This is my first non-TCP story to actually see the light of OTL. No, I'm not
asking you to cut me some slack, I just wanted to mention that. I'm writing
again, how wonderful... never mind that what I *should* be writing is
summaries in preparation for my biology test... buuuuut, you don't want to
hear about that. Even I don't want to hear about that.

The story is extremely short - too short, I suspect, but oh well - and very
strange. I hope anyone understands it.
(More than one person will be nice too.)

River

******

Living in the Real World

The children thought she was a ghost, although she wasn't sure. She wasn't
invisible, and she couldn't remember dying - then again, of course, she
couldn't remember living either. And they said only ghosts could go through
walls, and float; they must have been right. They really were very smart
children.

The children liked her, although some of them seemed to be a little afraid.
They said she told pretty stories. And she *was* their secret ghost, she
supposed, so that must have counted for something. She didn't mind. She
liked the children.

Back in the darker parts of the basement, where there shouldn't have been
shadows since there was nothing to make light, lived the glow. The children
didn't know about it. It was *her* secret ghost. Sometimes she would go and
talk to it, or just sit, and it seemed to be listening. She was a little
nervous because it moved more often, lately, especially when she talked. It
seemed to like her stories, too, and when the children would come to hear,
she sometimes told a little louder than necessary, loud enough for her voice
to be carried there from the part of the basement where there was a little
light and a lot of shadows, where they sat.

They shouldn't have sat there. She didn't think they should have sat
there, because the monster sometimes jumped out of the shadows - it never
jumped out of the real dark, and it didn't seem to like the glow, but out
of the shadows it did come. She didn't tell the children about the purple
monster, how it would sometimes come and put pink noise in her head and make
strange noises, only she could barely hear with the pink noise in her hea=
d
so strong, because she didn't want them to be scared.

She liked the children. The children were her link to the world outside. She
couldn't go outside, only float up and look through the ceiling or step a
little out the wall. It was so much light, and she didn't think people
would like her. She thought they'd be afraid. She couldn't remember why,
but she thought they would. The children had been afraid when they first saw
her, so she must had been right.

The children were the ones that told her about the pile of snow somewhere in
the city, the pile that never melted. It was a long time ago but she asked
sometimes, and those who saw it on the way to school said it was still
there. She wasn't sure why it was important.

There were other things that were important and she couldn't remember why.
Like a comic book one of the children brought one time to show her. There
was a man with claws that was crying and a blue animal, only the child said
it was a man too, and a woman with white hair, and a blonde girl came out of
a golden circle and she cried from joy and she didn't know why.