Manic Pixie Dream Girl -- fiction by Liliana Romero Luther

I’ve always loved dewy grass. In a manic pixie dream girl sort of way. In a manner too grandiose for my patch of grass, who’s dandelions are struggling in the richest of soils. But perhaps I cannot see the rot underneath. The packed dirt, the shriveled worms. But depth is for the character and I am a facet of storytelling; and I like it. I could walk for ages in this, but my laps are small and full of swift left turns that turn me dizzy and screw me into the ground like a cork into a champagne bottle. As a character, I love champagne but hate occasions wherein I must drink it. There is no fun in organization. Chaos is my love language, just don’t look in my closet, or you’ll see it is in perfect rainbow order. I tried to knit once, and burnt the contents of my knitting basket for the horrid hellfire I created--it practically ignited itself. 

But back to the grass, because I like tangents that begin to get interesting right as they end. Yes, those are rather my specialty. I pick up a moth because they are unloved and unnoticed until they show up dead at your doorstep beneath the lamplight, and then they are Altering. I see myself in them. I pet the moth for a moment, before realizing it has but one wing, and decide to take care of it. I have the ambition of a four year old and the abilities of one too. I’d try to feed a dog paint if you let me, and yet I am also good at math, because those are both strange. It doesn’t have to make sense--see? It must only be strange and then I am allowed it.

Moths and grizzly bears are related, no? They wear the same shades, and disappear in winter to who knows where, and are horribly poached. Well, mayhaps not that last one, but I will go on a tangent later on why that must be true, and you will laugh and I will die a little more inside, and yet live because that is reassurance from god: your approval.

I forget that moths breathe air and not light, and so do not think to poke holes in the jar that becomes its coffin. You ask why I have a jar beneath my pillow and I say because why not, and you do not push and I do not pull so you will never hear about my grandfather. 

Funerals are nice I think. I like to sing but choir is much too plain, and a pop star must be tangible to be famous, so I pick funerals to sing. And I am horrible or maybe a little bit wonderful, whichever suits the character in his best shades.

And this all reminds me of something so we go to the park to watch the sunrise, because we were only out for 15 minutes at 5 AM and you don’t mind because you couldn’t sleep, and you tell me why while I remind you life is beautiful. And worth living. And kind. And in exchange you give me absolutely nothing. Another sign from god. I tap my nose knowingly, and manically laugh without sounding too insane. And we are off to our next location.

Breakfast I think! It’s the most important meal of the day, and the best tasting one because we make it and not sticky fingered parents whose concept of food is foreign and bland and English in a way I can’t explain so you just laugh. I cook bacon and you make sure I don’t burn down the house, and then pancakes, and the batter covers the tiles but my parents don’t care, and are gone all the time, but you don’t ask why so I am safe and you are sound and we are eating breakfast now.

Tables are horrid torture chambers, so let us eat in a tree. Where the birds try to steal our crumbs and your mutt barks up at us just enough to be funny, but stops before it grows tiresome; before it wakes the neighbors. 

And then there is school which I cannot say without rolling my eyes. It is optional, I’ll say, despite the scorn the know-it-all Character betrays. I walk you to the bus, and skip school till third period when I can do math and pass notes that give all the answers because cheating is easy when I am here. And I go to art class and we draw still lives, for which I have no patience so I draw you. Flattering, though the teacher sends me home with a note I throw away in the alley before we enter your back garden.

We sneak a cricket in your house because how splendid is torture?

And when you go home I wish I’d go still. When the character is not there to see me, to drink me in to breathe me I fear I am better off dead. No. But the world is beautiful! And sunsets and moths, and grizzly bears and silly school and breakfast in a tree. 

And then I die tragically. And your parents break the news. Or maybe you find my body in a place it shouldn’t be. And it was just an accident. Because I felt nothing but utter joy all my life. I made sure all the scars had healed. Had vanished before I went away. So they knew I had died peacefully. I put a bottle of eyedrops in my pocket. So they wouldn’t seem like tears. 

And there is no blood because I know you’re squeamish. There is no puke because I know you’re squeamish.

And now isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it grand? That you can’t see a sunset without smiling, that moths make you think of me? That you wait till my birthday to eat pancakes and bacon in a tree. And isn’t it great that you can be alone without the voices creeping into your skull like spiders into eye sockets and infecting the whole being?

The Character is god here. And if faith isn’t fear then something is wrong. I am the holiest sinner that has ever walked the earth, even though I told you it was flat and you now know why. I wish I could say I was in heaven now. But the religion of the fictional is so much crueler than reality. To die in fiction is so much worse than a death in flesh. Because the Character does not exist. But I. I never existed.

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Liliana Romero Luther is a 16 year old homeschool-High School student who enjoys writing in her free time when she isn't galavanting around Chicagoland, exploring museums, cemeteries, and playhouses. Liliana's work has been published in the literary magazine ButteredToast, in 2022, and she looks forward to exploring writing more as she prepares for college.