Wells Street Journal

She was a good pleaser.
She was a good smiler.
She was a good anything any woman was supposed to be good at.
But she was also a good something no one had ever thought she could be good at. She was a good man.

Emily Glass took out her exquisite leopard Manolo Blahniks, and without hesitation, chucked them in the dirtiest rubbish bin. After each swear word, a different jewel flew through the air, leaving the crowd located around the stage door, bemused. They were not sure if that was part of the production or not -although nobody could make any connection between that and Eliza Doolittle’s story.
The pieces of embroidered linen that she was letting fall like dry leaves, never reach the floor -thank the voracious fans, capable of losing their teeth for the transcendental occasion.
Glass did not care. Anymore.

The air seemed to be made of nothingness. It did not move. In her mind, everything became nothing all of a sudden. However, that was the most revealing moment of her entire life.

“Emily! Emily, be reasonable! Emily!”

She ignored. She smiled. She ran. Her heart was drumming; on the verge of releasing cotton candy, pick & mix or any pretty coloury sweet she used to enjoy when she was a child.
Rain, puddles, dog shits… she was like running over pink clouds.

Stop! Stop! Stop right here! Now! Yes, you. You! You! The reader.
This is the exact moment where you have enough common-for-everybody-to-understand information, for me to start again, telling everything how I wish and wished to be known.

They were a good pleaser.
They were a good smiler.
They were a good anything a woman was supposed to be good at.
But they were a good something no one had ever thought I could be good at.
I was a good man. Too.

You can now imagine the rest. However, there is more, much.
Sometimes the form does not represent the content, or at least not as we are used to knowing things. I am happy. That day I felt what scientists say that babies feel when they are born. Everything. My crying was my laugh, though. So, I ran. I did not run away. I just ran.

Emily Glass stopped. Their bare feet were blacker than chocolate and redder than strawberries, puffier than meringue and clefter than cookies… They looked at them. They smiled. They ran.

Crowded streets became quiet suburbs, and these became a forest.
A fresh and mystic fragrance wrapped them softer and stronger than anything else. That was the scenting gate into the unknown. They denuded the last pieces of someone else’s identity while walking through the cottony shrubbery.
They were finally there. There. Finally. Themself.

That river… The softness of the round stones was like a mother’s caress for their feet. At the same time that they were recovering the breath, the water was losing its transparency to see the beauty of truth. Cold took another meaning: purification.

Nude -exposed to their real mother- floated in the water while saying: “I know who I am. However, is that so important? I am here, now. What I do is what remains. But if no one sees my actions, does it mean they don’t endure? I care no more. I am this, here, now, and forever.” Their long blonde hair swam in slow motion untangling all the knots that expensive silver brushes would not do. Every single pore of the skin that was wide naively open before, closed like a wise shield. There were truth, wisdom and courage. All wrapped in a beautiful body full of healing scars.

“Emily!”

Tired of reasoning and embracing their final themselfness, Emily came out from the purifier stream with one thing in mind.

“What are you doing, Emily? Have you gone mad? Wash away that stupid smile, hide that disgusting prick and come back to do what you have to do!”

“From the deep of my heart, I wish you all the best.”

His hand crossed the midair like a whip, and not even the blood that came from their nose and lip erased the smile on their face.

“Stop smiling; you nature abortion!”

Now it was the other side of their face. Instead of scaring them, the rivers of red gold that ran all over their body, made them feel more alive than ever. They kept smiling.

“You’ll not live out of this!”

However, this time, they stopped the slap.

“I am Emily Glass, and I care no more.”

They jumped back into the water, and he tried to do the same. All of a sudden, his clothes grabbed him, strangling his whole body. Never before had a Stuart Hughes been so heavy. A perfect murderer for an ideal obtuse. But not even an ignorant mind deserved to die, they thought. He did not know how to swim. They did. They helped. They smiled.

By the river shore, both bodies lied down looking at the sky. It took a while for their short and fast breaths to slow down. His eyes were flooded with pain and fear, and his mouth was like an earthquake about to break through the whole earth. They looked at him.

“I am, and I will be who I have always been, and that is beautiful.”

She kissed him and taking the deepest breath of her entire life, came back to the water, and disappeared from his glance ever after.

Arif Alfaraz is a Slytherin who lives through art, and believes it’s a means to change this world into Wonderland. Born in Asturias (Spain), he likes to write prose fiction and plays.