Strange Friendship

She could have been beautiful, if it wasn't for her corpse-like appearance. Her skin white as a bone dried in the sun, incredible big blue eyes and a slim figure on which her clothes hung rather than fitted.

Her oddity had been evident since childhood – she didn't like to play with Barbie, but had asked instead for a voodoo doll. Her favourite toys included pins, old artefacts, medical instruments in a wooden toolbox, cameos and old jewellery.

Her clothes ranged from pitch black velvet to purple satin, cut in old fashioned styles, her favourite being - of course - Victorian.

Her constant companion was a book ... and as she grew up, so did the thickness of her lecture item.

When she was a teenager, collecting animal skulls was her hobby; in her bedroom they were displayed along with her stuffed toys. She listened to rather melancholic music, as Mozart's requiem was for more festive occasions.

Her favourite place, of course, was the local graveyard where she spent long afternoons.

As expected, her strangeness made her the creepy one at school and no-one dared to speak to her. That only made her loneliness and melancholy grow... to her great enjoyment. She floated in the corridor from one class to another, and as well as her looks, she was the uncomfortable straight A's student and that was enough to put everyone off.

She wanted to be invisible amongst the teenagers, and she certainly achieved it socially. To all but one there was a boy who couldn't take his eyes off her... to his eyes she was like a walking illustration of those role-playing books he loved so much... ethereal and yet here in front of him. He was in love.

He was fair skinned and blonde, not bad looking... but quiet and shy, mainly because of a bizarre sickness that made him unfit for sports and other children's games... an only child of a troubled couple in an illness-filled family.

Money was not an issue, for they were wealthy entrepreneurs. But as we all know, not everything is for sale and I'm sure they would change a couple of millions for the boy's health if they could... But as it couldn't be done, they spent their money on medicines and treatments.

Week after week he spent in hospital rooms, he grew to be a solitary child, but he didn't feel that loneliness because he was used to it; he had grown up being the only kid amongst adults.

When he was in the hospital, on the good days he was alone, and on the bad ones he was surrounded by other sick children – that were usually worse than him – so he grew happily in his own world of books and needles.

One day at school, the two strange children sat on the same bench to have lunch. They chatted ... after some small talk, he told her about the strange sicknesses his relatives had died of and she told him the bizarre stories she had read in old books. The connection was made, and they became best friends. They were two strange souls that had collided in a foreign universe, making a big explosion that burned everything; creating a parallel universe inhabited by them alone.

Everyone else wondered what on earth those two could talk about for so many hours... and only they will know.

All seemed well, they met each day under the protective shadow cast by the old cemetery trees; afternoons swept away during their chats and walks. Time runs in the shape of years of quiet happiness; until one day he died. It was a terrible thing to happen to a youngster... but all concerns were directed to the girl... what was she going to do now?

But to everyone's surprise, she was as happy as always, in fact she attended her daily appointment under the cypress on the hill, the silent witness of all those afternoons chatting and overlooking the cemetery... their playground then, his home now.

Rain or shine, she was always there; happy and apparently talking to herself for hours.... all the people in town thought she had gone mad.

But what they did not know was that she could see him and he was visiting her each day in his ghostly form, because as we know, true love can conquer everything... even death.

There they were, as if it had never happened; talking to each other... she could see and even feel him.

All the people could see was the sunset, and against it, the figure of a girl dressed in black, holding her hand as if in an invisible hold, with a smile on her face.

- THE END -