to me announcing, "Cerri," at the same time Paypine grunts: "This is my bench friend Cara. She's telling me all about her little friendship with another girl."
"Oh! How quaint," Avalon exclaims jovially, swinging her glass to the side as she steps one thin leg across the other.
"It's Cerri, actually," I correct. Paypine looks up and runs her eyes over every inch of Avalon.
"Yes, I spoke to one of my good friends the other day. Paypine knows her, she goes by the name Caroline, but everyone friendly with her calls her Cara, because of that famous poet, what was her name? Cara something or rather, started with a P, long, Italian sounding..."
I watch Avalon's glass sway about. Some of the liquid sways merrily onto her pants.
Paypine clicks her tongue at the spillage. "Ava, you're spilling it all over yourself. Why must you drink at noon?"
"Oh! This is vitamins!" Avalon waves the glass with apparent ease and blissful ignorance.
"Will you be long? I'm eating lunch and my egg sandwich is going cold."
"Paypay..." Avalon laughs, "Always so squinty. Now, Cara, tell me about this lady friend. Had a tragic falling out over some boy, was it? Why I remember-"
"Let her answer, goodness heavens people should actually answer your ridiculous questions," Paypine interrupts angrily.
"Yes, yes!" Avalon says brightly to me, "Do go on!"
"It's a love story," Paypine cuts in as my mouth opens.
"Actually-" I start.
"Ooooh! Love. Wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, sweetheart. It makes you a fool- although I did get a Trolgar house and the rose bushes I always wanted from my first..." Avalon frowns at the grass as if in deep thought.
"First?" I ask, mainly to keep myself in the conversation and not because I need her to tell me she means first husband.
"Or was is Lester?"
Paypine picks up her knitting. "Husband dear. You'll catch on to these things when you get older and start having relationships."
"No, I thought Lester owned the boat house... out in Surryville. That cramped two bedder. Well!" she suddenly perks up with bright eyes, "I got what I was after in the end, not all men can give you what you want so you have to choose wisely, dear. It can sometimes take a few to get the right house- I mean car! I mean person!" She laughs and takes a gulp of her pink vitamins. "But do stay in touch, won't you, sweety? I'd love to hear how you get on with this boy of yours, here hold this."
I take the glass while Avalon whips out a pen and some paper and scribbles something.
"Oh, here we go," mumbles Paypine into her knitting, "here we go with 'the number' carry on."
"Actually, it's a girl," I say into the long-awaited silence. "I was seeing-"
"Here, love, here's my number," Avalon whisks the glass out of my hand and replaces it with the little slip of paper. I catch a string of numbers.
"I also put my fourth at the bottom, you know, in case you need an edgy hairstylist- he's the best." she leans in closer, "between you and me, I feared he was a bit that way inclined, he was just so good with my hair, but he runs it now, it's so chic. So sleek. Well! Must dash. Don't be a stranger Paypine, everyone loves your witchy comments, always such a laugh! Bye girls!"
I watch Avalon trip away through the park. Then I turn to Paypine.
"She seems nice."
"Oh, her?" Paypine replies airily. "I wouldn't have a clue who she is. Shall we get our coffees now?"

Why did I buy parsnips instead of cream from a can?

Day 19 of the Holiday Log

Yes.

Era.

My drug.

Or was she?

I was wrapped tightly in a web of soft moments that threw out sparks and twirled my world in what I thought was a never-ending delicious dose of ecstasy. But paint swirls together and creates an ugly, globy mess. No one uses that colour paint.

You wouldn't mix up the colours like that and create a work of art.

But lives... life.... life is tricky, complicated, it stretches out forever and you think there is all the time in the world. You think the little bursts of kisses, skin touching, giggles, play fighting in the park, torn clothing- you think they will last.

It feels so good.

How could it end when it feels so damn good?

I never thought Era would pack a suitcase and walk out of the apartment door.

"My boyfriend's back in town."

I never thought I'd see her eyes- those eyes I'd stared into while I tried not to blink first so I could eat the cookies and cream ice cream, those bright excited eyes that had looked at me a thousand times, those eyes right up close...

Well.

I never thought they could pass over me so lifeless as they did that day.

"HAS YOUR MEMORY BEEN COMPLETELY WIPED?" I wanted to yell.

My throat ached with what I wanted to say. I didn't know something that didn't exist could weigh down on me so hard, until I was sure I'd suffocate.

I never thought I could grip my knees so tight as I held them to my chest.

"You knew it wasn't serious. Surely you knew..."

"Surely you didn't..."

"...just fun..."

I never thought paint could swirl into such an ugly colour.

The door slammed and the walls shook. The table shook. The fridge fell. Plates fell and shattered, glasses fell and shattered, the light fell and smashed into a thousand tiny pieces. I thought: don't move. It's not real if you don't move. 

Don't move.

Bits of ceiling fell around me in chunks. Like confetti.

("Let's get married!"

"At Parliament House!"

"No- on the lake! Duh!"

"At Cherie's!"

"Yor- Who?"

"That Bakery next to the photo shop."

"Oh yeah! Yeah, that's the place!"

"Flash wedding."

"Sorry, Cer, I'm wearing the suit."

"With a red pocket square."

"A pop up wedding!"

"Shot gun wedding!"

"Are you pregnant?"

"Dick."

"Let's go shopping!"

"Stop throwing confetti everywhere, chirst Era. Who's gonna to clean it up?"

"You love me.")

Everything around me was breaking beyond repair, so it was no surprise at all when I looked down at my scrunched up legs and saw pieces of myself lying among the rubble.

I never thought some cracks could run so deep.

So much cake, so where's the time?

Day 13 of the Holiday Log

("The girl and the creatures putting you together!" Paypine exclaims whilst jabbing me with her walking stick, "Continue!"
"That is real life," I say, aghast.
"Well then."
"Are you entertained?" I ask in sheer bewilderment. Could this little, wrinkly, neatly dressed woman of magical mystic actually be enjoying my tragic chapter of life? "This is uncharted territory! This is love and war and... and, uh... enlightenment, and a horrible murder... and a detective most foul and all that stuff."
She puts her stick down and leans in close to whisper, "This is life, dear.")
No one told me that little creatures were fond of tea breaks. And that when they decided to have one, they did it with a flourish. Like an overindulgent play-actor humorously waving his arms about with raised eyebrows to receive laughter from the audience.
They set out a blanket, patchwork green and red, and placed a basket from nowhere on one corner. The large-nosed creature ran up with humongous mismatching cups and saucers, all in a floral pattern. I snorted, because,  floral teacups? They all turned in unison to look at me, and I admit, it was a terrifying time for about five seconds. Then they turned back to their tasks, shrugged as a whole, and continued on. The pointy-eared creature came running up carrying platters piled higher than it's poor little head, heaped with colourful creamy cakes, buttery scones, fat fluffy muffins, square chocolate slices, and puffy jam-filled tea cake. He plonked the whole lot in the middle of the blanket and all the creatures stopped again, all at once, and they sighed together.
"ALWAYS OFF!" one shouted.
"Never!"
"They all roll around now!" screeched another.
"They must!"
"DIRTY!" trilled one.
"CLUMSY!" squealed one.
"POTLUCK!" cried one, and everyone turned to the smallest creature who was sitting at the back, rocking to and fro on his bottom. "I want money!" it cried and cackled in laughter.
"Irish," muttered the creature with the loincloth to another one.
"Never with fortune," the other one muttered back.
"Tried to steal my purple sock!" exclaimed a third one, behind them. The three of them gasped, and the third one continued with, "thinks it was fortune!" in hushed tones.
"Kill it," the loincloth creature said and I had a sudden image of bloody murder before tea and cake was served.
"Guys! Guys..." I started rationally.
"TEA NOW!" came a screech and I turned to see the LARGEST most FLORAL teapot being carried out to the blanket, seemingly filled with boiling water due to the slow progress it made and the huffing and terrified squeaks coming from underneath it.
All the creatures cheered.
"No one helps him?" I asked in concern.
The nearest creature turned to me with a serious expression-
("Tea!" exclaims Paypine with a happy rasp. "That's doing things right."
"It was," I agree. "I forgot all about my holes. They had tidied up the pieces, put them in a pile, you know, dusting them, I think one was polishing some..."
"Oooooh," says Paypine, clearly impressed.
"The whole thing was well-organised because there were so many!"
"Yes, yes, but get back to the girl. What happened with the girl?"
"Oh." I feel an emptiness creeping in like a gigantic blanket being pulled over my head to block out all the light, and the air. "Well...")

How much frosting should cake have access to?

Day 12 of the Holiday Log

I stared limply at my broken pieces scattered around me and watched helplessly, somewhat defiantly, at the little creatures trying to put me back together.
"Not use that one- it's wrong!" cried one no bigger than my hand with large pointy ears and glittering emerald eyes, to another with a rather unfortunately large rounded nose and out-turned feet as it carried what looked like a shard of my leg. Skin. It looked like a thin slice of skin.
The large-nosed creature shrugged and tried to push it into a smaller opening in my foot. The piece grated against my skin like glass. I winced.
"Wrong!" a third creature with a small tuft of brown hair at the very top of his head, big pale square hands and a pouch tied around his hips like a loincloth, slapped it right out of the second creatures hands.
"Oi! 'Twas the right!"
"Twas the WRONG!" shrilled the third in a voice like a bird. "You always do the wrong!"
The second creature pushed the third. "I do the right! Always!"
"You are opposite! Since birth!" the third pushed back, and I was thinking in the back of my mind, just how long are they going to take here? What happens when I need to pee? Because I will, at some stage, and it just won't work if I haven't all the pieces.
(I turn to the elderly lady and say, "I have to mention, I had NO IDEA if they were male or female. None."
"Egcht," a glop of mayonnaise falls onto her shirt but I pretend not to notice because that's what bench-buddies are for.
"They were like little goblin ornaments made out of clay," I continue wholeheartedly, "and they fought like family. Or... like warriors all geared up for battle but without the spears."
"Spears?" the lady echos.
"Yes. You know, those long pointy, um, sti-"
"I know what spears are, youngin', and be sure to remember that I wasn't born yesterday out of a trash can."
Phew, I think, I had been worried.
"No, but," I continue, as if she hasn't just called me a 'youngin' and I didn't just voice concern that I don't actually feel inside my own head for no reason, "they tried really hard. I have no idea why. Why would they come, so little and thin they were, and try for ages to put bits of me back? I probably didn't even need putting back."
I try to remember exactly how I ended up in that state, but it's all a blank space. Like fog.
"Why were you in pieces in the first place?" the lady asks before taking another bite of her sandwich.
"I... Uh, I don't know..."
"Hmph. And you say they fought like family."
"Like actual intent to murder each other."
"Well, well..." the lady seems intensely satisfied. I study her wispy white hair for signs of freshness; evidence of a recent good wash that brings out the shine and contentment among susceptible users, but it's oily at the top, clumpy, and frizzy at the ends.
"What exactly is your name again?" I ask, because confusion always makes me curious. Curiosity is far more exciting to feel in times of helplessness. It earns respect and admiration. Confusion earns frowns and a possible eye-roll or punch in the face.
"Yugasma Matilda Emerald Archibald."
I ask, "Are you shitting me?"
She says, "No. That is my exact name."
"What about your actual name?"
"That is Paypine."
"No it isn't."
"Now," the lady licks her fingers one by one and I sit there, watching the wind blow her hair, and I think, can a person have too many names? And if so, how many is the correct amount?
"You must tell me how you got all your parts together," she finishes, and looks at me.
I narrow my eyes at this mysterious yet atrociously identifiable woman. "Your hair was grey last week," I accuse in a low voice.
"It changes at will," she replies in a calm tone without defense or humour.
"Being as that may," I press on, giving my head a good shake and sending a silent yet probably very deadly and powerful prayer to Allah, "I still don't und-"
"Now you see lassie!" the woman, Paypine, suddenly jabs me in the knee with a shiny walking stick.
"Is it made of pure gold?" I gasp. Tears of mild pain well inside my eyes. Awe may be bubbling away in a little corner of my heart. (But really, the real motive here is the burning need for that amazingly awesome staff- stick. It's a stick. A solid gold, enormously expensive stick. Not magical...)
"It is pine. Like my name. Now, get back to your story!"
"Story?")

What is fair in cheese and cake?

Day 7 of the Holiday Log

I have to admit it, I was encumbered. Encased. Shrouded in the very depth of what lust is.

Let me backtrack. 

~

It's not often that someone wholly ethereal crosses your path and for me that was Era. Or Erame. She was the one who made me believe anything was possible and I'd wake up each morning with this intense drive to make anything happen. I was insane.

I wanted to prove that I was just as magical and I wanted her to see and I wanted her to want me because of it.

Silly tricks. Childish games.

But you don't see how absurd it is until you come out of it, and then you cringe at everything you did with disbelief and despair.

Erame was my drug.

I was probably just her lame sidekick that she could call to anytime for the sake of her own amusement or boredom.

But, those days...

Those days were the best of my life. 

~

The day after Era had given me her number, I went over to her apartment on Fourth.

She had rolls of parchment as wide as a man is tall propped up against the wall, dim lanterns on the kitchen counter and hanging from the ceiling, an overflowing ferny pot plant sitting in one corner, a black and white photograph of herself blowing into the camera, and a maroon dress hanging from the bedroom door. 

She smiled dreamily as I stepped inside and said, "This is my apartment. I used to share but they moved out because of drugs."

"Oh, yes," I nodded in agreement wrapped tightly around confusion, "Them drugs..."

"Only the light stuff," she said with big eyes, as if trying to tell me something in a whole new way because the spoken language just wasn't cutting it.

"Of course," I managed to murmur, because I hadn't the faintest idea about drugs or telepathic communication and her mouth was pink today. I felt outraged. I had travelled here by bike and she had changed colour?

"So!" I started in a high-pitched squeal as Era opened the fridge and took out a jug of orange liquid, "colours today just ain't what they used to be!" and I slapped the counter.

She asked, "What are they today?"

I said, "You know, they're changing and moving and designing monoliths."

Era frowned at me as she poured the orange stuff into two round glasses. She slid one over to me. I caught gaze of her lips again and forgot that my hand wasn't already above the counter so it smashed into the chair I was standing behind as I reached for the glass, and I gotta say, I wasn't as smooth as I had planned to be. I was neither graceful or swan-like, and perhaps this was due to my lack of costume. 

I was entirely too human.

I managed to say, "That postman!" loudly, and quite convincingly, as I shook and squeezed my hand, realising that Era had turned her back to put the jug back in the fridge and missed the whole thing.

"Hmmm?" 

I quickly picked up my glass, said ,"Well, he's never on time, is he?" and gulped down the whole glass.

"Cerri, that's vodka."

"FUCK ME!" I yelled. It burned all the way down.

Era's frown was rather deep by now. 

"Why?!" I gasped. "Why give- vodka- why give- to unsuspecting innocent people?"

She laughed. Her face lit up and her teeth on display, head tilted to the side, glass in one hand, positively delighted.

And that is when my world started crumbling.

Have you never bewitched a cake before?

Day 6 of the Holiday Log

"It was a mess, right from the start," I say solemnly.
The elderly lady nods but doesn't look up from her knitting. She would know, I think suddenly. She has been to places, far off lands, has been entangled and bewitched, and probably, most likely, to be fair, has even had her heart ripped out of her chest and stomped on like a curled up Autumn leaf. I feel my shoulders sag with instant relief.
"Her obsession was, absolutely, pants."
She nods again.
"Black pants," I say.
The thick pink needles click in timely rhythm with her nodding.
"With golden trim," and I lean forward to press my point further into her personal sphere.
"Yes dear," she replies at last, attention still caught by her knitting, "you've told me this not ten minutes ago."
"Well!" I slump back against the park bench and frown at the dogs trotting by. "It's news! Isn't it!"
"Mmm."
"It's outrageous that someone could fancy so many of the one thing!"
"Well pants do come in all shapes and sizes, you know. Why, I can remember..."
I feel let down. There had been high hopes for this conversation. The light fizzing around us like sparks from a firework that held promise of awe and admiration, of suspense, time well spent, of delight and comedy. Why, even romance! There had been a bit of that. There had been heartbreak as well, of course, due to the natural order of things; inevitable and heavy like an indestructible iron fist. But most of the tale was surrounded in magic. The kind of magic that lights up your eyes, plays havoc with your heart, and makes you gasp.
"I said, 'dear, are you going over to buy lunch today? Or shall I?'"
The lady is looking at me finally. She has eyes the colour of bright purple and silver hair as wispy as fairy floss. I confess, there have been tempting times where I held a great deal of restraint not to pluck a patch and taste it. I believe that is why she now wears it wrapped tightly in a bun, although we have never had the conversation so I cannot assume this reason. Perhaps her head is prone to getting cold.
"Egg on rye?" I ask.
She gives me the winky grin and says, "Ooooooh, you know what a woman likes!"
I say, "Madam, I believe I do."
And I make a quick exit before she has a chance to ask exactly what I mean.

Can we do this again?

Day 1 of the Holiday Log

Yes I realise that the essence of time has left me completely bewildered and somewhat unconcerned standing upright on the train station platform, sort of like a wooden doll attached to a pole. I do have a vague sense that I should be boarding one of these trains, but which? The notion of actual events that need my participation seem to be lost in a trail of blurry hand-written notes, crumpled up at the bottom of my bag amidst stains of harried gratification or slipped into the enormous and never-ending pile of papers that elude repeated promises, and I find myself just standing.
Standing and waiting.
But I have no idea what I'm waiting for.
Or do I?
"I think you do," she says. I turn and look at long dirty blonde hair, red lips and a cream furry overcoat. "I think you need pants."
I say, "I'm wearing pants" in a polite tone of voice and wait for her to look down and see how correct I am.
"Yes," she says, her eyes on my face, faraway and yet she's really close to my personal space. I think that I should feel disturbed by this. I'm not. "Black ones."
I smirk a little. "They are."
"No," her smile is in reaction to a distant thought she's having. "You need black ones. I know the place."
"I think I-"
She grabs my arm and pulls me through the station. Somehow I find myself running and I have no idea where we are going. She runs fast for a girl wearing boots with high heels on them.
"It's this way!" she calls back.
People turn as we pass, like part of an act, all at the same time. Like clowns at a carnival. We're attracting attention. Maybe they think we're being chased.
"Wh- wher- phwww!" I try and ask where exactly we are running to. I always buy my pants from Minou Mignon on Treval street, but she might not have heard about it. We look similar in size so I should probably mention it to her.
"Here!"
We stop. I'm gasping but she's not. Does she run in heels all the time?
"I have a- phwww, I have-"
"This is the only place you will shop from now on. These pants."
We're standing on the street above the station staring into a large window with paper-thin mannequins displayed behind the window wearing entirely black.
"Is it fashion?" I manage to ask.
"Black is always in fashion."
She's gazing at them dreamily, eerily, and they all look exactly the same as the pants she has on. However, the tops are all different. Tank tops, sweater vests, blouses, two-piece suit jackets, gold buttons, gold rings, bracelets and shoes.
I take a large gulp of my water. "I'm Cerri," I say as a way to break the ice and reclaim some normality in this social situation. Although on second thoughts, perhaps the running through the station adventure was the ice-breaker?
"Era," she replies without looking at me.
"Oh." What a weird name. "Is it short for anything?"
She turns to me. "I don't think so."
I nod in agreement even though I am not. I do not condone the name Era and most likely never will.
"Oh it is! It's short for Erame. The cartoon thing."
Her lips are astonishingly red. I hear myself making noises of approval and even making a small conversation out of the cartoon that I have apparently seen, all the while staring at the shape and colour of Era's mouth. As if it alone is the one thing that brings all the other absurdities together to make sense. As if it was a reason.
Could a mouth be a reason?
How bizarre.
Where would I put such a thought?
"I have no money," I hear the words coming out of my mouth and I tear myself away from the fantasies of thought-stacking neatly and colour-coordinated with labels and stickers lined up artistically around reaching over to ease my finger slowly-
"They have sales on Wednesdays and Fridays. Ask for Stacey."
I raise my eyebrows. Era looks back at me blankly, plainly, like a child, as if nothing is wrong. I feel myself tensing because she's a little smaller than I am so the child-like expression swirls around connotations like a butterfly, or a wicked fairy wanting to play a game.
I say, "You dragged me all the way here to get me to buy pants?"
She nods. "It's for charity," she says lazily. Her green eyes wide and honest. "But also, you wouldn't want anything else."
Our reflections are standing side by side, shadowed, one light and one dark. I see myself reaching out-
"Can I have your number?" I ask all at once, to stop the hazardous embarrassment that's sure to ensue. I feel as though I'm on the edge of a cliff. Any second now I could step off, or slip off, or be sharply pushed off, and I could fall down past rock, through the air, away from the clouds, I could fall until I cease to exist.
She fumbles around in her bag and pulls out a notebook. Rips out a page. Scribbles. "Ummmmm, what else was I going to tell you?"
I could fall until I fly.
"Oh yeah, there's always a sale on once a month. Forty per cent off."
I take the paper.
She leans in close and kisses me right on the mouth.

Eaten any watermelons lately?

~A list to celebrate my 100th blog post~

Hello!
This post is my one hundredth blog entry-
One HUNDREDTH?
No lie! And as such, I just spent two whole minutes trying to work out how to spell 'hundredth', because I'll be damned if I'm relying on spell-checker.
You stubborn winker. 
(I did use spell checker.. I don't have time to sit around and spell words. This the MODERN AGE people).
;)
Anyway, I feel that there are things I should be doing in life that I am currently not doing. So I have decided to make a list in honour of this momentous occasion-
Did you? A WHOLE list? OF THINGS TO DO?
Yes. This is correct.
What a feat, if I dare say so-
Best you didn't
Trying out a new phase perhaps?
You should make a list, too-
Me? I am perfectly organised-
I saw a mouse this morning.
... yes... that was planned.
Planned, hmm?
Entirely. Extremely on purpose.
I see.
So on purpose, in fact, that I let you find it. Had it  been accidental, you would never have laid your lazy little eyes on it.
Dear me, Dragon. I think you're losing your edge.
Never!
Most extremely. Now...
Just wait one minute!-
Moving on...


THE LIST

# Run everyday- whether a light jog, full on pelt because the fear of numb toes propels you forwards into a hyperventilating frenzy, or just a casual walk in some fancy attire to attract the male gaze. Just exercise it and do it outside where the wind blows and the sun shines and the energy is nigh. (And avoid the 'attracting of the male gaze' on account of that you are currently taken. ... Yes. Remember this. (Although, if the male gaze really is attracted to my sweaty uncoordinated leg movements, undignified flapping of track pants, rhythmic ponytail swinging into face and annoyed grapple of Ipod to change song because I'm too lazy to update workout playlist, well! Who am I to refuse?!))

# Do ten push ups and ten sit ups everyday. Record this if you feel necessary and post on instagram or facebook. But mostly instagram. Actually avoid facebook. You know too many people on there. Actually, avoid posting it anywhere at all. Evidence of this atrocity does not need to exist.

# Drink two bottles of water a day. This is hard! The urge to pee is uncomfortable and at times inappropriate, but the water still has to be consumed to get all that brain matter working! The vibes must be happy and moist!
~Yes. In all seriousness, you feel 100 per cent ready to take on the world when you're hydrated. Consistently hydrated. None of this: two bottles in five hours then two days of nothing but coffee and wine nonsense. Or in my case: two hours of three glasses of water and then two days of five coffees each. THIS MUST END. HYDRATION WILL COMMENCE.

# Eat more fruit and vegetables and avoid preservatives. This is the hardest thing to do ever when it comes to health. I'm sure. When shopping previously for only healthy, natural foods, I came home with fruit, vegetables, frozen vegetables, oats, eggs, nuts and bread. A day later I was like 'TWISTIES! MY LOVE! WHERE FORT ART THOU???' and I raced down to pick up my love, along with a tub of ice cream and some yoghurt, as well as some rice crackers and a dip of choice, some muesli bars, frozen quiche, a container of fruit juice and some peanut butter.
Eat 80/20. That's all I will say. And let the 20 be once a week. For myself, I'd like to go back to the old days when my grandparents were alive and try to eat like them because the people in the movies and posters back (even though in movies and posters) had different body shapes compared with us today. I feel as though they had more respect for food and belongings as well.
~I'd like to make a shopping list, stick to it every week, get the financials in order, and make the whole shopping experience a routine down pat.

# Finish watching tv shows. These include, Gilmore Girls, Supernatural and Grey's Anatomy. Gilmore Girls will be easy because I'm halfway through season six and there are only seven seasons. Grey's Anatomy I'm only up to season four and there are twelve seasons! Supernatural I'm at season one. So. Yes.
Do that.

# Continue with my children's book. Now when I say continue, I mean sort out a story board for each page, work out illustrations, size, take to editor/publisher, etc, and get the whole ball rolling. Become famous! Take over the world, somehow, with books for children! Wear a tiara! Fly! Command someone to build a skyscraper of myself in a dressing gown and carrying a coffee cup, hair ruffled, squinty-eyed, stained slippers, maybe half a yawn, in memory of how I am and what it takes to be brilliant such as me! Even though I will still be alive.

# Continue with my novel. Yes, I have a novel. It is in progress, and has been for about eight years, which I think is natural for a novel. The theme is fantasy and in my head I have planned most of the story, the ending, beginnings and interweaving of the five characters lives, and on paper I have written the characters profiles and parts of scenes. However, as with age comes adultness. I have adulted. I am now without such time for spontaneous writings and drawings, and as much as this saddens me, I declare sorrowfully that study and work have become a big part of my life at the present. Nursing does not allow for fantasies. It is a degree of study, preparation, facts, planning, and responsibilities. But aside from this, I would like to look over it whenever I feel slightly bored or wandering thoughts, to remember and perhaps get back into it again.

# Continue with my fairy drawings. You must do this woman! There is no greater magic on this earth, I believe, than creating. As true love is a thing hard to find, I am skeptical. I believe few people find it. So that magic is rare. But creating anything, whether it be cakes, furniture, clothes, paintings, movies, etc, involves imagination and ideas, determination to work through the difficult parts, and a will to make it all come about in the end. I personally always feel so content when I'm drawing fairies. I feel as though I have purpose in life, even if I'm just creating a lamely drawn person with no hands.
~Do what makes you come alive! You will spread the magic!

# Buy more clothes. I don't like shopping in general and for a long time I was saving up to buy a house. As I have recently made my dream come true by purchasing a house, I believe I can now spend some money on clothes. This means nice clothes! A jacket would be nice, for one! Seeing as how I left my last one in a pub! Amen.

# Learn French, Japanese and German. The urge for German has probably passed for now, though, and Japanese is a meh one, but French would be delightful. This means actually putting languages on your Ipod and listening to them, actually saying them, doing this daily and regardless of people listening. Talking to people in your newfound language. Ordering food in the foreign tongue and confusing the wait staff. YOU CAN DO THIS. YOU WILL RULE.
~Maybe you shouldn't have had that last coffee?

# Attempt pottery and play the guitar. Buy the guitar. Enrol in a pot-making course. Wrap it up, lady. This list is too long.
# Start playing volleyball. #Sign up at a martial arts class.
# Continue making jewellery. # Sell jewellery. # Start a jewellery business.
# Continue growing vegetables and fruit. # Upload photos of these fruits and vegetables.
# Finish my Nursing degree and find a job as a nurse who takes blood, such as Clinpath.
# Sew clothes. # Buy a sewing machine. # Do all the sewing. # Continue knitting for the homeless. # Actually finish a blanket to give to the homeless.

AAAAAAAND, that's a wrap.
Thank goodness! I thought you'd never stop.
One hundredth post... dreams...
Keep at them.


~No dream is too big, you just have to become the person the dream challenges you to be.

Is phlegm acceptable?

Winston met Earl on a freezing cold, terribly windy day and there was nothing Earl could do about it.

“Chilly! Isn’t it but?!” called out Winston.

“I am never again having five coffees in a day!” Earl cried in reply.

“Hmmm,” Winston pondered. He came within arm-swinging distance of Earl and stopped, standing tall and a bit blurry around the edges on the footpath. Earl squinted. Why was this chap blurry? Was he a ghost? “Are you a coffee addict?” Winston asked curiously. He watched Earl narrow his eyes, open them, narrow, then open, and he suddenly knew exactly why this man should not consume more than one standard caffeinated drink per twenty eight hours.

“Are you- are you non-existent?” Earl grumbled rather like an old and grumpy man who had to ask for his afternoon tea biscuits rather than have his needs being pre-empted.

Winston chuckled, his gloved hand rising slightly to his face as if to hide his amusement. “I believe I am existing. At least for now.”

“Eh,” Earl blinked and took a step back, tilting his head away and looking down his nose. “Nup!” he declared immediately, “I do not see it! You are not a man with edges at all.”

“Well now...” Winston thought about edges and men and coffee stains on the couch. “That is a very forward thing to say. I trust it has something to do with your caffeine addiction, then.”

Earl said, “Eh?!” in a defensive way. “I am neither an addict nor a liar!”

“How many coffee-type drinks have you had today?” Winston asked. He took his top hat off and looked around for a place to sit as he feared this would take a while.

Earl, meanwhile, was peering at his own hands. He had never encountered such a fluffy human. He wondered how this fellow came to be this way and why he didn’t realise his time was, surely, definitely, indisputably, almost up. His own hands were wrinkled and tan, his nails slightly off-colour and short, and there were smudges of yellow around his finger pads. Nothing blurry about them.

“So…” Winston prompted and Earl looked up to see that the man had seated himself on the ground.

“The ground sir!” Earl cried in outrage. “Have you never heard of a chair?”

Winston placed his hat in his lap and looked up expectantly. “You were just about to tell me a long and winding and probably tiny bit boring tale of how you came to be an addict.”

“And you were about to tell me the short and serious and most horrendously unfunny tale of how you became this blurry ground-sitting nincompoop of a gentleman!” Earl raised a fist and shook it at nothing, really, with a glare at this silly man.

“Shall I go first?” Winston asked.

“Oh, do!” Earl all but shouted.

Winston sighed softly, lost in an apparent blissful memory, "It all started with a cough…” 

How can I rearrange these letters?

She laughed. "Tomlin! You're going too fast!"

He glanced behind him lazily with a grin, "Ah now, Ambriel! Come on! Catch up!"

They laughed together but she didn't catch up. He was just too fast.

"Oh," Tomlin stopped suddenly. "Let's get a pastry!"

Ambriel nearly bumped into him but managed to side-step and only hit his shoe with her own. 

"No," she said, a little breathless. "I want a party!"

"A party!" Tomlin scorned, breathing heavily also. "Darling, that's madness."

"But that is what I want."

They both stood at the bakery and stared into the window at the shelves full of cakes and pies. 

"They're so fat," groaned Ambriel.

"You will be too if you keep eating them," he said, and to prove his point, Tomlin poked her stomach. She sighed. "I am. They will have to saw me right down the middle soon, just so I can fit through the doorway."

"How about we get one and share it?" 

"Yes."

But they never did because Tomlin dropped it from the bridge when they went to oversee a family of ducks, and the ducks scattered, afraid, and Tomlin said half-heartily, "Ah well, it wasn't a good stew."

They watched the brown paper bag float in the river for a while imagining all sorts of hidden surprises inside until that became boring and Ambriel sat on cross-legged on the ground. 

She twisted her straw hat in her delicate hands. "It's not real straw," she told Tomlin. "Did you know they don't make hats out of real straw nowadays?"

Tomlin said, "No, I heard a rumour at the college, but I thought it was just blonde talk."

"It makes me sad."

Ambriel twisted. Tomlin played with the coins in his pockets. "Winter makes me sad," he said.

"I didn't know there was such a thing as fake straw."

"It's all the grey clouds and icy cold fingers and noses. Even with a good stew- even with a fantastic stew," he gave a small, off-beat chuckle, "it's just not a happy time."

"Second told me." Ambriel continued in a sad, depleted tone. "He said Brunei told him that it's cheaper and quicker. I told him that Brunei was an odd man but Second ignored me of course because he has a thing for him, he just about gushes himself every time he gets near. Have you noticed?"

"I can't understand how he works down there, even with the hot chocolate." Tomlin frowned. 

"It's mysterious. Like a lie. They are mysterious things, lies, aren't they. They go on and on and on..." her twisting became faster and it caught Tomlin's eye. He watched the straw spin.

"Sometimes they're small and neat and you can forget them. But others are big and tenacious and creep into the corners of you that you thought were closed and clean and set forever-"

"Ambs," Tomlin swiftly reached down and snatched the hat away. She looked up, startled.

"Lies are bumdust," he said. "Fake hats are bumdust, winter is bumdust and the whole sodded lot is butts, ok? But winter becomes spring and lies become truth eventually, at least the big ones, so let's just go and get some ice cream and sit down under a tree on a plastic table cover so if it falls we can lick it right up, ok?"

She brightened, "Ok!"

He smiled cheekily and said, "I'll give you a five count head start." And he tossed the hat into the river.

Are my ears on straight?

"You were so clever, Ambrant," she said sorrowfully.
"I still am!" sobbed Ambrant, clutching his waistcoat at the front as if it didn't have any buttons and he was forced to keep it closed by hand.
The ethereal woman with too much hair lit a purple crystal. Ambrant coughed. She raised it to her lips as if to smoke it and crossed one leg over the other at the knee.
"No," she said, blowing out electric green smoke. "You were."
"There's time! Still! I have my- my..." Ambrant flailed wildly, "...my singing!"
She said, "I'd rather hoped you'd come out of this. This..."
"This is nothi-"
"This phase," she raised her eyebrows, and he had to admit, they were divine. "This phase is like the end of things. It is like cold porridge."
Ambrant gasped. "The worst!"
"But," she smiled, "it is also a beginning."
Ambrant stopped. He clutched tighter. Her smile was not a symbol of hope as most were. It did not bring out any rays of warm sunshine or cause the heart to flutter.
"A beginning?" he sniffed, wide-eyed.
"Something to chew on. It requires courage and you have that fine tunic, waiting to be turned."
"My tunic!" Ambrant stifled another sob and clutched so hard he thought his fingernails would tear through the fabric and his fingers would surely cramp.
She blew out another puff of green smoke, to the side, not his face -she was not a rude woman- and watched him quiver. "What one can do with such needlework," she said calmly, almost too calm, as if she was in a trance.
"No, I refuse! It cannot ever be-" He took a step back.
"You refuse."
"Indeed!" Ambrant looked up at at her smooth, porcelain skin, shiny grey eyes and pink lips set under a mass of fluffy white hair. He took a shaky breath and said: "I made this myself. It took me hours! No, it took me days! Days of my time. Accumulated hours that turned into days, yes, that's how long! You are not to have it!"
She blinked. Shook her head slightly from side to side. Said: "I believe I can." And waved her hand that still held the crystal, casually elegant as if it were an afterthought and not some magical intent.
"No!"
The crystal flew out of her grasp. Ambrant watched it scream towards him while the woman turned away to look down her sitting stump. With sickening finality, it seared right through his chest, stabbing it's entrance at the front and shooting out behind with Ambrants heart as it's intended collection.
Ambrant fell, lifeless, and she smiled. "Such fine stitching."

What is my name?

Sometimes things are not as shiny as they seem. They break, crack, are taken forcefully and shaken until they burst.
Sometimes there is no tape or glue that can put these once-shiny, previously wholesome and glittering, historically better things back together.
The future waits for no one.
So I picked up my suitcase and coat, bowed to my plants, and walked away. I walked down the street like all those other people and I waited for relief or release, or maybe I didn't.
Maybe I sat down at the table and pulled out a cigarette, from the new blue packet, stuck it between my lips, flicked the lighter and took a puff. Remembered that smoking was prohibited in the building and stubbed it out. Or maybe I didn't.
Maybe I suited up and powdered down, carried on and shrugged off. Saved it for a rainy day. Wrote a list and threw it from a ten-story building, wishing while watching it float, hating those parts, wanting those parts, remembered my eleven o'clock lunch appointment and turned away.
Or maybe I decided to invite my friendly wizard neighbour over to drink tea and make a potion.
"Bartholomew," I said, clearly and around the bubblegum in my mouth because his attention span was, and still is, appalling. "There is something we need to discuss."
He nodded, a little too gravely for such a situation, and replied, "I fear this has come. Here, have a candescent cupcake." And he pulled out a plate of plump, magnificently whipped, bright blue cupcakes from his jacket.
I declined. Bartholomew nodded as if it all made sense and slid the plate back into his jacket. I felt a tad worried. Just how were those cakes keeping shape?
"I bought those from Gerald-" Bartholomew started seriously.
"The cupid fellow?" I interrupted.
"Yes. The very fellow."
I said, "Look, things are a bit hazy betwee-"
"Hazy or not," Bartholomew rumbled calmly like a still pond at midnight, "disregarding the haze-"
"Oh, no... there was haze. There was actual haze, it was the required pink and fluffy, mostly softly-spoken and occasionally fragrant-free. There were times it was not fragrant-free, and those times were some long winters."
"So there was haze."
"Yes."
"I see."
"Can you? The haze is only visible to those involved in it."
"No, I meant figuratively."
"Oh, right, I see."
"I do not believe you can."
"No, I meant-"
"Of course."
I stopped and reconsidered things. All things. I sat and thought about time and space, the sound of a baby's laugh, water flowing through a hose, toe-stubbing, worm-farming, tongue-curling. You know, the important things.
In this time Bartholomew took a shower. He sang long, curly songs about romantic stars and dyed his hair an off-shade of red. Then he straightened my eighteen paintings that were straight to start with, mended his undergarments, taught my tangerines to love, and wrote a book on the unique and under-appreciated life of pigeons and their need for thick-rimmed glasses.
"...as there have been many sad yet slow-moving stories about the mending of such glass..."
I put an end to all the considering so I could exercise my goodwill as a host. I asked placidly: "Is there really someone who makes and mends glasses for pigeons?"
Bartholomew said, "I haven't a clue."
I frowned, "You just wrote a book on them! An entire book! And bored me to death with thirteen chapters!"
"You weren't paying the slightest attention, dear neighbour."
"I most certainly was attention-paying!"
"How much did you pay?"
"What?"
Bartholomew stared at me from over his tattered and stained book. Had he spilled something on it already? "I paid all of it!"
"I charge three-hundred dollars a page," he said with a flourish of his hand.
"You ask too much." I snapped. I might have been a little tired from such a long day, but I might have also been annoyed at the antics of such a wise-looking man. So wise and all he had to was look. Could life be more unfair?
"Young one," he started in a seriously gentle manner as he closed his book and set it down. "Young one. I wrote a book about pigeons years ago-"
"Years?!" I spluttered.
"-foolish, devoted wholly to the well-being of things smaller than myself (yes that means you, too. How do you think you came to have such abundant fruit trees?). But I came to realise, upon a brilliant, financially well-to-do, semi-retired midnight star that such things cannot be the essence of my days. There has to be a spark in my child-like soul. Helping the small things does not, and did not, light that flame."
I put a hand up in the pause gesture. "Ok, Bartemus. Tell me straight. Just how long have I been sitting here?"
I was fearful. Don't get me wrong. I may have oozed total calm and elegant chic sophistication, but deep down I was wondering how many times this sort of thing had been going on. "Have you done this before?" I asked in a hushed voice around the gaping hole of growing horror. "Have I been sitting here like this millions and millions of times before without knowing it? Has the generation grown? Is there still life outside?"
Bartholomew shook his head. "Korban-"
"My name's Cerri."
"-there is life out there. It might be a slight flicker and it might only belong to the zombies who shamefully shuffle as if listening to a mediocre dubstep beat, but it is there."
He smiled.
I said with heavy disdain, "Zombies?"
"In the flesh."
"Ok, now. Listen. You straightened my pictures, thank you, but only you didn't straighten them you just tilted them because your glasses are crooked and tilting, so fix that. You look demented. Secondly, I now wake up at night to talking fruit having full-blown arguments in my kitchen, and it took me a long time to figure out that you switched my coffee with onion root powder. Thanks again for that. I walked down main street and people cried-"
"Ahh yes," Bartholomew chuckled. "The memories..."
"AND! I'm almost one hundred percent certain that you bewitch yourself into my dreams and make it look like a sitcom, you know, where you're sitting cross-legged on a stool in high suede pants and a striped blouse and suddenly you look at me and say something stupid and confusing like 'Krystal would just CRACK HER CHINA if she knew this' followed by a cheesy, knowing smile. And I wake up mad  because I never find out what those people 'would want to know'. These dreams are terrifying and I feel personally assaulted." I glare at him.
"I'm sure I have no idea what you're little brain is concerned about. Trust me, Kurtus, I have a trillion other things to be doing than wear suede in your dreams."
"I'm Cerri."
"However..." he looked at me thoughtfully, tapping his chin. "I will need to invade your dreams on the ninth of June. You have a big day on the tenth, yes? And I feel personally involved."
"You're not," I assured him. "I have nothing that day."
"You have a test."
"Yes."
"A test of courage! Of endurance! Of releasing potential!"
"Possibly."
"So! Let us play a game!" and he whipped out a large orange box of Mad Tent from his jacket. And his eyes were twinkling, his face set in concentration as he read the five-foot-long rule-book, his knees poking holes in it, his body tensed with eagerness and excitement. I sighed and took off the lid.


Or maybe I didn't.

With so many choices, what could go wrong?

"I can tell you those chimes- those ones there, the green ones, yes, those... those are lies."
I stared.
"Yes," she said, and stood. Brushed her skirts as if they had accumulated dust in her short visit to the stool. Smiled.
I felt a pinch in my chest and it made me step forwards quickly. "I am terribly sorry to intrude where it is unseemly for me to do so, but if I may, er, have another moment...?"
The woman watched me as I spoke. It was uncomfortable. I felt as though my mouth was moving too fast, or at a pace with which my words were not able to keep, therefore rendering me a babbling fool. But she continued to smile at me kindly and sat once more when I finished.
"Teraverr," she said as she arranged her skirts and straightened her back. "You are the most clean-shaven man I have ever met."
I blushed. "Thank you, ma'am. Can I-"
"However," she continued, "can you tell the difference between shaving cream and a razor?"
I blinked. "Ma'am?"
"Goodness! Teraverr, call me Holly. I am far too young to be a 'ma'am', and also, stop calling people ma'am. And stop slouching! That's it."
I am ashamed to say that I straightened when she told me so. The lace trim on her dress was rather fetching, all sparkly in its golds and silvers and hideously faded greens. Whoever had sewn on the green lace, well, let's just say they were probably working in an underground mine wearing sunglasses and singing distractedly along to Sporty Hump.
"Yes, thank you," I replied hurriedly, aware that she would need refreshments and a suitable reason for her to stay. I had none. I had only wanted to witness her sparkly dress in full earnest, for another few minutes, up-close to my eye, but not so close as to cause alarm, maybe touch... is that too much to ask? Was I being rash? Daring? Was I being a- a scoundrel?
I gasped and was unable to hide it or pretend it something other than an audible malfunction of my human emotion.
"Teraverr, are you alright?"
"Ma- err Holly, I mean, yes! I-I am well."
I turned and my eyes searched the cluttered room.
"Yes, well..." Holly made a noise as if she were fidgeting behind me. "You seem awfully tense. Have you been sleeping?"
Oh! The bags under my eyes! Were they so visible?
"Madam, I assure you with all my sureness and pleasure- not that I am pleasurable!" I added in haste. "I am certain that there are a number of unp-"
"You are beside yourself with nerves. Come sit."
Finally, I saw it. The red kettle. I lunged forwards with all my weight and slammed the teapot onto the stove top as if putting out a large spider with an enormous encyclopedia.
"Teraverr!" Holly cried.
"Got it!" I called out in triumph for no reason whatsoever, and I turned to face the alarmed, wide-eyed (enchantingly beautiful) woman standing with her hands clutched in front of her.
"Got what?" she asked, trying to peer around me.
"Everything," I said gaily- oh how gay it was. I was in a state of madness. Somehow giddy with a feeling of how divine it is to make tea. "Everything and anything!" I cried.
Holly frowned and I knew it was one of concern. She worried so much about the little things. How I should wish to scoop her up and  dance with her across the room, proclaiming in a hearty voice "nothing is such a worry, dear Holly, that we cannot dance it all away!".
Madness, indeed.
Instead, I lit the stove and grabbed teacups and saucers from the cupboard, altogether too hard and too fast so they all spilled out before me in a broken mess. My hands are obscurely too big; the fingers long but also wide, the palms as big as, why, as big as saucers! And I have never seen a saucer try to pick up another saucer, but I fear it would fail miserably. Perhaps that is why all saucers come decorated in pretty patterns, so as to keep them occupied with beauty and distract them from their utter uselessness.
"Teraverr? Are you sure you are well? You've gone rather pale."
"Yes... I do..."
"Here, let me..."
Holly came and knelt down beside me and started gathering the pieces into her skirt.
"Oh you mustn't!" I cried in a fit of anguish that was most probably more like horror. Yes. I would say it was. I was horrified at this breach of trust that had just transpired between us. I regret to say that I reached out one of my lumbering hands to pick out the pieces from Holly's dress, and she slid backwards, scattering the pieces around us like strands of cat hair.
"You are bold!" Holly declared, staring at me hard in the face.
I averted my gaze. Perhaps I was bold. Perhaps I was a forward man who thought nothing of taking broken china from a young lady's lap in a cozy, romantic setting. Perhaps I would have lit a fire with my telepathy powers, had I been born with such a gift or acquired it from a three penny wishing well. But I, Teraverr, was proud to be that man.
"Madam," I said as I stood up slowly. "The colour of your lace is wrong, yes! It is! Furthermore, you can make your own tea!"
And I strode out of my antiquities parlor as if born a new man, checking my pocket watch to discover that I still had time to purchase an ice-cream of my choosing down the street.

~

Would you need me if I told you what I'd become?

I was disappearing in plain sight
I'm gonna ask you to look away.
A revelation in the light of day- no light
The sky's not blue and it hurts to pray.

You can't choose what fades
I'm gonna ask you to look away.
There's no light, in the light of day
A broken life will never stay.

It's a conversation, some kind of revelation
I'm gonna ask you to look away.
The daylight so violent and a thousand faces
I'd do anything but it's so hard to say.


~ Somewhere a clock is ticking

Where does that key take you?

"Let it be morning."
I said
"Let it be morning where the coffee is hot and the jumper is blue, or maybe grey, depending on the light."
The kisses are soft, and light, and breezy, like the touch of a wing and the hearts are bursting full of words.
Because, words
we need words.
We need extravagance and ink and the sky.
Just let it be gentle and still. Just for a while.
I said
"Can we go swimming?"
In the light. The water is cool and fresh and heavy, but light. Like kisses.
Light yet strong.
Like a breath of fresh air. Like sitting high up on a building and looking out over the city. How far are we looking?
Can we see the horizon?
Can we see ourselves? Sitting so high. All the tiresome calamities of yesterday and tomorrow fall away as I turn my face to the sun and I close my eyes.
Yes.
Look at us posing. The world cannot see us if we tilt our heads and lift our shoulders and smile. The lights and sparkles, how they shine, how they promise.
Can we see yet?
"Can you see?"
Why we sit and dream.
I lift my arms and move like an airplane. Let me capture you. With my bright nails and high-pitched laughter. Let me soar into time and run through puddles, leap over fallen leaves- fall, also.
Let me fall.
Because falling feels like flying and I am already on the ground.
Oh, how it feels!
Like danger and emotion and I turn my head so you do not see me bite into the fairy floss. Like speeding forwards really fast.
Can we rewind?
Or is the past too painful, too wonderful, to relive?
Let's fast-forward to when we grow old. Roots hidden deep inside the ground, down, down, down, spreading and forming and trying something new.
It feels like sinking.
It feels like hanging up the red raincoat and returning to find out it has changed to blue. Pale blue and ice in my heart.
Such a start.
It fell and exploded into a thousand lights, a million stars, a trillion, billion galaxies of colour I wish you saw
you saw
they saw
the whole world shaped as one giant eye, blinking at the hopelessness of touching and breaking. Of breathing.
"Can we run into tomorrow?"
can we try harder?
It's all numerals and apostrophes and flowers opening and bells tinkling, harshly, and jackets and somersaults and pink pjamas and low voices with double meanings.
A breath of fresh air.
Let's be that.
I wave at the postman. The rain feels like an ending
and I think
I think
why can't everything be far away? In the distance, tiny, so you have to lean closer. Why can't everything appear beautiful because nothing is being looked at fully?

Who you gonna call?

This one time it was all 'wall staring' and climbing back into my brain, and oh, wow, a peanut!, and then it was all Chilli plant and billions of butter containers and that one spider web and papers that didn't tell you anything even though they were covered in words.
It was all this and more.
Then it wasn't.
And I said, I said: "But where do they all go? All those little formations that have to be kept squeaky clean and rounded nice and current and amazingly hilarious?"
And they replied: "In earnest, Cerri, we have no idea what you're talking about. Have another drink."
I made a face to let them know I couldn't possibly, but I accepted. I held the face. I drank around and through and during this face.
It was a blast.
And in the morning I sat down on the pavement squares and ate a cupcake. I jumped hopscotch. Ran to the transportation device and held my breath for what seemed like eternity. I carried a yellow balloon, which turned out to be a stray cat, which fell asleep in my arms so I took a photograph. I called it Vincent.
When it woke up it told me its name was 'certainly not Vincent' and that 'I should be ashamed to suggest such a thing, why wasn't I? Did I have some mental deficiency? Was I under some magical spell, like I had eaten too much Catnip?'
I said: "Vincent, I am no cat."
To which Vincent replied: "Well you should be."
I thought about this. Vincent meowed. I almost tripped over an uneven surface in the ground but a man wearing a jester hat and a long green coat grabbed my arm.
"I'm sorry," I said, rather embarrassed, "It's my cat, Vincent. He's a terrible directional navigator."
The man smiled kindly down at me. "My cat is just as terrible."
"Oh!" I exclaimed in glee while Vincent glared in his cat way at me, "What an exciting coincidence!"
And it was, until I realised he was holding a decaf coffee mug. I laughed in a haughty, 'higher up than thou' way, and I said, "Elderly gentleman, I decline!" then ran off, leaving him wrapped up in a cloud of indignation because he was only (apparently) twenty-six.
"That was rude, even for a lowly human such as yourself," Vincent purred. He seemed to be enjoying the running so I stopped, out of breath and sweating more than a delicate female should.
"If I am to be conversing with the opposite sex, I need to make sure they are well caffeinated for the conversations we take part in and I just can't, Vincent, I just can't allow fakeness of any sort into my life."
Vincent licked one of my stick-on fingernails smugly.
"These are for recreational purposes," I said defensively, "where everything is fake."
"I see."
"I'm tired of you seeing," I declared and made to drop him on the ground but he clung to my shirt and hissed.
I sighed. Vincent meowed in protest. "Human, you must carry me to the end of the city."
"Because?"
"I have family there."
"Oh, you do?"
We walked into a beauty salon and I paid for Vincent to have an entire makeover, which consisted of an overall trim, a shampoo and rinse in 'Unconditionally Lavender', and a bright pink Mohawk.
The beautician called Schmoo pulled me aside and said in a velvety smooth voice that I would not associate with an exotic Indian man: "That was not Unconditionally Lavender as it said on the bottle, I am afraid." He looked anything but. "It was Rashers of Rose."
I gave him a pitiful look, signifying that I was a dedicated pet owner and if my beloved cat wanted Lavender scented fur, then, by god, he would have Lavender scented fur. Schmoo nodded in a business-like way, and I read another whole magazine devoted to bikini waxing while Vincent went through his correction process.
I wouldn't say I came out scarred for life at all I had just read, but I was a changed person. These things changed you.
I might even attend a church and sing a hymm about sheep. Sleep with one eye open. Pour my soup into a bowl before heating. Open my umbrellas outside. Buy an umbrella.
"You are entirely dramatic," Vincent said, "And I hate you. Everything you are I despise."
"Catums," I said gaily, "Shoosh."
Me and Vincent weren't ever going to see eye-to-eye; he was far too small. We would never agree on everything, or even anything. We would never share food or laugh about old times.
But I can honestly say that we will be friends for life.
"Human," Vincent clawed my ankle, "I used your handbag as a latrine."
There certainly was a large amount of pee in my bag, that fact could not be denied. But what really got me about this situation as I looked down into the topaz liquid vibrating with all the streetwalkers hurrying by, was the appalling matter of a cat using the word latrine.

Can we make it up as we go?

The suffering of Gregory Oswald.

"How gay it is to be out here," Harriet said admiringly. She had traipsed all the way from Little Totten- a magical place that made the best cherry pies in the entire universe- just to sit on this very bench. However, when she had started her journey, she had been terribly certain of finding company alongside this bench.
She did not.
The sun had watched her as it rose high into the sky, sitting alone and forlorn on the bowing, thick planks, sometimes muttering to herself, other times singing softly or calling out to various insects for attention. Once or twice she had even attempted conversation with the cat as it rolled around on the sunny concrete, but they had been rare occasions, after which she had sank back into her pot instantly, afraid that it would leap up and nibble on her chilli pods.
The sun had watched and smiled to itself, interested in such a way that only those with an infinity of entertainment options can be.
Then Gregory had arrived.
He had trudged up, leapt up, sprang forth, into Harriet's world of frosty midnight conversations with sluggishly slow snails about star signs and wellingtons, sweltering hot days consisting of edging her way around under the umbrella to gain maximum sun while sobbing drearily in mourning for her harvested children, and mindless drooling at the big tree standing tall and leafy just outside the green fence. How handsome that tree was! She had no idea whatsoever as to what it could be or if it had a name, but it looked considerably male- what with all that lusciously masculine, peeling bark and glossed sturdy branches reaching up to the heavens!- and Harriet had been entranced since the day she set eyes upon it.
"Say, what's so fascinatingly gay about that tree then, eh?" came a voice to her left and Harriet started out of her impossible, possibly naive, fantasy which boasted lavish weddings that included church bells and cake made to look like flowers with bees on, and she turned to clap eyes on a cactus.
"What?" she said hastily, "I wasn't oogling."
The cactus smiled as it looked at the tree. "Well now, there's nothing wrong with an oogle."
"You're male!" Harriet accused in an accusatory voice. "You're the spitting image!"
"You could be slightly off..."
"I am never off!" Harriet said the words like a jab and raised her leaves and branches and red chillies as high as she could.
"Ahhh, the Thai Chilli," said the cactus pleasantly and in the faraway tone of one in deep thought, "what a pleasure it is to meet one at last."
Harriet looked down at the cactus plant in disgust, "I beg your-"
"Halt! Aaaaand, needles into the air, switch!" the cactus yelled suddenly.
"Oh!" Harriet cried.
"Do excuse me, TC, I was in the army," he said promptly, and Harriet said: "The army!" as if he had just told her he never shed his dead leaves.
"Seven years, just. Broke my old Mam's heart, but I said 'Sweetpea (she is a sweetpea, actually, from her aunt's cousin side, he told Harriet later, and Harriet had unsuccessfully replied, suuuuure she is, have you noticed everyone foreign or made up into the family tree is always from the aunt's side?, due to the cactus talking over her in a brisk manner), you don't have to worry about me, I will be back before the little ones start shelling' but I wasn't and she died a tragic death that is still unclear to this very day."
Harried looked appalled. "Gosh! What a tragedy you have suffered!"
The cactus nodded, still staring straight ahead as if his call to attention was still in motion, and Harriet gazed appreciatively at his straight posture. His short, green, spiky stems were just resplendent in all their silken little glory. How she would like to touch one.
"I have suffered such a tragedy," the cactus continued, unaware or just accepting of her fixated nature. "But I have kept an optimistic view and it is this, this! above all else, lady, that has kept me going throughout the days."
"Are you telling me that your mother is named after her own design?" Harriet demanded.
The cactus turned finally. "Am I saying which to?"
Harriet rustled her leaves impatiently. She may have leaned down closer, or it may have just been the breeze, but, certainly, there was movement and it was hers. "Are you spouting off stories about your mum called Sweetpea-"
"If you will kindly shut it, you will come to the furry notion that I have said no such thing."
The cactus gave her a level stare. He was trying to remember if he had, actually, told this fine excuse for a chilli plant his parental background and after two electric seconds he decided, no, he had not.
"I'm psychic," one of Harriet's leaves waved in front of his face with a swish and she swayed in the sun with authentic agility. "One of my many gifts. Now, tell me about your mother."
"Hold up there! Prove it!"
"Yes- what?" Harriet stopped being agile to show authentic confusion. Her leaves fluttered slowly and her head drooped a little.
The cactus smiled in a satisfied, cactus-kind-of-way: tight-lipped and without much movement. "Answer me this question correctly and I will forever be in confidence of all your decisions!" he cleared his throat as if he did this at every hour of every day and rumbled: "What is my name?"
The cactus was smug on the inside. He was almost bursting with the knowledge that she would say his name was 'cactus', and then he would burst out with laughter, right in her face, because she would be wrong and he loved seeing people so unsure about what they were so sure about.
Harriet gave a short shriek of laughter that made a bird take flight from the grass. It was probably meant to be a snort, it was so short and not at all very high-pitched, but it worked also as a shriek and it sounded better when she described it to her own ears. How maddeningly childish this cactus was! It was a pleasure to have him entertain in such an earnest manner. She should ask him to stay.
The cactus's demeanor faltered. "Yes?"
"Your name is Gregory Oswald and your mother is a sweetpea and she's called a sweetpea and it's all from your aunt's cousin's side- which is awfully tragic in itself, there being a cousin from your aunt and so on- and it's all set in stone so I don't even have to ask you because I know you will say yes, so welcome, Gregory, to The Bench!"
Gregory watched her many stems spread out wide in a welcoming gesture. He thought about sitting beside this psychic for all eternity, knitting and singing and wearing snail-shell hats and looking through acorn binoculars at that damn (yet stunning) tree and swapping steamy mugs of FertilizeThis! while listening to clams debate from the ocean-side on wireless radio. Had it come to this already?
"I- I am- oh!" he suddenly remembered, "You're Harriet the Psychic!"
"Yes!" she beamed.
He laughed and she did not care for the loud, hooting, caw that she heard. "I was always under the assumption- that is, I heard on the wireless, not that the base had it often, nor did we indulge when we could!- but I remember it being 'Harriet the Sidekick' and I wondered, rightly as I must have, where the hero was."
Harriet stared. She was insulted. Not only was she now stuck alongside a cactus who thought she was second best in some radio drama, there was absolutely no way she would be able to 'accidentally' knock his terrifying, corded spike-straightener off the bench into a bucket of innocently maneuvered rainwater.

(--____0)v

What do you see between the cracks?

"Well, I don't know why you would," she said in a miffed voice. He was almost running to keep up with her as she glided down corridors and through arched doorways into bigger or darker or intensely more cluttered rooms.

"It's Quentin-" he puffed, lifting his leg over a stack of old books, but she cut across him by calling back over her shoulder: "Cupid is not called Quentin. Goodness."

"He told me h-"

"Armund," she turned abruptly in one sweeping motion and smiled down at the little dwarf trailing her every move. How atrociously adorable. "Armund," she repeated, and he looked up at her with a frown, as if suspicious. "I have met the budding archer- if he can be called that! His failed attempts far outweigh all his successes, which could be why he drinks chocolate all day-"

"He doesn't!" Armund cried in horror.

"He does! And he pays for it! With coins from right out of his purse!"

"Scandal!" 

"Outrage!" 

"Sacrilege!"

"Outstandingly contemptuous!"

"Startling!"

"Ok, I'm out of woulds beginning with 'o'..."

"Yes, I was faltering also..."

She straightened her shoulders. "My point is, dear Armund and all you stand for, is that I have met this charming Cupid and he has never been a Quentin, ever, in all his lives."

"Oh..." Armund dropped his gaze to the polished floorboards, wishing he knew how to ask for her interior designer while simultaneously wondering where she kept her silverware. It certainly wasn't in any of the kitchen drawers, or bathroom drawers, or bedroom drawers, nor had any been found under the stairs or in the linen basket. He was tired and poor. It only seemed fair that he exchange some of her expensive household items so he could buy that silky undergarment he'd had his eyes on for the past two and a half weeks, did it not?

He smiled at nothing, lost in his admiration.

"Hello, Armund? Are you among the living?"

"Pardon!" 

She was eyeing him suspiciously and he had a sudden terrible feeling that she could read his mind.

"Begging your pardon to my earnest slip of reality, the one and only Candace, I must have had an overload of cream cake this morning." Armund gave a small bow, rather a little tip of the head that would have been deeper had he been wearing a hat or shoes with bells on. He did like to admire those bells.

"I feel you are unwell."

He nodded sagely.

"Yes..." Candace stood and stared at him without seeing. "Cream cake and the power within. Excuse me Armund! I have business to attend to!" and she swept off through another door.

What bother! How was he ever supposed to keep an eye on her if she flew through the house like a bewitched hen?

"Your ladyship! I mean..." Armund hastily made his way through the door and spied her dress whipping around the corner at the end of the corridor.

"I must insist you leave, dear dwarf!" she called from far away. "I fear anyone ever setting their lovely eyes upon my baking skills... unsightly! Ghastly! Like wearing a see-through slip on the top floor balcony!"

"You cannot bake a cake!" Armund called, somewhat agitated. "Quentin is coming to see you, five thirty sharp!" His agitation stemmed from his bare feet that were not accustomed to running, and they rightly shouldn't be seeing as how he spent most of his time in caves, digging, or reading Elvish Elerberry Stews and Other Recipes Elves Don't Want Dwarves Knowing. 

"I can and I will!"

Silly female! Armund skidded and tripped past sunny rooms with large windows and white furniture, past clocks and what looked like a dream catcher made out of bones. He slid under wooden arched doorways and through a bathroom when he realised what was making him sweat more than this very un-fun game of chase. "You have no doors!"

"I pardon you?" 

"The doors!" Armund slowed to a stop, breathing hard, bending over once again to steady himself and also admire the shiny, if dangerously slippery, flooring. 

"What about them?" Candace called over a muffled bang. 

"You have none!" he yelled, unsure why he was so angry, but sure that he could make out his reflection and this did not sit well with him. 

Candace laughed. There were more loud noises that could probably be a spoon scraping a metal bowl or an electric mixer starting up or sifted flour flying up to puff in a face, but would most likely be Candace falling over her abnormally long daytime attire and knocking over a vase.

Silly woman!

"I've just run through the bathroom and you have not one hinge in place, not one doorknob waiting on the sink, not one 'do not disturb sign', and where is that sign Candace the great one, where is that sign?"

"Your poor little brain!" she exclaimed with some kind of glee or delight, "To be so addled over something so trivial!"

"I protest you!" he said angrily and then stopped short, awash with fear.

"You would!" was her gay reply.

He breathed a sigh of relief that sounded like a thousand wind-chimes caught in a rainstorm. Since when had that been his exhaling noise of choice?

He heard it again.

"Candace! Quentin has arrived!"

"Oh, Gerald!" Candace came rushing into where Armund stood, with a swish of her dress, elegant, at ease, and glowing down to her very essence. "Yes, it is about time," she said.

"It's Quentin," Armund shot at her. His expression softened when he noticed cake batter smeared on her neck and flour sprinkled like dust all down one side of her dress, and he ran after her.

"I was making a cake," he heard her laugh as he turned into her high entrance hall to find Candace chatting animatedly with a little boy.

"Armund!" the boy called happily, looking past Candace.

"Greetings, Quentin, master of the bow and stealer of hearts just the same..." he bowed again, a proper bow this time where he pretended to have shoes with bells. The proper bows always gave him an ache in the neck when he straightened.

The boy laughed heartily, "I don't steal hearts, silly dwarf, I rip them out and feast!"

"Of course." Armund nodded easily as he knew this. 

"Now, I feel," started Candace in a high-pitched way, "that we delightfully passed the important business of introducing ourselves, and while Armund and you have clearly met, I wonder if you and I may have the honor?"

Quentin looked up at her, his straight caramel hair shining in the sun, his pale face open and his light grey eyes intensely curious. He beamed. "Absolutely. Hello there," he stuck out a small hand, "My name is Quentin."

Candace gasped. "You just can't be!"

Quentin smiled, "I probably could."

"You lie!"

"Only when hungry."

"I'm afraid I do not, and will ever not, believe you, entirely, until the day I die," she said firmly.

The boy swung his basket, smiling and sparkling and positively unaffected by this ambiguous insult. "Whatever seems right in your world," he replied. "But you have a job for me, yes?"

"Oh, Candace," Armund said sadly.

"Times are busy, they are," Quentin said matter-of-factly. 

"Are they?" Armund asked without a real need for the answer.

"People always want to be in love, always. I've had to see a physiotherapist four times this year."

"How dramatic," Candace supplied without feeling but with an oozing of sarcasm so thick it was like liquid. "If you highly enterprising gentle creatures of the world will excuse me, I must be off to immerse myself in things which actually matter." and she turned on a heeled-foot and strode haughtily back where she had glided from moments ago.

Quentin smiled at Armund and Armund felt his core center itself. He felt goodwill and cheer. He felt like the colour pink.

"Oi!..." he took a step back.

"Candace is upset that I'm named differently, as if I changed my entire person."
Armund chuckled. Then thought, why do I find this amusing?
"Yes," Quentin chuckled too. "It is."
Oh well! Armund gave another chuckle, feeling at one with the world and almost as if he could rise into the air like a giant, dwarf-shaped balloon and explode with the blooming contentment of it all.
"Do you have a job for me?" Quentin asked. His silver arrows glinted and sang. His bright eyes danced.
"I wanted to call myself Barry," said Armund proudly. "But it was taken already by a troll and a gnome."
Quentin laughed and it was music. Armund sighed.
"What a coincidence!" Quentin remarked. Armund nodded eagerly. How small and delicate the little boy's wings were; his tunic must be cut to allow for them. And that smell! Armund inhaled with all his breath as if he were about to snorkel without an air tank or otherwise be shot dead, and it was pure magic all at once. He wondered if could breathe in like this until his dying day, lest he die of grave dissatisfaction and discomfort, when there was suddenly a loud bang from the kitchen area and he blinked.
Quentin was watching him in a mild, patient yet expectant way.
Armund said hurriedly, "I feel the need to continue my antisocial ways as we dwarves have always, certain that I will meet a fellow, possibly wearing mining gear and carrying a large axe and hoarding stories of gold and diamonds and manuals about how to ride a tractor and where to buy sheep, which can be expensive hence the need for fine silverware and even finer undergarments, so I say good day to you, stealth warrior who gives abundant pleasure but takes even more, may you find eternal happiness and that pair of shoes which actually fit."
He slammed the door in Quentin's face just in time. His eyes had turned a violent shade of pink and his wings had flared out, six times their original size and a superior metallic grey. Thin, claw-like fingers with red nails had been reaching back to seize an arrow.
"YOU DON'T SLAM THE DOOR AT CUPID!" Candace came screeching in and almost bowled Armund over. She grabbed Armund and shook him.
"Lovely Candace!" he exclaimed up into her face, "have no fear!-"
"There is everyth-"
"-he was trying to enchant me! A dwarf! I tell you-"
"You scum of the lowest pond in the furth-"
"-but I bade him a well wish-"
"That won't sto-"
"-and your house is ant-"
"It is certainly not!"
There was another bang, but louder and insanely heart-stopping as the living room window burst open. Candace yanked Armund away from the glass and they ran.
"You undid the charm!" Armund yelled accusingly.
"I felt it was time!" Candace yelled defensively.
"I gave him a well wish! I wished him well! That is not something we dwarves do! I will now face ridicule and open sneering!"
"Oh go wipe your face with that ridiculous sneering nonsense and bring yourself to the attention of our ever-present predicament: we will very shortly be shot with an arrow of love and I am not ok with that!"

~