Charmed Life

Charmed Life

Invisible. That’s what it was.

Tanya rummaged frantically through her closet. Where was it? She needed that shirt for her recital! It was the only one that went with her black skirt. Argh!

“Mom! Where’s my shirt? You know, the black one with the flower petal?”

Her mother came up the stairs with a laundry basket under her arm, “It’d take magic to find it in that mess, check the laundry basket.”

“Magic doesn’t exist, I’d have found my shirt by now if it did.” The ever-scientific Tanya grumbled into the basket of clothes her mom had set down on her bed. Wait, bed! Maybe it was under her bed!

Hurriedly, Tanya stuck herself under the bed, her recital started in fifteen minutes and she had to walk there! Her hand grazed box after box until she felt a piece of felt material and flung it out from under the bed.

She crawled out and from under the bed and looked at the shirt, thank goodness! There it was, she pulled it on and ran from the room at an alarming pace. “See ya mom!”

Tanya raced out the door with one thought running through her head, gotta be on time, gotta be on time…

The next thing she knew, she was an inch away from tasting pavement and her head hurt terribly. She had bashed into someone, hard.

“I’m so sorry.” She apologized as she looked up to see an Arabian man, with a black beard and turban, as well as brown robes and sea blue eyes. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

The man nodded at her with an eerie smile, “So you don’t believe in magic, hmm?”

“No of course not, it’s all nonsense. At any rate, I have a piano recital to get to.”
Tanya waved as she ran off; not hearing his last words.

“That’s a pity, life is mostly magic — it’s death that’s the reality.”

What a weird person, she shuddered as she remembered the look in his eyes and the smile on his face. Almost as if he had been pitying her somehow, but no, the expression had been crueler. Perhaps it was mock pity? Tanya shrugged it off remembering her piano recital.

Tanya picked up her pace and sprinted so fast, it felt as if she were flying. As if her feet were invisible. She sighed as she reached the auditorium that had been scheduled to host her class’ recitals.

“Has anyone seen Tanya? She’s up first and she’s not here yet!” Miss Abra wanted to know. As the class ran around setting up chairs and two boys pulled the piano out onto center stage.

“I’m right here.” Tanya piped up as she ran over to Miss Abra.

“Alright well, Tony, you’ll have to go first, alright?”

“Yes’m.” The flighty brown haired boy nodded as he continued his job of making sure everything was in place.

“But Miss Abra, I’m right here!” Tanya protested. Why was she being ignored? Was this some kind of joke? No, Miss Abra was too strict to know the meaning of the word joke.

“Well, it is two pm, I suppose we’ll have to start with out her.”

“But Miss Abra!” Tanya screamed at the top of her lungs and yet nobody said a word or even turned to stare at her. Something weird was happening, that much Tanya was sure of.

“ARGH!” Tanya shouted as she ran from the building, she flew down the street and in the direction of her house. The wind breezed passed her and she felt like she was going forty miles an hour. Tanya snorted in spite of herself, she’d have to be magic to go that fast.

“Aaaaaaaaaah!” She tumbled down a large grassy hill, ouch, her grass burns got worse and she couldn’t stop! She just kept rolling and rolling and rolling. Suddenly Tanya felt her skin grow cold as her clothes grew damper by the second. What scared her even more was that she could no long feel her feet, or anything below her waistline. What’s happening? Her mind swam anxiously in circles as if trying to locate her missing body parts.

A dull pain struck her head as everything went black.

*~*~*~*

Unicorns pranced, mermaids swam, and fairies sang in an oddly accented chant as Tanya found herself groaning and coming to in a completely white room.

Then it clicked, she was in a hospital room, how long was I out for? The question hit her like a sac of potatoes and her head immediately started to ache again. Tanya sat up as her head protested and kept on aching like there was no tomorrow. She looked around her room, and noticed a small calendar on the bedside table. There were ‘x’s through the days that had passed by. Her eyes followed the ‘x’s up to the thirtieth of August. Wait…my recital was on twenty-seventh, wasn’t it? I’ve been out for three days?

At that moment Tanya noticed something even more odd, she still couldn’t feel her legs or her feet, and now her left arm was starting to lose it’s feeling as well…what was happening to her?

“Nurse?” Tanya called as loud as she could and then waited.

Nobody came, and nothing happened. Tanya was getting scared, still nothing, it was as silent as a morgue. It was as if the hospital was empty. Dead empty. Shivers ran up Tanya’s spine, what was really happening? She jumped up, and ran, straight out of the room; seeing nobody outside only made her run faster, so fast she flew.

Tanya reached the point where she had fallen down and noticed a giant green hill, rolling down that would surely kill anyone as there was a bunch of rocks and stead-fast current right after it. She gasped, no, she wasn’t dead she could still see her self and walk and run, and talk. She wasn’t dead. She then noticed crosses and wilting flowers a few feet away. A memorial. Who for? Her curious mind questioned as she walked towards it.

The main cross had something written on it, Tanya peered closely at the messy writing only to see that the name written across it was someone she knew.

Tanya Alexandra Tucker

NO! It wasn’t possible, she was right here! Right here! She sat down and cried, what had happened to her? Who was she? Better yet, what was she? What had caused all this? Everything started to get weird…right after I met that man, Tanya gasped in realization.

A dark panic overtook her as she looked down at her legs; they weren’t there. They were just gone. She stared down at her hands; they were fading rapidly! What kind of…magic…she realized her mistake as the man’s voice echoed in her mind.

‘That’s a pity, life is mostly magic — it’s death that’s the reality.’ Her eyes widened as a monstrous laugh filled her ears, as she faded. She faded away from everything; her entire life. She’d never see any of it again. A second later, everything became clear.

A cool voice tickled in her vanishing ears, “Life is magic and you didn’t believe in it.”

*~*~*~*~* Magic’s for a day; Reality’s for an Eternity*~*~*~*~*

By Jacquie