Apearances Can Be Decptive

I live in squalor. In splendid, unclean solitude. In a small room at the top of a very tall house. This is where I live.

In my very small room, at the top of my very tall house, there is a box.

It is not in any way distinguished- I have neither labled it, or given it a tidy corner to live in. It looks like all the other boxes: cardboard, fragile and expendable.

But in this box are cherished things, which I have collected and, although they are hidden, knowing they are there makes my small room, full of squalor and gloom, seem less forsaken.

In this box are special moments. I keep them, in my box, where they are safe and untouched by monsters.

There are photographs, of a beautiful day, a heart-stopping storm, a tragic accident, a lovely view, a handsome couple of two ugly people, special photographs, good or bad.

In this box, there are scraps of paper, letters describing events, or invitations, even to myself, for vent. There are poems and short stories, memories captured with someones pen, or the perfect phrasing, on paper. There are drawings of moments so fragile and fleeting that words alone are not enough: these are not beautiful drawings, I am no artist. But they evoke beautiful memories.

In this box, there are objects. A piece of string, a sharp rock, and a shiny one, a small plastic toy, a bit of material, an old burnt pen, the spent lighterm and a useless, broken fan.

I collect thoughts, in a small box, in a small room, at the top of a tall house.

The box is not important.

The contents are.

There were a set of steps you walked down to get into the club, but Mariel didn’t see them as an entrance so much as a warning. They were filthy, narrow, treacherous and they stunk of piss.

She didn’t mind though. She was a regular. She and Mikey, the doorman, went way back. Long enough that they didn’t bother embarass themselves with the whole fake ID charade, just a nod and a smile.

He’d look after her, too, if she got into any trouble she couldn’t handle. He was more of an older brother to her than her older brother.

She made her way down the steps and then looked back at the one friend she’d left cowering at the top.

When Eva had arrived on her doorstep Mariel almost had a fit. She’d specifically said not to dress too cute. Eva had come out in a strapless sweetheart dress- white, with white wedge sandals, pink lips, nails and eyelids. It had taken all of Mariel’s strength not to stop breathing there and then.

She’d done what she could, but that wasn’t much. Eva was much smaller than Mariel- practically a midget, she always said.

“Eva, if you’re not sure about this we can go somewhere else,” Mariel begun, but Eva cut her off by beginning to make her way down the stairs.

“No, I’m sure. I want to see where you hang out,” her clear, high voice was lost amidst the fear fear, but she made it to where Mariel was standing without any major palpitations.

“Well okay. But stick close by me, okay?” Mariel said, taking Eva’s hand and pushing open the first door.

Mikey was standing inside under a fluorescent strip. Like always, he smiled at Mariel. Then he caught sight of Eva.

“Who’s this?” he asked, not hostily, but it was a question all the same.

“This is my friend Eva,” Mariel said, raising their hands as if that was solid proof of whatever it was Mikey was looking for.

“I’m going to need ID,” was what Mike said in reply.

“No you dont!” Mariel said, sharply. “She’s with me, why the hell do you need ID?”

Mikey looked agonized. “Look, Mary-” he persisted in calling her that although she hated it- “it’s okay for you because- well, it’s you. I know you, Roba and Jack know you, Management knows yous. But if anything happens to… your friend it’s my neck. Besides, she looks about twelve.”

“Mikey, that’s ridiculous-” Mariel begun, and she would have gotten into an argument that could have blown her welcome at The Firehouse forever had Eva not produced a passport.

“Here. I’m eighteen,” she said, quietly. Mikey took the passport, scrutinized it, found no fault with it and handed it back.

“Oh,” he said. And then to Mariel, “why the hell did you kick up such a fuss when she’s older than you?” His words were heavy, but he said them with a laugh.

“Because,” Mariel replied, still a little indignant but prepared to let it go, “it’s the principle of the thing.” She sniffed a little, and tossed her nose up into the air.

Mikey just laughed, and opened the second door into the darkness of the club.

“Welcome to The Firehouse ladies. I hope you enjoy your night…”

I remember my first love exquisitely.

He had been a labourer, a woodcutter, and aside from my brothers and my father, he was the first man I had known.

He had hair that seemed to be made of spun gold and sapphires for eyes, just like the mother I never knew. His skin was a rich tan colour, from being so often exposed to the sun. Across his cheeks and his nose, and the breadth of his back were freckles, small dark-brown patches. He looked very much like the cinnamon whirls the cook would make me before I fell out of favour, and I often wondered if he would taste like they did, too.

His family lived on the edge of the Great Forest, at one of the furthest reaches of my father’s kingdom.

My favourite book had always been the book of fairytales my father bought me. In monetary terms, well it could easily have bought half a kingdom. That’s what my nurse always told me. When I asked how big the kingdom was, however, she had no answer.

But that never truly mattered to me, because that book was one of my most treasured possessions: it was richly and intricately illustrated, and I would sit, lost in the stories for hours.

Each story held a simple veracity at its core, and thus it became the guide by which I lived my life. Up until that year, it had not failed me.

And so I believed with all my heart that woodcutters were humble, caring people. I believed with all my heart that the working boy would fall for the princess, that we would marry, ascend to the throne and live happily ever after.

I think that’s what broke my heart more then anything else: the fact that my beloved book of tales was wrong. And that is why I’m writing this.

To make it right.

The woodcutter thing did not work out. The family kept me with them for two weeks, during which time they put me to all sorts of work. I proved useless at everything, of course.

The last night of my stay there, we had gone for a midnight walk through the forest, my first love and I. We had talked about everything under the stars, and we danced to no music in a glade.

He wove me a ring of grass, and asked me to marry him. He said that if I gave him the bag of gold I’d been sent with, he would arrange a ceremony fit for me, fit for a princess.

I gladly agreed, and so we floated back home. I led him up to the wood loft, where I had tried and failed to sleep, and showed him where the money was hidden.

He asked me that night if I would not rather share the comfort of his bed, but I declined.

The next day I was given a pocketknife and a stale loaf, led to a part of the forest I have never seen before, and left there.