It’s amazing what you find in the depths of your My Documents folder. Like this piece, based on the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea, only instead of a statue the lifeless woman is a Real Doll.

She came in a box.

No, she came in a cardboard coffin, simple and plain, and lined with bubblewrap to protect its precious cargo. The coffin waited there on the floor of his lounge, with his gaming consoles on one side, and the remnants of his dinners from the previous few nights.

Pizza on Monday. McDonald’s on Tuesday. Chinese Wednesday. Pizza again on Thursday.

As he carefully slit the tape around the edges of the coffin and lifted the lid, Leon could not help but feel like Prince Charming must have when he drew back the curtains to find his Sleeping Beauty waiting there.

For there in the coffin was Téa, more beautiful than her picture, lovelier than he had imagined. Her eyes were closed and the faintest flush of life was in her cheeks. She was waiting, Leon knew, for him to lean forward wake her from her deep sleep.

But Leon was no Prince Charming and he knew it. If he was anyone from the world of fairy tales - that world of brave knights and monstrous dragons, fair maidens and wicked witches – he would be the frog. The slimy, disgusting, ostracized little frog forever waiting for a princess to pass by.

No princess ever came. No princess ever kissed him. His stumbled attempts at getting women to notice him always failed; oftentimes he lost his nerve before even opening his mouth and dashed away before the woman in question actually noticed him. His witty (well, he thought they were witty) comments were always met with blank stares, or laughs. At him, not with him, of course. His compliments were received awkwardly, but never returned. The only things women gave him with refusals.

Until Téa.

The moment he saw her picture on the website he was in love. He could not explain it. Just deep down inside he knew she was the one. The only thing he thought about was Téa, and how once she was here she would become the center of his lonely little world.

So how could anyone think what Leon and Téa had was wrong?

She was always there, waiting for him to return. The sight of her smile made even the hardest day better, and it was such a relief to be able to tell her all about his day over dinner; she ate like a bird, always finishing first, but she never left the table for him to finish alone.

Friday night was movie night. The tradition never changed. On his way home he would pick up two DVDs: one for her, and one for him. He never complained about being forced to sit through one of her ‘chick flicks’, and Téa always smiled indulgently when Leon explained the minutiae of scene X from his choice.

When winter – and Téa’s birthday – rolled around, he baked her a cake (although he did burn it, quite badly too) and presented her with the coat he knew she admired.

For their one-year anniversary, he saved up for months to buy the ring that would be good enough for her.

If Leon had had friends they would have intervened by then. It was not right, they would say, for a grown man to act as if a doll he had bought off the Internet was his wife. It was simply not done for a man to bring a doll presents, buy her clothes and jewelry. It was not proper for him to sleep beside her in his bed, one arm draped over her waist and with his face buried in her hair.

But as there were no friends to say these things, no one ever dared to try to wake Leon from his dream.

And so when Aphrodite finally sent Gail, a lovely and real woman, into his life, he told her he was flattered.

But he was already married.

Originally published at Working Title. You can comment here or there.

Another short piece of fiction transferred over from D-S.net. More exploration of the ghost theme, although definitely not the novel idea that blends The Dead Girl and a ghost murder mystery.

 
Sleep is a gift for the living, and having rejected the peace of eternal rest he is doomed to never close his eyes in slumber again.

But she sleeps now, dark brown hair spread in a tangle on the pillows supporting her head. She holds the blankets close as if requiring their comfort. Her chest rises and falls in a steady pattern - the way his chest has not moved in over a century.

She does not know he is there, watching her as she sleeps, protecting her from unpleasant dreams. Just as she does not know how he follows her whenever he can, watching her, protecting her. She does not know that he loves her.

Yet.

He has done this so many times, finding her again and again even though she wears a different face - she sings the same song each time, the one without notes or words that summons him, made him love her that first time. The first time, when it all went so terribly wrong.

She will not remember it, of course. She never has - it is like she is a different girl each time. But he knows it is her, that she has come back to him, giving him another chance.

She has given him so many chances, he knows that. And each time he has made a mistake, and she has left him. Chosen someone else, just as she had done that first time. But it is not her fault.

It is never her fault. That is why he always gets another chance.

Although he tells himself this every time she comes back to him in another form, it will be different this time. This time he will get it right, and not make a mistake. This time she will love him, and be able to share that love.

But most important of all, she will forgive him.

And that, he tells himself as he tries and fails to stroke her cheek as she sleeps, is what she is just waiting to give him. This time.

This time is not the first. But this time will be the last. He knows it, deep in his ghostly, unbeating heart that his own blade had just missed.

She will forgive him.

Originally published at Working Title. You can comment here or there.

This was published a while ago at Disdainful-Soul.net but I thought it might be fun to share it here as well. It’s meant to be light-hearted and silly, with a “twist” I suppose.

I never understood why vampires were somehow seen to be these sexy, dangerous creatures. All right, dangerous, yes, but sexy? Unless you had a blood fetish, or perhaps had a leaning towards necrophilia (but with consent!), I just couldn’t understand it. So it boggled me when I overheard my friends discussing how Angel/Spike/Edward/Jasper/Whoever was “like, sooo hawt”.

Of course, that was before I discovered that vampires were, you know. Real.

My reaction was rather poor, I must admit. When he grabbed me, I screamed, kneed him in the crotch and ran for all I was worth. I didn’t get very far, and before I knew it, he had caught up to me. But he didn’t bite me.

He said he was impressed by the fact I hadn’t frozen. All the other girls he’d bitten - killed - had simply begged. None ever bothered to try and save themselves. Thus, I was impressive creature. Stupid, yes, weak, yes, but brave.

I intrigued him, he said. He wanted to get to know me.

Later on he wanted to really know me. In the Biblical sense.

What kind of girlfriend would I have been if I didn’t try to change him? That’s what we women do, after all. We try to change our men. My mother tried to get my father to wear something other than his sports shirts, my sister tried to get her boyfriend to shave, and I tried to get my boyfriend to stop killing people.

None of us, I am afraid to say, succeeded. But while my mother and my sister continued bravely onwards, I simply could not date a man who liked to kill people. Sure, he killed less people, now that I occassionally let him grab a bite from me, but I wanted that “less” to become “none”.

So I ended it.

He was not happy. He begged. He pleaded. He cried. But I had made up my mind. I just couldn’t continue to date a vampire. One that refused to reform, anyway.

It’s been three weeks now since I made my decision, since I told him. And every time I see him, he’s still wearing that look. Pleading with me to change my mind, to keep on loving him.

And he’s going to keep giving me that look. Until I figure out what to do with his body, at least. I need to do something fast, as he’s really starting to smell bad.

Well? What did you expect? A happy ending?

Originally published at Working Title. You can comment here or there.