Poppy

How do I write a story? I forget. Perhaps one goes a little like this:

There once was a little girl, and she liked red and so she wore red. Except that her mum called it crimson and her da preferred scarlet. But the fae said it was more poppy, and so that stuck because her mum thought it a more cheery thing than those other blood colors.

The girl said nothing at all and not because she did not have a mind of her own, but because someone had stolen her voice before she was born and she had no head for writing, though she knew plenty of words like “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, “snicker-snack” and “albatross” (a word she dreamed of shouting from the top of the radio tower that rose over the place she was born). But writing those words? Oh, well, that just was not something she could do.

And so she smiled and nodded, because she was a good little lass, and she happened to agree with the fae that kept her company when he called her Poppy. Especially after the strangers came and stole the light and voices of her parents one day.

They would just lay there after the light had been stole and her fae said, “Hey Poppy.”

She turned to look to the space just above her where the fae flew, everclose.

“Poppy, I don’t think your mum and dad would want you to stay here in their decay.”

The thought of her parents’ lights having gone away made Poppy sad. But she did not cry.

“I can find safe places for you, hon’. But is there any place you would like to go?”

Her fae could read her thoughts, of course, they were attuned in that way, but she liked to try and communicate like people less broken than she, so she pointed to mouth, opening and closing it.

“You wish to have someone give you your voice?”

She nodded with vigor.

Her fae thought about this, casting foxfire from its head as it did.

“I think I know a place, Poppy. But it is a long way away and there are likely dangers along the path. Are you okay with leaving this place?”

Poppy nodded.

“Well then,” said her Fae. “Let us be on our way.”

And so they walked through the door and followed the narrow paths leading away and littered with leaves on that thick forest floor.