Talent Ash

The Green Fairy

By Ash | 2007

It always starts with a drive down Riverside, where the stars are in complete white-out due to the two cities that nearly meet here, except for that small stretch of glittering water between them. Instead, stars here are replaced by the oranges, purples, yellows and pinks of city lights. This is the border city where I live, Detroit’s somewhat safer, Canadian little sister. Good things can be found here, if you know where to look. I stare out the passenger side window in awe; I love the city. I know I will love it more in an hour or two, when absinthe has made its way into my gut.

I think to myself, that in the seven days of a week, there are two that I may feel truly alive. A hectic student’s schedule, compounded with monotonous, underpaid days at a typical plebian job are probably enough to drain the life out of any lucid being… especially that of a chronically confused and indecisive girl, who doesn’t even know what the hell she wants out of life. Weekends are those two miraculous days, which I consider chiefly responsible for the re-establishment of my sanity, after five days of what feels like living someone else’s life.

Today is Friday, which means a laid-back night of de-stressing. My best friend and I end up at one of our favourite haunts, a small bohemian type café. This place has the type of atmosphere where one person may be sitting at a table with a laptop, writing a paper, and two people at the next table will be getting positively hammered.

We are the two people at the next table.

We order our first round of drinks: two glasses of Hill’s Absinth and two orange juice chasers, as always. The girl behind the bar is petite and pretty. She has that kind of look – you know the type of girl, who’s able to candidly rock her eccentric style (in this case, electric blue hair and piercings) and still look gorgeous at the same time.

The first glass goes down bitter, but by the second round of drinks the liquid moves smoothly. My companion and I get into various long discussions, most of which I probably won’t remember by the next morning.

“We need to go to Europe one day. That would be so cool,” I say for what is probably the 5th weekend in a row.

“Definitely,” he agrees as always. We both know that it probably won’t happen, but it’s nice to hope.

This gets me thinking about what life is like on that side of the world. I know that somewhere across the Atlantic, someone is drinking real absinthe, the original stuff, which has caused so much controversy over the years. I think of Verlaine and Rimbaud, those two nineteenth century lovers who drank absinthe and wrote poems for a living. I wonder if anyone in Europe ever does see the mythical ‘Green Fairy’. I also wonder if the lives of Verlaine and Rimbaud were any more exciting than mine.

My mind moves quickly, but I am wonderfully content. After more time spent drinking, and a considerable amount of time spent staring quizzically at the light-bubbles projected on the wall (because, even after months spent coming here, we can never seem to figure out where this projection is coming from), we decide it is time to head home. At least, I assume we do, because I can’t remember the events that took place after this… all I know is that in the next moment, I am in a dream.

I’m back at the café, but this time I’m alone. There are a few people littering the tables around me, and I’m standing at the bar where the pretty girl still resides. She looks different this time; her hair is now a bright phosphorescent green.

“Welcome to the green hour,” she greets me with a smile, as she pours an emerald glass of liquid, and sets the sugar cube on fire.

“Is this your escape?” she asks me.

“What?”

“What is it that you’re looking for?” she continues.

“I… don’t know.” It is the only thing I can think to reply.

“It’s gone, you know. You’re stuck. You feel it pulling at you. Why are you so afraid to go?”

I know exactly what she’s talking about. She talks of a time that I once had the love of my life, of the scornful parents who hold me by the throat with an iron grip, of the degree I don’t know why I’m getting, and of the job I can’t stand to work. She talks of my strong desire to leave, and of my fear of actually doing it. But how does she know this? Maybe I’m assuming things.

Her hair begins to effervesce, and I wonder if this is normal.

“Take a drink,” the petite girl insists.

She smiles at me, and I regard the drink, which has now completely caught fire. I’m also startled to notice that the café seems to have gotten much bigger all of a sudden, and that the people at the surrounding tables now have grins displaying considerably longer and sharper canines.

When I look back, confused, at the pretty girl, I see that she is grinning fangs as well. Not only that, but she seems to have gotten taller.

Wait. Not taller. She’s floating.

The pretty petite girl with the fangs and green effervescing hair is floating.

A pair of membranous wings displaying patterns of green, black and yellow, is now protruding from her back.

Is this normal?

“Shame on you,” she smiles with those gleaming teeth, a glowing spark in her eyes, and I know she means the spiral downward that I didn’t stop myself from taking.

The projected bubbles on the wall turn a bright orange, and seem to levitate toward me, which prompts me to frantically search for the origin of these damn things that I can never find.

Everything is converging inward. This is not normal.

I begin to panic as the Fairy penetrates into my very soul with her grinning stare, and I realize that I am alone here. There is not a single familiar face within this place, and even though I can’t see outside, I somehow simply know that there is nobody familiar to me within miles of here. All of a sudden, a loneliness deeper than I’ve ever known has etched itself into the pit of my stomach.

“I never used to be like this,” I try to justify to her. “I never used to be so callous!”

It’s true. I’m the kind of girl who never cries, who can’t cry, a status I came into slowly a few years ago from a girl who always did.

The Fairy comes ever closer and I’m so startled that I jump; landing face first into a soft, fabric embrace, and it takes me a moment to realize that I’m in my own bed. My heart is beating quickly at first, but then I feel that sweet relief wash over me: I’m not alone, the people I love now will never leave me alone like I have been in the past.

The lonely, scared knot in the recesses of my stomach begins to relax as I remember that my life is good.