Glitch and Cody

Chapter 5 - The Town's New Jacket

Glitch

Phantom's Rest is exactly the way I remember it!

I've only been away for about five weeks, but it feels like forever. The day after I imagined the boy in the field near our house, I got a bad fever and Auntie and Uncle took me to the city again. I spent a couple of weeks in the hospital with Auntie looking after me, and they did so many tests again, and observations, but Doctor Crawford is quite satisfied with my progress and finally convinced Auntie that there was nothing really wrong with me and to take me home.

She kept me in bed for a week and didn't want me to leave home for a while after that.

To be honest, I think she overreacted. 

I just cried so much I got a sinus infection, which led to an airway infection, but I was over it long before we came back from the city. I wanted to explain it to her, but the words wouldn't come, and I was afraid that I'd imagined the boy at the tree and if I told her about him, she would worry too much again, and I'll get sent back to the clinic. I don't want to live there again. I also don't want to go back on the medication that leaves my mind blank and takes the colour from the world around me. 

Colour is my oxygen.

I don't really think I imagined the boy. I would never imagine anybody crying that much. It would be too cruel.

He cried and cried until I was afraid that his sobs would tear him apart and his insides would spill out and melt into the earth, and nobody would find him again. He desperately needs to be found. 

I cried with him, I couldn't help it, and together we cried an ocean of tears. I became afraid of causing a flood. I could see our tears rushing in waves over the field and through the trees and into the lands ripe for harvest, destroying everything in their path. I didn't want us to ruin the farmers' harvests, but I couldn't stop our tears from flowing.

I held the boy as tightly as I could, and after a long time, he stopped sobbing, and he sagged. I couldn't hold him up, and together we slipped from the log and landed in the tall grass at our feet. At first, I thought he'd cried himself to death, the way I once thought I would, but he moved and snuggled into my lap like a tiny baby.

I stayed like that for a long time, watching him sleep with his head in my lap, snuffling soft sobs. When the sun started to set, I folded my fairy top under his head and woke him. When he started to stir, opening his eyes, I ran home.

When I left, the town stayed here, as it always does, doing its town things, just living its life. Nothing ever really changes in Phantom's Rest...

Except for the giant stage built at one end of the town square, the big park with the paved walkways, exactly in the middle of the town's centre. The heart of the town. Squinting through the veil, I can see that the stage isn't the only new thing here. There are cheerfully decorated food and craft stalls placed in a wide horseshoe shape, starting at one end of the stage and stopping at the other.

There is also not usually a marching band parading jauntily in the street circling the town square, making a rowdy noise. I think it is meant to be an actual song they're playing, but... they might also just be trying to contact their home planet.

Almost all the inhabitants of the county are gathered on the vast expanse of lawn inside the horseshoe of stalls. Farmers and townies are milling about, mingling, arguing, laughing, and enjoying each other's company. Fairy lights and paper lanterns are decorating all the trees and every available awning, balcony and rooftop.

The town has made itself beautiful.

There's a maze built out of square hay bales where the community sports and recreation field usually can be found, minding its own business until someone decides to use it and awakens one of its personalities. 

The field is probably still there, it is just hiding right now in the same way the basketball court always hides when it's being used for rugby, and the rugby field hides when border collies are competing for the title of King of the Herd.

The sports and recreation field has many different personalities, and I love them all.

I'll admit it. I was wrong. Today, Phantom's Rest looks nothing like I remember it. The town I know best is hiding under the festival right now, but I can feel it there, just beneath the surface. Its heart is still beating strong.

Everything is so pretty; I cannot wait for it to get dark because lights are only truly bright in the darkness. The town square is a hive of activity; excitement is humming in the air, vibrating happily in my chest. 

It is magical.

I love festivals. With each of them, the town hides in a different jacket and puts on a new accent to welcome visitors. It is the same and yet so very different.

Sindy grabs my hand and drags me along because I've been looking around me at all the beautiful lights and the happy people, forgetting that we're on our way to register as participants in the... I have no idea what it is we're participating in. Nobody is ever quite clear on what it should be called. The Big Wedding?

Seeing the festival through this beautiful veil she gave me makes it so much more mysterious and sparkling... and a little difficult to see where I'm walking and avoid obstacles. I've almost fallen a few times now.

Auntie and Uncle stopped taking part in the festival. Uncle is never in the mood for things like this anymore. They are manning a couple of the stalls this year. Uncle used to love this festival... I'm sure I remember him taking turns dancing with Auntie, his daughters, my sister and me. I'm sure I do...

"Seriously," Allie snaps, glaring at me. "You're not supposed to cover your face with the veil the whole time, Glitch! It's just during the ceremony. Why can't you just pin it in your hair and fold it back like we're doing?"

"It's unlucky for the groom to see the bride before the wedding," I tell her, and I know I'm messing with her now. I just like how pretty the world is through this hazy rainbow, and I don't want to pin it to my hair because then I cannot easily turn it to look at the world through different filters when I want to. Allie won't understand when I tell her that.

"You don't even have a groom!"

I look at Allie, and seeing her takes my breath away. It always does. Even scowling, she is astonishingly beautiful with the cascade of white netting sprouting from the costume jewellery crown at the top of her head, falling in layers down her back. Her golden curls, delicate and sweet, like that of a Botticelli nymph, are gently framing her face. My veil is causing hers to look like a colourful waterfall flowing from her head over her shoulders.

"You are so beautiful," I tell her, and she bites down hard on her lip and turns her back on me.

~~~