How does it feel to pretend?

"It couldn't possibly get any colder," Second was saying jovially, leaning back in his wooden chair. It was one of those hard-backed chairs that made him sit upright and proud.

"There is proper moisture in the air to suggest possible rain," Watt countered with a little scowl on his face. His dark eyebrows moved up and down as he ran his light blue eyes critically over each of the framed paintings hanging on the wall. His chair did not have a hard back. His chair had a green velvet seat and arched, curly feet.

"Are you the weather man?" Second asked with a jeer.

"I have always been told that I have a face for television."

"Ha!"

Avery coughed and both boys turned to her. She was knitting something long and twisted, and rather blue, and she hummed very quietly to herself while she did this. Her light tangerine-coloured hair fell about her cheekbones and her long eyelashes kissed each other every once and a while.

"Back me up!" cried Second.

"About what?" asked Avery.

"Do your butlers not bring herbal anymore?" complained Watt. 

"They bring whatever they like," replied Avery, not looking up. "This time I believe it to be Earl Grey."

"Earl Grey is not herbal, Aves. It appears I cannot even have pleasure within my closest companion circle."

"It comes in a bag," Second said, with a hand motion not unlike that of scooping, which confused Watt.

"Are you trying to move something?" he asked with brows furrowed. 

"Am I?"

"Something out of thin air?"

Second sighed and leaned back again, tired. (His hand gestures had always bewildered his mate, if truth be told. It was like baking a cake with instructions written in a foreign language. Like elvish, Second thought, it is exactly like deciphering Elvish while trying to create a decadent masterpiece for an ethereal wedding).

"Brunei," Avery said suddenly, jerking Second out of his strawberry-swirl fantasy. "You're home."

The two boys watched as Avery carefully put her knitting on the table and rose silently and elegantly. Second narrowed his eyes, picturing her in Elvish dress.

Watt said, "Hello Brune. How goes the weather up at the peak?"

Brunei looked dishevelled and slightly slumped forward, as if he had carried a heavy load for long hours without breaks or mugs of hot chocolate. The snow sprinkled in his dark hair made him look like a coconut cupcake.

"'Up at the peak'," Second mimicked, looking like a spoilt Prince. "You don't make any sense, Wattary!"

Brunei said, "Hello chums," fairly cheerfully for someone who was missing most of his tapered hat. He put his arms around Avery, she murmured something at his ear that made him bend further, and Watt turned to Second and muttered, "All these pictures, you see them all? Why are they all blue?"

Second didn't have time to be concerned about the blue of pictures. The choice of hanging house decoration didn't interest him in the slightest! He leaned back- because his chair was at the end of the table and he couldn't see the pair- and called out to Brunei, "Mate, did they find the silver?"

"Oh, they have silver now?" Avery inquired, surprised and grim, and in need of a good polish. Her clothes and skin and hair all appeared a bit dull. She could have made a superb bell, Watt thought admiringly, his eyes slipping back to scrutinize the pictures in secret every now and then, if she had not been born a person.

Brunei smiled and it lit up his face. Second frowned. Watt pulled his eyeballs back to the activity and frowned as well. 

"They found a tidgy tippit o-"

"Tidbit," cut in Avery as she moved to the kitchen. She walked with an air of someone who wasn't paying any attention to her surroundings but she also carried herself lightly, like someone who thought they would fly away at any moment, and who was, possibly, ready for it.

"-of copper! Nothing else worth mentioning though."

"That's a shame," Second said, his heart pounding in an escalated way. He drummed his fingers on the table to hide the sound. 

Watt was fearful that the volume of his own increased heart rate would be discovered, only he was not so adept at covering it up. He leapt up at high speed, overturning the milk jug and plate of almond biscuits, announcing in a hurried voice, "I have to meet with the toilet, at once! Or else my bladder will fail and I will spill all over the furniture! Not that this chair is the most comfortable or the most lean- yes, I have seen lean chairs, I have seen gleaming and quivering chairs that couldn't possibly hold the buttocks of man and woman even though that is their life aim! I am sure, in the fullest, that they are sombre and in the practise of attending museums for the post-modern art, I am sure they critique! But, as I say!-" before sprinting from the room.

Second hid his teasing grin by pressing his lips together in a thin line. Brunei said, "Righto," in a noncommittal way and plopped himself into a chair. Second drummed louder.

Brunei called over the drumming: "HOW WAS AVERY TODAY?"

Second averted his gaze to the blue pictures. "WELL," he responded. How blue they were! He'd spent a lot of his time in a hazy belief that Watt made up half of his daily observations. But now, having seen the evidence with his own two eyes, he called out (careful to keep his eyes on the wall): "WHY SO MANY BLUE ONES?"

"BLUE ONES?" Brunei asked, sounding puzzled for sure. 

"THE PICTURES HERE ARE ALL A MIGHTY BLUE AND I CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHY THEY NEED TO BE SO. IS IT A TRICK? ARE THEY ALL ACTUALLY DIFFERENT COLOURS BUT YOU'VE MANAGED TO PUT SOMETHING IN THE LIGHTING?"

"AHH, NO, THEY ARE ALL BLUE."

"IS IT MY EYES? YOU'VE ADDED A MAGICAL INGREDIENT TO THE FOOD SERVED, SPECIALLY, LIKE A LIQUID POISON OR RESTORATIVE?"

Avery appeared at that moment carrying a large silver tray piled with grapes. Second stilled his fingers.

"Avery, thank god," Brunei said in a voice overflowing with gratitude, and Second had to wonder if he'd matched it entirely to the plate of grapes, and how he found the time. Was there nothing Brunei couldn't do?

"I thought you might be hungry after a long day at work," she placed the tray on top of the scattered cookies.

Isn't it bad enough that he's so damn good-looking? Second thought, still staring blindly at Brunei. He's like an irresistible bowl of melon. Exactly. Second felt his heart start up again, but he was too far gone. Like dipping a coffee spoon into the ravishing, impossibly cold, crisp yet moist, flesh of green wonderment...

Was he drooling?

"Your hand-towels are twelve thread-count!" Watt came in like a verbal ambush. "Twelve! That is almost one thousand less than I expected of you, of both of you!"

"What needs to be counted twelve times?" Avery asked in a voice like a gush of rushing air. 

"No, no, butternut, it's to be counted by a thousand, twelve times, and then taken from a thousand by twelves..." Brunei looked up at Watt's face of injustice. "Isn't it?"

Second laughed. "Better with a twist of lemon!"

Watt closed his eyes and put a finger in between them, on his nose ridge. "I cannot express-"

"Then don't!" called out Second. He stood up, swiping a handful of grapes and thrusting them at Watt in a form of alliance and gallantry. 

"Oh," Avery turned, admitting the cloud of boredom to descend once again. "They were talking about our towels, Brunei. We have substandard quality and it terrifies them."

Brunei popped a grape into his mouth and chortled around it. "They have the same fear down at the gates. They worry over underwear stretch and belt shine and how to correctly add cinnamon to pancakes."

Avery laughed. She touched his shoulder. Watt and Second stared. The bunch of grapes lay forgotten by their shoes.

That touch is not sacred! Second thought, aghast. How small her hands are to be able to apply the right amout of pressure, the pressure only a man can make! 

How cold the tents must be down at the gates, thought Watt, in a practical and highly motivational take on elemental temperature. There must be all sorts of ways to keep warm. He praised himself for thinking like a weather reporter in this time of stress.

"Why not try the hands of man?!" Second called out desperately at the same time that Watt declared, "Men give off TWICE the amount of body heat compared to a recent study conducted in Poland and revised in America, once over, just try it!"

Brunei asked politely, but with concern and mild apathy just to keep things interesting, "Have you both caught a chill?"

Avery said in a wispy, whispery voice: "It just won't do." 

She placed her small hand on the door knob and pulled it open, letting the wind rush in, dash around the room and jostle the pictures on the wall, rattle cups on their saucers and overturn the biscuits so their almonds showed.

Brunei rose slowly. "Avery!" he called.

"Avery!" Second and Watt shouted together.

They stood very still and watched her step gently out into the night.

~

avery

I think of you only,

avery,

won't you come home.

"...A scone with your tea?"

"GOD DAMMIT, CLARENCE! WHY DO YOU INSIST ON NAMING ALL OUR CHILDREN WITH J? That woman and her five children, the absolute DEATH of me..."
"All 'J', hah! You'd know them all by now if you put things back where they belong-"
"Eh?-"
"The SPOONS, Harold, the SPOONS?"
"Spoon? Good-"
"Look at that over there! Just look at this mess. Soup spoons in mixed with the dessert spoons, how I ever manage to find the right one I'll never know..."
"Who's worried about the dishes? This is all to do with your bleeding singing in the shower-"
"Oh! MY singing-"
"That's right-"
"And I suppose you think you're some Saint. Saint Harold, from the church of 'Sorry Your Worship, These Sock Are From Last Friday'-"
"Saturday church service is allowing day old socks!"
"Not Tuesdays."
"THEY'RE ALL DOING IT!"
"AND WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW ABOUT IT? Since when is Church time your regular? You never."
"I always!"
"The only time I ever saw you in a church was at our wedding, and even then! You were out of there faster than- is that my pie you're eating just now?"
"This? This is-"
"Harold..."
"Hold off, you angry bat, this is from Macy-"
"Next door's Macy?"
"Macy from that house with the green fence-"
"FROM NEXT DOOR! Give me-"
"Quit chasing me!"
"You think my singing is bad, just wait until I add a little SOMETHING into your next meatloaf. Now give it!"
"Poison!"
"GIVE IT!"
"OW, that was my knee you ung-"
"Ow!"
"God send you to hell-"
"Give. me. the.-"
"If I can't eat rhubarb pie in my own KITCHEN, CLARENCE, MY OWN KITCHEN! Where does that leave our marriage?"
"You think I'm going to let you eat HER baked goods?!"
"Better than that hideous dress you made me wear two weeks ago-"
"That was SILK!"
"IT WAS HIDEOUS AND MADE MY THIGHS STICK TOGETHER!"
"Oh, go iron your hair, you little sissy."
"Make me! Oh, forgot, ma'am, I'm eating next door's pie..."
"ARGHHHHHHH!"
"GOOD GOD-"
"OW!"
"PUDDINGTON!"
"MY PIE!"
"...well, technically.., it's Macy-"
"YOU LOUSY MONGREL!"
"Clarence!... Stop!... Can't breathe!... Please, I love you.... I've... always loved you. They meant nothing, all that.... Water. All water under the bridge, eh?..."
"Harold..."
"Yes. Yes... I'm here. Just loosen... the grip..."
"Oh... Oh, Harold. It's... It's just... it's the mats!"
"..."
"So wet, all the time!"
"...Eh?"
"I come out from the shower and there they are, sitting neatly- because I fold them straight away out of the dryer, you know. They don't come with those lines already in- all arranged in a row, and then I STAND ON THEM, with my WET FEET! And they get WET!"
"Clarence, love. Come here."
"Oh Harold!"
"Have you always worn this scented powder?"
"Today's my first try. I only put it on my neck because it says on the packaging it could upset the thinner skinned areas."
"It's a lovely rose scent."
"Isn't it?"
"Mmm."
"Harold? Are you working out again?"
"Quite. I do get a few bench presses in after work most afternoons."
"You can surely tell."
"Can you?"
"Oh, yes, very muscly and strong."
"Good."
"Harold, dear? Will you help me clean up after I blow my nose?"
"Of course, love. Here, I'll set this chair right and you can sit down a while."
"Oh, my knight in shining armour!"
"Well... I can carry ten cans of paint at a time..."
"So strong and handsome! It's a marvel every day!"
"Marvel at yourself, Clarence. The wonder of beauty and elegance that shines upon you is everlasting..."
"Oh! God! Take me here, in the kitchen!"
"Yes! let's..."
"We can have another..."
"Another?"
"Another baby, Harold, oh, thin-"
"Now hold on a minute!"

~

Which song is on constant repeat?

Maurice sat in his sunny spot on the window sill, sneering. His first thought this morning had been about the peace and quiet he would experience once The Girl left for the day, but alas! She had not left! She had opened the curtains so the sunlight spilled away from his dry, cracked skin and into her room, warming up her dirty carpet and rouge-coloured clogs and pile of dusty papers that had been sitting on her bar-heater since the dawn of time, probably.
Psh!
Then she had bounced around with an ungodly amount of energy, using that white, vibrating square non-stop and dazzling with brightness and sparkles that- in his world- should mean she had some toxic illness preceding death, but here, in this upside down mad world, merely meant she was 'busy making plans for the day ahead'.
Well! Sorry if he didn't believe a word of that! Maurice scratched his eyebrow as he watched The Girl play around with another, larger, silver square. Her attention was admittedly absolute. He narrowed one eye (the eye that could see her), uncomfortable with the act of throwing niceties to undeserving people, even if This Girl would never hear his compliments. Look at her,  he grumbled in is head. Look at the way she sits with her legs crossed. Are we in a type of prayer meeting? Does she know her blazer is on backwards?  
He focused back on the lump of ceramic shit that commanded his attention most days.
Maurice is a gnome. He went to those YIG meetings and took the flyers in his thick, grasping hand, because he had wanted to know more and his hands always wanted to grasp. He liked to do things. He was industrious. Some days, when he wasn't staring at this monstrous ballsack, he liked to imagine he was really a dwarf who had been kidnapped and forcefully brainwashed into becoming compliant and perfectly-painted. He liked to believe there was an alliance forming, a rescue mission arising, perhaps somewhere in the East as that is where most good things rise.
"We can take the underground railroad! It should be round in twenty," came a voice and Maurice jerked his seeing eye to the activity.
Oh, The Boy is here. Maurice fumed quietly. Now they're going to start that jig again, as if I haven't seen enough bloody Kilts!
"The underground!" retorted The Girl in a dismal voice, "Yeah whatever. I thought they closed that ages ago."
"Closed?" asked The Boy as he wandered up and down the small amount of carpet place available. The Girl sure did know how to keep guests uncomfortable and pacing.
"Went down for repairs, you didn't know? They found a body, half an arm, and no teeth-"
"Wait, no teeth?"
"None."
"Hmm." The Boy stared at the piles of shoes and display-flamingos crammed around the bookcase, as if they would give him some inspiration. Maurice chuckled mildly. "What about ninth?"
The Girl shrugged, "Could do."
"Come on! We can take a gnome and blow it up!"
What now? Maurice blinked. He watched as The Girl looked over her scattered collection of gnomes. He squinted. She didn't look the least bit apprehensive! Hadn't She spent hours upon hours painstakingly painting each and every one of them, only to set them some place high where all they could do was stand and stare? Didn't she know how tiring that was?
"Come on..." wheedled The Boy. Look at Him, all wired up and restless. Maurice glared at His thin, shiny belt. He used to have one exactly the same!
"Yeah, alright," The Girl said, getting into the rhythm. "Let me make a few calls."
"Which one?"
What fucking traitors. Maurice tried to look for each gnome but couldn't due to his position, and he wondered for the thousandth time why She had placed him sideways on this ruddy windowsill, and he cursed Her stupidity, Her spontaneity, Her relaxed opinions and Her constant sleep-talk of magic hats and enchanted pumpkins. For god's sake, didn't She live in the real world at all!?
"Ummm..." The Girl glanced around pleasantly. The Boy glanced also, but in a shifty manner, and Maurice swore He shot a glance his way. "The fucking tards", Maurice muttered aggressively. Pick the pink one! The pink one! All he does is sit and smile and it's fucking LUDICROUS!
She did look up at the gnome with the pink jacket and glittered, yellow hat. Maurice tensed. His seeing eye started to water as he stared as hard and as furious as he could up at The Girl. His other eye gazed unseeing into a wall of red.
For the love of every unholy dick out in the world...
She stood up and Maurice almost yelped. "The monochrome gnome! Take that one."
You fucking cuntstop.
Maurice felt Her cool, thin fingers enclose his head as She picked him up lazily and without respect and handed him over to warmer, longer fingers that gripped his torso. Colours flew around him and he had to admit, he felt a little motion sick.
"The black one!" The Boy exclaimed without originality. "The best one!" claimed The Girl lamely.
They both deserved to rot in the furthest pit of hell, the darkest cave of Hades, the painfulest-
"So ten then?" said The Boy happily, suddenly flipping Maurice about, ignorant of his sensitive digestion issues and eczema patches on both legs.
The world whirled and bounced. His head swam. His mouth was unused to this movement and he, embarrassingly, started to drool but doubt The Boy noticed so he didn't worry. The Girl said something and The Boy stopped flipping long enough for Maurice to catch sight of his lumped-up window-sill companion. How happy and peaceful he looked. Maurice tried to focus between woozy blinks at this real garden gnome with whom he had never spoken to. All those sandwich lunches in the sun, all those bird-watching games seen with one eye, all those midnight conversations under the moon and fits of giggles while listening to The Girl rave on about a potted Geranium losing its spark or her 'Durnham' dying before she could finish reading it more crack stories of madness.
Durnham, thought Maurice as he lay rather comfortably, if a bit stiff, in The Boy's hand. Probably code for obscene sex. He should make an anonymous call and have Her locked up.
"Yeah, he's the worst one... ugh."
Blasphemey! Maurice perked up at the injustice of this conversation. She had painted him entirely black because She was bored of colour. She had the real problem here, not him. She was 'ugh', whatever that was. No doubt more code for how incompetent and utterly obscure She happened to be.
The Boy laughed at something unfunny and walked off. Maurice caught a last glimpse of the marvellous gnome he called lumpy, the gnome who had actual curves and shades, with real features, wrinkled hands, folded boot fabric and a belt with visually genuine buckle holes. The realest garden gnome who sat there smiling but never talked or ate or giggled because his realness didn't extend past his exterior.
Well! Maurice thought, as his world turned and turned so the real and unreal merged together like different flavours of melted ice cream in the same bowl, he may be the realest gnome around, but I am going on an adventure! I am going to see the underground and the body without teeth and the-
He stopped, horrified.
"Come on, then!" called The Boy from a dark area with fluffier carpet and immensely more paper piles than that air-headed female. "Get a move on!"
"Yeah yeah, keep your hair on!"
Maurice was distracted by a book titled: 'How tall is my grass? and Where to put my spare awning?... Household hints you never knew you needed!' and he thought, What the fuck is this shit?
The Girl appeared carrying a large backpack that was outrageously too big for her weak little arms, The Boy bounced on his feet in some form of excitement or mental retardation, and Maurice suddenly remembered Their earlier conversation.
Good lord. These lousy moronic fuckwits are going to blow me up!


[All language and representations are extremely fictional due to the 'voice of Maurice', who is a very angry, cynical gnome and uses verbal profanities as often as a coffee addict would drink finely brewed coffee (which is often, as I happen to be one).]  (4__4)v

Have we been eating these all night?

An evil glint sparkled in Topiary's eye as he watched Mazarin hold up a large piece of glass.
"You could sell that," he remarked casually, kicking a piece of yellow lego. It rolled over the carpet and under a thin-legged table made of splintering, soft wood.
"Maybe," Mazarin nodded. She held it up over her eye and peered at him. "Hello."
He said, "Will you keep it in the key drawer, then?"
Mazarin huffed in such extravagance that her arms swung down and Topiary leaned forwards, horrified with his arms outstretched, ready to leap if it should come to that, and she said in a ringing voice, "Not everything has to go into the key drawer, Topiary!"
"Where else would it go?!"
"Oh you're so mortified about every little thing!" her arms swung back and forth. The fingers of her right hand gripped the glass tightly so little patches of yellow formed on the tips. Topiary watched in alarm. "You're cutting off your circulation! Here-"
He lunged forwards.
"Hey! Fuck off!" Mazarin jumped back. His eyes were ginormous. Had they been that way this morning when she'd met him in the kitchen, half-dressed in a pair of tweed trousers and a daisy patterned dressing gown??
"You're going to sleep with it!" he yelled in frustration.
"Hah!" she flung her arms out in triumph. "Maybe I will!" And she jumped back again as he took a swipe.
"I'm over the line now buddy! Surrender and bow!"
Topiary looked down at the connection line that separated the thin, light blue living room carpet from the fluffy cream-coloured sitting room carpet. In all of Topiary's life he had never known why a house should have two rooms for the same purpose. One room to sit and read the paper by a light fire, maybe with a fan in case he grew too hot and a small bookshelf to set up his typewriter on, should be all anyone needed.
Although, now that Topiary thought about it, perhaps two rooms had merit. Why not write in one and read in the other? Keep the two activities entirely separate. All that confusion! So many muddling occurrences jumbling together that should be laid out neatly and smoothed over. How does one achieve anything with all that mess! No, here was an idea that could shake it all up, spill it all over and sort it all out. Separate rooms! Two different arm-chairs, two different types of lamp, two sets of wall painted in different shades of white (is there even such a thing? he thought, gasping). Two types of alcoholic beverage, two frog figurines with only one arm, maybe even two pairs of slippers! He'd match them to the carpet! Why, even two sets of his hair piece. He could change them every day and say goodbye to his current pastime of wringing out the sweat to pacify the itching!
"Mazarin..." he said slowly, as if mulling an idea over in his head or trying to remember something important.
"Surrender, buck face!"
She probably meant 'fuck face' but he couldn't be sure that two pairs of everything wouldn't flame his soul into further creative ambition. Were two rooms enough?
"Topiary, yoohoo! Let's get some pasta from Vincent."
"Mazarin!" he said suddenly, looking up with a stricken expression that usually precedes news of a terrifying nature.
Mazarin shouted something incoherent, lunging back awkwardly and, once again, flinging her arms out in surprise. The piece of glass sailed through the sitting room and smashed through the window as Topiary called out in horror: "I haven't got two hair pieces!"

~

god I'm gonna miss you when you... s m i l e 

Should you be looking that close?

I burst forth into speech much like a balloon bursts when popped. "You know what life does? You know what it is, with all it's rushing and sharp corners, and tight pants, I mean, come on! It's enough! We know you can buckle. And all the little odd bits that sit around the place without fitting into anything. Like, say you suddenly laugh while waiting in line at the shops. There's no reason to laugh, but you do, well where does that go? Where does that fit? That shot of giggles? That-"
"Oh yes, please do," he spits out with a severe frown that sits neatly inside a frame of dark, chalky brown hair combed back into a hard quiff. "Tell us all about life and the happenings."
"It's all in the bits. You don't need string! Throw it away!" I grab his tea cup and toss it over my shoulder.
"I- I- wh- I beg your pardon!"
"Yes," I ponder, looking at a brown smudge on the white tablecloth, "We have to stop attending tea parties."
"That was my favourite cup!" he bangs a fist on the table.
"That old raspberry pink thing? With the flowers?" I look up to find him glaring at me, positively burning his gaze into my head, as if he were trying to memorize every hair follicle on my head. I can feel myself blushing. "How very sweet of you, Gordoune, I mean, I cannot even say, but you'll be there for hours, hours-"
"You see here, young lady..."
I stare at him, obviously shocked at this unplanned outrage.
"I've had that teacup since I was ELEVEN!"
"Goosedrouse..." I say quietly, tilting my head at the other seats around the table, "...keep the tone mild, like a korma curry, yeah?"
He glares.
"The guests..."
"GENERATIONS have I had that cup! Haven't I? Since the Mildred's took over- no, it was the Perthreds... was it?"
"Certainly was," I agree. He stares off into the distance, still frowning, still sleek and short and somewhat pale. I pick up the teapot. It's not heavy like it should be so I put it back down.
"Ummm, Germinter, you didn't bring any tea biscuits with you? Did you? From the Foodit? The ones with the cream filling?" (I do like a center filled with cream).
There is a millisecond in which he stands as still as a statue, up on the chair- because of his height shortage- his hair and features frozen like an ice sculpture.
"Or chocolate?" I try desperately.
Then a light breeze drifts through our table of fun times and he sags as only a short, sleek, well-angered specimen can. "There is no sweet things now. The way of the world surely is a fierce maze of debacle, of calamity!"
I snort, "Debacle! Oh, Gingerferzen! You are one hilarious little person."
He turns to me and points a round finger, and I think: Me? He's pointing his little finger at me, for what? Organizing the flowers in spectacular bouquets of orange and lime? Then I think: Does he sand his fingers back each night, to keep them looking so short and stubby and perfectly round?
"YOU!" he hisses. I feel his spit and a slight curiosity to know where this is going. (I do love a good mystery solved).
"Yes," I reply pleasantly.
"You prance about here as if you know everything! Yo-"
"Ho now! I do not prance about-"
"You lift!" he continues, ignoring my plea for innocence. "You chartle and churtle and chuck things over your shoulder!"
"It's true," I acknowledge, "I do."
"Always your LEFT shoulder! As if that has some sort of meaning or power! Is it magical? Can you say without unleashing a hideous throng of infesting creatures?!"
"I feel kind of attacked."
"SO YOU SHOULD!" he quivers in his silky cream button up shirt and suspenders.
I put my hands behind my head and rock gently on my chair. So far this tale has been nothing but secrets and lies. Where is the scandalous revelations? "I think you are slowing down, old man."
"Cerri!"
Could you tell a scandal if one came upon you? Or would you simply fall into it, unaware, not wanting to see but unable to look away?
"Come on then, Glorpsle, tell us the juicy pickings!"
"Cerri!"
He's still again. Staring off behind me with glassy eyes and a shiny complexion. Is that a white spot on his cheek?
I feel unappreciated. He could at least give me praise where praise is due, preferably to recognise the sneaky theft tactic I learned, and used, so we could have cups and saucers!
"Well aren't you a boring old, lame, pompish old, nutjob gn-"
"Cerri!"
Someone bursts into my life from the left.
"There you are!"
I gaze over at the boy. He's panting a little, as if he's been running, and he's covered in dirt.
"Hello there, are you here to join my tea-party?" I spread my arms out wide to show him exactly what he could be missing out on.
"Cerri, good god. I've been looking everywhere," he takes a few short breaths and comes closer. As he walks into the light, I notice his sparkly dark eyes, only they're not sparkly at the moment and I wonder why I thought they were. Oh.
"Jasper!" I call, even though he's only a chair-length away. "What a surprise!"
"Yes, hi there." He pulls the chair closer to him and sits down, looking around at the single flowers sitting in fat glass jars on every chair and the garden gnome standing straight and proud in the middle of the table.
"Garbensnouff was just telling me about his family heritage," I nod wisely at him, "I think maybe something about his aunt Miffen stealing his grandfather's tiara, or something else worthy of being unjust."
Jasper sighs. I observe him again and straighten my posture because he  looks tired and sad and a tad too tall for his jacket. "I'm sorry I didn't invite you. But I'm wearing my best dress because I thought you might show up anyway, and so that's the same as inviting you, so you should be grateful, and show that gratitude by handing out creamy biscuits," I cringe, eyeing the teapot. "And find some water. I didn't have a way into the kitchen."
"It looks great," he says. I smile. "But I think it's time to go. You kn-"
"No! Oh, let's stay a little while. We don't have to have tea, there's tap water over there, I mean, it's tap water, from a hose, but it won't kill you, although if you have your heart set o-"
"Ok!" Jasper raises his hands, and I feel a little unjust myself. People have killed each other to attend this party and he's sitting there acting like I'm reading him a lifespan blog of toenails.
"This is an exclusive party," I say harshly, turning away to grab a nearby teacup. "Only people of interest, worth, and the appropriate proportions are allowed to enter."
There's silence while I think up how I'm going to get out of pretending to pour tea, and then Jasper says with forced calm, "I'm sorry Cerri. I just didn't know where you were and I was worried."
"Pish!" I remark, waving to Goutstop, who is basking in the sun, probably hoping to tan over that hideous white patch on his cheek. "I've had company! The best! Now, pass me that teacup over there."
I throw it over my shoulder. He gives me another one and I throw that too. We throw the teacups behind us, like bad dreams, yelling and laughing and ignoring the scandalous cries of the guests and poor old Gwintsman-Gawd, and I think: These are the odd bits that life is made up of, and they fit right here.

Are you looking closely?

"Yes!" cried Emmerine, "It is confusing. But you will get there, Aradius, you will get there."
"Is that a mocking tone?" Aradius called out, huffing after her in a mild sweat.
"Well it isn't not a mocking tone, so who's to say?" Emmerine shrugged, facing forward, her long legs striding fast and elegant in the sand, and if Aradius hadn't been sweating out his toxins and heaving great mouthfuls of oxygen just to stay alive, he might have stopped to admire this walk.
He ignored her insulting comments and called out, "I agree with you!- oh, wait, oh please, Emmerine!" and he stopped suddenly, heaving like he had never heaved before.
Emmerine glanced over her shoulder (she was a head taller than him) and rolled her eyes.
"Oh, Aradius. You are so frail and wonton."
Aradius frowned, "Wonton? Are you admiring me?"
"It's a human word, yes?" Emmerine swayed her hips and her long silk skirt swayed with them.
"I am not frail just because I can't keep up with you!" he cried out in anguish and with hurt feelings and a sore head, as he was bald up top and not wearing a hat. The sun was extremely vivid today. "I am not frail at all, I am large and in charge!"
Emmerine smiled, "You are actually large. I have just realised."
Aradius was not large, nor was he 'in charge'. He was thin and small and his head had sported thick, shiny, floppy dark hair before this little trip. He eyed Emmerine's teal-coloured hair falling down her back to her hips, and felt a mad urge to run her down. It was probably all that swaying. (Perhaps it made him a tad sea-sick).
"Anyhow, Aradius, we must move. The sun is wilting my good vibes."
"Yes," Aradius nodded, hands on his knees. He took a few deep breaths, straightened up and started walking alongside Emmerine, sneaking a glance every now and then at her hair. Was that wilting, too? Could he possibly help it along on its wilting way?
"So, EmmieLine, I have a suggestion. A sort of fanciful fun-time activity we could take part in."
There was no pause or slow in Emmerine's stride as he talked. Aradius felt unheard and unappreciated. "I'm thinking, a sort of PARTY GAME!" He tried again.
"Why are you yelling?" Emmerine asked as they came to a wide stairway of stone steps set deep into the sandy bank. They started climbing up.
"Oh!" Aradius attempted to laugh in a carefree, accidental way. "Was I- OW!"
"Yes," Emmerine remarked grimly, "the contrast is not alluring to me at all. Neither is it pleasant. Let's hurry."
They were both halfway up the steps when Aradius screamed. Emmerine jerked to the side as if an invisible ghost had pushed past her.
"Ah!" she exclaimed. "What is it!"
"I do not know!" Aradius cried out in reply, hopping from foot to foot as he leaped up the steps.
Emmerine copied him. "It is painful! And it's getting worse!"
"IT IS!"
"Is this normal for humans?!"
"I CANNOT SAY!"
"HURRY!"
And together they hopped, pranced, and twirled up the scorching hot steps and raced straight onto a patch of grass that framed the road.
"Oh the grass is cool!" Aradius moaned. He closed his eyes.
"We're babies," Emmerine scowled at the yellow and purple flowers around them. "We are not one with the elements. Aradius, this has to change."
"Can it wait until my feet stop steaming?"
Emmerine said, "No," in a forceful way that was encouraged by her aggressive stomping on the grass. Aradius thought this trip was most uncomfortable and made up his mind, right here, with his feet cooling and his head burning, that he would never do this again.
"We must take up action against this attack!" Emmerine was saying, "What was that party game? Quick! We have to beat this!"
"Don't bother with that! It was a l-" but Emmerine took hold of Aradius's emerald vest and was shaking him with such extravagance that he thought the gold buttons would fly off.
"Hold up!" he yelled with a voice full of anxiety, "these buttons are capital elegance. They are ELEGANCE!"
"Tell me the fun-fi-"
"I ONLY HAVE FOUR LEFT!" Aradius pulled himself away, tripped on the rocks and steadied himself against a wooden railing, and he turned to glare at Emmerine. This outing had changed her. "It is not my doing if your hair is losing it's shade and your leg-scales are falling off!"
"You have a whole cupboard full of vests!"
Aradius blushed because it was true; he did have a substantial amount of vests, all in emerald green and purple and teal blue.
Emmerine waved her hand and seemed to compose herself. "Ok. Yes, my scales are leaving." She lifted up her skirt, stretched out one leg and they both looked. Translucent, silvery scales the size of a fingernail were scattered up and down her legs from her hips to her toes, like a full-length, ripped-up stocking.
"I'm sorry," said Aradius solemnly.
"Thank you."
They admired the sparklyness of the scales. Aradius tried to stick a fallen one back on using his spit and Emmerine shrieked about hygiene and the process of reattachment and the red patch coming up on his scalp. Then they stopped and stared about.
"Have you noticed any sound at all, Aradius?" Emmerine questioned, looking up and down the street.
"I haven't. Aren't the birds supposed to sing and the people supposed to shout at one another?"
Emmerine said, "Yes. The singing. But, more so, the cars are not moving and there are no people." They looked at the three cars standing still in the road. The doors had been left wide open, exposing towels and bags and baby capsules. All the houses and shops along the street, they observed, were also quiet, dark and seemed eerily empty, as if everyone had decided to get up and leave at the same time.
"Well, how boring is this!" Aradius exclaimed. "A trip to where the Air Dwellers roam, and they are not roaming, or dwelling, or running naked with ice cream!"
"It is frightful."
"It's disagreeable," Aradius corrected, eyeing the small, square toilet building to their left. Then he said, "EmmieLine, could we go somewhere without the sun? Just for a change, you know... heat and skin, heads without hair, such a bother..."
Emmerine turned to Aradius in excitement, unaware that a few scales detached themselves from her legs. "This is the adventure! We will find them!"
"Do you feel so?" asked Aradius as he inched closer to the toilet block.
"Don't you think we'd know if all the humans suddenly disappeared?"
"I probably feel that."
Emmerine nodded furiously and looked out at the ocean. "So we help," she murmured. Aradius thought she looked quite up-herself standing at the wooden railing, staring like a Sea King, muttering about saving the world and flipping her long, thick hair. Thank god she didn't have a trident, he thought to himself. She would have probably raised it in some gesture, and then a bolt of lighting would have no doubt come flashing down from some enchanted cloud to touch the trident tip and cause a scene. He pushed open the closest toilet door and positively slid down the wall in a slow form of gratitude.
"Oh this feels... I'm not sure... not sure if I ever have... but the feel..."
Emmerine appeared at the doorway clad in a shadow of determination. "This isn't time to feel! It's time to fight! First! We get an ice cream. That it where the fun-filled times are. Then!... Well...," she paused and looked down, so her shadowed head seemed to shrink and make Aradius squint, which hurt his eyes and forehead and peeling scalp. "...I hadn't got that far. Maybe we will watch a movie, as that is also where the times are at. But after! We will find the humans!"
Aradius said, "I hear butterscotch ice cream is a flavour to be had."
Emmerine said, "I think you are so wrong you may be going backwards," and two little silvery scales fell from her thigh, catching the sunlight and glittering in a determined sort of fashion as they drifted away.

Can I show you something?

When the world went dark, I was sitting with my mother. The TV switched off, the lights flickered and died at the same time something crashed upstairs and there was a sound of cars squealing and smashing outside.
"Well," said my mother. She walked over to the window, pulled back the curtain and peered out. Her long red hair fell in front of her face. She looked luminescent in the moonlight, like an angel, or a really tall, human-shaped lamp wearing a dress.
I continued eating crunchy chocolate cereal even though I couldn't see my spoon. This was kind of hard, but the cereal was amazing so I pressed on.
"Everything's stopped," mother said.
"What do you mean 'everything'?"
"It's just..."
I watched as she tucked some hair behind her ear.
"It's all stopped," she continued, "all the cars and lights and that sign up on the Telstra building, the Ezeglow? That's stopped, too."
I chewed, thinking: what Ezeglow sign? "Oh."
Mother tilted her head a little as she murmured, "It's almost exactly like heartbreak."
The spoon hit my top lip as I said, "Heartbreak?"
"Yes," she breathed, the sureness in her voice mingling with wonder. "It is! Just, oh just like-"
"Mum, it's just a power failure."
"No Marhinad! It's heartbreak. The world is heartbroken, I'm sure." she turned then and gazed at me, not seeing, with tears shining in her eyes. "Mari..."
Jesus. I put the cereal bowl on the floor and went over to join her. Everything had stopped. Cars stood in the street either whole and alone or crumpled in pairs or groups. People were walking or running or huddled on the ground or talking into phones and gesturing wildly around them. The apartment building opposite us stood and stared blankly, all the windows black as if it had gone to sleep. Shops and street lights and traffic lights and road markers were all dark.
And there was the Ezeglow sign. I squinted a few blocks over at the gigantic, dark pink and probably overpriced letters sitting on top of Telstra. No one even knew what it meant.
"Huh," I said, a little impressed. "Why are the phones working when the cars have stopped?"
"Hmm?" Mother waved my words away, "It's the apocalypse Mari! Good god!"
She started moving wildly about the room, picking up papers, and throwing those papers away, and grabbing books only to set them down somewhere else, and moving cushions and taking down ornaments from the bookcase just to set them on the coffee table, all the while muttering a string of words in Polish.
"Mum!" I called, "I can't understand you, stop talking like that."
She ignored me.
I looked back out the window. It was all industrial and dirty. Why had I never realised how ugly this part of the city was? The silence made everything seem hard. Cold. Like after an argument when you've crossed your arms and shut down.
So maybe it was like heartbreak.
"Mum!" I said, "STOP TALKING IN POLISH!"
"Marhinad!" she said loudly from the kitchen, "Help me with this!"
She was pulling things out of the fridge and dumping them on the floor.
"Do you think they can read minds? They have technology for these events, they have microchips and cameras, oh god the mirror!" and she ran past me down the hall and into the bathroom, yelling, "GET THE WRENCH FROM THE CAR! IS IT A WRENCH? THAT THING WE USE WHEN THE DOOR WON'T OPEN?"
I stared at the soup cans rolling along the floor and sighed. "YES BUT IT'S NOT MEANT FOR OPENING DOORS."
"WHAT DOES THAT MATTER? JUST GET IT."
There was another crashing sound. I started picking up the cans. "MUM! FOR FUCKS SAKE, STOP WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING AND SIT DOWN."
Only my mother could make a simple power failure into some global crisis. There was a a thumping sound, some loud and angry Polish words again, and the slam of the back door. Oh great,  I thought, stacking creamy pumpkin on top of garden vegetable, she's getting that stupid wrench.
I wondered if she was even strong enough to pry off the mirror or if she'd somehow bribe the man next door.
I started the redundant process of taking all the food from the fridge and arranging it neatly in plastic bags on the kitchen table, thinking about Lucky Rainbows and all the half-cooked food now stuck in microwaves. I thought about Jase as I put all the books back onto their shelves and wondered if I should ask him what he was doing when the power failure hit.
Making a burrito, he texted.
Seconds left?
two minutes.
What?
I dunno i just read the packet. u?
Eating cereal. Mum thinks the world is ending. Did you know she can speak Polish?
Weird why cereal? it's 800. 
Do you think it's the whole city? I mean, our houses are suburbs away.
Dad just fell down the stairs. hang on
what? IS HE OK?
tripped on dannys car fucking shit. yeah he j fell down the last two
Do you think it's weird our phones work but the cars don't? Do the cars work at yours?
i think he tripped. he's telling me to tell you he just tripped and he stubbed his toe but he's fine
Does he think the world is heartbroken?
huh? 
Like, it's falling apart because it's sad.
You're weird. wouldn't it be cool if aliens came up from the ground. we'll sneak into a spaceship and take it for a ride
Yes, let's steal a spaceship. 
lololol
Mum thinks there's a spy camera in our mirror so she's prying it off with a wrench.
haha you're mum is some kind of wack Mari
I know. She's still out there trying to find it. It's been a while. What are your parents doing?
Dad's yelling at danny and mum's still in the bath
she took a bath in a power failure?
No she was in it. 
You're mum's in the tub at the end of the world.
What are you doing?
Cleaning up the lounge room. U?
Lying outside
Why?
what?
Why are you outside?
looking at the moon. everything is bright now that the power is off.
Oh. Yeah, it is. But everything is sort of gross too.
Lol.
It is, it's like without the lights everything is drab and gross. 
what? it's great. look at the stars.
It's like we have to see things now. how it really is. the buildings looks tired and mean.
hahahaha you are some kind of weird. look at the stars!!
yeah.
Mari, everything is beautiful.
I don't think mum's coming back.

~