Glands
It is snowing.
I have a coat. This is important. A long, yellow coat, with smart cuffs, deep pockets. I reach into a pocket and finger something sticky - I don't know what it is, but it comforts me.
I am standing on the edge of a palm tree plantation, the one one sees when one takes that long, long drive to Peneng from Singapore. But the trees no longer look small and stumpy and sad; they tower over me, miles away. The way their leaves weave with each other to block out the sky is both menacing and comforting. I walk this way and that, leaving my prints in the snow.
My feet feel sticky in my shoes, and this comforts me.
The palms, despite being so tall, have trunks about as thick as street lamps. I walk along a row, six steps forward, tap a palm, another six steps forward, another palm. There is a light up ahead. I continue on in this manner, six steps, tap, six steps, tap.
As I draw closer, I see a girl sitting in the snow, her knees to her sides and feet behind her. She's
long - not tall - her neck, her arms, her fingers. She's hunched over, looking like a poor stretched doll, as though someone had grabbed her head and feet and pulled her out of shape. She's balding.
The source of light is from a candle, hung upside-down, the cord tied to its base vanishing into the canopy. The flame still burns as it would if the candle was the right way up, though, and I want to throw up.
The girl tells me her story.
She was a child taken by the fair folk, to raise as their own. She was happy. One day she stumbled, and fell out of that world, and back into this one. And her body, previously content to remain as it was, began to swell and grow.
And one day, her insides felt like they'd been battered to mush, and it must have been so, because she began to bleed.
I tilt my chin forward, and I see the red snow she's sitting in. It smells foul.
Here I become confused.
On the first path, I help her stand, and I walk her away from the congealing blood, away from the horrible candle, and I walk her all the way home. I sit her on the toilet. I teach her that they call pads "feminine napkins", and that they should be put in a separate bag when we're out for groceries. She grows up, and the bin occasionally plays host to neat little bundles wrapped discreetly in plastic and bagged just to be sure.
And I marry her, and we live happily ever after ever.
On the other path, I stand there in the snow, with the palms glowering over me, and watch as the blood seeps through the snow and around my shoes. I watch her shivering in the cold, and I feel my shoulders swell to fill the yellow coat. I can't get it off, and I know she needs it, but it won't come off.
And I turn on my heel and I walk away. My feet are sticky, and it comforts me, just a little. I reach into my pocket and finger something sticky in my pocket, and I pull it out.
It's a red sweet wrapper, and this comforts me.
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I'm starting last year's resolution now. Every week I'll write a short piece, and put it up here. So if I miss a week, would you lot please publicly shame me?
I'm a rubbish writer, no matter how you slice it. This is an attempt to get better at it. Here goes.
I would really appreciate any constructive criticism. Tell me I'm rubbish, tell me about the tenses mistake in para 3, talk to meee.
