Marlo thought hard about the selection he had to choose from. He had searched for a long time to find them all, and now they were laid out before him. There was something wrong, though. Marlo felt it with certainty. All the colours were wrong, for a start, and the tops differed in size in a way that calmed his aching soul... but not enough. A sliver of soul still ached, his body sagged ever so slightly with apparent vague fatigue, so he ran his eyes over each one, as if he was a computer scanning for errors.
Suddenly he reached out and touched one. Then another. And another. He recoiled with a dawning realisation and a prickle of something other than hunger.
Every single one shared the same fabric.
"The touch is wrong!" he swiped the 68 hats from his bed menacingly and gave a strangled cry at his broken fingernail.
"Are you breaking down again?" asked his kitten, who sat curled up in the shadows watching with a look of disdain.
Marlo spun around. "You would, too, if you had to deal with this UNSATISFACTORY BEHAVIOUR!"
"Marlo..." came a voice from behind him. The kitten muttered something with a tone that sounded like exasperation.
Marlo turned back and saw someone climbing into his bedroom window. "Hazel?" He whispered. His heart was beating too loud for him to hear his own thoughts, but he thought it must be her. Hazel had long pale legs, long pale arms, narrow hips, and translucent hair that glowed a little pink at the top of her head and ran all the way down to her ankles.
Watching the mystery person now, Marlo could just see a flicker of a tattoo on the elbow area before they straightened up.
"Hazel!" his legs almost gave way. "What are you doing here?"
"... loud, the old toad couldn't finish his speech."
Marlo swiped at his ears to stop the niggling ringing. "What?"
Hazel stared at him with her big grey eyes. She said, "I could hear you. You're soul was aching." Her eyes fell on the pile of tossed hats and her expression changed.
"I was not!" Marlo hastily and messily scooped them up. He stood up and remembered he didn't have anywhere to store them, then realised why they were hidden around the house. He glared at the kitten.
"I did nothing," the kitten replied.
"Briar doesn't have to tell me," Hazel said calmly.
The hats weighed heavy in Marlo's arms. His shoulders slumped a little more.
"But still," Briar said as he licked a paw and stretched out onto all fours. "Still I do." And he trotted out of the room with his tail high.
Marlo hurled the hats at the doorway. "THEY'RE ALL WRONG AND BRIAR KNOWS IT!" He turned to Hazel. "All the fabric is the same." his voice cracked, panic rose up seemingly inside every space of his body, tears pricked in the corner of his eyes.
"Yes, I can see that."
He stared at her. Her aura floated lazily in the way it does when it's cold, because Hazel was cold, and fresh, and still. She was like a stalagmite glittering inside a dark and dangerous cave.
Marlo was hot, all the time. He had never seen his own aura, but Hazel had described it as "swirling and bubbly like hot cocoa", and Marlo knew she was right. Sometimes he wanted nothing more than to rip his aura away and eat it. He wanted to kill it in the most savage way possible.
"WELL IT SHOULDN'T BE!" Anger rose up to join panic.
Hazel walked closer, taking her time and looking around at things in his room.
"Hazel, it shouldn't be..." Marlo said desperately.
"Mmm," she said quietly, glancing at his torn shirt draped on the chair."Why not?'
"It's wrong..." Marlo could hardly breathe now. He watched her walk slowly towards him, and he wanted to pace away from her, but also fall right into her.
"Stay still, darling."
The ringing had increased to a boiling kettle shriek and his heart thumbed with such force he was afraid of standing still and being thumped right into his closet. "I can't... Hazel, I can't..."
Hazel stepped up right in front of him and raised her head. Marlo opened his hands, unaware that they had been clenched into fists. He could only see her mouth move as she said something. He blinked, and Hazel moved closer until she floated right into him like a haze of sparkling star smoke.
