A Moth Might Look At A Butterfly
So – says Jonni Sood.
So what? – says Harris Pax.
This friend of yours – says Jonni – she cute?
She’s… – replies Harris. Pauses. Then – … she’s my friend. She’s alright, I suppose. Depends.
On what? – Jonni asks.
On what’s going on with her. She’s… changeable.
Hm. Isn’t everyone?
Well… – Harris replies, and that’s when Jonni can tell there’s a story there, somewhere – …she’s more changeable than most. Anyway… – Harris takes a long swig of his drink, circling the bottom – … you’re best off out of it.
Why? – replies Jonni, nose a little out of joint – Her benefit, or mine?
Harris does that thing where it’s obvious that nothing more will be said until there is beer put in front of him. It’s a context sensitive signal, the relevant factors including “whose round it is” and “who has the most cash on them”. Jonni goes to the bar, orders and receives the drinks from Dag the barman, and returns.
There you go. – Jonni says.
Ta. – replies Harris.
So should I be offended by what you said? – asks Jonni, sounding like he already is, kind of. Sort of. – About this bird?
Maybe a bit. Sort of. Kind of a little. – says Harris, but then quickly continues – but it’s a door that swings both ways.
Eh? – Jonni responds.
Well, see, Chrissie, she’s an odd one. For a start, she’s got bad taste in blokes. And when I say bad, I mean, it’s like she’s got a talent for picking them out rotten. There’s a term for what she does. It’s called self-harm by boyfriend. – Jonni starts to say something, but Harris talks right over him. – …Mostly we’re talking emotional abuse, but that’s been more luck than judgement, and she’s not always that lucky, if you know what I mean?
Yeah, but… – Jonni begins to protest, though he trails off when he realises he’s not sure what he’s protesting.
…And the thing is, mate, I know you’re not like that, but that sort of track record, well… – Harris takes a swig, then talks through it. – …It doesn’t reflect well on the next guy.
I guess… – Jonni says, uncertain. This is when he remembers that he hasn’t even met the girl yet, by the way.
Besides, the stuff Chrissie’s been through… You’re either the guy… that guy… the eventual nice one who proves that there are really nice ones, who barely ever lets her down and she can rely on to understand when the dark thoughts come calling, or, well, you probably end up being part of the problem.
Oh… – says Jonni, and any chance of a serious conversation starts to slip through their fingers, when the grin finds his face. – … I think we both know I’m not that guy!
They both laugh, then drink, then stare into space for a minute. Harris looks up absently whenever someone walks down the stairs into the pub. Looks back down.
Still… – says Jonni. – …is she cute?
Well, she’s a lovely girl, is the thing. The sweetest nature. But she has this skin condition.
Oh, like eczema? Or acne?
Kind of not quite. – says Harris, helping no-one. – It’s kind of like both, but kind of worse.
Oh, wow. – says Jonni, who is at his core nice enough, but doesn’t like the sound of that at all.
It’s not… listen… – Harris says, aware that Jonni’s mind may have wandered. Because, well, sometimes it does. – … it’s not quite as simple as that. It’s a thing that comes on based on her state of mind. When everything’s good, her skin clears up, and to tell the truth, she’s gorgeous. Always gorgeous. Totally beautiful.
Well, that sounds promising. – Jonni says, and thinks that that sounds promising. Then thinks on. – Hang on, always? That… sounds not quite right. She’s either gorgeous or she’s not, right? When she’s not all… – and Jonni does a thing… you know, that thing… with his hand, where he waves it around his face to indicate some unsightly condition that he feels guilty about mentioning out loud.
Thing is, with Chrissie… what happens is that… this is going to sound a bit mad… – Harris trails off, as if his previous statement is enough reason not to go on. Jonni, however, just looks at him expectantly. Then shrugs, and makes an odd little noise in his throat that clearly means “why have you stopped?”.
Right, so… okay. I’ve known Chrissie since she was at school, and I was at University. We went to the same clubs. And back then, she was this pretty girl who, every now and then, would just stop being around. We found out later that she was having a few problems at school and home, and the times she wouldn’t be around were the times that her skin would flare up.
Stress related, then? – Jonni interjects.
Yeah, stress related. Thing is, when she’d come back out, she’d always look a bit… different. But you wouldn’t think anything of it. Girls that age, for all that they’re clubbing and drinking and shagging, they’re still growing into their skin. You don’t see them for a couple of months, they always look different. Plus, there’s the constantly changing looks.
The first time it was obvious that something really different was going on with Chrissie was when she had her first serious relationship. She was about nineteen, and he was about twenty, and he was only garden-variety young man…
So a complete twat? – says Jonni, a familiarity with the concept on his face.
Yeah. Not outside of standard parameters, and nothing you could really blame on him, but she was obviously besotted, and he was infatuated enough to say certain things that he later realised he didn’t mean, and there were weeks and weeks of arguments during which her skin got worse and worse, and his comments got meaner and meaner…
That was the first time we saw it properly, by the way. The skin condition. She was so preoccupied by the relationship, she didn’t notice her skin getting worse… or at least think to hide away like she had before… until there was a fine crust of it over a chunk of her face.
Since then, I’ve seen it almost at it’s worst. I shared a house with her during one particularly hard break-up and… Well, anyway…
So, they broke up… and you know, odd as it may sound, I think she did the dumping. And we didn’t see her for a few days. And then we were at the Thursdays on some Wednesday or other, and there she was.
Except, none of us recognised her at first. There was just this beautiful, elegant girl, legs bare to the thigh (Chrissie never showed off her legs that much), huge, full smile, and only vaguely familiar eyes… familiar in that way that you kind of recognise the eyes of every hot stranger you ever see who is generous enough to smile at you… coming across the dance-floor toward us. Whoever this girl was, she gave us a wave and a “hello you lot” grin, and it wasn’t until she spoke that we knew it was Chrissie.
I think we were all a bit too embarrassed to acknowledge that anything was different. Actually, I think we were all secretly convinced that we’d just forgotten what she really looked like. We didn’t have mobile phones back then, and only girls, and even then only certain groups of girls, took lots of photos of each other. Without investigation, there was no way of confirming that anything had happened at all, and who the hell thinks to investigate, they’re in that situation?
But over the years, it happened again, and again, and so that you couldn’t ignore it.
That just sounds weird… – says Jonni, but partly because he knows he’s supposed to. Harris tells the stories, and Jonni listens, and they’re both quite happy with the way that works.
Yeah, seriously. Very odd indeed.
The way it goes… Chrissie pootles along on her own. She’s super smart, uber competent at her job which is… I don’t know. Something. Law-ey? Anyway. She reads, she walks her dog, she sees her friends, and she’s worked out by now that nothing that happens with your friends is worth getting stressed about, because, well, obviously getting stressed turns out worse for her than most.
But then, because she’s sociable, and because she’s beautiful, and really, what’s not to love? And because she encounters a particular sort of charming arsehole… eventually she falls for someone.
And maybe it’s okay for a while. Maybe he spends all his time at her place, or she spends all her time at his, or they even move in together… that’s happened at least once. She was engaged for six months once. But anyway…
So it’s okay for a while. And sometimes she’s even okay when the first things start to go wrong. The end of the first act, when every relationship goes into a bit of a wobble, and it turns out neither person is quite as perfect as the other has decided they are? Her skin dries out a little after a big argument, but then, with the right combination of tears and tiredness, whose doesn’t?
But then, of course, there’s the spiral. Either the abuse starts, or the arguments, or both. Her skin starts to get worse. The guy, because he’s already disengaging from her as a person worth loving… because let’s remember he’s a cock… well, he sees less of the person he first fancied with every extra dry patch or scar or scab. Pretty soon, it’s easy for him to treat her as his very own emotional scratching post, because as far as he’s concerned, the only part of her that’s still a person at all is that pretty pair of eyes looking out at him, and this sort of guy can ignore a lot more than that.
And she’s long stopped contacting her friends or going out, because she hates to be a burden, or she hates how she feels, or she hates how she looks. Which just makes her a hostage to it, and him.
Jesus – says Jonni. He hasn’t said anything in such a while, he almost seems shocked to hear his own voice.
Yeah. – says Harris. Then continues – Still, the upside is, no matter how much one of those guys gets out of grinding down on their girl, they want that girl to be someone they like looking at, like anyone else. We all crave attractive people, don’t we?
So, eventually, the guy leaves. Or in a thankful few cases, Chrissie realises that being trapped inside a shell, inside an only slightly bigger shell, isn’t going anywhere, and she leaves. And Chrissie goes through the same shit that anyone else does in that situation. She cries. She sits on her own for hours. She hates him. She hates herself. Sometimes the skin gets worse, sometimes the skin gets a little better.
And then, one day… and she and I have talked about this, so she’s said that it’s always all at once… she wakes up, and her skin has all cleared up. She’ll find shreds of dried, hardened skin in the bed around her waking body, but it flakes and floats away if she tries to touch any of it.
Then one of us will find their phone ringing, like mine did earlier, and we’ll hear Chrissie’s voice for the first time in ages, and she’ll want to come out and catch up. She won’t talk much about what happened, and we’ll feel weird asking, because we’re spending a lot of time just trying to take in her new features… always beautiful, but like a whole different person.
And then she’s happy, and alone, and brilliant, for a while… maybe a few days, or a few months.
But I don’t know if you’ve noticed… – Harris grins at Jonni – … a good-looking woman doesn’t tend to get left to her own devices for very long. Eventually, some other chancer, another charming arsehole, will look at her and think he’s in, and because she’s like a completely different person, she’s not the same girl who remembers how bad it can get, and she’s in the spiral again.
That’s… crazy. – says Jonni – …so, what, she changes completely? How do you even know it’s her?
It’s not that… well, to be fair, it is pretty strange. – admits Harris – but if you think that we’re losing and growing skin and stuff all the time… that we replenish ourselves on something like a seven year cycle, are you the same person you were ten years ago? Am I?
Uh… – Jonni says, pondering the bottom of his glass. He can see the glass at the bottom. He does that thing to Harris, that shows that there is need of more beer, and the context of it. – … good point?
Besides, her eyes are always the same. That and her voice… As far as I know, the only physical things that don’t change.
Harris Pax stands, and begins heading for the bar, but the girl that has just walked in this second is heading for him, and he lets her hug him instead.
Hi, Chrissie! – he says, beaming. When she stands back from the embrace. – This is Jonni, and this is Chrissie – he says, with all appropriate gestures, before continuing – I’m getting drinks… come with?
Up at the bar, and waiting for drinks, near enough for Jonni to overhear, but not deliberately so, the two friends catch up.
It’s so good to see you! – Chrissie enthuses, and her voice is just how he remembers it.
It’s really good to see you, too, Chrissie. – Harris says, passing her a wine glass. – So, blonde, now, then?
Not for the first time. But we do have more fun!
Harris laughs, and can’t help but wonder how long it will last.
Rivka Jacobs
A nice, subtle horror story, Nick. Not using quotation marks makes the story more immediate, less of a “story within a story” and more existential (at the risk of sounding overwrought).
The theme has been used before, as have most horror themes. The trick is to figure out how to tell it in a new way, with a new meaning and a new twist. And you have done an excellent job.
I personally really liked this in the sense of modern culture and how women are made to feel they have to look like someone ELSE (on a billboard, or in a movie, or a tv program, or in a magazine, or a music video) and not themselves.
So, a unique and original use of the shape-shifting theme, while at the same time making a social commentary. Definitely a first-class story!
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