Buttons and Charades
The little button-eyed girl forced a smile, sunshine and pepper and acid curling across her lips. The thin white threads keeping her together were getting dangerously loose, she was not used to smiling after all, but she kept the smile for as long as she could. Button-eyed girl did not want to be reminded of things past, of stories and words that did not thing but paint pictures of arrows that ran clockwise and refused to turn back. She was a brave little girl, and she did not want to cry.
This little girl with black-button eyes and white threads hanging loose down her chin- she was a mismatched, misshapen, misconstrued piece of tossed felt and spare needles. They built her out of sheer boredom, stuck pins across her back and said, look here, wear her on your sleeve or on your knapsack or on your hood. Darling, look at her, isn't she precious?
She held her heart out for the passersby and saved her smile for the ones that cared. She was fifty different lies, twenty-eight varying promises, eleven very similar regrets, but only one heart. And only one smile, sunshine and pepper and acid at that. Darling, I think she'd scare the children. The porcelain doll to her left seems more our taste.
The passersby always walked on. They were frightened by the sound of heart beats, rhythmic, melodic, a requiem. They wanted cold, they wanted clean, they wanted the dead. Everything they longed to be, solace from their pitiful state of living. They were selfish and they were blind. Good riddance, she thought. Hearts were always good for weeding out the wandering fools.
She held her heart out for those who would eventually look away, but she smiled for him.
He was the boy charade, anything you wanted him to be, call out your hunch and you might as well be right- boy charade liked to keep his mouth shut, after all. All the clues were there, he laid them plain on the table, said them as he pleased, as you pleased, as anyone pleased, but he'd never nod his head at an answer. It was safer that way- the more they know, the more muddled the truth gets. It was a theory, and he knew he was right.
This boy, this riddle, he liked to sing songs. He penned down his verses, wrote sonatas in chalk on asphalt and sang them out of tune. He was charming, he was sweet, and the girls piled up outside his doorstep, thinking, I'll be the one that he'll notice. I'll be the one that stands out. He sang to them from his window, three storeys up, but he never looked down.
She was brave, but weak. She was crying, yes button-eyes shed tears, and he was there. He asked her to smile, yes boy charade can care, and she did. She was soft and warm and her heart sped off in syncopated melodies, like the songs he liked to sing. He was real, he stood before her and did not disappear, and when he wrapped his arms around her, heart and all, it was an answer and not a question.
It wasn't good for either of them. The smile would soon take its toll and puzzles are nothing if they have been solved. But Button-eyed Girl and Boy Charade had no time to think on such things. Regrets can take place later in their short lives, perhaps once the sun is risen, when the morning comes to take them away. But tonight-
Tonight was theirs.
a/n: I purged this account recently and I've written many things ever since, never once tempted to put them up for scrutiny. But I was compelled to post this one. There are some things that are best kept a secret, and this is one of them, but haven't you heard? Keeping those secrets bottled in is never good for your health.. This is my own postsecret entry. Some things about it are ridiculously cliche- that last line, anyone?- but this is how it happened, and I wanted to be honest. You don't know who I am, and you don't know him, but I hope you enjoy. :)