And when she smiled
she didn’t know if she was smiling because she wanted to or if she was smiling
because there was nothing else to do; but the thought did not bother her. She
closed her eyes when she smiled and crinkled their corners, letting the light
spread throughout her face. Her hair framed her face like a picture on a wall,
and she didn’t worry about the complexity of similes and metaphors because they
were superfluous to her happiness. She was a wisp in the willows, a dainty
dandelion blowing in the breeze. Her nose was straight and proud and she was
the Dandelion Queen. She was the Mistress of Magic and the Friend of those who
knew her magic.
Her magic was her
smile; or maybe it was from her smile. That light glowed with pulsating
crackles and lit up the hearts of the coldest of souls with its fiery warmth.
That light glimmered from a distance, the epitome of the house on the hill. She
let her light shine. And she didn’t worry about when it would go out — she knew
that it had a purpose and a reason or existing, and that was all she needed to
know. She didn’t wonder about the reason for the purpose, or the purpose of
there even being a reason. No. She just lived, and smiled, and lived, and
smiled.
She didn’t think too
deeply, about anything in particular, and so she led a peaceful life. She
could, when the need arose, lend her understanding ear to a poor heart and
think about that poor heart with the utmost care and compassion. But all her
musings were of love for the heart, of finding a way to make that poor heart
happy again. She didn’t ponder on even those issues for an unnecessarily long
time either: The issue arose, she helped, and it was solved. Nothing was a
problem to her because everything she knew, had known and would ever know,
dictated that ethos—the ethical existence where nothing cannot be helped, and
nothing is impossible.
But there came a point
in her smiling life when nothing became something.
Nothing became an
entity that existed and did not fit the bounds her mind. ‘Nothing’ was a
problem. ‘Nothing’ could not be helped. ‘Nothing’ was impossible. But the very
existence of the ‘Nothing’ meant that everything she’d ever believed was false.
If Nothing was impossible and yet also a real thing, possible, then how could
it exist? And if it could exist, how could she wrap her docile comprehension
around the blasphemous anomaly? Now she started realising that Queens were
paltry objects that normally made loquacious kings jealous. She began to accept
that the zany yearnings she exhaled in this new world were not lies. The truth
was an object and not an ethic.
She noticed what
letters her words began with, and tried to use them in sentences. She
attributed this to a beyond crazy imagination. Imagination was good and
innocent in the old world, where ethics stood — she remembered that. But now
all that she knew, had known and would ever know, became contradictions. The
ethos they had at one point all been in accordance with was now a
contradiction. And if the ethos was a contradiction, then what were those who
followed that ethos? Was she now a contradiction? And she wondered, if she was
a contradiction, then her existence was proof of her never existing. So did she
exist?
Her smile perplexed
itself into a blurry haze. It was upside down at first, but then she wondered
what upside down really was. And then she thought that maybe her smile was the
right way up and it was she who was upside down. But her hair still hung down
by force of gravity, so she persuaded herself she must be the right way up. Not
her smile. Although what was gravity really? Other than a word? And why should
she believe that it even existed? And so she muddled her smile and it grew and
shrank like a flickering candle and she wondered why it could grow and shrink
and if it ever passed through the same place whilst it was growing and
shrinking. And if it did, what purpose did it serve to grow and shrink?
But she didn’t know.
And then her smile
grew muddier and muddier and muddlier and muddlier, and she was anxious because
she knew that muddlier wasn’t a word but she couldn’t remember who had told her
that. And the crinkles in the corners of her eyes engraved themselves onto her
face as she clenched her eyes shut so she wouldn’t have to see the muddle. But
although her eyes were shut so tightly, she found she could still see the
muddle in her mind. Which meant that the muddle was not real, because it was a
figment of her imagination.
But that would mean
that anything she thought of was not real, merely a figment of her imagination,
and she knew that certain things were real. She could feel the blade, for
example. She knew it was silver. She knew it had been passed down through the
generations, that it was an heirloom. But then she thought that that was an
idiomatic expression, and idiomatic expressions were exclusive to one language.
So if they existed in her language, but not in someone else's, then was it fair
for them to exist in the first place?
And where was the
first place, she wondered, as her fingers passed over the embossed initials of
her great great grandfather on the handle. Was it where he was born? Or was it
where Adam was born? Or maybe Eve because that was when the beginning began.
But wouldn’t it be where Cain was born, because he was definitely the first
real child? But she was the first real child - the first real child of her
parents. But what about the other first real children? If that was where the
first place was, then there were an infinite number of first places and that
would mean that everything that began in the first place was at this very
moment existing unfairly.
But, she thought as
she gripped the silver handle tightly, who was she to decide what was fair and
unfair? And what would be achieved by making that decision? And really, was
there any point in achieving anything? The ethos said there was, because that
was why she existed, wasn’t it? She couldn’t remember. She reached to her heart
to make sure she still existed.
She touched her heart
then, and felt it beating as she drew it out of her chest on the silver blade
of the silver heirloom which was a silver dagger.
Yes, she thought, as
her crinkles ironed out and her smile turned the right way round and her hair
hung where it was supposed to hang. Yes, I know. I do exist.
And the light went
out.
