Sublime Life, Insufferable Life

by The Humanized Marionette

The summary is too long for this box, I'm afraid that, to get a summary, you'll have to look at the first story '. My apologies!

1. A Day in the Life of Flaky

It began in a quaint town (all stories do nowadays) known as Happy Tree Town: the rare type of town where everyone knew each other by name. This town was peaceful, quiet, and dreadfully droll; everything you'd expect from such a town. However, that persona was nothing more than a well-constructed facade. Buried in the vast depths of the town's past lied a deep, dark secret. The country's government had an inkling of understanding, but the knowledge of this secret was restricted to the highest ranking officials, officers, and generals; the whole situation was on a strict need-to-know basis. To prevent the town's secret from ever spreading to the public, the government had the town taken off the map, kept all satellite photos of the town hidden in a digital file secured by the most cutting edge security, restricted entry to the town to everyone unaffected by the town secret; kicked anyone unaffected out and kept them from asking why by providing sufficient compensation, and forbade anyone and everyone that the secret affected from leaving the town. And even then they made sure that all roads, all trails, any and all ways that people could accidentally find the town was eliminated.

The town's government was pliant: for their county's government responded to the secret in a way that they found beneficial. No one but the town's mayor and any other political official knew what they stood to gain from this absolute removal from the public eye, but then, no one cared. No tourists, no problems. But if only that was true.

In truth, the town had a long and painful history with accidents. This problem plagued each citizen of the town; one might conclude that to live in Happy Tree Town was to inherit a life plagued by a severe accident-proneness. The citizens of Happy Tree Town were so accident prone that a third of their accidents led to death while two-thirds led to severe or crippling injury. However, death wasn't a worry to the residents of this town. And why was that? Well, it was because of that dirty little secret. That secret the government desperately wanted to keep secluded: it was an ancient curse that plagued the town's first settlers and every generation born in the town thereafter. And it was a curse that gave the residents immortality, at a cost. If someone, affected by the curse, was killed, then their conscious mind would be shunted aside as their bodies repaired whatever damage was dealt. Depending on the severity of the injuries: the process could take a minute, several hours, a whole day, several weeks, a month, or even years. There was no possible way to kill the residents, and not even old age could take them; the residents didn't truly age, their bodies merely grew until a certain age before stopping. What was truly horrible about the curse was that they, the residents, felt the pain of dying, then the pain caused by the regenerative process.

These are the stories of the newest generation's lives.

---

A day in the life of Flaky: one embarrassing moment after another, getting her hair caught in things, forgetting something; two or three, futilely managing and cleaning the wild, dandruff-wrought, and maroon red mane that was her hair, and getting the daylights scared out of her at least ten times before nightfall. And it would only get worse, or so it seemed on most days. This demure girl known as Flaky was the most timid, most awkward, and greatest coward that was ever brought into the world. She was not pretty like her friends Cuddles or Petunia, and she wasn't as smart as Sniffles or Lammy. And she most definitely was not as brave as Splendid or Flippy. What Flaky was, was an easily-frightened, plain looking, flaky girl. In fact, that was how she got her nickname, although there was a second reason behind the nickname's creation. Whenever she got scared, that was quite often, she flaked out on people, and her hair had an incredible amount of dandruff. A name like Flaky was obviously not her real name, but she couldn't remember her real name. It had been one of the things she forgot and never rectified its absence. Sometimes: She pondered on the reasons that made her forgo her birth name. Was it because everyone in the town and her friends called her by that? Or was it because her own parents started to call her by that, instead of the name they gave her at birth? Or, maybe, it was because every teacher she ever had quickly adopted the trend the instant (How did they know her nickname when it was the first time she ever met them?) she was assigned to their class-for the first time. Whatever the reason, Flaky was now known as Flaky; she learned to live with it. It was better to be accepting of the only thing to call oneself, after all.

Today, Wednesday, was no different from any other day. Her troubles started when she woke up, when one of her feet got tangled up in her bed sheets and caused her to trip and fall, face first, onto the floor. And, as a testament to her luck, she managed to sprain her ankle, which hit the wooden skirt of the bed, and develop a nosebleed in both nostrils. She even had a strong suspicion that her teeth managed to nick her lip; the warm taste of blood dribbled here and there on her tongue. In an attempt to forget the rude awakening; it was going to be one of those days, Flaky shuffled, stiffly, into the bathroom that connected to the lower left corner of her small room. Her joints creaked and groaned in a disdain at the movement, they wished to have a bit more time to sweep away the lingering stiffness of slumber. They would not get that time, however. (They would have to make do with the fleeting instances of motionless between each stride.)

Flaky shunted the glass door of her polygon shaped shower somewhere that wouldn't be obtrusive to her until she was finished with her shower. Then she proceeded to take several large towels from the closest (she had converted it to a glorified towel rack) and sprawled each towel on the ground in front of the shower's door; each towel overlapped another in some way. While she didn't entirely understand it herself, Flaky preferred to take a shower with the door, both doors, open. She chalked it up to her easily-frightened personality: how it seemed to make her brain actively find and keep open at least one escape route, in the case one was needed. And after the first time doing this, she learned to keep the floor in front of the shower covered with towels. No one wanted to experience the awkwardness of waking up to find that you slipped on some water and killed yourself by banging your head against the short metal skirt of the shower a second time.

Once the floor was appropriately covered by the snow-white fuzzy towels, Flaky took off what little clothing she had on; however, the lingering shadow of slumber caused her to fiddle with the hem of her T-shirt's collar for several seconds. She tossed her shirt to someplace behind her, then stepped into the shower. The timid girl took the shower-head from its holster, pointed it at one of the glass walls, and turned the water on. Nothing came out at first, but within a moment's time the shower head began permeating a waterfall from its numerous orifices. And Flaky let the water cascade against the glass wall, feeling the warmth with her hand, until the water was at the temperature she found enjoyable. Once the water was warmed up, she placed it back in its holster and began washing herself. During this wash, Flaky's hair needed to be washed and shampooed, thoroughly, two consecutive times, combed and brushed to do away with the twisted clumps here and there, and effectively cleared of dandruff. But brushing and combing her hair was painful. It was like a bush the way almost each lock, each patch, and each strand of her maroon red hair was tangled. So, after her comb and brush got entangled several times, she stopped the futile struggle at taming her mane. Managing her hair has always been an arduous process, but it was one that she had to suffer through. She definitely didn't want to be rid of her hair-Handy once suggested that she should just shave her head-so Flaky had to cope with the long, strenuous process it took to keep her hair from becoming an unkempt wild-bush.

Several minutes passed and Flaky was done. She turned the faucet-knob of the shower; the numerous streamlines got shorter and shorter, weaker and weaker until there was just a series of droplets falling from the orifices, and took a cautious gait out of the shower. Each step Flaky took was calculated, precise, and careful. It would have been insufferable if-with the towels-she managed to slip and kill herself. Once in front of the mirror and sink and counter, the demure girl proceeded to rummage through various cabinets and drawers and retrieved: mint-flavored floss, cinnamon-flavored mouthwash, mint-flavored toothpaste, her little blue toothbrush, and various cosmetic products. She lined up the sedentary objects by the sink, then grabbed another towel the closest. And she began to dry out the sopping-tangled bush growing from her scalp by wrapping the large towel around both hands and patting, gingerly, each and every lock. Then, once her hair stopped dripping, Flaky began washing her teeth, then flossing her teeth, and then gargling mouthwash. She looked in the mirror and smiled; she placed her hands, backwards, on the edge of the counter-top and leaned over the sink. However, her smile faltered when one of the cosmetic products (a thing of black and glittery mascara) was shunted by the sudden collision with her forearm. Now, with unworthiness presiding over her visage, she looked at the bottles and cases and flamboyantly colored substances and brushes with a depressed look.

One of her best friends, Giggles, told Flaky that she ought to wear some makeup, like her and Petunia. And while Flaky didn't believe that makeup would make her any prettier, she still went-if only to make her friend happy. So with her she went, and the duo went to all of the classiest of cosmetic stores and bought tons of cosmetic products, all of it was supposed to match with Flaky's, "Winter-In-July Aura", or, at least, that's what Giggles said. The woman even dragged Flaky to her favorite clothing stores and had her buy the most beautiful, vividly colored, and skimpy clothing that could fit the demure girl's petite body; Giggles commented that Flaky's skinniness had always been something she's always envied. Suffice it to say: Flaky's wallet felt less cramped thereafter. But she merely piled the bags that held the clothes into a corner of her room and stuffed the cosmetics into one the the cabinets of her bathroom when she got home.

Now, with the cosmetics in front of her, Flaky had the chance to mull over Giggles suggestions. The dispassionate feelings she had for makeup-the fact that she's never even went to stores that solely sold cosmetics-gave her an assured feeling that she wouldn't be any prettier with makeup masking her face. That same feeling applied to the revealing clothing as well. Yet-she had this doubt or, rather, hope. A small iota of hope that the makeup and the frilly dresses would actually make her easy-on-the-eyes. Maybe it was asking for too much but who knows? You stand to gain nothing for not venturing into the unknown. Isn't that how people die, thought Flaky, feeling a bit timid.

After several moments and makeup wipes later, Flaky had accomplished what she assumed was the correct application of an appropriate amount of makeup. She didn't want to look at herself yet, though, and so she closed her eyes after finishing and left the bathroom. There was one time, however, where she walked into the frame of the bathroom door. Then she approached the mild pile of plastic bags, bright and shiny with warm colors, and began riffling through the bags for the least revealing of the outfits. Once settled on the shoes and dress she'd try on, Flaky wasted no time in dressing herself. She slipped on a dress that reached down to the middle of her calves; the color palette was a somber bluish white with flecks and highlights of scarlet. The collar was a strange thing: it was pulled back miles away from her neck and resided at the end of her shoulders, and possessed a slit that went down, and exposed, to where the valley of her bosoms gave way to her sternum. But that wasn't the only odd design feature of the dress. There was a cut that went from the middle of her right thigh and curved around to the bottom of the dress-on the left side. Such a cut kept the wearer's legs from being too cooped up. The cuffs of the sleeves had a slit that traveled from the bottom to the middle of her forearms in a straight line. Additionally, a weaving-curving design covered the bottom half of the dress in a kilter fashion, it was like someone embroidered one long strip of whitish red string onto the dress in an attempt to emulate the look of rolling waves, but made several mistakes that made something much, much more beautiful. While not the best judge for beauty, Flaky thought the dress was incredibly beautiful. (1)

Then there were the shoes. Giggles took it upon herself to find a single pair of shoes that would match one dress, Flaky's aura, and Flaky's beauty. She even made a sheet that told what pair of shoes went with what dress; the list was lengthy. And the one that matched with this dress was, unfortunately, a pair of high-heels. To Giggles's word, the colored matched the unique color palette of the dress-Flaky had no eye for which colors matched what. Giggles said, too, that the heels she picked out for Flaky would boost her diminutive height up by several inches. The prospect of being taller enticed Flaky, so that was the main reason she focused her search efforts on a dress that had matching high-heels. She has been hearing, recently, that being taller gave you more confidence, and Flaky needed that quality in spades. But the strenuous battle just to figure out how to put the heels on,and learn how to walk without stumbling or falling still needed to be waged. If it wasn't for the supposed boost in confidence, the demure girl would have chucked each pair of heels straight out the window.

It was a long and arduous process, filled with trips and tumbles and stumbles and bruised ankles, but Flaky eventually figured out how to both put the heels on and walk in them. However, the way the heel raised the foot and how the arch curved into the bridge of her feet to make them rest at an angle, which then returns to the flat plain for her toes to rest. Coming from shoes like sneakers to high-heels was a major change, and she didn't entirely like it. Flaky wasn't even sure if she liked the added height. Now, instead of feeling balanced, she had this constant feeling that she was going to fall if she shifted too much of her weight to one side. Was this how Splendid and Flippy felt-all the time? Maybe being short isn't such a bad thing, Flaky thought. However, she wanted to see what she looked like with the getup; she already decided that she didn't want to wear the high-heels. So she sauntered, no, sidled up to the mirror mounted to the front of her bedroom door (she received the house as a gift from Handy and his construction-worker friends).

Getting in front of the mirror was an undertaking that had a fierce undercurrent of hesitation, one she hadn't thought possible. Flaky was just so scared-petrified, really-to look into the mirror and see the same thing she always saw. An easily-frightened girl that was less than average and wouldn't amount too much in life. That was her biggest phobia. To look at her reflection, see what she was to the real world, and finally cave and accept it. Each time she looked in the mirror, Flaky tried to shunt it to the back of her mind. "Oh, you're just acting silly Flaky," she would tell herself, "Today's going to be different, and everyone's going to see how outgoing and courageous and charming and..." Those comments were nothing but lies. No, she could never be beautiful; tears began to fill her eyes.

"This," whispered Flaky, voice on the verge of breaking, "this was a bad idea."

She would never be courageous; never be outgoing; never be charming. Flaky was and always would be a fearful, ugly girl. There was no hope for changing who she was-why even try?

A high-pitched ding-dong resounded within the house, and it caused the demure girl to jump nearly a foot off the ground.

"Fla-a-ke-e-y!" cried a familiar voice.

It was Giggles, there was no mistaking her high-pitched, charming, and exuberant voice. She had come without any warning. Why do people always arrive without telling me before hand, Flaky thought, contemplating the countless times people came to her house-unannounced. A loud banging replaced the silence that stood in for the doorbell once it went silent.

"Flaky!" shouted Giggles. "I know you're in there, so don't try pretending you aren't home!"

When Flaky's friend got like this, she was very impatient. It was better for your healthy, especially Flaky's, if you didn't waste a moment of the woman's time with dillydallying. So she didn't bother changing, and she hurried to the front door. The demure girl grabbed the cold iron knob of her door, and she tried to open it but couldn't find the strength. There was no doubting that, whatever the original may have been, Giggles's reasons for dropping by would mysteriously change if she saw that Flaky was trying out the makeup and clothing that Giggles suggested. It would be embarrassing for Giggles herself to see the demure girl trying to emulate what she believed to be beauty, but what would have been truly demoralizing if each and every one of her friends saw her trying so hard to achieve the impossible.

"Flaky!" She knocked again, more aggressively this time. "I'm going to count to three, and, if this door isn't open, I'm getting Handy and his construction worker friends to bust the door down!"

She didn't want that, yet she also didn't want to be seen.

"One," said Giggles, mischievously.

What should I do, she thought, what should I do?

"Two," said Giggles, impatiently. "Two and a half... Flaky!"

"P-please go away!" begged Flaky.

"Wha- Fine!" She began walking off. "I'm going to get Flippy to open the door then."

Now-her eyes widened and teared up with an odd mix of fear and some other emotion. She turned the knob and flung the door outwards, shouting in protest as she did. "No! Not Mr. Soldier!"

There was an awkward silence that followed.

"Mr... Mr. Soldier?" said Giggles, miming Flaky's words.

"I didn't know you had a pet-name for-" Giggles turned and, for the first time that day, saw Flaky's appearance.

Another pause wormed its way in and interrupted Giggles's train of thought. Now Flaky felt exposed, stark naked, bare for the world to see and ridicule. Why did she open the door? Why did she suddenly care when Giggles threatened to get Flippy when she didn't seem worried about her getting Handy's construction worker friends? She knew that her friend wouldn't have really done anything overly violent, which just wasn't in her nature. A small snickering came from Giggles, and soon the pink-haired girl erupted in a fit of, well, giggles.

"D-don't laugh a-at me!" cried Flaky, covering her face with her hands. "I-I know that t-these things don't make m-me pretty; nothing can perform miracles, I-I know that!"

The poor, demure girl couldn't stop the sobs that bubbled up to her throat, got caught, and caused her voice to catch and quiver. Her friend's giggling subsided, a little, and she walked forward to take both of Flaky's hands into her own; Giggles made the demure girl stop hiding her face. Then Giggles locked her magenta gaze onto Flaky's cherry red, teary gaze. She never knew just how pretty those magenta irises were.

"Flaky, I'm not laughing at you," assured Giggles. "It's just, combined with the new getup and the fact that you have a pet-name for the one person you fear the most, I found it all really funny."

"I... I look funny?" asked Flaky, dreading the answer.

"No, no-that's not what I meant." She sighed. "I just expected you to be so resistant to it that I'd have to force you into a dress and a pair of shoes, not to mention tie you to a chair while I put on your makeup."

"T-then do I look p-pretty?"

Giggles smiled, pulled away from her friend, and sized Flaky up. And while her eyes scanned the vanilla pigmented woman, so, too, did Flaky examine her friend. Giggles was a short girl, she always hated that about herself, and bubblegum pink, wavy hair that stretched down to curls that fit just underneath her chin. In her hair was a hot-pink bow, something Flaky could never mimic with her wild mane. Her skin was much whiter than Flaky's, but it constantly had this sheen to it that made her look like a velvet doll. The irises of her eyes were a bright magenta; however, she once divulged to Flaky that she always wore colored-contacts and that she could never tell anyone. She constantly had a mask of makeup covering her face, although each cosmetic was so perfectly colored that they looked like her natural looks. And on her left cheek was a cyan colored star; Giggles seemed to wash it off every night and paint it with a different color for the next day. Normally, the cheerful girl would wear a frilly dress and skirt that looked like the kind of thing that waitresses would wear in the eighties, or whenever waitresses would use roller-skates to deliver food to people in cars-Flaky couldn't remember when they did such things. Today, though, she appeared to be wearing a simple ensemble that a High-school student might have worn. And yet she still managed to make it look like the most elegant and beautiful of outfits.

"Well, those heels make you a bit taller than me," admitted Giggles with a sigh.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'll take them off." Tears made runnels down the valley of her laugh lines as she reached down to slip out of the high-heels. "I promise I won't wear heels..."

"No-Flaky stop!" ordered Giggles.

The demure girl stopped dead in her tracks.

"You need to stop doing that," said Giggles, aggravated.

"I-I'm s-sorry, I-I..."

"See, there you go again!"

"I-I..."

"Flaky-Stop-Apologizing-This-Instant."

Flaky fell silent; tears continued to carve their way down her face.

Giggles took a moment to compose herself. "Your problem, Flaky, is that you apologize for nothing. People say things that are jokes and you take them seriously, then you apologize and cry over things that either aren't your fault or are pointless."

"But-"

"Don't interrupt me." She fell silent, again. "You need to relax more. Don't take things too seriously. And try to be more outgoing. If you did, I believe that you'd find things a lot less scary than they actually are. Heck, you might even find that special someone!"

Giggles proceeded to continue her rant, going on and on about the things Flaky needed to do more of and what she needed to do less of. Throughout the chiding, Flaky remained deathly quiet. This quietness slowly affected Giggles, and her rant began to wind down-prematurely. An interesting ability Flaky had: the capability of attaining such an utter oppressive silence that it actually spreads to and silences those around her. Now, instead of her annoyed facade, the enthusiastic girl permeated a caring visage

"Do you get what I'm tryin' to say Flakes?" queried Giggles, voice soft.

"Yes," answered Flaky, voice barely above a whisper.

That oppressive silence gripped the two girls, yet again.

"You do look pretty, by the way," commented Giggles. "That dress and the heels suit you, the make up too."

"Thank you," said Flaky, a gratitude that her friend would never truly understand made her voice choked and bubbly.

Several minutes passed and the silence persisted. However, Giggles wasn't as accustom to such oppressive quietness like Flaky was; in fact, she always got fidgety when such a silence wormed its way into her activities. Her legs took turns baring the weight of her petite body, her jaw moved this way and that as her tongue prodded the insides of her cheeks and lips, and her eyes looked at everything there was to see. Then she got fed up with the silence and shattered it with a mock groan-her eyes were fixed on her fingers, which were curled over her hands. To the demure girl they looked fine, each nail was painted a vivid blue, but that wasn't what Giggles saw, something was wrong.

"Dammit, they messed it up," proclaimed Giggles.

"Who messed what up?" asked Flaky.

"The people at my salon messed up the color of my nails." There was mock annoyance in her voice. "Now I need to go back and have 'em redo it."

"Oh, w-well, I hope they get it right this time."

"But Fla-a-akey! I can't go alone, someone as delicate as me, what if a murderer gets me? What if someone kidnaps me? Oh, what if those thieves, Lifty and Shifty, corner me and take all my money!"

With dismay, Flaky clearly heard the histrionic and played up worry in her friend's voice. She was trying to guilt trip her; it was a classic that Giggles used to get her way.

"T-Then you can just get Cuddles o-or Lumpy to go with you," said Flaky.

"But what if something happens to me on my way to them? Oh woe is me, my best friend Flaky won't go with me, she doesn't care if I get mugged or killed or raped!" exclaimed Giggles, practically shouting.

The demure girl tried to hush her friend, but that was futile gesture. She knew, with full clarity, that the only way to get her to stop shouting such things was to cease all resistance and do as she asked. Besides, what if any of those things actually happened? Being as paranoid-and pessimistic-as she was, Flaky was willing to believe, fool-heartily, that such scenarios were as likely as the Sun rising in the morning. And that was how Flaky managed to get roped into visiting a salon while adorned in the clothing and makeup that her friend convinced her to buy.

---

Everything went normally, although Flaky was constantly trying to hide or cover herself. She wanted to change before going, but Giggles would have none of it. The bubbly girl told her, "Sometimes you have to flaunt what you were given, my dear Flaky." Thus the demure girl had the joy of experiencing what it felt like to have people secretly, or plainly, gawk at her. In truth, she didn't want to flaunt anything, for she had nothing to flaunt. Giggles was among the most beautiful of the female side of Flaky's friend base, and she had every right to flaunt the beauty she was endowed with. However, Flaky did not have that right. She was as plain and boring as a stump, and the dress and makeup and shoes she wore was merely a feeble mask to fool the people at the social masquerade that she belonged. The demure girl didn't belong. Despite the various compliments that Giggles fed her; a few passersby, too, fell upon deaf ears.

Nothing would help lessen Flaky's harsh opinion of herself, today at least.

"So." Giggles used one hand to twirl a lock of hair around the tip with a big, bubbly smile plastered to her face. "Did you hear about what happened yesterday?"

"No," replied Flaky.

Giggles wasn't really one for gossip, unlike a few of their friends, but when she heard something especially juicy she tended to go around town spreading it to everyone she saw and knew. When she got like that, it was best to hang onto each word she said. It was likely the incentive to a future event, a fight that was neigh, or something else of the like; that was the only gossip that Giggles ever took interest in.

"Oh-well, you see-how did it go again?" There was a pause. "Oh, that's right. Okay, so, you know Shift and Lifty, right?"

"Yes." She should have, considering that they tried robbing her on more than one occasion.

"Well, they just so happened to get their hands on a certain soldier's dog tags; I heard this from Cuddles, by the way."

"They did what!" Flaky's voice dropped in volume and eyes widened with fear.

"Yeah, I know, right? I think they finally went off the deep end. Anyways, he said, while he was with Lumpy, at a bar or something-I think it was two nights ago-that the twin brothers paid the whole bar a visit. And in their hands, swinging to and fro, while shoutin', "We just robbed the craziest man on Earth and lived!" like madmen, were metal chains-the kind they use for dog tags in the military, you know about those right?- three in each hand, can you believe it? Three chains in both twins' hands! And on each chain were ten sets of twin tags."

"But-I thought soldiers only got one set of dog tags?" voiced Flaky, a bit confused.

"Normally, Yes, they do. However, and this is just speculation mind you-don't tell anyone I said this. Go on, swear, cross your heart."

Flaky did as the woman asked, her friend stopped and watched her do it, making an invisible X over her left breast. This gesture made Giggles focus more on the demure girl's chest. Her eyes narrowed and her brow furrowed, and this caused Flaky to flinch, she thought she'd done something wrong.

"I never noticed it before, but your breasts look bigger than mine." Flaky was taken back by the sheer randomness of the synapses of the size of her chest and, consequently, covered her chest with both arms. "Anyway, I think that maybe, just maybe, none of those tags are his."

"W-what? W-whose dog tags are they, then?" asked Flaky, still unnerved.

Once again, Giggles resumed striding to the salon. Flaky, slightly hunched to better hide her bosoms, trailed behind her.

"That's the question, isn't it? I might be wrong, but I happened to see Flippy today, a chance encounter, and I heard a metal klinking sound coming from him. It might have been his keys, he was coming out of a store and going to his truck, but it is too much for it all to be some mere coincidence. Don'tcha think, Flakes?"

"I-I'm not-what you're asking, maybe?"

"Come on, Flakes, I know you're not some bimbo too stupid to find her way out of the imaginary box that Mime constantly traps himself in. Tell me what you think."

Consternation caused Flaky's face to scrunch up. She was trying to think, but it was hard to do so when put on the spot. Assessing and giving a quick analysis of everything she heard-that was relevant to her answer-Flaky began constructing her answer. And what felt like hours to her was a mere ten seconds of thinking.

"Okay, so I thought," proclaimed Flaky. "And I think that the tags might, maybe belong to people he knew in the army. If that's true, then I think that might mean that he took them. Like in those old war movies? And I'm not entirely sure how it works, but I always thought that the military or a soldier's family or something kept their dog tags. You said that three chains were in each hand of both Lifty and Shifty, and each chain had three sets of twin tags? Then that means everyone he was friends with in the military died, right? I'm not entirely sure, but that is what I think.

"Maybe, maybe." Giggles thought for a moment. "Hey, before you developed Flip-phobia, did Flippy ever mention anything about the time he was overseas at war?"

"No, he never seemed comfortable when someone brought it up." Flaky paused for thought. "Actually, he would always flip out when someone mentioned anything about the war."

"I wonder what happened to make him contract such a serious case of PTSD."

Suddenly, a sullen atmosphere subverted the conversation. Both girls fell silent, as they were helpless to the sudden undercurrent of imagined sorrow and depression. It was like Flippy was by their side, and he was infecting them with some malicious storm of emotions that he kept hidden behind a mask of happiness and serenity. Now, with that train of thought, the two women began to wonder: how forced were Flippy's smiles, how hollow was his laughter, how broken was his heart and spirit, and how hard was it for him to act happy? But that subverting undercurrent faded away upon their arrival at Giggles's salon; however, it was present for the twenty minutes it took to arrive at their destination.

The salon was about as flashy as the next salon. This one was colored a somber pink, and it had several spots and edges with black highlights. The front had twin windows the stretched from the left and right edges of the building to the door, which was a glorified convenient store door; the entire rectangle was made of clear glass with a metal outline and handle. Near the top of the box-shaped building was the establishment's name. And it read, in curving letters Salon De Coiffer.

Upon arriving, Giggles flung the door open and made a histrionic gesture full of intricate twists and turns of her wrist and motions of her fingers towards the inside of the salon. It was as extreme of a pantomime someone could make with a single gesture. "I present to you," she said, "Salon De Coiffer!"

The name of the salon was in french, and it was clear from the way she pronounced it that Giggles knew as much French as a high-school dropout. Flaky was tentative about entering the salon and considering that her friend made such a grand display of waving her in, she definitely had suspicions about Giggles's intentions. During the whole trek to the salon, except for the time she was lured in by gossip and subverted by the undercurrent, the demure girl had been mulling over the intentions her friend might have. However, Flaky was both easily beguiled and overly trusting when it came to her friends. So she sauntered through the open door into the salon, completely sure that nothing devious would take place.

Salon De Coiffer looked like any other beauty salon, except it was slightly larger. The floor was made of large oaken panels that gleamed with a burnished surface, and the walls were a pristine and smooth white canvas. Stationed near the door was a series of black padded chairs that had the armrests connect to the feet. There was an enameled receptionist's desk near the door, too. And it seemed that the building had only one room, a hybrid between a lobby, receptionist, and hairdressing room. Lined up along the left and right walls were the stations-each wall had six stations-and they were equipped with the fanciest cosmetics, styling equipment, and various other products and tools that only the most professional of stylists would use. There were bottles; nail-polish and conditioners, cases, brushes and combs, scissors and curling irons; Flaky had never seen such exotic curlers before, jars, a mirror mounted just above the station's black counter, a sink large enough to fit someone's head in, a miniature of a removable shower head, etc. The chairs of each station looked like the ones you'd see in an old cartoon's barber shop, they were black and looked like they could swivel and recline.

As if the design of the building wasn't odd enough, at each station and at the reception desk were the oddest individuals Flaky has ever seen. Their faces were adorned in the fanciest makeup, and they wore dresses that made the one Flaky wore look benign in comparison. However, it was their hair that truly caught her off guard. She'd never seen such styles, such subtle and soft locks, such vivid colors, or anything that made women's hairstyle unique. The demure girl felt horribly out of place.

Before approaching the receptionist, whose attention was fully immersed in the pages of a glossy magazine, Giggles grabbed Flaky's arm and pulled her aside. "Okay, listen up." Her visage was a sort of bitter-sweet cheerfulness. "The woman at the receptionist's desk is called Charlotte, but everyone here likes to call her Charlatan."

"That seems a bit mean, why do people call her that?" whispered Flaky.

"For reasons that will become obvious after you talk with her. Anyways, just let me do the talking and everything will go smoothly, okay? You have to promise me that you'll let me do all the talking, not a single pep out of you. Okay?" she asked with a smile.

"O-okay. I promise."

With Flaky's promise, Giggles nodded her head and released her friend from her grasp, then sauntered up to the receptionist's desk with Flaky. However, the gaudily dressed woman, whom wore a heavy mask of cosmetics, had her nose too far in her magazine to notice either of them. That didn't last long. Giggles's eyes wandered along the burnished desk until they rested on a silver bell; that is the kind you'd find in an old book shop or something of the like. Soundlessly, she picked it up and turned it upside-down-it hung over the palm of her free hand- then, quite suddenly, began tapping the small top protrusion onto her palm at a brisk speed. The bell's high-pitched chiming seemed to get on the receptionist's nerves quickly, the curling of her fingers and crumpling of her magazine's sides made it evident, and soon the woman couldn't take it any longer. She closed the magazine, rolled it up, and waited till the bell was pressed into Giggles's palm before slamming the glossy beauty magazine onto the hand holding the bell.

"I think that's enough, thank you, Giggles," said Charlotte, irritation seething from her voice like an overflowing cauldron.

Just like Giggles said, the reason for Charlotte's nickname became evident as soon as she spoke. Her voice had a clear and distinct accent to it; however what accent it was was the mystery. There was the lisp of certain letters and vowels that a Frenchman had, but then there was also the mimed elegance and softness of a British woman's voice. However, they were so clearly faked that it was hard to restrain the, instinctive, laughter that wished to flow freely from Flaky's mouth.

Giggles smiled, big and bright, innocently. "I just wanted you to know that I was here, is that so bad?"

"No," retorted Charlotte, "not at all! However, that bell's chiming grates my ears, love."

"Oh?" Giggles's voice was wrought with a mock surprise. "I'm so sorry, my friend, can you ever find it in your heart to forgive me?"

"Oh, I think I'll will." Her chocolate eyes listlessly moved from Giggles to Flaky. "Now: Are you here for that appointment?"

As she said this, the receptionist folded the corner of the page she was on, closed the magazine, and shunted it to some random spot on her desk, and then stretched her arm out to grab a plain-looking, large registry book. With a flick of her wrist, the book flung open, and she grabbed a bedazzled pen. She clicked the button on the bottom of the pen, brought the tip to her mouth, dabbed it on her tongue, and brought it down to one of the first row of boxes in the registry book. Because of how the desk was made, it was impossible to look at what the receptionist was writing or reading without having to lean over; the fact that she was looming over the book with her over-sized hairdo didn't help.

"Yes," answered Giggles. "I believe I scheduled a hair, nails, and facial for two?"

"Two?" voiced Flaky.

Giggles regarded her steadily, giving her a silent gesture to remain quiet.

The woman's head bobbed left-to-right, seemingly reading something. "Yes, I have that marked down for... six o'clock? That sound right?"

"Yes, that sounds about right."

"For you: A cut, some coloring and highlights, a blowout-wavy, right?-a paraffin treatment, a mani-pedi, full-body hair removal; the deluxe package I think, and a signature facial massage. And for one Flakes, as you called her: a mani-pedi, full-body hair removal; the deluxe package too, a signature facial massage, and a woman's cut. Does all that sound -" Her eyes found their way to Flaky's wild mane.

"Is something wrong?" asked Giggles, noticing Charlotte's gaze.

She fingered her pen in Flaky's direction. "Is that the Flakes you mentioned?"

"Yes, Why?"

"Nothing, nothing." She wrote something in the book and muttered, "Bring in Snips."

With a loud clap, Charlotte slapped the book shut and shot out of her chair. She slid the flamboyant pen in the nook of her left ear; consequently it got draped by her hair like a shroud, and walked around to the side of the desk. The woman gestured for the two to follow, and then made a quick turn before striding towards the stations. Giggles moved to join her, but was stopped when Flaky grabbed her friend's arm and jerked her back.

"Flakes, what're you -" Giggles saw an uncertain and trembling Flaky.

"Y-you never said an-anything about me joining y-you in a spa day!" said Flaky, quietly chiding her friend.

"Of course not - Would you have come if I did?"

"No!"

"See? That's why I didn't tell you."

"But why?"

"Because-You need..."

"Y-you know that I-I'm not beautiful." Tears began to fall from her wide eyes.

"Flakes..."

"The o-only reason I put on th-these stupid heels i-is because I wanted to be ta-ta-taller: I thought I-I'd be more confident. But I'm n-not. A-and the only re-reason I put on the d-dress and the ma-makeup is because I thought I-I might be more be-beautiful, like you, b-but cl-clearly I'm not. It was st-stupid to think tha-a-at I could be any-any-anything more than p-plain ole cow-cowardly, boring, F-Flaky."

"Flaky..."

"N-no one wi-will ever see me a-as girlfriend ma-material, and I-I've a-accepted tha-that. B-b-but you a-and Petunia a-and..."

"Flaky!"

The quivering demure girl fell silent, tears still rolling down her cheeks as freely as creeks.

"If you would stop pitying yourself for one minute, I'd tell you why I did what I did!" exclaimed Giggles, quietly shouting.

Flaky nodded and Giggles took a moment to compose herself.

"Now, first of all, I made-and paid-for this appointment six days in advance, and let's just say that the things I asked for weren't cheap, especially since the price is doubled if you want to do it for two people. I already planned to take you to a makeup store and a dress shop, too; evidently that's why I couldn't pitch in to buy anything for you, or me, for that matter. Secondly: I wanted you to see that you're more than just Flaky the Coward, Flaky the Average, and Flaky the Ugly-I honestly fail to see how you're ugly but whatever. You're a kindhearted, amazing and beautiful woman Flaky, and it is high-time you acknowledge that."

"Y-you really th-think that?" Flaky asked hopefully.

"Hell yeah!" exclaimed Giggles. "And, trust me, you're going to be ten times more beautiful than me-" Giggles paused.

"Even you?"

"We-e-ell, maybe not me, but definitely Petunia."

The pride and hidden humor in Giggles's final statement caused a smile to play up the corners of Flaky's lips. It had been a while since she last smiled, and it felt good. She used the back of her right hand's wrist to wipe, carefully, the glistening tears from her eyes and cheeks. To her dismay, when she pulled her wrist back, the faded colors of her mascara and her eyeliner tainted her vanilla skin. Before the demure girl could panic, though, Cuddles took hold of the hand Flaky used to wipe her eyes and hushed her.

"It's okay, it's okay," assured Giggles. "When they finish the facial massage they'll reapply the makeup, they would have had to clean it anyway."

Flaky nodded, lip trembling and nose sniffling.

"Giggles, Flaky! Are you coming?" called Charlotte.

"It doesn't matter to us if you're not in the chairs!" cried one of the stylists.

"Yeah, you paid us in advance, remember?" proclaimed the other stylist.

"We're coming!" retorted Giggles. "Come on Flaky!"

And that was how Giggles, that deceptively clever girl, convinced the demure Flaky to attend an appointment at a beauty salon.

---

To her surprise, Flaky enjoyed the pampering the stylists gave her. Because there were no other customers the several other stylists from different stations came and helped with both Giggles's and Flaky's treatments. She never had anyone touch the parts of her body that the stylists were touching: her feet, legs, face, etc. It was an odd feeling, but one that the demure girl could get used to. That is, as long as her financial situation permitted such luxuries. They first started with the manicure-pedicure combination. There was a stylist at each hand, and they gazed at her hands as if they were an object of worship. Admittedly, neither woman had seen hands more feminine than Flaky's. Not only were they small and each finger was that of a pianist, but they looked utterly incapable of doing any strenuous activities. On several occasions, the stylists commended her on keeping her hands so beautifully kept. Oh, how they had a good laugh when Flaky told them she liked to play sports. The demure girl hadn't even noticed that, while talking to them, they'd already soaked, thoroughly, her nails.

From the station's table, each stylist grabbed a tan colored buffer and smoothed the surface of each nail. Then they took a three, fine-tipped cue tips and applied lotion to each end. They took a single cue tip and began dabbing one end along the cuticle of one nail, then they went back over the cuticle with one careful stroke. Then they'd flip the cue tip to the other side and preceded to repeat the same process on another nail. And they repeated this pattern until each nail got the same treatment. Then they took an orange stick (2) from the same table and began to, gently, push the cuticle of each nail back. Once this was done, they took a pair of nail-cutters and began trimming Flaky's nails; occasionally they'd take a file and smooth out the nail, until she said when they were at a good length. While they did this, each stylist would take turns soaking the nail they were working with into the thing of water, and when a minute passed: they would take the nail out, readjust the shape to its naturally rounded shape, and resume trimming.

Once Flaky's nails were trimmed and shaped, the stylists took a cotton ball from the table-a strange looking bottle, too; however, they had to take turns with it. They popped the cap and pressed the white small ball to the opening, then they tipped the bottle forward for a brief moment. And once they finished, the second stylist returned the bottle to its spot. Again: They took the demure girl's hands, gingerly swiped the, now damp, ball of cotton across her fingernail; once and twice and thrice, and placed her hands-flat-on the arms of the chair. Now the women took turns using a bottle of clear liquid, and they carefully applied the liquid to each nail with a fine-tipped nail-brush. After they finished applying the queer liquid, they told Flaky to wait for the base-coat to dry and tell them when it did. When she asked where they were going they said, "We need to get the nail polishes from the back, we weren't really expecting anyone today."

While they were away, the stylist thoroughly soaking her toenails retrieved a small bottle nail moisturizer, removed her right foot from the foot-bath, and began applying the cream to each nail. Once finished, the woman set Flaky's foot back in the water and repeated the same process with her left foot. After some time passed: the woman retrieved one of the orange sticks, a file, and nail-cutters; she took the right foot out again, then readied the orange stick; she used the orange stick to, gingerly, push back each cuticle; then she began trimming each nail with the clippers, smoothing and shaping them to their naturally rounded shape with the file every so often; took the same moisturizing-oil the other stylists used on her hands and dabbed it on her toe's cuticles; and then returned the right foot to do the same to Flaky's left foot. The stylist let time pass once again, then she began combing both feet for rough spots and calluses with a dark-gray, wavy pumice stone and silver sleek callus remover. Once again, back to soaking.

After yet another lapse of time the stylist took one foot and moisturized it. Then she performed a foot massage and a leg massage that went up to the knee. It was heavenly. Never in her twenty-eight years of life has Flaky experienced something more euphoric. Each finger of both hands worked tirelessly to find each nerve ending, each muscles, and each joint. And once they found one of the three-all five fingers of one hand attacked it. The techniques the stylist employed worked to isolate whatever muscle, joint, or nerve ending the hand found from everything else, then vehemently stimulated the target while actively relaxing, too. When that nerve ending or muscle or joint got an appropriate level of attention, the stylist's hands moved on to find another. By the end of the massage: Flaky would, fully, believe anyone who came up to her and told her that her legs had been made of jelly for her entire life. It was an experience of pure ecstasy. However, the divine woman attending to her feet explained to Flaky-when she asked-that there wasn't enough time to repeat the five-minute process three more times. Then it was back to soaking.

By the time the other two stylists returned with the nail polish options, the woman attending to the demure girl's feet finished drying and applying the same liquid to each toenail. They showed Flaky her options, and she was unsure of what looked best. Once again, the fact that she hadn't the eye for fashion or beautiful things became evident. But she wouldn't let it bother her. So she told them that her friend, Giggles, said that her aura was a Winter-in-July, and told the stylists to pick whatever color best matched that assessment. Then they looked at each other, Flaky thought, fearfully, she said something wrong, and then they shared a bright smile and laughed. Now, more uncertain than before, she looked at the two women with an apprehensive uncertainty. After a moment; although it felt like an hour to the demure girl, the stylists came to a decision and informed Flaky that, to match her aura and dress, they picked a mint colored polish. Thus, the next hour and thirty minutes went by as the stylists applied the first coat, then the second, and finally the clear, shiny top coat. And then they put a mint colored, plush divider underneath her toes to keep them separated and told Flaky to refrain from moving her toes or fingers too much. They told her to wait while they got the items needed for her hair removal. (2)

"Isn't this just heaven Flaky?" Giggles drawled.

The demure girl scrolled her eyes to the edge of her peripherals-and when that didn't work, Flaky awkwardly wiggled about until she could turn her body without disturbing either her feet or hands. Giggles had yet to receive her manicure and pedicure, but she had received her haircut (it was more of a trim) and wavy blowout and the coloring and highlights. And, right now, she was in the middle of the paraffin treatment-that was the only thing the demure girl could assume it to be. (Flaky noticed a distinct lack of a bow in her friend's hair.) The bubblegum colored hair, now wavy, had several streaks of a darker pink (it was a glorified crimson) and cinnamon colored highlights. On her arms and legs; that is up to her shoulders and hips, and around her neck was a colorless, slimy substance that clung to her skin like glue.

"Yeah," answered Flaky. "What is that colorless stuff on your skin?"

"Oh, this? Its paraffin wax: it makes your skin really soft," said Giggles.

"Really?"

"Yeah, you should definitely try it out the next time you come here."

From the entrance of the salon, the sound of a door closing pierced the subtle ambient background noise. Then a smooth and monotone voice broke the silence that followed the door's closing.

"I'm here bae, vhat is zee difficult aufgabe?" It was a man's voice, but it was thick with a German accent. "Somesink about a verrückt buch-vat?"

With a raised brow, Flaky recast her view towards the receptionist's desk. As expected: Charlotte was there. Unexpectedly, though, someone else was standing behind the desk. However, the way Charlotte stood; that is with the woman's ludicrously sized hair, kept the man secluded. All Flaky could make out was the stark outline of a slim figure, sweater and designer jeans.

"Oh, thank god-Snips, you're here!" Charlotte histrionically exclaimed.

"Of kourse I am, vy voult I not?" Snips asked, irked with the implication of a nonexistent slothfulness.

"No, I-what I meant was, I'm sorry-Anyway, thank you for getting here as fast as you did. We've never needed your talents more than we do now."

"Ant voo, prayen sie tell, has zee hairschtyle so bat zat I am zee only one fähig of dealink vis it?"

"Come, come. I will show ya love."

The receptionist took step back and escorted the mysterious newcomer, Snips, into the work area. And the way she moved in sync with the man seemed deliberate. If Flaky was a paranoid person, she'd think that Charlotte was purposefully concealing Mr. Snips Flaky's scrutiny. The two pressed onward, sauntering around the stylists attending to Giggles, and made a quick gait for the demure girl's station. A few of the stylists pampering Giggles stole a glance at the man behind Charlotte's back, but then quickly averted their gaze. It was quick, too. Almost the instant their eyes made contact with Snips, presumably his face, they snapped their eyes shut and swiveled their head back around so fast that there was an audible cracking noise. Now Flaky's curiosity burned with the vehemence of a raging forest fire, instigated to go on and on by the oppressive heat of the Summer Sun. Was something wrong with Snips's face? Did he have an ugly scar? Could his face be disfigured? What was it that made all the stylists act like, if they looked upon his face, they'd be cursed?

The ringing clicking of the receptionist's high-heels came to an abrupt end and tore Flaky from her curious reveries. "This is zee hairschtyle that only you can fix," she said, pointing towards Flaky's wild mane.

"Voman, please, gifen sie das mask before I aussehen," said Snips.

"Right on zee vay," retorted Charlotte.

Charlotte snapped her fingers once (twice and thrice) and one of the idle stylists, after having a brief panic attack, made a slapdash gait into the backroom. A brief lapse of time went by before she returned; a mask was being scrunched up in her left hand when the stylist returned. The woman-with her eyes downcast at the floor-made a tentative approach to the receptionist, quickly shouldered the mask to Charlotte-what was it, a burden?-and then scurried back to her station. The scrutinizing gaze Flaky held for Snips's face was let loose on the mask. It appeared to be made of an exquisite black silk with an overlapping diamond pattern. Two eye holes had been cut out, and then a pair of lens had been seamlessly inserted-the lens were actually attached to the fabric-into the openings. Whom had enough skill to embroider the lens of glasses into fabric without leaving an iota of proof that the lens had always been part of the mask? Was it Snips himself? The receptionist, Charlotte, handed the mask to Snips, who then removed a pair of glasses (Flaky couldn't believe it, the mask's lens and the glasses's lens were an exact match!) from his face; he folded the frame until the nose-piece folded vertically; and then tucked them away into one of his pockets. Finally-he pulled the mask down over his face.

"Better?" teased Charlotte.

"Zee aiden sie desire vill be given on one condition," Snips proclaimed in his monotone voice.

"And vat is zis condition, love?" asked Charlotte with mock concern.

"No matter vat happens, nein aid vill be given-sie understand?"

"I understand." She crossed her arms under her bosoms, annoyed. "Now-time is money-get to work!"

"Fery vell-" He looked towards the stylists, who finally found and were returning with the supplies for the full-body hair removal, and jabbed a slender and gloved finger their way.

"You!"

"Y-yes!" They stood up right, at attention.

"Prepare sie das client for Snips's arbeit." He folded his arms over his chest and regarded Flaky's mane. "Zis vill be my greatescht herausforderung yet!"

"Y-yes, sir!"

The poor women let the box of new supplies plummet to floor and began preparing Flaky for the haircut. Now-she was frightened. She couldn't quell her trembling, or stop herself from shying away from any contact with one of the histrionic gait of the stylists. Two kept Flaky's hands and feet from moving while another adjusted the angle of the reclined chair perpendicularly. Then that same stylist shouldered the headrest of the chair back: the force caused the top to flip down and slap the burnished back of the black leather chair. And they suffused the mane along the back of the chair. Then they took a step back as another woman rushed to the station's black glazed table and sat a large box on top of it-the stylist retreated and joined the others, they kept a tentative gaze on Snips.

Besides his confusingly averting visage, Snips looked like a normal man with a unique (that was the kindest word Flaky could think of) sense of fashion with an above average height and slim build. There wasn't a spot of skin; that is his clothing covered up his entire body. Other than the queer mask: Snips wore a charcoal colored sweater that was made from the same material and woven with the same overlapping diamond pattern as his mask, a pair of matching gloves, a pair of black leather jeans that had a pattern to it that Flaky presumed to be the latest fashion trend, and black combat boots. If Flaky hadn't seen the salon's entire staff interact with the man's presence, she might have assumed he was a masked proxy, clad in black, sent by death himself to take the demure girl's life. Even still, Flaky couldn't help but be frightened by the man's shadowy appearance.

Snips began a purposefully gait towards Flaky, but tapered to a saunter as he took a gloved hand to her bangs. Instinctively, still unsure about strangers touching her, the demure girl pressed herself further into the back of the chair. Suddenly Flaky felt stark, exposed and vulnerable. These feelings weren't alien; after all, she experienced them whenever Flippy or Splendid were around her. Maybe it was because, when compared to either of them, she was a powerless runt with nothing but her expansive list of fears going for her? Splendid was a hero, the one from comic books or from the imaginings children conjured from the myths of dragons, knights, magic, and Elves. And Flippy was his parallel opposite. While similar in the nature, Flippy was the more believable hero. A soldier, a warrior, the one defending everything good, kind, innocent and just from the chaos of the uncivilized barbaric nature of humans. When combed together with small group of like-minded individuals, a soldier was unstoppable-especially if they're fighting for what they hold dear.

"Such exquisit kolor," Snips murmured. "Do you, by chance, wearen any extensions?"

"N-no," Flaky answered, voice small and uncertain.

The man seemed displeased with Flaky's answer, because Snips took his hand back and began removing the gloves he wore. When both silken gloves were clutched in his right hand, the stylist stepped towards the table by using one long stride. Then he threw the gloves into the glazed table top and then slammed his hands (palms flat) onto the glazed black surface. The resounding slap caused the demure girl to jump.

"Vat vas zat? I koult not hearen sie over zee sount of fear!" chided Snips.

Suddenly, her voice went dead. It felt like some crazed scientist tried to perfect telepathy with a simple removal of an organ or two and dealing with that pesky mouth, but failed and left the stitches needed to keep Flaky's mouth shut in. Not only that but it felt like her voice box was removed; consequently all by the same scientist. For some reason, the demure girl couldn't bring herself to speak. When she tried to force a sound or whimper out, it got caught in her throat. It was like a lump of fear and consternation grew, like a pit, until nothing could pass. That included air, considering the task of breathing was becoming more and more strenuous.

Desperately, Flaky turned her panicking gaze to Giggles. Being a close friend of the demure girl-Cuddles had to develop a sixth sense that told her when Flaky was staring in her general vicinity. The pink-haired woman made a slight effort at turning her head, but her eyes met Flaky's, eventually. Giggles met her friend's pleading stare, a thin line of tears made the whites glisten, and returned it with an It's-Going-To-Be-Okay gaze mixed with a Suck-It-Up-And-Take-It-Like-A-Woman leer. But that leer quickly turned to a sympathetic mien of pity when Giggles saw the woman's lip quiver; when Giggles noticed small dribbles of tears run down the woman's cheeks; and when Giggles noticed that Flaky was on verge of a panic attack.

So, with a sigh, Giggles said, "Go easy on this one, Snips, she is easily frightened."

"Ja, Ja, Ja." Snips's monotone voice returned as he began unpacking his haircut instruments and supplies.

"Hey! Don't get snippy with me Snips," Giggles warned, aggravated. "If I wanted, I could make your day a shitty one."

There was a small gasp from the stylists; even Flaky was stunned at Giggles's use of foul language.

"Nein needen to get angry," Snips assured, "bekause I bereits wissen zat che wearen nein extensions. I bedeuten, look at her hair! Nein extensions kould machen such köstlich hair!"

A light red suffused Flaky's cheeks, and now she felt a shyness unlike any other. Inside her head: Flaky let a mantra repeat like it was a record player skipping and then replaying the same line over and over again. He is just saying that, he doesn't mean it. That is what the mantra proclaimed. And Flaky partially believed it and partially, hopeful, rejected it.

The heavily accented man, Snips, stepped up to the back of Flaky's chair. From behind, she could hear the swift opening and closing of scissors. Its metallic snip-snip-snipping reminded the demure girl of Flippy when his evil side carved up her friends with his knife. A cold chill ran up her spine at the thought.

"Nov, as you might wissen, I am zee welt famous hairdresser Snips, Meister of zee Haircut," said Snips.

A shrill laugh came from the front desk. "Self-proclaimed!" shouted Charlotte.

Voice filled with consternation, Snips retorted, "BE RUHIG WOMAN!"

Once again, Flaky shied away from Snips. At times it appeared that he had complete mastery of his emotions, and other times he seemed to let them run wild.

"I apologizen for zee rude interruption, gnädige Frau," said Snips. "Now zen, chall vee begin?"

Timidly, Flaky nodded. "S-s-sure."

Wordlessly: Snips handed Flaky a mirror, positioned it in a way that gave the full reflection of her face, and told her to hold it there. Then he reached back and grabbed a comb. It was an opaque, purple comb with a long handle. The teeth of the comb gingerly slid into her hair, weaving through the gnarled locks of maroon, and began to sail through the vast maroon sea. But the ship ran aground, almost immediately. Snips's comb got caught on several tangled locks. While smiling a smug smirk, hidden by his mask, he tugged at the tangled mess that kept him from proceeding. However, the hairdresser quickly found that the knot had no intention of relenting. Now, smirk fading, he tugged at the same spot several times. Flaky bit her tongue as each pull became harder, more sudden; eventually she couldn't keep from yelping in pain. And after hearing this, Snips tried to remove the comb. He pulled once, twice and thrice-nothing. Now the comb would not budge.

For a second, Snips considered his options. He was quite talented when it came to haircuts, so he could definitely cut the comb free and make the damage seem intentional. And that's what he did. The stylist took his scissors and slid them into Flaky's maroon hair, opened the mouth, and let the woman's locks feel the bite of his steel. However, the hair did not cut. Now-Snips's face was twisted with consternation. Why wasn't the hair cutting? He asked himself this and tried again. Nothing. It reminded him of children's scissors trying to cut paper, but the paper folds or is crinkled in such a way that the whole paper turns diagonally and makes the worst noise. The man tried several more times but nothing worked. The demure girl's hair simply would not cut. Snips, irritated now, pulled the scissors out of the maroon sea. One arm was crossed over his chest, and the other arm had its elbow propped on the hand of the other arm; the man's hand loosely held the scissors. His brow was arched and his face was contorted with the visage of dismay and gears churning. And after several minutes, Snips sighed and shook his head in defeat.

"I kan't snipen zis hair," said Snips, shoulders slumped.

A series of gasps permeated from the stylists, Giggles, and even Charlotte, preceding an uproar of shared whispers. Flaky overheard a few: "Snips can't cut a thing of hair?" and "I thought the head of hair he couldn't cut had yet to be grown!" or "So much for meister of the haircut." And hearing these things caused a tremendous guilt to spring-up in her heart. Her hair stripped Snips of his epithet of Meister of the Haircut-it was all her fault. A faint line of tears began to blur her vision.

"I-I'm s-sorry Mr. S-S-Snips," Flaky apologized, "I-I-I promise I-I won't c-come b-back and remind y-you of-"

"Nefer kome back?" Snips queried. "Are you doink zee witze right now? I am Herr Snips, Meister of zee Haircut. If I vere to aufgeben after one little mess up, I voult not haf my epitheton, Meister of zee Haircut. Efery week, on zis day, you vill kome zurück ant ve vill kontinue our sessions, until I tame zat mane, free gebühren!"

"R-really?"

"Ja! Nov, just entspannen and vait for your nails to dry ant your freund's treatments finich. Kay, bae?"

"O-okay..."

Snips patted Flaky's head, slipped on his gloves, and strode to the receptionist's desk at a listlessly gait. The demure girl watched the man, clad in black, lean over Charlotte's shoulder, whisper to her and walk out the door. Immediately following Snips's comment: Charlotte dropped the black nail file in hand, slammed her hands on her desk, shot out of her chair, and then jabbed an accusatory finger at Snips as he opened the front door.

"You did what!" Charlotte shrieked.

But by the time she said anything Snips was already out the door. Flaky had a slight glimmer of hope shining in her eyes. Had she found someone that was willing-not to mention capable, too-to tame her hair? The very thought made the demure girl giddy with excitement. And that was how Snips gave Flaky, a simple woman, an iota of hope of getting the wild bush growing from her scalp cut.

---

To Flaky, it felt like an eternity of bliss, but it was actually several hours. The only instance where her nirvana ended was when the stylists began the full body hair removal, and the demure girl definitely felt different afterwards. It was a splendid feeling, though. And the differences ranged from the fading patchwork of redden skin, left from the waxing, to the distinct chilliness of her legs and underarms. After her nails dried, the stylists applied a glistening coat, final, to her nails. By the time the final coat dried, Giggles was getting her old purple polish removed. Then it took a quarter of an hour for the stylists to do the peppy girl's manicure and pedicure, and then another half hour to apply and dry each layer of nail polish. And during the drying process the stylists reapplied the makeup that had been smudged or removed. It was a quarter past noon when the stylists wrapped up the girl's visit.

The women said their goodbyes to the stylists; Giggles shared a conceited farewell with Charlotte. For Flaky, it was an odd experience to watch the interactions between Giggles and Charlotte and their love-hate relationship.

"Don't get hit by a bus, kay?" said Charlotte, nonchalantly.

"And don't you add anymore accents to your voice, kay, Charlatan?" replied Giggles, equally nonchalantly.

Giggles and Charlotte smiled cheerfully at one another, but it was quite odd for them to do so. How could someone say something so rude so casually? Now, Charlotte said something that was quite likely to occur in Happy Tree Town. The town was cursed with a horrible accident streak, after all. But what Giggles said was an insult directed to the, clearly, fake accents of her voice. Why does she still smile, Flaky mulled, even after getting insulted by a friend? It was far too complicated for a simple woman like Flaky to understand. And it was making her head throb just trying to figure out the why. So she gave up the frivolous task and let the bliss of absentmindedness envelop her.

With Giggles leading the way: Flaky followed her friend with a dreamy gait. Her mind wandered from one frivolous imaginings to the next. She didn't mind being a follower; especially if there was nothing else the demure girl had to do. However, she didn't notice when her friend paused to take out her phone. And she continued to walk, neglectful of her surroundings. Flaky ended up walking into the metal beam of a lamp-pole. Recoiling from the vertical line of pain, down from her face in a straight line, she used both hands to nurse her nose. The faint, warm, oozing of blood tickled the agitated nerves of her nostrils as it dribbled out and dabbed droplets of crimson onto her palms. To refrain from proclaiming her affliction to the world, the demure girl vigorously chewed her bottom lip while drilling her tongue into the ridge of her mouth. But she couldn't keep her body from doing the ceremonious dance of pain: her back arched out, elbows akimbo, torso bobbing back and forth, and legs taking turns bearing her weight. The wretchedness of her affliction was almost enough to make the timid woman take up a pledge to make fate rue the day it crossed her, but the convenient drying up of her nose's creek of blood and the weakening potency of her anguish revivified her well-of-fears. It took a moment to compose herself before turning to face Giggles, Flaky meandered a good ten feet away from her friend, and found that she was wrapping up a conversation on her cellphone.

"...so you can be here within three minutes?" She waited. "Great! Wait-where are you right now?" She waited. "Clingy? I'm not being clingy, I just want to know where you are." Again, she waited. "Listen, Cuddles, if you don't-hello?"

For the next few moments, Giggles continued to question whether Cuddles was still there. He wasn't. Then Giggles said, "Fine! We'll just discuss it when you get here!" Then she clapped the flip-phone shut, an irked breathing following as she stuffed the pink device into her pocket.

"Everything okay?" Flaky asked, voiced muffled by her hands.

The pink-haired woman crossed her arms over her chest as she stewed in the aggravation that always gripped her after a fight with her lover, Cuddles.

"Yes," she said. "Cuddles should be here with a car in three minutes."

"He's that close?" Flaky inquired.

"That's what he said-though, why should I know? It's not like I'm his girlfriend or anything, not like I have the right to be worried about my hubby's well-being and loyalty and whereabouts at all time!"

Hearing the venomous edge to her voice, Flaky made her eyes extra round. It was better to let her friend vent whenever she got like this. But the demure girl hated yelling. Not to mention violence, and her friends have altercations.

"Do you know what he said to me? Do you know what he said!" She gave no pause for Flaky to answer. "Clingy! Can you believe that? He thinks I'm clingy! What a laugh! He, he's the one who's clingy! If Cuddles doesn't get his daily hug quota met, oh ho ho, he gets grouchy! Not only that, but he thinks I'm stupid! You wanna know how-I'll tell you how! He thinks that I can't hear the sound of Handy's laughter, of strangers cheering and acting riotously, glasses clinking, everything you'd hear at a bar! Oh, let me tell you, Cuddles thinks I'm a brain-dead floozy who can't do anything without big strong men at my side twenty-four seven!"

Giggles strode towards Flaky, grabbed her right hand, and began pulling her so she'd keep up with her own quick and furious gait. And Flaky offered no resistance-she still had to vent her anger and rant.

"How much you wanna bet that he was getting served by a woman? Oh, I can see it now! He was all over her, no doubt, and the barmaid-that skank-was all for it! Cuddles tries to make himself look like a mellow guy that gets along with everyone, but it's all a facade-now if only I knew what facade meant! I heard that from Cuddles, too. No doubt talking about me! Using big words that I don't understand, really clever, you jerk! Oh, when I see him, he's going to get a piece of my mind!

"You know what else he did? Last night, he went out early because he had a 'promise to keep'. Yeah, as if! I know what he was really doing: he was sneaking out to be with Splendid-to do what? Something stupid, no doubt-instead of spending the night with me! He's a bad liar, as you know. I can see through all his petty lies. It's a gift, really. Oh, but he doesn't think I can see! He doesn't think I'm smart enough to see. Well, I've got some news for you buddy: I'm not the damsel-in-distress that everyone thinks I am! I'll show him, oh! I'll show him, now he just needs to get here!

"What the hell! He said he'd be here in three minutes! It's been seven! What do you think he's doing? Oh, I know: He stopped at a store or something to get something. What it is, I have no clue. Probably another skateboard, as if he needs another one." There was a pause in Giggles's train of thought. "Or, or he's getting me something. Yeah, that's what he's doing! He's probably buying me chocolates or flowers to apologize for last night. But what did he mean by keeping a promise? Wait, does he mean the promise of marrying me when we were kids? Did he remember that?"

Suddenly, Cuddles's Pontiac, colored a cold yellow, rounded the corner and pulled up alongside the women. No one but Giggles knew what Cuddles did for a living, and Cuddles refused to tell anyone-Giggles seemed to promise not to tell, either. But whatever his occupation it paid enough for him to afford a decent car with enough remaining to satisfy Giggles spending needs and to append modifications to said car. The back had a sleek spoiler that was fit for a race car, the hood had six, parallel, rectangular slits that curved in, the rims had interconnecting bars that formed a patchwork spiderweb, and the roof of the cabin was colored a dark gray-Cuddles commented that it was colored like carbon once. (3)

Overjoyed, Giggles released Flaky's hand and rushed to the driver's side, threw open the door, and jumped in. There were sounds of histrionic crying, apologies-mainly from Giggles-and the tumultuous sounds of a confused Giggles. A moment passed and Flaky was unsure if it was safe to enter the passenger's seat of the car, but she eventually approached, tentatively, the door and pulled it open. She ducked her head and gazed into the cabin. The demure girl saw Giggles sitting in Cuddles's lap, pressing him into the black leather of his chair, with her arms wrapped around his chest and her head resting in the crook of his neck. From her eyes came two streams of joyous tears.

"Oh, Cuddles, I'm so sorry!" Giggles cried. "I'm so sorry that I ever doubted you! I promise, when we get married, I'll be the wife you deserve!"

With a turn of his head, Cuddles regarded Flaky with a quizzical mien. And Flaky simply replied with an equally confused shrug.

"Now." She took her head out of his neck and looked at him with glistening eyes. "Where's my chocolates?"

Cuddles blinked, then tentatively answered, "At our house?"

That seemed to be the correct answer, for Giggles rewarded him with a peck on the cheek (the scarlet lipstick left the impression of Giggles's lips). Then the pink-haired woman moved around until she was comfortably positioned on Cuddles's lap, between his legs. She laid the back of her head against her lover's shoulder as if it were a pillow, then she closed her eyes and relaxed.

"Come on Flaky," said Cuddles. "Get in."

Nodding, the demure girl took off her high-heels and stepped into the car. Then both she and Cuddles strapped themselves in with the seat belts. Once more, Flaky put Cuddles under her scrutiny. He wasn't the tallest of people, Flaky was on par with his height-when in high-heels-but he was built like he was six foot nine. Lengthy and scrawny limbs with little muscle definition, very smooth facial features, thin neck and partially broad shoulders, fair skin, and greenish lemonade colored eyes. Cuddles had the hands of a skater: partially callused and long fingers. His hair very curly, it was almost like a patchwork quilt, and large sections of hair curled around and covered portions of his forehead, eyebrows, and cheeks. The boy's golden locks covered his ears like a shroud. But the most interesting thing about him was the large patch of white hair that went from the top of his forehead down until the curled pasture of white reached the gap between his eyes, one lock continued down until several strands reached the base of his small, angular nose. And he constantly wore a bright lemon yellow sweatshirt with a rabbit-eared hood (large white balls of fluff tipped the end of his hood's cords), a pair royal blue pants that normally were, without the brown and gold buckled, leather belt, loose and baggy, black socks that went to his ankles, and a pair of black-and-blue converse with scarlet laces.

And that was how Flaky witnessed how Giggles's and Cuddles's relationship stayed afloat.

---

Flaky hadn't an inkling of the destination Giggles instructed Cuddles to take them. Thus, she found herself getting anxious. She began to pull at the flimsy piece of polyester; conveniently the only thing standing between her and flying out the window in a crash. And she fiddled with her fingers, twiddled her thumbs, and rubbernecked the moving scenery outside her window. Anything to keep herself distracted from her two friends. Occasionally, Flaky caught herself watching the two out of the corner of her eye. She'd think, "They're so happy," at times. And then she would become quite downcast. For seeing Cuddles' and Giggles's happiness and love reminded Flaky of what she could never have. It reminded her of the never-ending hot-spring of fear that kept her from pursuing her soul-mate-the one so perfectly similar that it was merely herself in someone else's body. And that made her even sadder.

Once, when she was a child, Flaky thought she found her soul-mate. He was kind and caring, trustworthy and protective, attractive; mentally and physically, nearly perfect personality-wise, and strong and thoughtful. It was everything she desired in a man. Someone who was incapable of frightening her and could protect her from the things she feared. Once, Flaky thought Flippy was her soul-mate. And, for a time, it seemed true. The demure girl knew the man since as far back as she could remember, and he's always been her friend-one of her best friends, actually. However, the Tiger War occurred. Every able bodied man was called to arms, all over the country, except for the men of Happy Tree Town. For the most part, it seemed like the quaint town would be sparred of the heartbreak and loss that would come from conflict. That was not the case, though. Out of every man in the town, in the country, Flippy was the only one that volunteered to go. Everyone suspected that his family pressured him into making a brash decision, because he came from a long line of military personnel, but it never became something more than mere conjecture. And despite his friends' begging him not to go, Flaky especially, he still went. He told them, before leaving, "How can I look you all in the eye if I back down from something that threatens to hurt what I hold dear?" Then he boarded the train in the town's sole station and left. Flippy was eighteen and Flaky thirteen when he left.

The war lasted ten, bloody, years. And Flippy returned, changed.

Recalling the painful past, difficult, with Flippy always made Flaky morose. But recalling the five years that passed since Flippy's return was even more painful. It hurt to see Flippy become the very thing he actively weeded out. When he had an episode, flip-out was a popular term, he became the embodiment of everything he hated. The soldier hurt his friends, endangered others, fought people without reason, needlessly killed and hurt people, and harmed the innocent. It wasn't entirely wrong to think of Flippy's situation as a constant battle between Yin and Yang. At first, Flaky was able to cope with Flippy's severe PTSD. But it eventually became too much. The demure girl began assuming the worst out of all his actions, began having vivid hallucinations of him killing her in the most gruesome ways, and trembled, violently, whenever she saw him. It was another fear Flaky had to, dolefully, add to the list. Flip-Phobia: The fear of Flippy. One time, she took a shard of glass and perforated his eye with it. Now Flaky avoided the soldier like the plague: removing his number from all her cellular device, walking in the exact opposite direction whenever she saw him, refused to let him in her house, never answered when he called, and, recently, never stopped her car when she saw him on the road. It hurt his feelings, she knew this, but Flaky was just became too scared to consider his feelings when she saw him.

Sometimes Flaky wondered if Flippy ever noticed the way his friends, people in general, treated him. It didn't start immediately after he returned or even after the first several times he flipped out. But, gradually, everyone became wary of his presence. Is he going to flip out? Will that noise set him off? Should I leave now? How much longer do I have before he has an episode? Soon everyone in Happy Tree Town became distinctly aware of the soldier's condition. Such people tended to distance themselves from him. Wherever there was a crowd and he was there, they'd part and let him walk through with ease. And then his friends began to distance themselves from him. They always checked, twice, that their phones or any noise making device was either off or wouldn't play a sound that would remind him of the war. They checked their surroundings to make sure that nothing bore a semblance to war. And they made sure to never stress out or anger the soldier to the point of flipping. However, there was always something left unchecked. Then-he would come out.

When he, Evil Flippy, came out, all hell came with him. The ground, once verdant, would be painted a fine crimson, guts would be strewn about like some sick piece of art, bodies scattered along the ground haphazardly. There was nothing and no one that could avoid or quell the sheer anger and blood lust and hatred of Flippy's other side. Once the great and mighty superhero Splendid was felled by the spasmodic vehemence of Evil Flippy's attacks. That, by far, was one of the scarier days in Flaky's life.

"Hey Giggles, baby, don't fall asleep on me," said Cuddles.

"It's all your fault-you have a comfortable chest," replied Giggles with a clear grogginess in her voice.

The couple's mellow banter was a welcomed distraction. Once again, Flaky stole a glance at her friends. It was a longer one, though, from the few others she stole. Seeing and hearing their happiness, constantly seeing them express a joy and warmth greater than anything Flaky thought possible, to see the love and compassion they had for each other-Flaky's heart longed for a scrap of what they received in droves.

Why is life so unfair? wondered Flaky, believing (for a second) that there actually was some higher force watching over each person.

She thought that, if she begged, then that higher force would give Flaky the break from loneliness she desired. But, no, whatever higher force there was had different plans for that day. Whether they were good or bad, Flaky was unsure at the time, was something the demure girl decided upon much later.

Everything was calm from Flaky's view, and Cuddles looked as cool and collected as always. Nothing seemed to be wrong. But that mellow atmosphere took an abrupt drop as Cuddles reached a four-way intersection. The intersection looked just like any other intersection: four lanes all connecting to form a cross. However, unlike most intersections this one was heavily outdated. The town's archives held information that dated back several hundred years ago, and one such file educated people on the recent discovery of a newfangled transportation system-by using interconnected roads and lining up several lanes, the traffic of carriages will reduce exponentially, that's how it went. There was no stop sign or stoplights, however. It was among the parts of Happy Tree Town's infrastructure that had yet to get renovated. There had been an attempt to pave the roads with asphalt, but that was a forlorn project that'd been rendered to a near tanned brown from a century's use-without even a marginal cleanup or repair work. The only new thing about the four-war intersection were the sidewalks and the cement rise in the middle of the intersection that the police used to use to direct traffic; that is when they weren't so busy with the government's petty tasks. They were made from a worn out, whitish gray cement that was overwrought with gaps and cracks. And if you saw how uneven and rough it was or felt the way it rose-and-fell, sometimes from front-to-back and other times side-to-side, when you walked on it, you'd know that they had the team do a slapdash job. Then there was the cement rise: it curved up from the center like a rock appended to the ground, flattened out to a polished square surface at the top, was big enough for an officer with small feet that had to stand on the tips of their toes to keep from falling off, and was positioned so obtrusively in the center that easily navigating around it was as equally likely as a cautious driver running into it and, consequentially, flipping their vehicle. In addition to these, there was the occasional lamp post (something the citizens demanded the government to install) protruding from the sidewalk.

Being that it was among the roads and areas of Happy Tree Town that had been left to decay, it was a testament to the town's government's new goals. Not long ago, two years before Flippy's return, the government of the town began construction of the, conveniently named, Happy Tree City. And this new city was built on a large plot of land that was several acres shy of boarding Happy Tree Town. Most of the newer generations flocked to join the city, before all the good apartments and high rises were taken, but the majority of people remained in the small town. It wasn't because they thought the small town was better-well, the better of half the remaining population thought that-rather it was because the small town was all they've known. And areas like this four-way intersection made that unwillingness to just get up and leave evident. These sorts of areas had tightly spaced shops, no alleyways for criminals or the like to abuse, that sold a wide variety of things: furniture, tools and supplies for all sorts of trades and projects, food, gadgets and gizmos, services, etc. These sorts of areas were the pride of the town's remaining population-they were their lifeline. And as soon as they went, so did the remaining town's folk-willing or not. Unfortunately for Flaky and friends, they tightness of the stores made it impossible to see any oncoming traffic from two of the three other lanes.

Thinking that he had the right of way, Cuddles continued driving. As if it was routine, his arms and hands began moving as he turned the wheel. For people that were well acquainted with these types of intersections it was child's play to maneuver around the hazardous rise, and it was child's play for a cautious driver to keep within the smallness of the intersections' width. However, it wasn't an easy undertaking avoiding someone as oblivious and distracted as Lumpy-a man who had the best of intentions but lacked too much intelligence to keep in mind the rules of commonsense-when they came from the lane to your left, the one that would inevitably lead to a crash if someone wasn't diligently watching for other cars. Unfortunately for Flaky and friends, Lumpy was indulging himself in a steaming cup of coffee whilst talking to someone on the phone.

Flaky was the first to notice. "CUDDLES!" she screeched. "CAR!"

"What!" Cuddles responded, equally as loud, but it was too late.

By the time Cuddles responded, Lumpy's vehicle (oddly enough he owned a Lapis Lazuli colored mustang) was at a proximity that threw the idea of rectification out the window. However, Cuddles still tried his hand at the futile task-he fancied himself Pro Circuit material after buying himself a car. There would be no saving himself and the two girls from the crash, though, and his attempts at making the impact less significant on his end only made it worse for both cars. Lumpy noticed at the last possible second, but by that time the bumper of his vehicle had already made contact partially with the passenger's door and the back side of the car. The force of the impact caused a large dent that bent and twisted the metal frame into a jagged and angular protrusion that pinned Flaky's foot and dress to the side of her seat. Combed with the direction Cuddles turned the wheels to try and avoid the crash, the forward momentum of Lumpy's car carried Cuddles's vehicle in modified, slightly, direction that Lumpy's car had been going. With that momentum, Cuddles's car was pushed along the ground, turning ever so slightly, until the front left wheel found its way on the incline up the cement rise. The wheel effortlessly rolled up the incline and hopped up to hog the small surface of the top. And then it got pushed off the top by the continued, shared, momentum-suspending the wheel an inch away from the incline of the rise. Without its fourth wheel on the ground, providing resistance, Cuddles's car was at the mercy of Lumpy's vehicle. Sadly, it had none. The mustang continued to slide forward and forced the rest of Cuddles's car over the rise; consequentially flipping it on its side. (4)

Everything happened so fast, Flaky's mind was reeling with disbelief-it felt as if the world had dived head first into a vat of molasses. Just trying to process it was strenuous undertaking, and the fear of death Sure, there was no threat of dying, but there still was the ghastly, looming figure of the pain of death and the agonizing process of their body's restoration was ever present. That's what kept the citizens of Happy Tree Town cautious and obsessed with safety; that's why there was still a need for hospitals, physicians and doctors; and that is why the people of Happy Tree Town keep their police force in pristine condition. The anguish of dying and coming back to life was a mind-numbing experience that would drive anyone not born with the town's curse stock-raving-mad. And that's why Flaky had such ghastly qualms with dying. She tried to avoid it, truly she did, but somehow Death always managed to find the time to knock on her door. No matter how cautious she was or how far she distanced herself from Flippy or how much she hid in her house or how much she stuck close to her friends; admittedly, it was being with friends that got Flaky killed the most. Why did things like this always happen to her?

Looking back on it, Flaky decided that the first mistake that led to the road of pain and misery was trying on the makeup that Giggles made her buy. Her eyes looked over to said friend: she was clinging to Cuddles and crying her eyes out against his chest. Or, maybe, it was simply waking up? Perhaps she shouldn't have bothered to get out of bed in the morning. Ah, it was so warm, Flaky thought. The bed had been so warm, so comfortable, and so inviting, why did she ever leave its embrace? The reason must have been what Cuddles said to her, over-the-phone, several days prior to now, "Try and open up to people, Flaky, then you might escape the rut you're in?" Now-her eyes focused on Cuddles. Upon realizing that there was no way out of the crash, the skater boy decided that his own safety meant nothing if Giggles's well-being was in jeopardy. He tried to keep a calm visage, tried to give his friends confidence, but the way he held Giggles, trying to shield her, and squeezed his eyes shut and buried his nose into his lover's hair told Flaky everything. He, too, was afraid to die. Could it have been that the greatest mistake-the one that led to the crash-was when she got into Cuddles car? If the demure girl hadn't got in, then would Giggles and Cuddles have gone the way they did? Was it possible that the crash was, inadvertently, Flaky's fault? It took a truly spineless woman to fear getting read the riot act by her friends for an event that would have inevitably occurred.

Things began to speed up, and Flaky's mind finally grasped the situation she was in. Before she knew it, the car was on its side and skidding along the ground. Then came the second impact from Lumpy's car. And that was how Flaky blacked out.

---

An oppressive darkness, filled with an equally absolute silence, surrounded Flaky with the iciness of a deep, eternal abyss. It was all encompassing, and there was no escaping from it. However, it was not the darkness she was accustom to when her subconscious took over and let the curse repair her body. This darkness wasn't the same as the one that always came after death, because she could still sense the outside world, to a degree. She could hear the noises of the waking world as if they were far, far away and she was submerged in water. Flaky could feel the rough ground below her and something touching various parts of her body, but they were nothing more than the faint echoes pulsating and tickling the endings of a dead nerve. Everything from the waking world could be felt; however, the senses were always hampered by the drowsiness of the abyss.

In an attempt to dispel the chilling darkness, Flaky vehemently tried to open her eyes. But it was to no avail. Nothing she did could pry her eyelids open. So she laid, helpless, in the darkness for what felt like hours. Every so often a new sensation would pipe up in the masked chatter of the other feelings. And, eventually, Flaky thought she'd go mad from the unsettling serenity of the darkness that held her. However, just as she was preparing to give herself to the seductive madness of insanity, someone called out to her. It was a voice she was familiar with and, unlike the other sensations, its sound wasn't drowned out by the oppressive silence. The voice called to her: "Flaky," it called, "Flaky, you have to wake up." But why did she have to? Why couldn't she reside in the abyss and mingle with insanity? The voice persisted, the owner added a shake to get their point across: "Flaky, you have to wake up!" There was a clear urgency to its tone; whomever wanted her awake was desperate to wake her. However, Flaky had no choice other than waking up. Whether she liked it or not, the dark abyss and omnipresent silence that enveloped her was beginning to fade away. The darkness was slowly shifting, changing, and melting down into the various colors that made the color black. And the silence, whose oppression kept the sensations of the waking world feel far away, was growing far away itself-the sensations it masked began to settle themselves into the foreground of Flaky's consciousness. When the silence faded, Flaky wished it hadn't. Whilst the silence was presence, the demure girl was safe from the throbbing and the soreness and the anguish that wracked her body. There were numerous areas on her body that burned with a fiery vehemence similar to the searing annoyance of an open cut. She noticed that her left leg felt especially swollen. The air was chilly and the hard, cracked cement she'd been laid on was just as, if not more, cold.

At first, Flaky's vision was too hazy to make out her surroundings. From what she knew, currently, the demure girl gathered that she was lying on a sidewalk next to where the accident occurred. However, she did not know who retrieved her from the wreck. The voice she heard from her time in the abyss (cut short, really) was quite familiar. It sounded masculine; deep and firm, and had a cheerful, charismatic tone that inspired a demanding desire to follow the man to hell and back; however, there was an undercurrent of sorrow and wariness too. As Flaky began sorting through the people she knew, trying to discern the man's identity-her vision began to clear up. And as clarity returned, so did her fears. Before Flaky, on one knee at her side, was the one thing she feared the most: Flippy.

"Oh, thank goodness, I thought you'd never wake up," said Flippy, relieved.

Flaky's eyes widened, made themselves look extra round, and her pupils became pinpricks as the color left her face. The rate of her heart skyrocketed until it felt like it would burst out of its fleshy cage, the fearful woman's breathing became ragged and quick, and her mind became a blank canvas for her fears to paint on. And her body was plagued with an incurable, vigorous but concealable, shaking. Why did she convince herself that she could elude her numerous qualms, even for day? No matter what she did, Flaky would always, inevitably, return to her illogical phobias and paranoia. There wasn't an iota of hope of escaping. How could she, especially when fearing every conceivable thing was her, sole, talent? If it wasn't for her unparalleled capacity for phobias and paranoia, then Flaky would have nothing going for her. And then she truly would be average.

"However," Flippy continued, "I'm afraid that, to pull you out, I had to cut you out of your dress."

Hearing Flippy's voice caused a frightened ambivalence to descend upon Flaky. It was clear that the man Flaky knew from before the war was in control and not him, or the man would never have pulled her from the crash. Now she hadn't the will to hide her quivering, not when all her mind could comprehend was the vehement desire to put as much distance between her and Flippy. Even now, Flaky's body coiled itself like a spring; that is each muscle tensing up in preparation to flee. The demure girl's mind, driven by terror, was already scanning the surroundings for the quickest escape route. But then a problem was presented. In Flaky's intense scrutiny, she noticed just how close the soldier was. He wasn't even a foot away from her: if Flippy flipped out, then all he had to do was stretch out one of his long limbs and snatch her ankle. There truly was no escaping the situation she found herself in. Now Flaky's mind began thinking of ways to make itself invisible to Flippy if and when he had an episode. She came to the conclusion: if she kept a dead stare locked with an overhead cloud careering by and assumed a deceased visage, then the demented soldier might believe that she died in the crash. However, that was given the disturbed part of Flippy's mind wasn't as intelligent as the default was.

If one were to consider, solely, Flippy's looks: his hair, his build, his skin, and his eyes, then he would be quite attractive. Since birth, Flippy had always been bigger than other kids his age. He was always taller, a good deal taller, and always had larger proportions. And after joining the military, the man's already athletic physique reached new heights: that is, finely toned muscles, chiseled features that shaped sleeves and pant legs appropriately, and strong but callused hands and feet. The palms of his hands were half that of a baseball glove and the skin was hardened with calluses; his palms and the pads of his fingers had a patchwork quilt of scars and crisscrossing red lines. And the man's fingernails, most of the time, were colored a dark brown. Despite that, though, his fingers always managed to keep a size that allowed him the opportunity of becoming a pianist. His skin was fair with a faint coat of dirt, and his eyes were an electrifying, brighter shade of emerald. However, it was his hair that strangers found the most captivating. The man's hair wasn't overly long, for a man's standards, but in the same regard it wasn't too short. Ever since meeting him, Flaky has always seen his hair to be in a teased style that was neither a bedhead or lightly spiked-the oddity was some sort of, clashing, mix between the two. However, no matter what state his hair was in, the soldier always had a split in his bangs that unveiled a good portion of his forehead; that is whichever side of his head the split favored on that day. And, after a dare, he had his hair dyed a grassy green with darker green highlights (originally it had been an unusually white shade of silver). Even the soldier's choice in clothing was attractive, oddly. He tended to wear a pair of baggy pants and a vest, both camouflage colored-he didn't seem to be wearing the vest-with a white undershirt, a pair of white socks and military-grade combat boots with camouflage laces, a pair of driver's gloves-he wasn't wearing them today, it seemed-and a green beret with a shield-shaped crest embossed on the rim. That said, Flippy's good-looks weren't enough to make up for his crippling mental instability.

"You're shaking-you must have lost more blood than I originally thought." The soldier began to riffle through his pockets. "I think I have something that might help."

Flaky's eyes followed the soldier's hand as it entered his pocket, and then she heard an intimidating expulsion of malevolent, doom-laden laughter permeate from Flippy. Immediately, her eyes focused on him. In the man's eyes she saw flecks of gold and on his face spread an open-mouthed, malicious smile. His features were contorted to a murderous visage, and the man's teeth tapered down to dagger-like points that were ready and willing to tear into the demure girl's tender flesh. And the streaming rays of the afternoon sun revealed splattered patches of blood, glistening with a vivid crimson, painting his clothing, fingers, and face with red. The soldier's teeth parted, a dark gap, and a forked tongue slid out to lather his fangs with a shiny coat of saliva. Then a wicked cackling caused his jaw to rise and fall in gently spasmodic motions. With a tone fit for a devil: that is cold, remorseless, calculating, cruel, and emotionless, he whispered to Flaky, "Only the dead have seen the end of war," before violently slapping his free hand on her neck, below her Adam's apple, and wrapping his long fingers around her frail neck. The force he used was enough to render her breathless-sputtering and coughing violently, and the hand rummaging through his pocket pulled back to reveal a wicked, serrated curved blade. He brandished the cold steel at the demure girl, letting her reflection grace its surface before the sun's glint made the reflective metal painful to behold. Without a doubt, the demented soldier had no intention to let Flaky live.

Frantically, bug-eyed and gasping for air, Flaky began to struggle. Her legs kicked out and scrapped and beat against the hard cement-the pain afflicting her bare feet was nothing more than a dull annoyance-and her body squirmed with panicked spasmodic convulsions fit for someone plagued with epilepsy. The woman's hands smacked and clawed at the hand Flipqy was using to restrict her breathing-already she felt the fatigue of asphyxiation beginning to set in. Everything Flaky could see was beginning to dim, it was as if a dark rag was moving up from the margins of the only light bulb illuminating a room, and small, numerous black dots began expunging, bit by bit, the woman's much needed vision. However, strangulation was the least of Flaky's concerns. Long before she'd fall unconscious from the lack of paramount oxygen, Flipqy will have already plunged the length of his blade into her head. She could see, however hampered by vision, his hand, knife poised to strike, hovering over her face and gradually getting closer. Strength failing and eyesight faltering, Flaky mustered up every ounce of courage left in her body and struck him.

Both of the woman's arms shot out, nails brandished, and rammed her hands into the demented soldier's face. With all her might: Flaky scrapped off lines of skin, cut and clawed, suffused red lines and deep slashes on his face, and tried to push him away. Suddenly, his devilish grin and bloodthirsty leer faded away as if it had never been there; now there was a bewildered mien of stark confusion. For reasons unbeknownst to Flaky, his grip on her neck loosened and the dimming of her vision had all but remained. Now she could see and think clearly-now Flaky would live. In addition to his loosened grip, Flipqy was no longer hovering over Flaky, and this provided Flaky ample opportunity to not only slap the dagger out of his hand, but also shove him onto his back. Once on his back, she scrambled to get onto her feet; however, the deranged soldier's voice stopped her ice cold.

"Where do you think you're going?" hissed Flipqy.

Risking another glance at the man stoked the fire of fear burning Flaky's mind to ashes. The betrayed and hurt visage he once held was gone, completely, and the soldier's murderous intent returned. Somehow-the dagger was in his hand yet again. Even while on his back, belly upturned like an unfortunate turtle, Flipqy's desire to carve in his mark on a canvas made of flesh was as paramount to him as a fish's need to swim. If he was left breathing-if even a single eye was open-then there was no hope of survival. So if living was something paramount to her, then Flaky had only one option presented to her. Without taking a second thought, the terrorized woman jumped on the man, pinning him to the best of her ability, scrambled to find some sort of weapon; conveniently a twisted, gnarled piece of metal from the crash was within reach, grabbed it with one hand, held a firm grip on the soldier's collar, and then squeezed her eyes shut as she began wailing on the demented soldier's smiling face.

"Flaky," Flipqy cried, raucous, "stop!"

Hearing the mock chagrin and phenomenal impersonation of Flippy's voice turned the margins of Flaky's terror into a fearful rage. It infuriated her that the demented, twisted soldier thought he could deceive her. While it was true that Flaky wasn't exceedingly cunning or knowledgeable, the same could not be said for the expansive knowledge she had regarding her friends. For Flipqy to try and impersonate one of her friends-Flippy always had an intrepid voice that beamed with confidence and determination-was close to blasphemy in the woman's eyes. This blasphemous act caused a marginal amount of her flared terror to turn into a fearful rage, and said rage gave life to Flaky's dried-up well of strength. Without even realizing it: Flaky began striking Flipqy harder, increasingly more vicious, faster and faster after each swipe, and gradually more spasmodic. Whenever the soldier attempted to shield himself from her furious blows she would swat whatever appendage(s) he happened to use away-quite often, the more jagged edges of her weapon would create canyons through his flesh with small creeks of crimson flowing through, effortlessly, and spilling out of their short thin size. Any time she heard a small noise or a type of death throe come from him, Flaky knew he wasn't dead, and she'd respond by making the next attack even harder than the last.

Flaky could feel the consistent splatter and pelting of warm blood permeate from the soldier, especially after a number of swings that Flaky hadn't bothered to count. Below her, against her legs and such, Flaky felt Flipqy's movements slowly fading away. "Shtawp... pweez, Fwakee." Flipqy begged, voice laden with a lisp that was appropriate for busted swollen lips. The woman responded with several more smashes, trying to silence his voice. It had become even more like Flippy's, and Flaky had a momentary qualm about her actions: Was she culpable for hurting someone that meant no harm to her? No, she told herself, no it's Flipqy, Flipqy! He only wants me dead, nothing else! I won't let him hurt me, or... or my friends! If she hadn't been so starkly consumed by her fears, Flaky might have taken a moment to ponder where her friends: Cuddles, Giggles, and Lumpy, were.

Soon the woman's arms grew heavy, she thought someone had replaced her arms and hands with perfect lead replicas. But it was a gradual process. When one arm became stiff and swinging the weapon became a challenge, then Flaky would immediately swap the jobs of striking and holding the man's collar between arms. Then, when both became equally as stiff and lethargic, she resorted to using both arms and hands to strike Flipqy. The only two things Flaky could hear was the brisk heartbeat, hammering against the drum of her ears, and the ragged, sporadic breathing, lungs painfully heaving and burning. "Pweez..." Flippy called out, voice strained and faint. Small runnels of glistening tears began trickling from Flaky's eyes; that is from the few cracks of her closed eyes, squeezed as tight as possible. "Fwa-kee..." On the verge of tears, the demure girl let her bloodied weapon hover over her head: elbows bent, forearms quivering, and hands trembling.

"I-Will-Kill-You," chimed the demented soldier.

Immediately, her eyes opened, wide, to find that none of her efforts worked. The demented soldier, Flipqy, was as fine and alive as a newborn child. His ever-wicked, murderous, open-mouthed smile was ever present; however, they was consternation and mystified confusion contorting its remorseless visage. And, if Flaky looked hard enough, there was a faint shine to his eyes. The deranged soldier's final words-there was no doubting that it was a guarantee and not an empty threat, neither persona uttered hollow things like threats-ricocheted off one wall to the next in her mind. I-Will-Kill-You, rambled her terrorized mind, as if it were a sacrilegious prayer to the unholy offspring of the devil and death themselves. I-Will-Kill-You, Will-Kill-You, Kill-You, Kill-You, Death-Death-Death-Death! It was like a riotous cloud of hornets: dogging the innocent bystander that happened to be standing a bit too close to their hive when the wind knocked it loose and sent it crashing to the ground; it thundered in her mind like a typhoon: deafening her to her own thoughts as each boisterous upheaval stoked the endless bonfire that Flaky's fears had manifested as. Whenever something frightening struck, the bonfire was lit and the demure girl's subconscious pulled back its conscious brethren, allowing the unwieldy flames surge out in all directions-consuming all logic and rationality Flaky possessed. It was a just trade-off: relinquishing one's rational mind for the means of preservation. The man's words created another upheaval, the final turbulence of terror.

Flaky's eyes widened to the size of ping-pong balls, pupils dilating, as she squeezed the overhead makeshift weapon, her knuckles turned a pale white. Thin trails of blood dribbled down the lines of her hands and the crisp edges of the weapon's jagged sides-the apprehensive woman hadn't realized what part of the debris she was holding until now. There was a fleeting moment where nothing happened, a lull, before something inside Flaky finally snapped. She had finally let the raging inferno of her fears-the phobia of Flippy, her greatest fear, specifically-engulf her rational mind with a fiery shroud of horror-induced insanity. Out from her mouth, now ajar, came a raucous shriek that would make a Banshee grimace with anguish. Anyone whose attention had yet to be captivated by the spectacle of a fragile-looking, demure girl pummeling a buff army man was drawn to the source of the shrill wail, and they got to watch the revulsion of that very same woman do something horrendous.

The woman, delirious, raised the object clasped in both hands as high and far back as possible, and then she jerked her arms and the object forward. Flaky's target was Flipqy's head, partially over the bridge of his nose to the start of his hairline. How she moved was like a spasmodic, epilepsy patient that possessed more than the average control over their body when afflicted with a seizure. However, the power behind the strike was much, much greater than any epileptic could muster whilst experiencing an epileptic episode. There was a grotesque cacophony the permeated from the soldier's head: bones breaking, flesh tearing like paper, and a sound that imitated the popping of a fleshy water balloon, filled with a thick, sloshing blood with clumps of meat and gray-matter idly floating inside. If she was in her right mind, the sounds themselves would result in a sudden and arbitrary meeting between Flaky and the contents of her stomach. For the idle watcher, the superfluous and trite display of gore and blood was similar to a slasher-horror flick-it was gratuitous, unnecessary, and so frequent that it was like the producer was shoving their hand, ketchup stained, down the audience's throat. Unlike a cliche slasher, the heroine's actress acted with vehemence: screams as shrill as nails against a chalkboard, movements panicked and jittery, body quivering and eyes strained with horror, and she permeated an aura of stark horror that anyone watching her couldn't help but feel anxious and paranoid.

With blood pooling around Flipqy's head, gaping now, and splattered across Flaky and the cement and both's clothing, bits of gray-matter cascaded along the uneven sidewalk, and small chunks of skin and muscle (sometimes with patches of green hair) scattered in the pool of darkening crimson-Flaky let another raucous upheaval to the bystanders' ears roll off her tongue. She yelled and wailed at his corpse as she defiled it. Flaky raked her nails along any bare skin she saw; stabbed and scratched while sometimes biting, and whaled on it with hands and arms where she couldn't find any skin. And she even resorted to kicking the cooling body with her legs and feet; however, it was incredibly awkward and pained her legs because she was sitting atop his chest. The woman knew he was still alive, knew it as a fact, because she could hear the hurried swishing of his leather pant's legs brushing against each other, wheek, wheek-it filled Flaky's ears like the boisterous beat of a drum. There was the sound of his shoes shuffling and scrapping against the cement, too. Flipqy was trying to get up-he was alive, and Flaky had to stop him. Gotosleep-gotosleep-gotosleep-gotosleep, Flaky chanted, as if it would become a powerful prayer that reached some heavenly deity, whose hand would come down as a divine intervention and smite the evilness harbored inside of the man she once fell for. Yes, she thought, fully inveigled, that is exactly what'll happen! And-and then everything will go back to normal, we'll all be good friends, and maybe even the relationship me and Flippy had can come back and then I can be happy and nothing will scare me and, she went on and on.

The delirious woman's dilated eyes filled with joyous tears-how lovely it would be for everything to go back to normal!-and her actions grew faster, more vicious, and more crazed. She was driven by her burning desire for everything and everyone to return to the simplicity it had been fifteen years in the past. Even now, Flaky could picture what it would look like: All of her friends were on a patchwork quilt that Handy made, with minimal help from Petunia, at the park. And on the blanket were several wicker picnic baskets filled with handmade food, a sparse amount of canned food, and all sorts of healthy and unhealthy snacks and treats. Flippy and she herself had yet to arrive, but that absence was quickly abolished by their arrival. Flaky was standing side-by-side with the man that haunted her dreams, at least twice a week, as if the nightmarish five years never happened-all their friends acted the same way. People smiled genuine smiles and laughed genuine laughs; therefore it was all just water over the dam. Sadly, it was not to be. With little warning, the overjoyed girl felt arms, Flipqy's arms, grab her. The proportions were a bit off, though, but it didn't matter-the arms around her waist, pinning her arms, were his, without a doubt. Once more, tears induced by fear, she breathed out a Banshee's screech as she began a riotous struggle to free herself. (5)

"Flaky!" shouted a familiar voice. "Flaky, Fla-ky! Calm down!"

However, Flaky was rendered deaf by her own debilitating fear. She continued to jerk about: legs flailing, feet kicking at the legs of Flippy, arms straining to free themselves, and her head doing anything it could to strike whomever was behind her.

"Je-sus," cried the man," Giggles! I need-can you, I mean-I need, calm her down please!"

There was a soft, nearly inaudible padding as someone approached the distressed girl. "Flaky, sweetie, calm down." Giggles's voice was calm and nurturing, a bit alarmed too. When Flaky's panicking did not subside, two silky hands firmly grasped her shoulders. The softness of her hands was familiar, and it made Flaky feel safe, sheltered and protected.

"Fla-ky," she cooed, "it's alright. You're safe, no one is going to hurt you. You can calm down, just ca-a-lm do-o-wn."

Flaky-desperate to hear something other than her exhausting fear-intently listened to Giggles's soothing voice and let her fatigue-laden (How much adrenaline did it take to make her limbs feel like solid iron?) body go limp. Her eyes, still wide, scanned her surroundings as if she was in a foreign land. There wasn't much of a crowd, but a small group of random onlookers had taken it upon themselves to gather around the scene. Every stranger's face had a horrified visage instilled in their expressions, grim and hard-set with shock. Flaky's friends had the same look, too, but there's had bittersweet sympathy written clear across their expressions. For a moment, the demure girl wondered why everyone looked so bewildered. But then she followed the direction everyone's view was centered on. Then she looked upon, suddenly apprehensive, the scene she caused.

"Jesus," Cuddles mumbled.

It came as a startling realization, Flaky wished it was all a lie, that Flippy hadn't experienced an episode. He didn't flip out when she woke up, he didn't flip out when he started rummaging through his pocket, and he kept sane while Flaky rode out another of her fear-induced hallucinations. The woman viciously attacked Flippy, bludgeoned and cut him, and finally killed him. If the soldier wasn't aware of the fear he instilled in the people he knew before, then he would definitely catch-on after he came back to life. Whether that was for the better or not was a mystery to Flaky, but why did she have such a horrendous, growing ache in her chest? At first she it was the guilt for killing someone, even if she was terrified of that person, but that pain grew more and more until it felt like her heart was breaking. Even though the demure girl recently began avoiding Flippy like the plague, he still considered her his closest friend. That was made exceptionally clear when Flaky blatantly ignored Flippy when he needed a ride, and then went out of his way to help her replace a tire.

Suddenly, the woman's vision went fuzzy as tears began coalescing into watery veils. Her lip quivered and she couldn't bring herself to gaze at Flippy's corpse, Giggles or Cuddles, or the small crowd of onlookers any more. Then her head went limp, craning down to stare at her bare feet and the cement sidewalk. For some reason, the cracks and unevenness of the sidewalk reminded Flaky of the recently opened rifts in her and her friends' friendship with the piteous soldier. The woman sniffled and whimpered, let her tears obscure her vision completely before letting them carve streams down her face, and tried in vain to muffle her sob-choked voice as she began to weep. Cuddles released Flaky's arms and allowed Giggles to console their distressed friend. Giggles stretched her arms out, visage empathetic, and offered Flaky a hug; there was no hesitation in Flaky's decision to accept her offer, cling to Giggles, and bawl into her friend's shoulder as Cuddles began dragging Flippy's corpse off.

And that was how Flaky learned that, underneath her obstinate fears, she yearned to revive the relationship and the closeness she once shared with Flippy.

---

The sun hung in the air, laden with sleep, in a futile attempt to continue its reign. Its determination was admirable, but the moon found the sun's vigor quite infuriating. For sixteen hours, the sun got to sit on a throne and preside over the earth. All the moon wanted was its measly eight hours, sometimes even less, during the summer. Was the sun so greedy that it would squander the moon's time by committing itself to such futility? The moon sent out its shadows and the darkness it brought to force the rays of sunshine back to their master, and a proceeding war broke out against the two light-levels, both respectively serving a noble cause in the name of their leaders. At least, that was the scenario that Flaky imagined.

With her legs up to her chest and arms draped around her ankles, Flaky idly sat in the crook of one of her house's windows. Her wild mane was pushed to the side, suffused across the window sill, and her forehead was pressed against the cold glass. She watched the shadows of buildings, plants and trees, and the few lamp posts of her street wax as the wan light continued to fade. The darkness of night grew stronger with each ray that waned, and each bit of ground given up by the sun's bright soldiers was ravaged by the waxing darkness. She sat in utter silence, letting the atmosphere grow more and more morose, until the final bit of sunlight dissipated; then the demure girl watched as each lamp post turned on and lit up the sidewalks and road of her street. But Flaky remained in the window even with last post turned on.

Flaky's eyes were puffy and the diffused red of her cheeks was fading. Her eyes stung and her voice was hoarse from a long session of sobbing. The demure girl's body shivered from the window's cold radiance, but the camouflage vest-it was much bigger than her since it belonged to Flippy-provided her something warm to snuggle with. There was the ever-present heartache, too, and an annoying force pressed against her skull as she mulled over the day's events. However, she couldn't bear remembering what she did to Flippy-no matter how muddled it was, it hurt to recall. Thus, Flaky tried to push it back to the recesses of her mind. Out of sight, out of mind. She knew that it wouldn't work, though, and that she'd have to confront the source of the anguish in her heart, just not now. Dolefully, the demure girl let her gaze wander away from the darkened window to the inside of her house. Every light was off, except for a lamp neatly positioned atop a small table next to a four-person couch. A pair of heels reflected a partial amount of the lamp's illumination. Normally there wasn't much on the table, save for the lamp, but when Flaky got home she haphazardly tossed the shoes and left them to bathe in the lamp's illumination. There was a distinct sorrow in the living room air, and it seemed like the entire house was holding its breath.

{Real cool Flaky, you just couldn't let him be ignorant, could you?} (6)

The woman brought her head back around and looked at her reflection, and she found that her reflection was the one whom spoke-an angry scowl creased her face. Flaky blinked once, twice, and thrice, the scowling reflection remained.

{He use to be your friend, you know-guess that doesn't matter much now, right?}

Flaky sniffled before pressing her face into her legs. "S-shut up."

{The boy found it strange the first time, but he wrote it off as irrational actions done by a woman scarred out of her wits. What's he going to say now, I wonder?}

"L-Leave me alone," Flaky said, curling into a ball.

{Lightning doesn't strike the same place twice, and the same harmless girl doesn't kill the same person twice out of spontaneous fear.}

More sobs, hoarse, began to worm their way off the woman's tongue while tears made her eyes watery.

{Quit crying! You have no reason to cry!}

"H-h-how wou-would y-y-you kn-know?" said Flaky, voice hoarse and rife with sadness.

{Well, for instance, I am you, and if you don't know yourself then who truly knows you?}

The demure girl's weeping waned until only sniffles, soft, remained. Her head was partially turned and her shiny eyes peeked over her legs to gaze at her reflection. Flaky's reflection still had an irked frown, but her visage was softer, much more empathetic.

{Now, it's high time you woman-up and face what's bothering you head-on, rather than burying and reburying until there's no dirt left to bury.}

"B-but, i-it hu-hurts so m-much," Flaky whined, fear of confrontation showing in the way her voice broke.

{Yeah? You know why it hurts? Because you keep letting your fear rule you. You're so frightened of getting hurt by the truth, a truth that you actively refute, that you're willing to let irrational fears and paranoia dictate everything that you do!}

"N-no... T-that's n-n-not true."

{Face the facts, Flaky. Can you remember a time when you stepped out of your house, by yourself, and did something that you wanted to do?}

Flaky thought and thought, but she came up with nothing. The last time she did that was when she went skiing. It didn't go well, to say the least.

{See, what did I tell you? Almost every day now, you're always going off with one friend or another to do whatever they have in mind. "Oh, no, I'm fine with whatever you want to do." "You choose something, I insist." "Don't worry about it, I'll choose some other time." Not even followers are that submissive, Flaky.}

"S-shut up! I-I a-a-am not a-a foll-follower!"

{No, you're not. You know what you are Flaky? Do you? You're a poor, pathetic woman with no self-esteem, no ambition, and an incurable condition of attachment.}

The demure girl squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears. Once again, tears began to stream down her face. She didn't want to hear the truth, it was something she couldn't handle yet. After another year, Flaky could accept it. Just another year, please, she begged, just one more year.

{That's what you said the year before Flaky! And the year before that! And the year before that, and the year before that! For five years, after Flippy's return, that's what you've been telling yourself! Well, it's not going to wait one-more-year. You're going to hear it and deal with it, now.}

"Ple-e-ease... Not now," she begged, voice as small as a mouse.

Three consecutive, loud knocks echoed through Flaky's house, and it caused the woman to jump, which caused Flippy's vest to slip off and soundlessly fall to the floor. It was a sudden but welcomed distraction that pulled Flaky away from her reflection. She wasn't hesitant to move away from the window, but, fearing that her reflection could still talk, the demure girl kept her hands over her ears. Once at the door, Flaky flipped the porch light switch, then stood up on her toes to see through the door's peephole. However, the humming illumination of the porch light showed that no one was standing outside her door, although she swore she saw something moving in the darkness just beyond her light's reach. It bothered her that someone decided to do a ding-dong-dash in the dead of night, but it also intrigued her that someone would wait till the dead of night to pull such a childish prank. What if Flaky had been asleep? Almost everyone in Happy Tree Town knew of Flaky's reluctance to leave her bed once asleep. It would have been a waste of effort; thus there had to be another reason why someone would knock on her door and not stick around.

Tentatively, Flaky grasped the handle of the door and gently tugged it inwards. She was met with the drawn-out creak of the door that gradually got sharper, louder. Until she released her hold of the handle and the door sluggishly came to a halt, the creaking was all she could hear. Now her ears were greeted by: the soft hum of her porch light and the buzzing of the bugs that swarmed around it, the strident chorus of chirping crickets-a sound Flaky always detested-the calm whistling of a cool nighttime breeze and the susurro-susurro that chimed from the shrubs and plants as the air diffused across the street, and the general quietness that seemed to hang, heavy, over the night. There was nothing for Flaky to see if it was more than a foot away from her sole source of light. Suddenly apprehensive, the demure girl squinted and tried to see further into the dark veil beyond the first square of the pathway the connected her porch to the drive way.

"H-hello?" Flaky called with a voice loud enough to be heard, but not enough to wake her neighbors.

When nothing answered her called, the woman hesitantly took a step out the door to call again. "Hello..." But her voice abruptly stopped when her foot, touching the soft ground, crinkled like crumpled paper. Flaky blinked, mystified. She let her head go limp and fall, driving her vision to the ground, where her foot timidly sat on a large, rectangular package. It was neatly wrapped; crisp and pristine, with formal orange paper, the thick kind you'd find at a post-office. And taped to the front was a letter envelope. The V of the envelope's mouth was facing up; consequentially the information regarding the address was hidden. Flaky looked left-to-right swiftly, trying to find the one whom delivered the parcel and letter, but quickly remembered why she couldn't find the one who knocked on her door. She looked down at the objects once again, and the demure girl took her foot off the parcel to put it under her scrutiny. Suffice to say, it didn't take long for Flaky to find a To: Evangeline Amare C. Bonheur near the middle of the package. It took a moment to recall, but Flaky eventually realized that the mysterious sender used the name her parents gave her-not her nickname. Suddenly, a desire to find out who sent her the package and wrote her a letter gripped the demure girl. She didn't hesitate to swipe the package and letter off the ground, slam her door shut, and sprint to her couch.

Flaky slammed on the brakes and dug her heels into the hardwood floor, grinding and rubbing her skin raw. There was a burning pain in her heels, but she put it out of her mind. All Flaky could focus on was the mail and their sender. The woman lowered herself and planted herself into a sedentary position (legs crossed), then she plopped the two items into her lap. There was a curious, hungry look in her eyes-not even Flipqy, armed with a gun, could tear her away from her mail. Everyone knew Flaky had a near insatiable curiosity, and no one dared defy her if her attitude denoted something that peaked her intrigue (Besides, who would say no to a girl that seldom asks for anything?) and/or was something she desperately desired to learn.

A small war inside Flaky's head kept her from opening her mail. Which one should she open first? The letter or the parcel? If she chose the former: there was little doubt that it would divulge and explain the contents of the parcel and the sender's reasons for mailing a letter and parcel to her. On the other hand, opening the latter would give her a partial understanding of the sender's reason for mailing things to her, but it was equally as likely that she'd haven't an inkling as to the parcel's meaning. It was a tough decision-each second she squandered on deciding stoked her vehement curiosity. Eventually, Flaky came to a decision. If I read the letter, she reasoned, then I'll satisfy my curiosity of both objects. The demure girl couldn't help herself: she puffed out her chest and indulged herself in the iota of pride she possessed.

The woman scavenged her house for a letter opener, found one, and then returned to her mail. Effortlessly, Flaky popped the envelope open with her tool and tugged the folded sheet of blank white paper out. She tossed the envelope aside (it was now trash), then refocused her attention on to the rectangular sheet. And then she carefully unfolded the paper (Did her hands always shake?) to give it a brisk once over to see if she'd recognize the handwriting. Unfortunately, Flaky did not recognize the style in which the letter was written. It didn't resemble any of her friends' style of writing, and now that she thought about it, when was the last time she saw one of her friends pick up a pencil to write their name, let alone a letter? I thought that everyone used emails now-a-days... The sender's style of writing-there was no doubt that the letter was handwritten-was neither print nor cursive, and it most certainly wasn't some archaic form of cursive, either. If it had been, then it would have been impossible to read if it had been. The way they wrote each letter was very curvy, a majority had some sort of loop or twist to it, and there were quite a few letters that were near-perfect copies of each other; for example: the L's and the I's would be the same if it wasn't for the extra curve at the bottom of an I and its dot, Q's and G's would be the same if their stems didn't curve in directions opposite of each other, and the S's and F's would be mirror copies of each other if the F's didn't have a longer, more drooping heads than the S's. Another thing that Flaky found queer about the letter was the way it was written: a mixture between business, formal, and casual, but there was something about the formality and neatness that alluded any reader to the assumption that the style was drilled into the sender's head until it became as easy as breathing. It was small, too, and that in itself was quite a feat-when combined with its neatness, one might think that a computer hooked up to a printer with low-toner was used to make the text.

"I wonder..." Flaky thought aloud, "I wonder who wrote this?"

It didn't take long for Flaky to find out who wrote the letter. The letter read:

Evangeline Amare C. Bonheur
538 Low-Creek Road
Happy Tree Town, HTT 98241
June 8, 20XX

Damian Adam Ohne
980 Spit-Fire Boulevard
Happy Tree Town, HTT 98241
June 8, 20XX

Dear Evangeline (A.K.A Flaky),

Salutations! I am Damian; however, you might know me better as Flippy. There are two reasons why I have decided to write this letter to you-subsequently, the second reason is what drives me to mail similar letters to the people that I considered to be my friends. For you, Evangeline (I always strived to remember your name), the first reason is because of the splendid dress you wore on the afternoon of June eighth, at approximately one-thirty. Because of unforeseen circumstances and events that I could neither foresee nor control, I was unable to inform you, lucidly, of your dress's condition. To retrieve you from the wreck, I was, unfortunately, forced to cut your person out of the outfit: First I'd like to explicitly apologize for this, as it was unavoidable. Second, I have managed to mend, more or less, the damage I caused to said dress-it should be as beautiful as it was before I manhandled it, and I guarantee that it will be just as effective at complementing your beauty as it was before the accident.

Now: It is time that I divulge the second reason for the letters I have written for you, my friends. From the day that I returned to you all from a war that was, in my opinion, necessary but drawn out, I have noticed odd things. One such odd thing were the occasional lapse in my memory, I thought age was getting to me early, and the infrequent moments where I would blackout. After disproving the hypothesis that these lapses of memory derived from afflictions of age that came many, many years early, I was stumped for nearly two years! I must tell you that, while ignorant, I was becoming increasingly frightened as the number of lapses in my memory and the frequency of my blackouts increased. However, it was when I first discovered the bodies of my friend strewn about my feet, and their blood staining every conceivable part of my body, clothed or unclothed, that it began to dawn on me (You remember, at the carnival, right?). There was something seriously wrong, almost malign about me. Right then, I knew that something about the war disturbed me. The horror I witnessed in that bloody event did something to me that I was not fully aware of. So, I sought professional help.

Sadly for me, the only one with even the slightest education in psychological practices was Lumpy-I no longer believe that Lumpy is truly certified as a therapist. So to him I went. I visited Lumpy three times, and each time he offered me a new method to control my PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). And each time I went back to attend my duties at the carnival, it happened all over again. The third visit was my last one: Lumpy proved his ineptitude when he failed to hypnotize me and hypnotized himself into believing that he was a chicken. I do apologize for the cruel remarks, Lumpy. It was then that I looked up for over-the-counter medication that could help me with my PTSD. I took them, maybe one too many-I am not sure anymore-and experienced an intense hallucination that resulted in a fight, to the death, between me and the other me, a drive that ended up killing two friends (Cuddles, Petunia, it was me that drove through the wall, I apologize for that), and then an ending that made me constantly questioning what was and what wasn't real. By the end of the third day with my newly acquired apprehension, I decided that it was time for something drastic. To make a long surgery and long-winded explanation short: I got a complex medical procedure performed on my brain, it worked, I got hit by a truck, it no longer works.

Ever since I got hit by the truck, I've tried countless other medications, prescribed drugs, breathing techniques, stress-balls, etc-the list goes on. None of them worked. Then I came up with an idea: "If I keep the number of unnecessary interactions with my friends to a minimum, then the times I kill them will reduce!" But that did not work, obviously. In fact, it seems like the number of deaths I cause have steadily grew with each episode I have. I wish to apologize for the trouble and grief I've brought to your life. To be completely honest, I didn't want to believe that I was a burden. When I began noticing (oh, how I noticed) the way people treated me differently than they did before I became a soldier, I brushed it off as, "Life being life, people being people." But, due to recent events, I was violently forced to accept the truth. Those that I considered my friends fear me, they remain my friends because they fear that I will flip out and harm them, and my mere presence causes certain people to go into hysterical fits of utter fear. Do I blame anyone? No! I can't possible be angry with how anyone has reacted to me or the other side of my disturbed mind. How else would people react to a man that could be kind and friendly one second then cruel and murderous the next? However, I do feel responsible. Therefore, after much deliberation, I have come up with a solution!

Since it does not look like I will be cured of my PTSD any time soon, and it is clear that it is a painful-to all of you-and futile effort on my part to keep our friendship alive and strong, I will be moving to Happy Tree City. If you are lucky, then you shall never see or hear from me again! Isn't that exciting? I'll no longer harm any of you! And, remember, this is a good thing. So, try and be happy for me, okay? See me off with a smile-I don't care if it is genuine, forced, or hollow. Now, I shall bid you all one final adieu.

Sincerely from,
Damian "Flippy" Ohne

P.S. I'm sorry that what we had in the past, Flaky, couldn't work out. I hope that, by my departure, you can find life to be fun and happy, not frightening and agonizing.

Tears began to stain the paper, drop by drop. Soon the crisp, neat words were faded into a muddled mess of smudged black ink, which caused a majority of the letter to become illegible. The uncontrollable tears that welled up in Flaky's eyes nearly blinded her, and it took both her willpower and a hand over her mouth to stifle the wails and sobs that wanted to roll off her tongue. Inside her chest, a pit of sorrowful despair grew and swelled until it was too large for her heart to hold, and then the constraining walls of the demure girl's heart ruptured and crumbled away as the pit of sorrowful despair broke free from its cage-it then suffused throughout her body. How could she feel such sorrow, such despair for the man that she feared the most? Why did Flaky feel like, with Flippy's departure, someone amputated one of her limbs? It felt like she opened her heart and allowed someone to know her deepest darkest secrets, only for that same person to divulge the same things she confided in them to the whole world.

"F-F-Flip-p-py!" Flaky's voice was choked with sobs. "W-w-why-why w-would you-you d-d-do thi-thi-this t-to me-e?"

In her mind, scenario after scenario played out. She'd drop the letter and burst out the door at an all-out sprint, not caring that her tears muddied her vision and her sobs squandered the energy needed to run. Flaky would race to Flippy... no, Damian's house and arrive just as he was closing the back of a U-Haul truck. She'd stumble and trip once or twice, then she'd pick herself up off the asphalt and run to her friend, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her face into his back when she got close enough. And then she'd bawl and wail and beg for Damian, Flippy, to stay-the demure girl would assure him that she'd never run from him, never flinch or shy away from his touch, never harm him, and that she'd never leave his side again. Just stay, please, just stay: that was all she asked of him. However, none of the scenarios that her imaginings conjured up took place. If someone were to ask her why she didn't protest against his leaving, Flaky would have told them that her fear of him was too debilitating. Yet she'd never tell them why she wanted the man that inspired such a debilitating fear to stay. Flaky would never avow to why she desperately needed the disturbed soldier in the same, general, area as her.

And that was how Flaky came to accept the fact that an emotional and mental disorder that made her cling to one individual as if they were a lifeline; that was how Flaky came to realize that Damian "Flippy" Ohne was her lifeline.

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1). I have never described a dress in this way before-did I do good?

2). My fragile masculinity has been shattered, are you proud of yourself?

3). I have never really described vehicles, have I made you proud?

4). 'Tis my first time writing a car crash, is it alright?

5). Basically the same thing as 1-4, did I do good at writing the hallucinations?

6). Damn site won't let me put in the greater than, lesser than signs (I CAN'T EVEN MAKE AN ANGRY FACE!)

7). The site won't let me put in more than one em-dash.

8). It was fun coming up with the names of the characters :D, and I made sure each one had a specific meaning that basically describes them in some way.

I feel like the number of moments where I wasn't completely in it increased towards the end-I am deeply sorry for doing such a thing. Hopefully the future stories will get better, and, hey, maybe they won't be as long? Perhaps I will finally find a way to make a good, descriptive short story that is actually short? Who knows, not me. I'll see you guys next time, bye-bye!