Sunlight
By Rick Clarke
Light flooded from the fairy into the lifeless child on the floor, her luminous magic flooding into the girl's body.
No one could see the fairy spirit of course, but even in these tragic circumstances the pull of fairy light had drawn a crowd around the girl who had collapsed in the shopping mall and her panic stricken mother.
But as the spirit's light faded, the child remained dead on the floor. The feeling of hope, given off by fairy light drained from the mother's heart, who could not understand that her child was gone and clutched at her child's hand.
Silence followed. An unusually large crowd had gathered, but now there was nothing - a void of death - made larger by the presence of so many people.
The fairy's face was delicate, and although she was unable to cry, her eyes were raw. Kneeling by the dead girl, she turned her white face upon a gothic looking boy who stood at the back of the crowd behind a counter. His face was young, and he had long, lank black hair. - ‘You could do this’, she said quietly, almost pleading.
The boy, a lonely soul, had also been drawn by the fairy light, and had stood unnoticed throughout this drama - unimportant in the unfolding events.
He recoiled slightly as the fairy looked at him.
He spoke directly to her, his voice like a whisper caught on the tips of leaves.
‘I'm not like you.’ he said, ‘I can't give freely.’
‘Save the girl...please….I can't do it.’ she said shaking in distress.
Unseen by the living, the black haired boy walked from behind the counter and took the dead girl's hand into his own. In the atmosphere of pain and confusion, which followed the girl’s death, the boy started to sing a gentle lament of ancient loss.
His voice was warm and quiet, and all sound ceased as he breathed the words of the melancholic song into the body of the dead girl.
In the warmth of the terrible tale the girls eyes slowly opened. Wearily, pulled from death, she let her eyes fall upon her mother, who, shaking with emotion, placed her hand on her daughter's face and wept.
The boy rose from his knees and left as quietly as he had entered. No longer singing, the sounds of life pushed back into the room, like ink sinking through water.
The crowd, filled with relief and joy, as the girl pushed herself off the ground and was cradled in her mother's arms. A miracle had appeared to have passed.
Unseen, the boy reached the door of the building, still lost in a state of sadness. The fairy spirit stood quietly and looked at him as he walked away.
‘Thank you’, she whispered, knowing these were not the right words to share with this lost soul.
He opened the door to the street and turned towards her.
‘You know my song hasn't finished.....It will be with her for the rest of her life’.
‘I know’, replied the fairy.
‘Can you hear it?’ he asked.
‘No’
The boy looked away and stepped unseen into the crowded street, moving quickly against the flow people.
The fairy watched him weave effortlessly through the crowd until she could see him no more.
‘Fear not my lost boy’, she thought to herself, ‘for I will sing my own song for you’.
The fairy left by the same door and stepped into the crowd without looking; turning in the opposite direction of the boy. She slipped with ease into the pace of the people around her. As she did so, people begun to smile for no real reason, others begun to sing, and others began to dream happily of their lovers, others of their wives.
The dark rain clouds which had begun to cluster above gave way to bright rays of glorious sunshine. The fairy smiled to herself as she surfed along with the crowd, my song has begun.
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