Anomaly

Mr. Cellophane

31/12/23

11:00 PM

Ana's ears swarm with shrieking voices and the pops of whirling, glimmering fireworks, clearing away the former ringing. A dark cloak has fallen over the sky, clear and crisp and cold as the wall-bound clock ticks to midnight. She looks around the ebony room where the intricate stained glass windows barely let in the light from the end-of-the-year bonfire ten yards away, the only thing separating her from it being the road between. A sense of direction is provided by the low glow of the crackling fireplace.

"Ana!" Damiens' voice travels down the hollow hallway. She follows the bearskin rug down the mansion to where she just heard the voice.

"D?" She calls, peering into the room they were just in together. She feels a hand on her shoulder and flips around in panic. A hand over her mouth muffles her scream.

"Shh!" The man goes. "It's me!" Oh. Damien.

"Sorry," she whispers.

"Let's go." They sneak through the back door and find four other people waiting, hugging themselves as the snow whirls to the ground.

"How are we gonna do this?" one girl asks.

"You and me, let's get the legs," he says, looking at Ana. "The rest of you haul by the head." Ana pushes down the nausea and helps Damien grab the body's legs, keeping it wrapped tightly in the carpet.

"On the count of three," Damien whispers. "One. Two. Three!"

25/10/23

5:25 PM

Ana hates nothing more than silence.

She leaps gracefully into a grand jeté, every hair meticulously drawn back in a bun. She twirls from one aerial into another.

Silence is the loudest and most daunting thing she's ever known. It can be filled with anything: hate, or worse, love. It's filled with disappointment and sadness. Its unfortunateness drowns her in infinities.

Like a porcelain figurine, her legs mechanically crank from first position to second, then third, fourth, first again, then fifth.

Ana reaches for the forbidden fruit of perfection like she always does. Every step, every goal, every performance is a grapple at the unachievable that always slips through her fingers. She tells herself perfect is just out of her greedy reach, despite the concept not existing in her world.

She stands on her toes and propels herself into an aerial.

There's only good.

Ana jumps into high splits, stumbling on her toes as she lands. She tries to maintain her balance by spreading out her arms, but ultimately gravity wins. She falls with a loud thud, the piano and violin stopping abruptly. Ringing echoes. Lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling, silence fills her ears.

And bad.

ANOMALY

Ana shoots upright as soon as her eyes begin to ease open, barely coherent before already trying to get up and cover her humiliating fall.

"Hey, calm down," says a voice from beside her. Tonya holds a paper cup filled with water, her soft jawline going sharp with a clench.

"Fuck," Ana mumbles as the fog rolls away from her memory. "Did Dobrinski see that?"

"No," Tonya says as her voice wobbles and her green eyes pinch like they always do when she's lying.

"Fuck!"