Pretty Things

Pretty words litter ugly truths

while true words are hidden in

cavernous lockets that reside in

imaginations and secrets.

Floating or walking smoothly,

bubbles flutter in and out of existence

catching the sunlight without

delightful displays of naming

and pop without a sound.

Only the most fragile success

in impossible things (because

they need to; to experience something magical)

The delicacy of the almost broken 

shatter once pulled over

by the rocking motion of the sea.

It isn't to prove the extraordinary

but to live what little vivacity

that's left to them.

It is all they can do,

the shattered,

to understand what's true

and what isn't.

Perfection is Boring

Perfect Stories

Perfection is boring.

What ridiculous person would think it was what they wanted?

It isn’t anything but the thought.

Perfection is one of those words that don’t really make sense because it can be defined in so many different ways to so many different people. It’s an ambiguous word. Nothing is also another ambiguous word. So is normal.

What makes it ambiguous? The thoughts of philosophers is what. They say that the world could be completely in our head and not one bit real. If that is the case, why don’t I succeed all the time? Why am I afraid of things? Why do I seem to be defined by other people? Why do I care so much about other people’s opinions? It seems pointless. Philosophers, they have interesting ideas but that’s all they are. Ideas. What does it matter if it’s all in our own head? It affects me more than I want it to. Does that reflect on how much our brains affect us? I’m sure psychologists could find many different reasons as to why I am afraid of things even if it’s all inside my head. Or why I am so affected by my own mind’s creations. Is it possible that I could right now, be in my head and the real world is monitoring my subconscious brain wondering what was going on. It would be ultra confusing. But what’s real (there’s another ambiguous word) is that I’m here and this is what I’m making of it right now. It doesn’t matter what happened or what’s going to happen because they all were or going to be right now at one stage and that was the decision. You could examine why you’d done those things then at that time in that mindset but in reality it doesn’t matter. Maybe it might make you feel better but really the only thing that’s happening now is you.

I have a story, but it’s not the one I’m going to tell you about, I have another more interesting idea that’s going to take place here and it’s going to be exciting, new, interesting, maybe even funny. You may end up with a moral; you may not understand it at all. What you make of it is really none of my business. What I aim to do is to keep you interested by devices such as characterisation and magic. I like to use pictures as narration and quotes that feel meaningful, but are really empty.

***

Life was an interesting notion to Emma. Her celebration of it every year was joyous and all that but it didn’t change anything really except the number which indicated her age. She was only one day older than yesterday but somehow it was more significant than the rest of the days. It gave her a definitive point of reference when it came to the laws of drinking, and having sex.

She was in the library most of the day enjoying the latest book in her collections. It contained action, adventure romance, all the typical things she loved in a book. It transported her to a new world that always finished with happy endings and it didn’t matter what happened afterwards because they were happy just then and there in that moment. That’s what Emma wanted. She wanted something in a book to become real. There was a book where that happened. She had read it recently.

A knock on the door caused her to look up disappointed. Her mother poked her head around and the rest of her body followed. Emma silently remembered the page she was on and closed the book with a firm gentleness.

“Emma darling, we were hoping you would come out and enjoy your birthday cake and open presents with us.”

“Okay mum, just a moment.”

Her mother disappeared as quickly as she appeared and Emma sighed. She checked she still knew which page she was on and carried the book with her how a little kid would a favourite toy: hugged close to her chest, safe in her arms.

She was old enough now not to have the excited feeling you get when you open presents. She would miss that but that’s how life goes.

She walked slowly scuffing her feet with her fluffy monster slippers. The big furry craziness of them comforted her as she walked to a bright white kitchen with smiling adult faces and the big round birthday cake. The cake was royal purple and there was edible gold outlining the edges of the cake and shouting to her “happy birthday!” in capital letters. It was extravagant and expensive and it was beautiful. She secretly loved it and that excited feeling crept into her for a moment that didn’t last very long. Ruptures of out of tune singing (happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to Emma! Happy birthday to you) forced a smile out of her, which she couldn’t stop. The out of tune slightly slurred voices were worse than an out of tune piano and she was quite relieved when the sound stopped even though it had made her involuntarily smile. She blew out the candles. Two of the flames remained and her parents kissed her on both cheeks at the same time. She rolled her eyes and everyone laughed. She blew again pretending she was the big bad wolf in the three little pigs story. The flickering yellow flame blew away in her breath and everyone clapped enthusiastically while the loud chattering of adults started up again. Her mother handed her a big silver knife that dully gleamed and she and her mother’s hands guided the sharp end into the royal purple icing and through the fluffy yellow insides. It touched the bottom and they slid it out. Emma tried to help with the next slice but her mother told her it might be easier if she did the rest.

A piece of cake sat in her lap and a spoon in her hand and she examined the lines that the cake contained. She thought it was like cutting a tree to count the rings that told its age. This cake had only three obvious lines and a few more once examined closely. Emma squinted making the cake blurry finding more lines. There was a line on the outside of the cake where it was holding the fluffy inside of the cake together (like skin, Emma thought), which appeared four times in the two layers. There was the icing, which had two layers, the purple and the gold which didn’t appear evenly throughout. Then there was the cream and jam in between the two layers of cake. That gave a total of ten lines. She frowned, she had hoped her analogy with the tree would be correct but it was only pretending to be like a tree. It was just something pretty to eat on a day where she coincidentally turned twelve. She sunk her spoon into the thinner end of the cake and let it sit in her mouth for a few seconds before she chewed and swallowed. It tasted delicious and perfect. It was the opposite of how she felt, how she always felt.

Back in the library she sipped a glass of lemonade and read her book. She had advanced twelve pages, and already the main character was venturing into the depths of mystery discovering things that Emma would never have discovered in real life. She knew what was in the main character’s head, where they were and why they were there. It was exciting to know the character’s own feelings and feeling them herself even though she couldn’t possibly feel anyone else’s emotions besides her own.

The developing relationship between prisoner and captor was building and Emma was turning the pages more eagerly. Her mouth couldn’t help smiling when captor and prisoner finally understood they were on the same side after a physical fight where one ended up on top of the other. Love followed and Emma’s smile widened.

It disappeared as soon as the library door was opened again. Her mother stood there making her presence known.

“What are you doing you silly girl? Come out and thank the guests for coming right now.”

“Yes mum.”

Emma’s eyes looked down sullenly and she memorised the page she was on. She closed the book, and left it on the chair and walked slowly out the door with her mother behind her. She decided that it might go faster if she quickened her pace and fast-walked to the door and fake-smiled with her mind still thinking about the adventures of her book and wondered what was going to happen next. All the while, she thanked the adults and smiled and accepted awkward hugs from a few of them. She reached out to shake hands with some person and instead bumped them causing them to drop their clutch. Emma jumped in surprise. Everyone stared at her amused, a few chuckling at her reaction. She quickly looked at her mother whose fake smile was still shiny and perfect. She picked up the bag and handed it back to the person and waved goodbye.

Once they were gone, she turned and faced her mother whose smile slowly faded.

“Mum, do you need any help cleaning up?”

“No darling, it’s alright.”

Emma left and her mother yawned. Her mother climbed the stairs to her bedroom to fall into her own fantastical dreams where the misinterpretation of a situation eventuated in the interesting events that led up to her meeting the man that she would fall uncontrollably in love with, Emma’s dad. 

The Ordinary Kind of Weird

I found a snake wriggling for its life. It wriggled this way and that and I found it fascinating. Then mum hit it with a shovel and there were two pieces of long wriggly bodies. Apparently it was poisonous and I was very close to it. I shook my head and sighed because she always did this. Always changed everything according to her own fears... NOT anyone else’s.

There was also that time where I was happily staring at a red frog that I was attempting to touch but it kept hopping away over here and there. She surprised me by suffocating it with a plastic bag right in front of my eyes, because it could’ve killed me. I used to think this was melodramatic.

I have come to realise the weirdness of mum’s worry was actually due to my proneness to fall into slightly increased accidental dangers. My life seems to be in more danger than I ever realised. Especially with my dangerous record. Only today there was a crocodile in someone’s backyard and I was about to sit on it when someone shouted and I turned away to see that someone was being mugged.

It really was quite interesting. I almost sat down on the crocodile thinking it was a log. It opened its big teeth filled log-like mouth and looked like it was yawning at me. I told it not to harm anyone else and then I left it trusting it to listen to me. Later I found out someone else had sat on it and it grabbed that person’s leg and yanked it right off. Poor guy.

I don’t really understand why these things happen, but I guess no one does. Life is just one big blur of life then death and no one knows after that I suppose. Not really anyway. God believers think one thing while the rest of us accept the inevitability of a nonexistence. It may be morbid but we are pessimists.

I am surprisingly optimistic for a pessimist. Cats like to meow at me sometimes and I at them. Sometimes we have conversations until the cat gets tired of me and walks away. Those are the peaceful times. Today I am making a milkshake with apples and ice cream and milk. I realise it isn’t a normal combination but neither is strawberries and cream and that is basically the same thing.

I sometimes feel like no one will remember me at the end and I will die with no one to hear the last words I ever mutter. So I have written it down and will keep it with me at all times just in case. I hope someone will find my last words and be affected by them. I’m not wise enough to write good words so I just use my own experiences of life and summarise them in one sentence. Every year it changes except for the three years in a row where it stayed the same. That was when my view was so narrow minded that I was too stubborn to know that I was wrong.

So, stories usually have dynamics but I have decided to tell you something not in chronological order because that is how our memories work. They are never in chronological order and are in fact brought about by other instances that remind us of something else. I sometimes wonder that if I can’t remember my childhood very well, how will I remember my teenage years. Remembering 20 years of life seems like a lot of information. Remembering 40years of life sounds hard so I take pictures and write down things more often than not. It captures the moment of how I feel about whatever at that moment and at least it will not disappear like memories. Unfortunately the brain isn’t full proof. I lost my memory once. But I only forgot about 3 days because I was unconscious for most of it. It all seemed a dream. I thought I would die then with the words Living is to die for in my pocket. That was the last year I had those words. Those words had stayed with me for 3 years in the ups and downs and the rain and the sunshine. It stayed constant in my ever-changing life.

Change is a bad thing when you’re a kid. My parents told me they were getting divorced when I was 8 years old and I didn’t understand the point when they were still together. Then one of them left but they always came back. It was as if they were still together because I saw them both equally as much as if I saw them before they were ‘divorced’. The logic of parents was ridiculous to me at that time but I went along with it and I wasn’t troubled or bad. I got A’s and B’s but I found out later they were marking me a lot easier because I was going through my parent’s divorce. They were actually meant to be B’s and C’s. It was the first time I had gotten an A so when I found out it wasn’t really because my work was outstanding I finally cried like everyone had expected I would. There were hugs and humour to try to get me to stop but they didn’t really understand why I was upset so I just went along with it and attempted a smile.

Smiling was hard for a time. I was in my 20’s and I had just realised that I need to start my own life. It was a time for first jobs and no one ever wanted to hire me. So I stayed solemn and faked smiles to employers for the one off interviews. I finally got a job at a fast food restaurant and dreaded the days I had to go to work. But I needed money so I kept applying for jobs and worked there as well. It wasn’t until I was 22 that I finally got a boring office job that required no experience. It was thrilling at first, but then I found out what I had to do and how much I would get paid. It was a little better though because there were fewer customers whose tempers were volatile. I had a lot of time to philosophise while I inputted data that numbed my brain. This is when I started writing my last words and putting them in my pocket. I had a lot of scrunched up paper in my wastepaper basket. Finally I found the right words. It was a miracle at the time but when I was that age, exaggeration was my thing.

Idiosyncrasies were unfortunately too frequent and annoyed even myself. If I heard myself say the same thing automatically a few times I would involuntarily shout in my mind. Sometimes the shouts were squeaks and then would turn into a cacophony of animals but most of the time it was angry and a little scary. I scared myself sometimes.

My sister would always scare me around corners and hiding in the dark. She was the master of making me jump spontaneously. She thought it was hilarious every time I did. She gave me the only thrills I ever got in life. Jumping off aeroplanes for fun and bungee jumping off bridges were all very well but I would never try it myself. I was too afraid of dying and that I would lose my last words and then I would affect no one.

I have travelled overseas but always to safe places. So India was definitely off the table. The army was something of a myth to me. Exercise and fighting were hardly ever involved in my life. I was very safe and checked both ways twice before I crossed the road. It was simple and easy and I was content with it.

I did always find birds trying to make their way into my house and I am still not sure why but I have nursed numerous pigeons, lorikeets, and minor birds from injuries they sustained crashing into my glass door. It was scary at first not knowing what to do with them and hoping you weren’t injuring them while you were trying to help them but in the end I just did it and they survived and never came back.

My girlfriend never came back. She was my first and my only girlfriend. She had the cutest smile and somehow always found me funny. We were together for 5 months. She wasn’t a looker but she wasn’t ugly. She was normal and liked me and that was a rare occasion so I took the chance and I fell in love. She did not and she left without a note. I knew she was unhappy for a few days but I never really thought she’d leave without saying goodbye.

That was a hard time in my life and it reminded me of when I couldn’t breathe under the sea and I don’t think I’m supposed to remember it but it was peaceful. It was a perfect combination of yin and yang. I felt desperate and peaceful and it was the first time I understood some poems I had read as a teenager.

A beautiful woman who looked like an angel rescued me. I asked her if she was an angel and she laughed and shook her head. I turned my head and coughed more water out and she was gone. I often fantasized about her in my daydreams but was always interrupted when things got good.

At the moment I blink a lot and sometimes mutter to myself unintentionally making people look sideways at me. I always feel weird when this happens and I go silent immediately. I decided to get a bird and surround myself with walls instead so my pet wouldn’t look sideways at me. Petrie my bird didn’t understand humans enough to know that what I was doing was weird. It was comforting being surrounded by no judgemental minds.

I recently decided to change my words to Life is worth living but then scribbled it out because I didn’t feel sincere knowing that I was not living the way people might think I meant the words to mean. So right now I am thinking of some new words and I think it will hopefully be original instead of corny.

I have made the stars

I made the stars

They twinkle as I blink

And all those feelings that night brings

I share with you out of the goodness of my heart

I give you everything the night brings

I make the night dark

You light the night up with energy

The energy sparks romances

Creates kisses, touches, and strange feelings

Sitting in cafes,

Lying in beds,

Skipping in parks.

I made the night. You made it everything more.

The Feelings of Christmas

Christmas tickles happiness and trespasses 
on the bloodline that flows through veins and the life force of life and philosophical musings that can't be untwisted out of the knot that's becoming nothing rewarding.

The tree twinkles and winks through its jewellery lighting up the light hidden within hearts and touches the smiles of children both young and old with wrinkles and smooth caresses.

Opening surprises and scrunching extra shininess to reveal temporary moments of pure bliss that last forever in the minds of the forgotten.

A Third Person Plot

How to Keep Your Bathroom Clean With Minimal Effort OR How To Get Your Sister To Move Out

A girl with long brown hair flowing down her shoulders in waves looked around inconspicuously only moving her eyes; right and left, and right again, and then looked down at her diary. It was late at night and she was supposed to be in bed but she had a plan she needed to finish planning. It was in its ultimate stage of production. To finish it off with a cherry on top, she had decided to make a brochure on how to execute the plan.

She had it all planned.

The brochures would be handed out to random passers by and subtly placed with other brochures. The brochure would then give basic steps to execute the task, however, if a person wanted to have a little more info on the steps, there would be a link to her blog in the last panel of the brochure. Her blog contained the finishing details that would help a person commit to the plan which would mean that more than just one person could achieve her plan.

She felt it was an important part of life - scheming and plotting the removal of her older sister from their house.

She reread her words, editing here and there.

[The brochure content (plus further details) is as follows.]

Are you good at delegating and have basic skills in manipulation?

If yes – open this panel

If no - open this panel

Is this what your bathroom looks like?

AND

How much of the mess is because of your older sister?

Note beforehand: this method may take months, maybe even years. But once the mission is completed, I guarantee satisfaction and a feeling of being at peace.

Getting Your Sister To Move Out

1.     Get her a boyfriend
-choose wisely and subtly
-choose someone who she sees regularly (maybe someone at the gym)
- approaching the person may at first be very awkward but once you assure him that your sister is foxy, he’ll be fine with the little suggestion to ask her out.

2.     Make sure they don’t break up within a couple of weeks
-mediate and calm fights
-do this by being there for your sister (I know I know, it’s hard to do but you must try because it will also ensure that you two will still be close once she’s moved out)

3.     Plant the idea of moving in with him in her head via Inceptiion
-watch the movie Inception for clarification
-If, in fact, you cannot enter anyone’s dreams, you may just have to subliminally plant the idea in her head by discussing how good it would be to move out of the house/ how good it would be to live with your boyfriend (the more creative the less suspicious she will be of your intentions)

4.     Act interested but distant
-throughout the whole relationship
-this keeps her unaware of your manipulations (being too close might and probably will make her suspicious)

5.     Deliver goodbye sincerely
-don’t overdo it by crying (we all know you don’t love her that much)
-Actors will have an advantage in this area

6.     Convince your sister to clean the bathroom one last time
-this is where your manipulation skills will come in handy
-nostalgia is a good device for manipulation here

7.     Rejoice in a clean bathroom
-Jump around in joy shouting, “Yay!” or “Woot!” etc. (make sure you’re sister is gone before you do this).

[End of brochure]

She smiled to herself, hugged her diary, and then placed it carefully on the floor. She switched off her light and vanished as darkness enfolded her dreams. 

The Trials Of Arabella

The Trials of Arabella

By Tara Tsang

A bee was buzzing around a frizzy head full of dull brown hair. The bright pink flower that appeared to be growing out of her head was its target. She ducked and jumped and the bee flew in circles confused then buzzed away. The girl next to her hadn’t noticed a thing; she was still vividly describing her experiences of time travel. She disappeared when Arabella blinked and an old man was holding her hand. She looked down and found her own hands matching his. Her hands were intricately lined with papery wrinkles. She turned them over and was fascinated by how, unlike trees, a human’s age could be guessed by appearance alone.

She blinked again and she was back next to the girl. The girl was staring at her side on.

“Well? How was it? What did you see?”

She told her there was an old man and an old woman holding hands. Her friend stopped walking and stepped in front of her locking eye contact. Arabella looked back but drifted into a blurry state. Her eyes focused on nothing and her breathing became very loud in her head. Another sound suddenly interrupted her peaceful world and her friend came into focus again.

“You need to stop ignoring me Bell, or something bad might happen.”

Her friend’s new nickname for her sounded weird on her tongue and in her head. Bell…

 “I think we need to do this together. Tomorrow.”

“Bell. Bell…Bell.”

She muttered the new word letting it be tested on her taste buds. She then tried a nickname for her friend. “George, Geor, Gee…Gee!”

“Okay Gee. Tomorrow it is.”

Both girls’ mouths twitched at the ends and the beginnings of hysterical laughter followed. They fell about flailing their limbs as passers by kept a wide berth. Only one person, who was busy looking at their phone, tripped over a foot carelessly placed to stop Arabella from falling. In her place, the person fell and their phone battery ended up a metre or so away. The girls had disappeared and the person was turning around in circles searching for something, any sign of what caused the fall. Nobody turned to stare and the person got up and left never realising the truth.

The future didn’t change much in 10 minutes. He blinked and the girls stared at him. A unison apology was mouthed and they walked away quickly almost falling into giggles every so often. They were gone and he was still there. De ja vu sprang to his mind but he had to get somewhere so he thought nothing of it. He fixed his phone and organised his belongings, started texting and was gone in another few minutes.

Gee looked back knowing he couldn’t see them. She saw the shift in time as it had happened. As the fall was occurring, the light touch of her fingertips had caressed some hairs on the unfamiliar arm. It was the first time in a long time she had slipped up. Arabella was a recent venture, but not an accident. Accidents were usually purposeful and coincidences quite fixed. It wasn’t fate, but a way of creating lifelong moments. One of these moments turned Arabella and Gee into lifelong friends but another moment could as easily erase that forever. The cycle goes on.

Gee had chosen Arabella to feel and see new futures, which would only happen as long as she was with her, the passerby, would not.

Arabella was completely ordinary. Her ideals were revealed on the covering of flowers on her walls, kind letters to distant family members and friendly smiles to strangers. Her mind didn’t seem to have much in it which either meant it’d be easier for her to absorb new information or nothing would stick. She was a child whose mind was never focused on one thing but lots of other things.

Her age limited the information she could provide but what were you to do?

The only thing Arabella needed to know was that to time travel all you had to do was touch her skin. And however long you took in the future, when you returned, you came back to the same instant you left.

Gee quirked the ends of her lips up and acted as though nothing were going through her mind. She touched Arabella’s shoulder through the lace on Arabella’s sleeve and both were gone.

The future wasn’t altogether too interesting; it was like a mystery not worth solving. For example, figuring out which sibling lied about eating the last bit of chocolate. It happened and knowing who did it would not change the fact.

The future was a bright sunny day with fluffed up pale clouds. The buildings surrounding the lonely park overshadowed the colour making it look saturated and lifeless. There was a man with white hair sticking out of his nostrils and ears. His left leg didn’t hold him up well when he walked and his coat quivered every so often.

There was one square of sunlight that was vacated by a boy and a girl laughing and rolling around. Their hands were stuck together and occasionally their lips were as well. Then there was Arabella and Gee.

They had red lips from eating strawberries. One of the seeds had stuck to Arabella’s lower lip. She licked it constantly without success. They both had raincoats on, one yellow and one pink. The bright shiny plastic tried to catch what sunlight it could while the girls jumped up and down in star shapes.

“This is not warming me up. Can’t we just steal some sunlight?”

“If we interfere we might change something. The future can only be changed by the past.”

“But it’s freezing!”

Gee shakes her head and fists Bell’s hands in hers.

“Let’s breathe on them together.”

“Fine”

They blew out one breath and then took one step and were back in their own time. It was cloudy with various shades of grey tinting the sky. Their gumboots touched dry ground and the people around them bustled past like a raging stampede. They tried edging, clambering, sneaking, and other various forms of creeping to get out but didn’t move an inch. So they stood there by an empty chair and waited for everyone to stop.

They felt little specks of weight hit their raincoats and as Gee looked up Arabella sat down. She then proceeded to turn her gumboots upside down by sticking her feet up in the air. Her back was against the part of the chair her bottom was supposed to be and her bottom and legs were resting on the back of the chair. Gee looked down and rolled her eyes.

Arabella had had one of those miraculous ideas that came to you out of the blue and made themselves so amazing in your mind that when spoken out loud, the person didn’t realise how ridiculous they sounded.

She crossed her arms and sat there on her back. People started staring as they hurried along. Some people slowed. It was perfect. As the crowd slowed even more, they ran out of the spotlight and high fived the unplanned plan.

The adrenaline made Arabella spin, jump, whirl, and sing. It was a lovely combination but there were a few judgemental eyes here and there. Gee ignored her extravagant use of extra energy and stood nearby waiting. A policeman saw the commotion and wandered on over.

“Where are your parents?”

Gee, startled, looked hard at the policeman.

“Parents. What parents? Where?”

“Ignore her, she’s just a little hyped up.”

The policeman raised one eyebrow and frowned.

The two girls looked lost and lonely. They were dancing about and no one was there to stop them creating trouble.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to bring you to my supervisor. Come with me.”

He held out his hand and Gee, sighing, took Arabella’s hand, which kept jerking uncontrollably, and then took his.

The policeman pulled them along with his gloved hand and talked in his walky-talky.

“What’s happening Gee?”

 “We’re being taken to people who think they know what’s best for us.”

“Oh.”

Arabella blinked and her urges to run were subdued only by Gee’s cold fingers. As the rain got heavier she started shivering, a little at first but it soon turned into violent shakes and their hands were getting slipperier. The policeman’s pull was getting stronger and her hand was slipping from Arabella’s. She tightened her grip but on the wrong hand and lost her. Gee saw the shift in time just before she lost her. She was devastated and panicked.

She jerked her hand away from the policeman and ran backwards.

The policeman looked back and both children were gone, completely lost in the crowd. He had to make a decision; hope the children were fine or report them missing. He chose the former but stood there looking back for a very long time causing him to not see the wallet that was nicked sneakily from a woman. The wallet missing wasn’t noticed till much later. The woman phoned the police and incidentally, the same policeman who never noticed the robbery, picked up the phone. They met for the first time at his office and it went on from there.

Gee reached out, touched too many people, and finally managed to find Arabella sitting on the ground soaking wet inside her raincoat. She had a blue tinge about her and Gee quickly pulled her up and into her arms. She twitched as her skin felt Arabella’s outside pocket. It was so cold it burnt. She continued to rub her so she would warm up and closed her eyes. When she opened her eyes again the crowd had disappeared and it was darker. Arabella was still breathing and her eyes were open. She looked confused. She smiled at her friend and pulled out a melted icy pole where Gee had felt the scary biting coldness. Gee started laughing and squeezed Arabella tighter.

“You scared me!”

“I saw something!”

“Did you hear me? You scared me!”

Arabella, distracted by Gee’s words, grabbed her hand.

“I’m sorry Georgia. I am.”

Her demeanour had altered slightly. It had become more focused, more understanding, more…mature. She had seen something that had changed her, something no one can un-see.

“What did you see Bell?”

Arabella looked around quickly and then with all seriousness whispered,

“The end.”