Your eyes can be so cruel... (Sarah x Jareth)

5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

Incense smoke clad the evening in gold sunlight, the last one of that day. Another day, another boring amount of work sorted out, another set of tests graded, routine and comfort stripped away for another set of broken messed-up thoughts... 

She placed her head on her pillow and let herself cry for the first time since she was a child. Behind the door, a little girl peered at her with a sheer sense of disbelief at what she was seeing.

'Jenny?' the less than fortunate mother half-whispered to the child.

She intruded her mother's misery space with a tear in her eye, straw yellow hair a total mess. A comb stood in her left hand, which dropped at the sight of her mother's pale face.

'Mamma?'

Sarah held out her hand for her child to hold, perhaps with the last of her strength. To that, the child responded placing the rose-coloured comb in it.

'Comb now?'

'Not now, mamma's feeling the big sad again.'

'Do you need the sadness pills or what?'

'No, not really. Although maybe I do... You know, I think I forgot for a long time to tell you your favourite story. It makes me feel like I miss it.'

'The one about the goblin king? Why wouldn't you tell it to me?'

'Jenny... I think it's hiding something from me. Maybe... No, it can't be.'

'Maybe what?'

'Maybe it's less a story and more of a memory, like, you know, something I remember from a place deep in my mind, a place I try to hide away from myself because it... it might take me. And I'm scared of that place, Jenny.'

'Don't be afraid. You used to say to me that the kind has a face like an angel and a voice like one too... You need not fear him.'

'No, you're only five. You don't understand at all what I'm trying for. You're free from all the things I saw there. I was scared, you know. Because it was all so beautiful, but not in the way a flower is.'

'What way?'

'The way a rock is. You don't know how a rock is beautiful, but you just look at it and think: yep, that's a beautiful rock.'

'Is mamma going to die?'

'No, I'm not going to die. I'm just tired. Something's calling to me and I don't yet know what. There was the thunder, a big and scary thunder, that came at school today.'

'I'm glad. And you know what? I don't think your story is pretend at all.'

'Why so?'

The child knelt next to the bed and smiled up at the downtrodden mother.

'Sometimes I think the king watches over you and he still thinks you're beautiful. He wants you to come with him into the kingdom and the gardens and all the beautiful stuff there.'

'I'm sure stories can't be for real. Now now, Jenny. Go away because mamma wants to sleep.'

Scampering off into her room, Jenny left Sarah with a flicker of hope in her mind before she fell asleep...

But in the corner, waited a sprite from her past, as if she'd expected him.