You can’t make people out of thin air, she told herself. Out of nothing. Maybe the world was belief-powered; maybe those science whizzes did discover that thought itself was the foundation for all reality building… but underneath the molecular dance on all of our ballet cards there still beat the everyday passions and the stop-gaps we imposed upon them. No one could just think a thing and make it instantly so. The mind had a framework factory inside and needed time to get those structures built. And people! People couldn’t be built at all! People just were. Or weren’t.
“‘My teeth are hungry for supple young flesh,’ the mighty saw blade says!”
Now Todd sounded like a monster actor in the old black-and-white realities.
Mariel resolved to open her eyes. And found she couldn’t. There was too much dazzling light pouring out of her where the blade had struck.
“Don’t be dizzy,” Todd said. “The audience has been given special glasses so that they, too, can witness the miracle.”
A feeling of separateness was definitely upon her. Mariel held all the accumulated panic in her throat and tried in vain to swallow.
The “oohs” and “aahs” filled her ear canals. The light filled everything else. A part of her was detaching, to be sure. She daren’t look. Even if she could.
“Sweet miracle child,” Todd said, again not to her but to the phantom crowd. “The girl next door… but what if she were twins?”
Rut-unt rut-unt went the saw through Mariel.
“What if she were… halves!”
Thunderous applause blanketed her in waves, vibrating the numbness from her synapses. Mariel tried again to look into the light.
The box came apart and Mariel with it.
Todd’s eyes ate the miracle like summertime molars crunching shiny ice cubes.
The light dimmed, and Mariel saw the outline of her legs — pointed off in the wrong direction. What were they doing so far away?
“Thank you, thank you,” Todd said. “This concludes the Belief Theatre for today. Remember, folks, don’t let this happen to you.”
Mariel was busy screaming silence at the top of her lungs. She shrugged her shoulders side to side, but her legs weren’t coming any closer. And they were still spilling light-bulb flashes from all inside her waistline.
“I’m made of light!” Mariel screamed in between her silences.
Todd was busy spit-polishing swords for tomorrow’ performance.
“Of course,” he said. “It’s a holographic universe. We’re all made of light. Photons and thoughtrons and messenger particles. We weave the fabric as best we can.”
The truth was tickling her belly right where she couldn’t scratch.
“I’m imaginary,” Mariel said. “I’m your imaginary friend. What power you must have, to make me live so long. Why, I moved in next door almost a year ago!”
Todd studied his fingernails and then blew on them — roguish charm flying with the gleam from his fingertips. Magic dust.
“Wait’ll I hit puberty,” he said. “Then you’ll really see something!”
About Mark Joseph Kiewlak
