Artwork © Robert Fleming

 

Fell in Love With a Girl

Only she knows she walks among puppets and she pretends she doesn’t know they’re not real, because that’s part of the show. All she knows is they don’t know; they walk and they talk as if they were real, and only she knows that they may be made of flash and blood, and not of wood, like Pinocchio, or plastic, like her dolls, but they don’t count as people, their pain is phantom pain. I fell in love with a girl who’s never sad, she lives her life like she’s a Christmas elf, she laughs and dances all year long, like it’s Christmas everyday. I say she talks nonsense, I say she’s egotistical, and she tells me she doesn’t normally tell the truth, no puppet can stand it, accept it, not even me. I laugh and laugh, take it as a joke, then I forget.

Only she knows she lives in an illusion and she pretends she doesn’t know the world is fake, because that’s part of the tale. I watch people suffer and I am sickened, depressed, I tell her it’s unfair, I imagine heaven, a better place, and she pretends she cares sometimes, but she doesn’t give a damn, about the world or me, and I know she means no harm, nobody suffers if nobody is real, because only she knows, that’s why she laughs like she’s immortal, that this world makes no sense, because it doesn’t exist, it only exists as long as her eyes are open, it only serves as a background for her to be happy.

Only she knows that nothing matters, not even me, because I don’t really exist, except in her mind. We can’t really talk, anything I say is trivial if it’s not entertaining enough for her taste, like when I tell her I’m sad, she pretends that she listens for a while, then she says, end of talk, and she turns on the TV. We will only talk about the movie, she tells me, because she makes the rules when we’re at her place, and she points at the screen, and we watch the Holiday together, like we have done a dozen times, and she knows every line, and she laughs and she hugs me, she pretends I’m Jude Law for a while, because she is certain that in the real world, the one she can’t see yet but in time she will, she’ll end up with someone like him in a big house with the Christmas lights blinking all the time, and it’s fine by me, it may hurt but it hurts less than when I go home.

Only she knows and that’s why she dresses like a Christmas elf all year long, because time doesn’t count, except in her mind, and she chooses Christmas and hope, and when Christmas comes, she dances and dances and dances like there is no tomorrow, because there isn’t, and she forgets the world, and I, too, forget grief whenever I’m with her, because nothing is real, except her. I fell in love with a girl who thinks she’ll live forever and sadness can’t touch her, and I envy her for that, because sadness is lurking above my shoulder now that mom is dying and I’m trapped in a story someone else made up, a story a sadist invented to torture me, and that someone may be trapped in a story by another and this may go on endlessly, perhaps that’s what we call God, and I’m one of those gods too but a kind one, because I keep her safe in my own private Pan’s Labyrinth, for only I know that she’s a character in a Christmas tale I made up, that she’s a puppet too.

 

Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist, from Athens, Greece and the author of We Fade With Time by Alien Buddha Press. A Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions nominated writer, her work has been selected for the Best Microfiction anthology 2024 and Wigleaf Top 50 and can be found in many journals, such as the Chestnut Review, New World Writing, Cotton Xenomorph, and others.

Robert Fleming is a gay-man, word-artist, and scientist born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada who emigrated to Lewes, Delaware, United States. Robert follows his mother as a visual artist and his grandfather as a poet. In 1986 he published the second psychological research study on gay men’s response to AIDS in United States. Then, in the 1990s he was a contributing member of the District of Columbia’s Triangle Artist group. Now Robert is a founding member and contributing editor of Devil’s Party Press’ Old Scratch Press.