A/N: This AU follows the plot of the novel An Invisible Sign of My Own by Aimee Bender and also its movie adaptation An Invisible Sign, a movie and book pair I highly recommend. With this, I've swapped the two original main characters with Jane and Maura. I tried my best to keep them in-character in this situation, so we'll see how that goes.
It's ten chapters in all, including the epilogue. Some parts of it are pretty unrealistic, but I think that adds a little fun/novelty to it.
This is just a short odd prologue that will make much more sense later.
...
Maura used to love her father's stories. Until the one he told her on her tenth birthday.
"So.
There was once a kingdom where everybody lived forever. They had discovered the secret to immortality, and because of this, there were no cemeteries or hospitals, no funeral parlors or books in the bookstore about death and grieving. Instead, the bookstore proudly sold pamphlets and guides to being a righteous citizen without the fear of the afterlife.
But the problem with nobody dying was that the kingdom got very crowded. The women kept having more babies, and the babies had nowhere to sleep because the dozens of great-great-great grandparents were taking up all the beds. And people kept aging, only there was no respect for the elders because they were just like the youngers and everybody was going to live forever anyway; there wasn't so much of a difference anymore. No.
The real problem was space.
So the king, getting squeezed out of his own castle by the endless royal lineage, issued a decree: "Everybody in my kingdom, please pick one person from your family to die. We will have a mass execution on Friday that will bring forth much-needed space. Sorry to bum everybody out, but that's just the way it goes."
When Friday came, the kingdom congregated, each family having selected their offering. Nobody wanted to say it out loud, but there was a sort of unspoken curiosity about death slithering about the people. It was sort of like some exotic vacation one could never return from, and for this reason, few were really bothered.
So each family gathered and offered their martyr to die for the cause of much-needed community space. There was a lot of weeping and praising going on as each family pushed forward their member to die; that is, all except one family. They simply couldn't choose. First, the mother offered, but everyone protested. Then the father, much the same. The daughter? Nobody liked that idea. The son? That was no good either.
"Sire," the father said, "we can't decide. We love each other so much that we would all like to die together."
"That's ridiculous," the town executor scoffed "that spoils it."
"Besides," the recently-widowed librarian piped in, "they can't all die! They run the bakery. They make the best cinnamon buns in all the land!"
The father considered that for a moment before an idea struck him, "What if we each cut off a piece of ourselves? And with all the pieces combined, it would be like one less person lived in town."
The king contemplated this proposition, "Hmm, interesting... I like it."
But the daughter refused. "But, Dad, I like my limbs."
"Don't be selfish," he scolded her. "Would you rather have one of us die?"
"You can have my arm!" the son offered as the daughter relented. Praising her boy's bravery, the mother offered her right ear, and the father: his nose.
"Guarantee me a leg, and it's a deal!" said the king.
The daughter huffed out a sigh and started to do the math. She already had two legs. They were only asking for one, and losing a family member seemed a whole lot worse than something she had two of, so…
"Okay, I'm in."
With a final nod from the king, the executioner got right to work chopping up the small family with his trusty ax.
But after the deed was done, the family made an unsightly sight. Business went bad for the bakery because no one wanted to set eyes on the gruesome bunch.
They started to sell their cinnamon buns by mail order to the next kingdom, and since no one there had to look at them, they were a huge hit and the family made lots and lots of dough.
And the father said to the daughter, "You see what we can accomplish if we all stick together?"
The end."
Half a dozen pairs of wide eyes bore into her seemingly oblivious father until Maura's mother simply couldn't take it anymore. She started to sing Happy Birthday to her daughter, who, in turn, was relieved when the other children joined in with uncertain voices.
As Maura blew out the candles, she had no idea it would be the last birthday party she would ever have.