The Lost Files

UNDERSTAND | She looked up at him, through straggled hair that fell across her face and the similar array across his own. “I think truth must always be poetic when turned into words. Truth is something bigger. Bigger than language, bigger than there are words to describe it with and so, of course, you must work on combinations of words to express what you mean, paragraphs, essays. You could write a whole book trying to explain a truth and still not have the reader understand what it was you meant.” She paused, looking down at her hands. “Don’t you find that sad?”

ENDANGER | A balloon covered in paper and glue. It is a mask. An animal that has long been endangered and is now extinct though the history books do not know this yet. Indeed it will not be documented for another decade. Cutting the balloon in half is the tricky part and he needs a parent to help him do it. His mother holds the craft knife, he the balloon. Her hands are cold. The legacy is in bickering. When the mask is complete he sticks his lines on the inside so in class, when he stands to recite, he can cheat.

FEELING | In the early morning sun, before the world en mass awakes, she lays her three white roses on the earth in front of the stone, steps back, and closes her eyes. Behind shuttered lids she sees dead men playing tag in their cemetery. They never know who is caught because they can’t feel the touch. She opens her eyes, picks up a pebble and places it on the plainly carved grave. For a moment she imagines the pebble falling clean through stone, down and down, through earth, through coffin, through skeletal corpse, wood again and earth. Stopping for nothing, feeling… nothing.

VANITY | One line for age, one for temper, three more for temperament, he sighs. Is a mirror truth or merely will? Everything is backwards, opposite, distorted, unreal, image or imaginary? the vitals or something virtual? A reflection of the face of a man, two eyes see two eyes. He painted a line on the mirror, curling at the end, painted another, a black moustache and there it was on his face. Raised the hand to his lip and the lines are on his fingers now instead, a tattooed swirl of hidden mystical meaning, in vanity he smiles to see his face.

FLY | Colossal cheers as the keeper caught the quaffle too late and from the wrong side of the hoop. He threw it away in aggravation, rain soaked and dripping, cold, too tired to fly and now ten points down. The wind whipped up a swirl of rain and the far end goal disappeared from view. From the man in the stand’s cry the snitch had been spotted but not soon enough; not before bludger instead of quaffle came hurtling towards him. They lost the game; a keeper down, too many goals later the rain stopped for the snitch to be caught.

FAIR | Pale of complexion, pale of passion, he is pale when all else stand strong. He wavers like his curly hair, he simpers; the sincerity of his smile is weak, an uncertain touch could wipe it away. Standing on the block he cowers and lies, back steps, side steps, gives in, gives up and discards all sense of honour. No fire burns within his heart, within those delicate eyes, that fair face and lauded prosperity. His idea is fickle, his ambition ever crumbling. He will not stand up for his friend. He will not defend what he believes to be right.