Chapter Forty-Eight: If Fir, Airfare Is For Sean, Ma

The fairies the fairies the fairies am I imagining them? They're so real, they're real, just like the rain, the rain.

That's horrible grammar. I get that way when thinking about this stuff.

The rain was real. It was as real as it could be without being real to anyone else. It was so real, so real, it gave me burns and burns and burns and burns and I couldn't breathe...the burns were real, real, the choking was real, it was all real, the only thing nobody else could feel was the rain...

The burns, they went away at around noon yesterday, but they were there. Everyone saw them. They were like...like acid. Like little splashes of burns, like they had been created from a splash of a drop of water...the water, the water, I was choking all day, I could hardly breathe, they almost took me to the hospital...

The fairies the fairies they help. They're very silly. They mostly look like you'd expect them to, but only a few have wings and some of them have more or less arms and some of them are wearing different styles and eras of clothing and some of them are hairy and some of them are monstrous and some of them are cutesy. The ones that don't have wings usually ride on birds, except Arnold who rides a bat. The ones that do are mostly have butterfly wings but some of them have feathery wings and some of them have bat wings and some of them can sort of glide and one or two of the younger ones, the children, they can just fly and float and hover without any wings or anything.

They help me find things sometimes. They don't clean like Toot-Toot's crew, but the house is always spotless anyway, thanks to me-with-allergies and every other-week-housekeeping-service.

I've I've I've, metal cylinder. I've been puking a dys of a lot.

They have really really long names, like, supercalifragilisticexpialadocious times ten, but I've got a sort of familial nickname and familiar nickname, as in, familial that they use amongst themselves (especially their families) and familiar that they (I assume) happily let me use, since I'm only human and no good at remembering the really big ones. Here's...what do I call them? They're not the most important, but...they're the least shy, I guess. Most of the others don't come much closer than dancing in light patterns in the sky on clear nights.

Teryakenaragorthis - Terry. A bit of a chubby fellow. Huge sweet tooth. Very human. Butterfly wings.

Martchanayderon - Marty. Likes shiny things and swimming. Four arms & toga.

Farrunatapawoh - Farris. She's very shy. Creates nature-art. Humany.

Svakonakowako - Sherry. For a little person, she's a daredevil. Four arms and butterfly wings.

Aplonamadoran - Arnold. Strongest of the lot. Kind of looks like a goblin. Hairy. Loincloth. Rides on bats.

Onadwaleighrach - Justo. Which came from "Just call me O. Just...O." Very dark and scary. Humany. Usually wears what appears to be leather.

Wodashintokago - Woden. (As a joke.) Hard to describe. Basically human, but with slightly off proportions and features and things. No wings, but best flier or rider on any animal.

Vudizerax - Ved. Apparently genderless. Shapeshifts. Leader of the lot. Also looks rather gobliny, but more in a sly, wiry way than muscly and hairy. Insectoid wings.

Most of them (including the ones not listed here!) prefer "fairies". Ved, Arnold, AND Woden prefer "faeries". They're the only ones. Nobody else does. The fly-without-wings kids, now that I think of it, doesn't like either of the options. Both of them (twins; a boy and a girl) say the "folk", as in, Fair Folk, or Little Folk, I suppose.

The cylinder the cylinder. I had a dream last night where it broke open in the middle and poured out blackness onto everything and I drowned in it and drowned and burned and burned and rraghart.h

OUCH! What was that for?...Sherry just hit me!

I made a godsdamn promise and I'm keeping it. Not doing my best, not trying, I'm keeping it, I'm not giving in to those twits. Twits? Twerps? Twizzlers? I shan't be broken.

Oh, MAN. The one thing you really would smile at is when they start typing on the computer. They jump all across the keyboard or lean over and press buttons or flutter around. It's great.

They've even got an Internet-capable phone. I might take it if I could (they're devious! and what if they start commenting? Oh, I just jinxed myself...) but they hide their valuables really well. They sneak in at night to charge it when everyone's sleeping.

What else? Fuck you, Maze. I know Janus is only your subordinate and not entirely mentally stable, and so I can't blame him for posting creepy rhymes on my blog, (good timing, by the way) but what kind of jackass are you to do this to me and him and everyone?

*Joce