ON THE BELIEF IN FAIRIES

Now who dared say he or she doesn't believe in fairies?

Charlene was beginning to suspect that she must have hurt a fairy’s feelings because from the moment she woke everything seemed to be going wrong.

To start with, her bed collapsed just as she was getting out of it, and she was left with a dark bruise on her hip. She couldn’t have described how it happened, she just knew that it had. The bed looked to be so much scrap when only last night it had been better than comfortable.

Then, to make matters a little bit worse, she had a phone call from Jeffrey, and it was of a personal nature seeing as he was planning to divorce her and had moved in with a much younger blond who was after his money only Jeffrey couldn’t see that, not yet anyway, and he did what he always had done, he was so verbose and long winded that he managed to stretch the phone call out until her kettle boiled dry. Not only was it dry, but it had a dirty great hole in it which could only mean that it had become an ex-kettle.

It wasn’t that she was superstitious or even believed in fairies as such, but she was struck by the idea that one of the fairy-folk must have it in for her because how else could so much go wrong in such a short time? First her bed and now this?

The idea hung around in her head until eleven o’clock when she had a call from her sister saying that her brother-in-law was dead and the funeral would be next week, and to her that was the clincher. Her brother-in-law was Elvis, probably named after the famous American rock ‘n’ roll singer and her sister’s Elvis was only in his thirties and consequently too young to even think about dying. Yet that, it seemed, was exactly what he’d done. Unless, that is, something had got at him, and the morning being the sort of mess it had turned out to be she was convinced a fairy must be to blame.

Elvis was dead. Her hip was aching where the collapsing bed had knocked it and she no longer had a kettle that would hold water. Taken all in all, it was not yet lunch time and it had turned out to be a really wretched day.

“I’m sorry, fairy, wherever you are,” she wept, sitting like an almost middle-aged waif at her kitchen table havign filled saucepan swith water and put ito the stove, “I don’t know who you are or how I’ve upset you, and I’m sorry.”

An apology like that ought to have done the trick because it was wholesome and genuine and meant from the bottom of her heart.

“Well you have!” hissed a voice in her ear, and she would have dismissed it as pure imagination had she not distinctly felt the warm breath of the speaker on the lobe of her ear.

She looked round, and there was nobody there. Or might there be a something or somebody, cowering behind the teapot, and if there was it must be a fairy even though she was fully aware that in reality there was no such thing anywhere under the known sky as fairies.

“Who’s there?” she asked, hoping her voice would sound threatening and severe and knowing that it didn’t.

“Tinkle-belle,” came the reply, and “you b***h!” it added.

“Tinkle-belle?” she sniggered, “nobody’s called that, and I’m not a b***h!”

“Well I’m called Tinkle-belle, so there,” replied whoever it was, and standing up straight with her wings fluttering for balance stood a fairy. Charlene knew it must be a fairy because no human being or even tiny member of any species that was capable of calling her a b***h or anything unpleasant would look so diminutive and sound so aggressive.

“So what have I done to upset you, Tinkle-whatever you call yourself?” she asked, nowing there had to be some sort of conversation because if she called the police complaining that she had an aggressive fairy actually standing on her kitchen table she would be laughed out of the county. The police didn’t respond for such trivial matters even if one of them who actually believed in fairies might be found somewhere in the police station.

“Tinkle-belle,” came the reply, helpfully, “and you told the window cleaner who was complaining about the state of your attic window that you didn’t believe a word of it when he told you that it looked very much like fairy-droppings!”

“Well, the man’s obviously an idiot,” said Charlene angrily, “whoever heard of fairy droppings?”

“I have,” sighed Tinkle-belle, “I’m a fairy with a digestive system that produces its fair amount of waste, and I need somehow to get rid of it, but it wasn’t me who left it on your attic window as I fluttered past it. But you told that window cleaner that there’s no such thing as fairies. Your very words, and they filled the air like thunder! And when you say that a fairy is doomed to die, and it’s my turn.”

“That’s nonsense,” declared Charlene, “it’s an old thing put about to make children believe there are fairies, when everyone at the bottom of their hearts every child knows there’s no such thing!”

“That’s so unkind,” wept Tinkle-belle, “and here you are actually looking at me and knowing what I am! How would you like it if I turned the whole thing round and looked straight at you and said there was no such thing as women called Charlene? And you found yourself dropping dead for no better reason than a fairy saying, only saying, mind you, that there’s no such thing as people called Charlene? I doubt that it’s even a crime!”

“As I said, it’s all nonsense! Now, if you don’t mind, leave me in peace to have a cup of tea. It’s been a trying day.” moaned Charlene, trying to forget what manner of creature she was debating such an important subject with.

“You leave me no choice then,” whispered Tinkle-belle, “so wait for it! There’s no such thing as, let me see, people called Charlene!”

It was then that the conversation, which had been far from light-hearted, came to its head.

No sooner had the last sentence emerged from Tinkle-belle’s mouth than a mighty buzzing momentarily and explosively scorched through Charlene’s head, and the cup of tea she was holding fell from a grip that was no longer capable of holding it, she fell forwards until her nose was actually on the table and Tinkle-belle told herself that it was such a shame…

It was at that point that Jeffrey pushed his way through the door and without noticing the prostrate position of Charlene, addressed her.

“I’ve changed my mind, my love,” he said, “the b***h is only after my money and I really love you, you must see that, Can you forgive me?”

But the dead are incapable of forgiving anyone, not even recalcitrant husbands.

© Peter Rogerson, 26.08.23