It wasn’t a normal evening for Selby, out in the black of night. She had painted the last of her stars, just as usual, taking great pride in how they shone and glittered against the dark curtain of space behind. The night was deadly silent, as it always was, but Selby felt a shifting in the space around her.

She checked that her work was finished and prepared to walk home to sleep until her shift began again the following evening.

Packing away her pots of paint and brushes, she noticed an odd twinkling light a little further along the path home. She paused for a moment, staring into the darkness to see if she could spot it again but nothing was out of place.

She muttered to herself and picked up her tools, ready for the long walk home along the rim of the galaxy.

As she got closer to the spot where she had seen the twinkling light she heard a strange crackling sound. There was something there! She stopped and listened for a moment. The sound had stopped. She took one step forwards and heard another crackle, then a sparkle and then oof! Something fell from above and bumped right into her!

Selby tottered on her feet for a moment, dangerously close to the edge of the rim, found her balance for a moment then lost it again. She cried out as she fell off the edge of the rim of the galaxy and slid down the vast celestial bowl and into its dark centre. Her cries were swallowed up by the vast space around her but there was no-one around to hear them in any case.

Down, down, down she fell through silvery gas clouds, bouncing off stars.

I’m sure I’ll end up in that black hole, she thought as she looked down.

The large, gaping hole looked alive, pulsating in and out as if it were breathing in the vast space around it, growing more with each deep breath.

Selby reached the edge of the black hole and tried desperately to grasp something solid. She managed to dig her fingers into the very bottom of the galaxy’s edge, where the last piece of solid matter met with blackness.

She hung there, her paintbrushes dangling from her belt, looking down into the emptiness below. As she looked down, she spotted a large blob of paint hanging from the bottom of her last used brush. She watched it grow into a smooth, large blob on the end of the brush before finally dropping down through the black hole, sparkling and winking as it fell.

She felt her grip weaken and grasped desperately as tightly as she could, her fingernails tearing into a star as she did so. It popped and crackled as she tried to grip it.

Her fingers started to slip as her grip loosened and the star crackled again and then tumbled into the black hole below.

The black hole sighed and took a deep breath. Selby lost her grip completely, unable to stop herself from falling into the darkness. She tried to yell but it was a futile exercise. There was no longer anything to try to grab so, defeated, she had to give in to the fall.

She could see something below her, getting closer by the second.

Was that?

It looked like…

Could it be?

Hersel-

Bump!

Too late, she thought.

She could do nothing but lie flat on her face and watch as another version of herself teetered off the edge of the rim of the galaxy and into the large bowl of glittering, sparkling light beneath her.

Lucky she had landed again on the rim, she thought, dusting herself off as she heard a crackle. She was just about to set off again on her journey home when she heard another strange crackle, spotted a falling sparkle and looked up.

Uh oh, she thought.

When Tinkerbell

Drained the poisoned cup

Ten thousand children clapped

to bring her back.

She knew what she did.

So - I wonder

Was it a failed suicide?

Or just misguided

Martyrdom -

Made her take the dose

Meant for the Boy

Who Refuses

To Grow Up?

Tinker couldn't stay.

She blazed her trail

Burnt out too soon -

Fairies have such

short life spans, He said -

Smiling -

even as she faded from his view.

Today the Boy is

Blown up YUGE

Blown up a Bigly Troll -

Puffed with pride, he'll preen and crow

"Look at me,

How clever I am!"

(but still

refuse

to grow.)

It's a hard time now for fairies.

They’ve run out of stores

of pixie dust

(which, sprinkled with

happy thoughts

could help us soar) -

Lost children now are

Terror turned -

and no one

wants to

Believe

in anything

anymore -

(except, it seems,

to tear things down -

and start

Another

War.)

Tinker was a fixer.

She’d know how to make this right.

Now the fairies

that remain

all hide their light -

and flog the last of pixie dust

on the Black

Magic

Market.

We've dug ourselves

too deep into this Dark -

Fairy dust alone

won't sort this mess.

The shelves are lined with

Pills in

Blue and

Red -

and we're frozen in

the choosing

knowing our days are

ticking down -

If we close our eyes

and say

We

Believe

Again -

Would a baby’s laugh

Or one child’s clap

Bring poor Tinker back?

The old man stands silent before the canvas, staring down the void. Every day, for seventy years - at least those he remembers, and he swears he remembers sitting on the floor as a three year old, paints and crayons scattered around, intent on bringing forth the colours he saw in his head - every day he created anew, and yet - and yet. Was it really all over? He thought he would die, hands stained in oils and turpentine blasting his lungs - but here he is, a blank; worse than failure.

He looks to his old companion - the collected Yeats, spine split open on “The Circus Animals’ Desertion”. Maybe it happened to others - but he’d once seen himself as a god, as Vulcan - molten, virile, endlessly generative. William B made it to seventy-three, his words pushed through with urgency, recreating the language of his youth into A Vision of age and ill-health defeated. And the painters he adored continued on - Picasso poured pure instinct, expressive to the end - lust reborn in ancient forms, consuming life in death.

But here, bordered by the remnants of his life’s work, he is alone. Windows that once poured light are now dulled with grime and nicotine tar. In the corner, the old grey tabby yowls - not quite alone, after all - but in her deaf-blind misery, a ragged ball of need. Food, water, toileting, occasional scratch behind the ear - but not too much, or she’d scratch back. A living being to keep him going when deserted by the creatures of his heart. But such a sad recompense, from so long and fruitful union! He strains at the glassy pane, yanks it open just a chink - then collapses into his grandfather chair, depleted by the feat. A low whistle through the crack; a zephyr lifts the wispy curtain, brings the scent of oranges and tea, a hint to Leonard Cohen - again, productive to the end. “Suzanne” on the record player, but no strength to make that walk across the room to replace the needle. Instead he leans down, picks up the book of poetry left just in reach, squints his eyes to draw out the words.

A rattle in his chest! more than a tickle; more like the frenzied stabs of a baby griffin shattering its prison shell. The shock of sensation rocks him, throws the book across the room, as he grips his heart to feel the knocking and rumbling within. Through skin paper thin protrudes the jabs of a creature desperate to escape. ’What is this?” he gasps through pain, unable to control the unruliness within - as talons tear, fierce and wild, a primitive anima clamouring for release. “For too long you used me - see me now!” it howls, as he rips open his chest and pours the dark clawed angel to the floor, savage and heaving, beating the black feathers of its blood-encrusted wings.