CHAPTER A: Abrupt Arrivals and Abnormal Aberrations
My story begins the way all great stories do; a strange family moves to a small town. This town is isolated, overly simplistic, and most likely haunted. This was true on all counts for Folksy, population 742, Greenland. Folksy was situated between towering snow capped mountains and cracked, thinly ice glazed lakes. Our lonesome little town endured more snow storms per annum than anywhere else in the southern hemisphere, and was most certainly haunted, or so everyone said, by the "hollowed-out shells of former human beings" that were the old people.
You see, a few years back during the "Super-beauty Epidemic", everyone started feeling really depressed and hopelessly scared when they saw people who were older than fifty years of age; their wrinkles, gray hair, crinkled eyes and veined appendages reminded the young and superficial that one day they too would lose the youth that they had obsessively striven to maintain for so long. The five thousand dollar perky breasts would start to sag, their two thousand dollar botox injected faces would soon stop reacting to treatment and would one day break apart into the cracks and creases of dreaded time. They would also lose their full heads of radiant, youthful hair to old age.
And since fifty years of medical breakthroughs had created an army of elderly that threatened to dominate the planet and very soon outnumber the young and beautiful, they were forcibly relocated far, far away. Out of everyone's sight and minds.
And so now we have them, and it appears I'm the only one genuinely happy about it, or at least, I am happy about it now. Because I have a secret. A dark, horrific secret that I have never told anyone, but one that I am struggling to maintain control of more and more each day. But more on that later, for the old people weren't the only new arrivals to Folksy, the Sullen family were also new.
It is their arrival that makes mine the greatest story ever told.
My name is Preauty Pecker, but everyone calls me Pru, and yes; my parents were from Utah, they are both dead now though.
Well, at least most people call me Pru anyway, the kids that go to my school, Folksy High, call me "Wood-Pecker" or "Pee-Pee". The first is actually a clever pun on my last name, and is to insinuate that I am a no-good cheap slut, and the latter is a use of alliteration, inspired by the fact that my first and last names both start with the letter "P". It also insinuates that I am a childish idiot. I am, of course, non of the above. I am the best academic achiever at my school, getting straight A+ in all my subjects, despite the fact that I never need to study – or the fact that I am forgetful, to the extent where it has become a grave affliction and effects my going about simple daily activities. It effects my going about simple daily activities.
All the students at my school – and there are two hundred of them – insist on calling my these derogatory nicknames because two months ago I was stuck in a terrible snowstorm. My face was so horribly disfigured from frostbite that I needed to have facial reconstruction surgery – to my shock however the procedure went wrong – it made me absolutely gorgeous. This of course lead to ninety of the one hundred boys at my school asking me out – but I refused each and every one of them, of course – publicly humiliating them and leaving them emotionally scarred for life. After my refusal of these suitors, seven of the one hundred females at my school got the wrong idea and also asked me out. I refused my suitor-ettes in a similar fashion, of course.
Now, please do not think me vain or self obsessed – I didn't reject anyone because I thought myself better than they were, well, except for Lewis; who, despite the fact that he could be attractive, had no respect for his physical appearance; or for the sanity of everyone else. He was obese, had buck teeth, was covered in acne and, worst of all, had glasses. He had been asking me out since he first came to Folksy, five years ago. He was also the only one to still call me Pru. Apart from Lewis, who was simply the biggest geeky loser I had ever had the displeasure of knowing, I rejected them because unlike most people, I was not attracted to people my own age. This was my terrible secret, and had been forged the very same night that my physical transformation had begun. That fateful night two months ago.
*****
I had been trapped in the heart of a frozen demon. For two hours I had endured the cruelty of the icy stings cutting deep into every inch of my exposed flesh. I could almost instantly feel the physical pain of my body shutting down from the cold, but I was determined to not be defeated by the immortal monster that was the storm, I allowed myself just to let it beat down on me in endless onslaughts of the worst kind of abuse, but I didn't give in and let it obliterate me.
After a lengthy struggle, the blizzard had finally started to seep into my brain. I was entirely aware of this strange transformation within myself, new thoughts taking shape behind my eyes. I went from being in agonizing pain and trapped to actually enjoying it, feeling thrilled and deeply aroused by what was happening to me. The sheer brute power and strength of the storm awoke some either newly discovered or long forgotten side of my psyche. I was bewitched – completely – by the violent fury being inflicted upon me by the deranged elements.
The storm had changed something else in me, or had allowed for another change in me. When I went back to work this new change became fully realized and had manifested into my terrible secret, infinitely impossible to act on, but even harder to ignore. The secret I harbor is an attraction to those many a year older than me. Not entirely their physical appearance, more what they represent to me. What they represent is the epitome in authority and supremacy, with their stupendous, limitless wisdom, malice and abuse of power. I think that a subconscious connection was made between my grandfather, who raised me with his fists and his own concentrated form of tough love, and the storm. Now all I can see is the need for a partner who treats me like my grandfather; controlling, demeaning, and therefore everything I need to have my own version of a fulfilling and loving relationship.
When they found me, they said I was lucky to be alive. I knew even then that is was some kind of Fate that changed me as it had, and kept my body alive. It was to prepare me for the next, and greatest chapter of my life. So that I would be ready for him – the love of my life, my love at first sight, my reason for living, my body, my soul, my very heart beat. My everything. My George Sullen.