#estheraria

[esther-aria]

Top Hats: Full Story

There’s this town. I guess, the only way to describe it is as being somewhere far, far away. It’s small. The kind of town that isn’t marked by a road sign or anything if you’re traveling. The kind of town most people just, pass by. But—as it normally goes—to the people living within its borders, this little town is the world.

In it, there are houses filled with families, streets lined with stores, a post office, a fire station, a library, the Mayor’s office, a school. The people there go to work, pay their bills, laugh with friends, and go home to sleep in their beds every night. A nice normal little town…

Of course. There is one thing that isn’t quite so normal. In this town, every single person, big or small, young or old, boy or girl, wears a top hat. All day. Every day.

Now. Let me get one thing straight. The story I’m about to tell you, it isn’t some fairy tale. Every detail of it is true. I should know. I was there. Avera was my world. My name’s Ruth, for what it’s worth, and I have a story of how these hats dictated the lives of the people of Avera. Because you see, what we wear, they’re not just hats. They’re your life on display for everyone to see. The hat is a symbol of every wrong thing you’ve done in your life. The taller your hat, the more mistakes you’ve made. And every single person knows it. I mean, it’s not really something you’d point out to someone’s face. More something that’s discussed behind their back. The hats influenced your life. In many ways the hats were your life. A summary of it anyways. A summary of all of your wrongs, your mistakes and, really, that’s how most people evaluate their lives anyways, right?

But this story isn’t just about the hats. It’s about a girl I knew. A girl whose life was more affected by the hats than anyone. Her name is Mia. And she wore the tallest top hat in Avera.

Let me just start out with this. I knew Mia but, no, we weren’t friends. Mia – well – Mia didn’t have many friends. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that Mia didn’t have any friends. No one would have admitted it out loud, but Mia wasn’t someone many parents wanted their kids to be friends with.

I remember the first time I saw Mia. It was the first day of school my second grade year. She was just starting kindergarten. Her hat wasn’t so tall then, not by adult standards. But it was enough that she sat in the back with the other taller hat kids. It was strange, I remember thinking, she didn’t act like most of the other Tall Hatters: teasing and bullying the other kids, interrupting the teacher in class, nothing like that. She was quiet, she kept to herself. I remember though, thinking how much she reminded me of a diamond. Mia was beautiful always, even then. All the girls in high school hated her for it, hated because the boys loved it. But back in elementary school, I saw her and thought “diamond.” Overlarge gray eyes stared out from behind a curtain of white blonde hair. Eyes that were full of ice. Eyes that could cut through you like you were nothing. Because, as I learned later, those are the real attributes of diamonds. They’re nice to look at and all, but they’re stone cold and—when used correctly—they can cut anything into pieces.

There was a school bully during those years. Ulises Diaz. The kind of kid who used the same hands to bring a gift to his teacher as to tear out kids’ hair on the playground. The same mouth to simper sweetly during class as to dish out violent insults in the hallways. The same smile to shine on the lunch lady in order to get him an extra snack in the lunch line as to bestow on a student, cornered and alone, before he began his torment. And from the minute Mia stepped foot onto Avera Elementary soil, Ulises took a special interest in her. In short, Ulises took Mia’s life and shattered it from the bottom up. To say her life was a nightmare would be too gentle. With nightmares, escape comes with the sunrise. But for Mia… for Mia there was never an escape. Ulises began his war when he boarded the bus in the morning and gathered all the other riders around to laugh at Mia’s worn out clothing and holey shoes, continued through lunch when he stole from her whatever pitiful amounts of food she’d brought for the day, and ended with a scathing insult that rang through the halls along with the final bell.

He was relentless. He was powerful. No one dared to stand against him. Say what you will about children, but from what I’ve seen they’re not much different from adults. Yes, their worlds might be a bit smaller, but they are still worlds. Their emotions are still emotions. Cruelty is cruelty. And fear is fear. And Ulises dished out both with extra helpings from childhood on. And so Mia was cut off from the start.

Fast forward ten years. I was nearing the end of my high school career and Mia...  well, she wasn’t the same helpless little girl anymore. Life had hardened her. And she didn’t hesitate to let it show. Her hat was so tall it skimmed the doorframes of every classroom she walked in. And Mia bore it with a kind of pride. Her eyes flashed like glowing steel as she made her way down the hall. She was known by every name you can imagine. And she lived up to those names with a vengeance. Everyone at Avera High knew the stories of Mia’s weekend exploits. You name it, Mia had done it. At least, that’s what everyone believed. Me included. It only took one glance of Mia, gliding down the hall, eyes judging, mouth smirking, to know without a doubt what kind of life she was living.

I do remember though… this one day.

In the middle of my senior year. I had left class to go use the bathroom. I walked in, and as I reached the first stall I heard a horrible noise. I can still close my eyes sometimes in an empty room and hear it. There was a gurgle, and then retching. The sound of something sloshing into the toilet. Great racking breaths. And then a sob. A sob so full of pain it turned my stomach over just listening to it. I was frozen by it. The sob. It tore at me. Then, as I was standing by the stall, frozen, I heard the toilet flush. The door smashed open. And then Mia’s diamond eyes were drilling mine. Full of such hatred, such anger, such… pain.

“I…”

My mouth didn’t work. Without a word she moved past me. “Mia, I –”

But she was gone.

I turned back and looked around the bathroom. Frantically searching the dank walls, the chipped tiles, the dirty mirrors, everywhere, expecting there to be a change. Some testament to the event that had just taken place. Some evidence to justify the rapid beating of my heart. But there was nothing. No proof besides her sob’s echo in my ears. Did it really happen, that sob? Could a diamond, a cold-hard stone, really have made such a desperate sound? Even now… I’m not certain.

I never told anyone about The Bathroom. And Mia and I continued never speaking. Never looking. Never existing to the other. I graduated. Went to college. Met my husband. Started a family. And forgot her. At least, that’s what I told myself. But sometimes, at night, that sob would echo through my dreams. And I would wake, stomach churning, heart pumping, in a cold sweat.  I never told my husband what it was that scared me so badly. I just let him put his arms around me, comfort me, love me, until I slept again.

Until, that is, the night that changed everything. I worked part time as a nurse in the ER at the Fidel & Creda Truman Hospital a few days a week. Normally during the hours when the children were at school. But, one evening, I got called in for a night shift.  They were short-staffed and when I heard the secretary’s harried voice on the other end of the line, I couldn’t tell her no. It turned out not to be so busy of a night though. A few allergic reactions. Some broken bones. My shift was nearing its last half hour or so, I had just finished seeing to a little boy with a hairline fracture, when I noticed a frantic rush of doctors heading towards the lobby. An ambulance was parked out front. The EMTs were unloading the stretcher. I slid in behind Arden, a fellow nurse, and asked her what was going on.

“Overdose, I think. Someone found her in Mara Leah Park and called it in.”

The stretcher and its occupant whisked by, and we all pretended to busy ourselves while still trying to sneak a look. I didn’t catch more than a pale arm resting on a thin torso and a tall – very tall – hat before they turned into one of the rooms.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Ulises came home smelling like booze. He threw on lights as he thundered through the apartment. I laid so still. Eyes slammed shut, I barely breathed. Wishing, pleading. That he’d just get into bed and ignore me. That he’d let me be invisible, just this once-

“Miaaa!”

Sloppy hands grappled at the bed sheets as my silent plea faded into the night. 

“Mia!”

I groaned. “WHAT, Ulises?”

“Where’s my dinner?”

I started to feel the familiar fire spark in my chest. What- the dinner that I bought with the money you never bring home? That I made with the ingredients that we never have because you throw away any paychecks you get on drinks? That would have gone cold hours ago anyways because you’re only home once the bartender finally decides to kick you out for the night? But I crush the words between my teeth. Biting down on my tongue before it betrays me.

“Did you hear me? I said: Where. Is. My. Dinner?”

“What do you want from me, Ulises? It’s 3 in the morning. Any decent person in this town went to bed hours ago.”

By now my hair’s twisted between his fingers, pulled tight as he brings his hot, rancid breath right up to my face. His bulging body fills up the room like a fat rhino and his dark hairline is seeped in sweat. Pit-black eyes level into mine, my roots feel the pain of one final tug, and he releases, “Get up and make me something to eat.”

Knowing what it will cost me, I grab the covers and pull them back over my head. Eyes snapped shut, blood roaring through my ears, I tell him, “Get up and do it yourself.”

The fight didn’t last long. Ulises’ fingers were back around my hair and he lifted me from the bed like a farmer would a chicken he was about to axe. I break his hold, sacrificing a few chunks of hair, and hurdle over our ugly green sofa as a plate smashes into the wall right where my head had just been. Pieces of cheap china scatter into the fraying carpet, flecks of paint from the wall falling down after them.

I land on it wrong. My ankle. But I don’t let it stop me. I make it to the doorway and find that Ulises is already there. His massive chest heaving, and a sick light in his eyes that stops me dead. “You want to leave so bad, Mia darling?”

I don’t trust my tongue to speak, it’s done enough damage already tonight. His mouth tilts up into a wild, carnivorous smile, and his hand closes around the doorknob.

“Then get out.”

I hold my face frozen as fear pumps through me. Ulises’ smile grows, he smells the fear anyways. “Get out of this house.”

If I stay still enough… if I don’t speak, maybe he’ll let it go. He can’t make me leave, not now. But no—

His eyes catch fire. “You don’t want to live by my rules, then I have no choice!”

He moves towards me, and I break. “No! No, Ulises please! I’m sorry! I’ll make dinner, I’ll make anything you want, please don’t—”

But with one hand he grabs the back of my neck and with the other he’s pulled the door open.

“ULISES—”

I fall forward through the doorway and twist up from the ground to watch the apartment door as it’s slammed shut in my face.

I wait. One beat. Two.

He’s not going to let me back in. Every part of me trembles. None of our neighbors have come out. To help me, to do anything. I know they’re up, how could they not be after that? But no one so much as even opens their door to see. I go to stand and collapse on the ground again, turning to see that my left ankle is the size of the fist Ulises’ hurled at my face. I turn and start walking down the street, being careful to favor it… Pain medicine. I need pain medicine.

I made my way down a couple blocks to the 24-hour drugstore. The door opens with a puff and I’m bathed in harsh fluorescent lighting. Goosebumps spread along my arm as the frigid air surrounds me and I walk straight to the medicine aisle, not making eye contact with anyone. Not that there’d be anyone willing to make eye contact with me anyways. When there’s roadkill on the side of the street, and the animal’s guts are strewn all around its corpse, and another nightcrawler’s sitting there chewing on the body, and you’re torn between closing your eyes just to blot it out and staring transfixed at the carnagraphic horrors this world can create… that horror is me. I’m the roadkill. With a top hat so tall it bends in half just so I can get through doorways. It’s incredible to me, that I can be so unbelievably obvious, something everyone in this town can see three miles coming, and yet so totally invisible not a single person in this place will even look at me.

What am I even doing here. Right, pain medicine. My fingers close around the tiny box and I remember I don’t have my wallet. Well. Avera owes me one anyways.

The door puffs shut behind me and I start walking. It’s not like anybody’s looking.

The throbbing in my ankle reminds me that walking any long distance isn’t really an option. I yank open the lid on the meds and start downing pills when my eyes land on the sign for Mara Leah Park. Good enough. I limp into the park, trying to look for something to sit on, but the streetlights have been busted in this town for ages. My ankle hurts… There’s no way Ulises’ letting me back in tonight… I don’t know why I even bother staying with him. Not like he would blink twice if I dropped dead. I spill a few more pills into my hand and choke them down. Not like anyone in this town would blink twice. Not for Mia, tallest top hat in all Avera. I know what they all think of me. You can see it on their short-hatted faces.  I know what they think. I know what I look like. I know what I am…

I go to swallow a couple more pills, but the bottle’s empty. Whatever. I can barely feel my ankle now anyways. I see a bench a few feet away. Or is it more than that? Everything seems farther away now. Like it’s running away from me. I mean… who can blame it though, really. I’d run too if I wasn’t-

The bench is just so far… It just keeps running.

Maybe I could sleep here for now. Just on this sidewalk. The sidewalk isn’t running. I wonder why not. Can’t you see my hat, sidewalk? Can’t you see what it means? I am my hat, sidewalk. I am. I. Am. It. And there’s nothing you can do to change that…

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

She slept for three days.

We’ve been watching her the whole time. Twenty-four hour suicide watch because we can’t be sure yet. The whole town’s talking about it. A group of teenagers walking to school in the morning literally stumbled across her lying down in the middle of the path, unconscious, barely breathing. One of them, little Aqilah Pradhi—she babysits my kids when my husband and I go out—she had the sense to call an ambulance. They rushed her in and pumped her stomach while the nurses gossiped. Then she slept and the stories flew.

But today, she’s awake. Not talking to anyone, but she’s awake. Those cold diamond eyes are at work again. I can feel them on my back when I walk past her room. A dozen times today I almost bring my eyes up to meet hers, but I can’t. Because every time I try I hear that sob again. The one I can’t face. The one I can’t accept happened. 

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

They think I tried to kill myself.

Like I’d go to that much effort.

I’m stuck here for a few more days while they continue “observing” me. I’m off suicide watch, so I guess that’s nice. Not really a lot to do though, I told them not to let Ulises in (if he even bothers to show up), and it’s not like there’s anyone else to visit me so… I just sort of sit here. I suppose you could call it peaceful. If it weren’t for those snoopy nurses sticking their beaks in my room and in my business twenty-four hours a day. Stupid hens. Clucking together in a pack as they gossip about the town, the doctors, each other, me.

Except that one nurse.

Ruth.

She never sticks her beak in my room. I barely see her ever even near my room. And when she does it’s like. Like… her face is attached to an anvil dragging along the ground underneath her. Short dark hair frizzes around her face, bangs hide her eyes from me. It’s like no power in the world could make her look up at me… It’s almost like she remembers.

But how could she. It was years ago and only for a second. And no one remembers me anyway if they can help it.

My eyes are following Ruth and her anvil-face when a small flock of nurses hustles past my doorway. There’s something weird going on with the hens today though. More clucking than normal. And it seems different. It doesn’t look like the typical hush hush gossip that they normally do. They’re all waddling around excited, moving from pack to pack and back again.

May as well find out.

“Hey!”

One of the hens pauses in her mad run down the hallway.

“Yes, Mia? Do you need something?”

So polite. So fake.

“Yea. What’s going on today?”

“Oh! Oh— no, I guess you wouldn’t— And it’s absolutely fantastic news! If it’s true that is. My neighbor, Rona Hedda, was telling me that she’d heard from the man who was bagging her groceries yesterday that his aunt was—well. Basically! That a cleaning team just went out to the Mayor’s office!”

“The Mayor’s office huh? That’s… interesting.”

She nodded her head in a hen-y bob and scurried off again.

The Mayor… coming to town. But that’s, no. Something small started to tug on my heart but I grabbed it and smashed it before it could take hold.

Not a chance, Mia.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Arden’s running around the office telling everyone the Mayor’s coming to town. Now, normally I do my best to hear what Arden says in one ear and then push it out the other as fast as possible. But in this case, well, I think she might be right. The Mayor’s offices are being cleaned out. Which can only mean one thing.

The Mayor’s coming to town.

Now, I know for most places the mayor lives in the town where he works. Runs business every day, meets with council members weekly, all that. But that isn’t true for Avera’s Mayor. He doesn’t live here, he’s always out travelling, working on projects. But he does come to visit. And when he visits, he doesn’t hold council meetings, he has appointments. He’s been our Mayor for as long as anyone can remember, coming in and out of town, but a constant presence nonetheless. Not many people have seen him up close. But one thing I know for sure, the reason he’s our Mayor, the reason we’ve never even considered electing anyone else, it’s because of this. The Mayor is a man so good, he doesn’t wear a top hat.

The Mayor’s appointments are not scheduled things. There’s no rhyme or reason to them, at least none that me or, well, anyone else in town for that matter can figure. Sometimes rumors fly about them for months before they’re announced. And sometimes they come up with no warning at all. But, when they do happen, the whole town comes out for it. It’s only happened once before in my lifetime, and Renato Nova was chosen to have an appointment with the Mayor.

Renato ran the bakery in town. He was a nice man. Thick black hair, a pleasantly plump belly, a fairly short hat, and a smile that would shoot across his face when he made eye contact with a customer but have disappeared by the time he’d turned around to locate their order. He never really bothered himself with anyone else’s business, preferring to make and serve his sweets and little else. He lived alone and might’ve had a cat or two. Just someone vaguely kind that most people in Avera didn’t spare too much thought on. At least, not until he was called for an appointment.

The day they announced it the whole town turned their eyes to Renato. I was only a young girl then—not even in school—but I remember him walking by, seeing only the Mayor’s office ahead of him. And smiling. Not his normal lightning shot, shy smile. But like the one someone gets right after they’ve been shocked by friends at a surprise party. Afraid, but also bemusedly joyous. Knowing that even though they’re scared, the thing that’s scared them is wonderful and exciting and good.

He was in the Mayor’s office for a long time, Renato. Almost the whole day. I was in bed when those tall oak doors finally opened and he stepped out. My mother told me though, he came out of that building a different man. The doors closed behind him, he took a deep breath and walked home with this… purpose. As he passed people on the street he smiled and waved with a new sort of assurance. Strangest of all though, was that he walked home and immediately started packing a suitcase. Started throwing a bunch of his clothes into one, some of his most important belongings. He told his neighbors that the Mayor had told him about a place where his skills were needed. Somewhere outside of Avera, someplace new.

Now, Avera isn’t a place that many people leave. We’re a small town and, for the most part, businesses are run by families and everyone is fairly content to settle down where they’re at. And Renato had always seemed that way too. But now, at the Mayor’s call, he packed a suitcase and his cats and left town with a smile. Going out to do work the Mayor had laid out for him.

So this morning, as a cleaning team moves in to prepare the Mayor’s office for his arrival, the question everyone’s asking is, of course: Will it be me this time?

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Today’s the day. Freedom be mine. Not that I really have anywhere to go. Ulises never even tried to come see me so, no point in trying to plead my case.

They laid out the clothes I came in with on my bed so, I guess there’s nothing left to do now but leave. There’s a group of hens out in the lobby, clucking away like usual. As I get closer they all turn as one big flock to stare at me. Eyes wide, beaks open. That’s weird. I mean, I’m the road kill. There’s normally a flicker of eye contact, a flash of disgust or fear, and then avoidance. This is just open gawking. Maybe this suicide scare has put me over the edge. I’ve moved to full-on freak show. Well guess what hens, that’s nothing new. Mia the Tall-hatter, just add suicidal onto the long list of names I have trailing along behind me.

The hospital doors snap shut and I’m free. No more hens. No more twenty-four hour watch. And no more Ruth, with her anvil-weighted face, dragging along past my room every day.

At least that’s what I thought. Until I heard my name being yelled behind me. Who in the town of Avera wants to yell my name out in public? I turn and see Ruth jogging after me, a group of hens clustered around the doorway to the hospital are watching, fluttering and jostling.

“Mia!”

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

They made the announcement this afternoon. I had stopped at the post office to mail in some bills when I saw Aqilah Pradhi sprinting towards me.

“Ms. Ruth! Ms. Ruth! You have to go tell her, you have to go get her right now! She can’t miss it!”

Aqilah’s normally a calm, sensible girl, so it took me a minute to process through her ramblings.

“What’s happening, sweetie? I have to tell who what? Slow down for a second and just breathe, ok?”

She allowed a few starving pants of air into her lungs before “Ms. Ruth, the hospital! You have to go and get Mia right now or she’ll miss it!”

“Miss what, Aqilah?”

“Her appointment, Ms. Ruth! Mia’s been picked for an appointment! Today, at 3 o’clock.”

Dramatically, the clock tower in the square began its chiming to announce half past two. Aqilah and I turned to stare at it as her words finally gained meaning for me.

“Mia? Mia has an appointment. Today?”

Aqilah nodded. “At three. Ms. Ruth, you have to go get her!”

My head full of jumbled thoughts, I look down to tell Aqilah that there’s no way I can make it in time and that we should just call the hospital and let them know. The words are on the edge of my tongue, making their way up to my teeth when I hear it. The sob. My heart skips. I see her diamond eyes bearing into mine for an instant, before—like in The Bathroom—in a flash they’re gone. My eyes turned towards the Mayor’s office and, I swore, a figure moved in one of the upper windows. Then I flicked back to look at the clock one last time. I knew. No one should go and tell Mia this news but me. I looked up to the sky, sighed, prayed my legs would make the trip. And then I ran.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

What kind of cruel prank is this? After all of this time, all of the anvil-dragging, Ruth comes running to me, screaming my name, telling me this obvious lie. As if the Mayor would even bother to wave to me on the street, to give me directions to the grocery store, as if he’d take a minute out of his day to spend with me, Mia the Roadkill.

Ruth’s dragging on my hand, talking a mile a minute, but my feet stay planted because there’s no possible way I’m going to let them do this to me.

“Please, Mia. We have to hurry. You only have ten minutes before your appointment’s supposed to start. We have to go!”

Her eyes lift to meet mine and I find my fire.

“We? No. We don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to do anything. I don't know what kind of joke you hens are trying to pull, but I’m not having it. I’ve had enough of all your talking about me outside my room, gossiping about what exactly it is I’ve done that’s made my hat so tall. Enough of it! Now let me go and leave me alone.”

My hand rips out of hers and I finally start moving. Away from them all. From the hens, the hospital, and Ruth.

“Mia! No—wait, Mia… Mia! Please!”

I’m storming. The fire’s roaring in my chest. Just who do these women think they are? I thought sick jokes like this ended in high school. I guess nothing ever changes.

My feet are rolling and I’m out on the street. I don’t know where I’m going to go, but wherever it is, it’s not going to be anywhere near here. Not with these people. Not anywhere anyone in this town can look at me. Can ogle and point and shun. Where my hat and I can just sit and stare at each other and our ugliness. Our tallness. Our—

That hen Ruth is back. Walking two steps behind me. How long has she been there? Why can’t they just let me be!

I spin. “Are you honestly still trying to keep this going?”

She cowers. Less of a hen actually, more of a mouse. With her frizzy hair and fluffy sweater and wide, frightened face. She’s staring at me with her sad mouse-brown eyes like I’m the one that’s hurting her.

“No, Mia. Mia, please listen to me—”

“I’ve had enough of this! Just leave me alo—”

“Mia, I’m sorry! I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the nurses. I’m sorry for what happened to you in the park. I’m—I’m sorry about that time in high school when I didn’t… when I should’ve…”

That stops me.

I turn and am confronted with mouse-eyes that are threatening to spill tears. My fire dies a little. I wait.

Ruth takes in a breath and, “I should’ve helped. I’m sorry, Mia… I should have helped you. You were alone and you were in pain and… and I should have helped.”

A thousand things fly through my head: fiery comebacks, words that drip venom, memories I’d thought I’d erased forever, but one thing screams louder than all the rest.

“But—nobody remembers me.”

Now her tears really do fall. “I remember, Mia. I remember every day.”

We stand for a minute, so very apart. Roadkill and Mouse. Tall hat and short. And I try so hard to come up with something to say that will send her away, far away, to give me time to close up this gaping hole she’s just torn in my shell. But instead, she steps closer. Her eyes hold a kindness I can barely recognize, it’s been so long since I’ve seen it. She holds out her hand and quietly urges, “Mia, He wants to meet with you.”

More scared than I’ve ever been of anything in my life. More than Ulises. More than my father. More than the kids in middle school. I take her hand, and we run.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

We make it to The Office at four minutes past. There’s a crowd of people poorly pretending that they’re not watching. I walk Mia up to the edge of the property, but stop—unsure if I should go any further. 

I turn and look into her diamond eyes and discover they’re not cold and unreadable anymore. Each bit of them is glittering with a different emotion: pain, relief, fear, confusion, and hope. She hasn’t let go of my hand yet. She lifts her foot towards the steps that lead up to the Mayor’s office, but she pauses—hovering.

I give her hand a squeeze. “You can do it, Mia.”

Her eyes dart at me, and then back up to the building on top of the hill, and with a deep breath in, she places her foot down on the step. Her hand slips away and she starts to climb.

“Mia—”

Diamond eyes find mine again.

“I don’t know if—if you want, but—I can… I can wait here for you. If you’d like. I can be here, when your appointment’s over. I, I don’t have to leave you alone, if you don’t want.”

And then I see something I never once imagined was possible, a smile—the smallest of genuine smiles found its way onto Mia’s mouth. And though she didn’t say anything else, she turned and continued her walk up those stairs, that smile was all I needed. So I found a bench in the square and I waited.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

I reached the end of the longest walk of my life and found myself standing in front of the tallest oak doors I’d ever seen. Should I… should I knock? Or just go in? I don’t even know how these appointments normally—

The door starts to open and I’m face-to-face with a girl in business clothes. “Mia?”

I nod quickly, “Yea, that’s me.”

She smiles a warm, full smile and opens it wider to let me inside. And that’s when I notice. Her hat. It’s nearly level with mine. And she’s here? Working in the Mayor’s office? She leads me through the lobby and past several rooms of offices and I… it’s so weird. The people working, their hats are all different sizes! In fact, I think there might be even more people here with taller hats than shorter. A man with an incredibly short hat walks up to us and I know, I just know what he’s about to say. Sorry, there’s been a mistake. He doesn’t want her. Just send her back out into the streets and go get the real candidate for the appointment.

But he just smiles at me too. “Is there anything you want today, Mia? Maybe something to drink or eat?”

“Oh, um. No. I mean, I don’t want—no I’m alright.”

“Are you sure?” His concern is so confusing. What on earth could a man with a hat so short be doing offering kindness to me?

The girl who let me in leads us to the elevator and we ride it up to the top floor, the floor where the Mayor’s office is supposed to be. There’s another door. This one stained a golden honey color, and I realize I’ve never been so afraid of a door in my life. But I’ve also never wanted to go through a door so much either.

With a smile of reassurance, the girl turns to go back down the elevator. “He’ll be with you in a minute, Mia.” And I’m alone.

As I wait, I begin to realize how little I really know about the Mayor. It’s not like I’ve ever seen him. It’s not like anyone has ever seen him. Are all the rumors people say about him true? About where he goes?  Why he’s never in Avera? How long he’s been our Mayor? And his hat? The fear trickles down my back as I eye the honey-colored door and I start to really wonder what on earth this man could possibly want to talk about with someone like me.

But then I hear steps. Steps from the other side of the door. My heart just might drop down out of my chest. My stomach is twisting itself into all sorts of knots and my nails clench into my sweating palms.

The doorknob turns and suddenly he’s there. And it’s true, what everyone’s said. A man so good, he doesn’t even wear a hat.

“Mia, I’m so happy you were able to make our appointment.”

His voice washed over me, covered me, welcomed me in like a reassuring hand pushing me forward. I walked through the door and left my fear out in the hallway behind me. It was me He wanted to meet with. There hadn’t been a mistake, He’d actually wanted to see me. 

He guides me over to His desk and offers me the seat across from His. He gestures for me to sit without touching my back, almost as if He already knows how little I like to be touched. He sits across from me and regards me for a moment, His eyes staring directly into mine. No darting, no flinching, no gawking. He just looks at me as if we’ve met each other before. Then He speaks, with a voice as warm as His honeyed door. “So Mia, I know why I asked you here to see me today, but I was wondering if there was anything you wanted to know before we started talking about that?”

His eyes were full of care, and I knew that no matter what I asked or said, He’d listen to it, and He would hear every word, regardless of how irrelevant, or strange, or dumb my questions might be.

“I guess…” unsure how to ask it, I figured I’d just say it straight. “The people in your office…”

“Yes?”

“What’s with their hats?”

His eyes crinkled a smile. “What about their hats?”

“Well. You’re the Mayor. But there’s so many people working here with tall hats…”

“Why shouldn’t I employ people with taller hats?”

One of my eyebrows shot up. What kind of trick was He trying to play? “… Tall-hatted people, I mean, they’re the ones that screw up all the time. They’re the ones who do stuff wrong. That’s… why their hats are so tall. Everyone knows that. Why would you want to hire people to work here with hats so tall? Like, what if people find out you have tall-hatters working for you? Nobody likes to work with people with tall hats, nobody even likes to be around people with tall hats.” Nobody likes to look at roadkill.

His smile’s gone, clouded in an instant with a storm. And His eyes—I nearly gasp aloud from the pain that fills them so quickly. Without a word, He stands up and walks over to a door I hadn’t noticed before. “Follow me please, Mia. I want to show you something.”

Confused, and slightly nervous from the emotions I can read so clearly on His face, I get up to follow Him. Who cares so much about tall-hatters anyways? It’s not like I’m worth much worry.

He pauses on the stairs and looks back at me, only for a moment, but again I’m thrown by the sorrow that has written itself across every inch of His face. What could possibly be causing the Mayor of Avera so much pain? Why would a man without a hat ever be so sad?

The door leads to a stairway and climbs higher and higher. We keep going up until we pass through a door that puts us on the roof of the building. The Mayor walks towards the edge of the roof, the side that overlooks all of Avera. “Mia, I want you to tell me what you see.”

I stand near Him and look out on the town that rejected me, that beat me down and left me alone in the world. From here, up on the hill on top of the Mayor’s office, it looks so small. I can see the people moving around in the square. From this height… it’s impossible to tell who is who. Or even—

“You… you can’t tell. From up here, on the roof, you can’t tell how tall anyone’s hats are. All you can see is—”

“Is that they’re all wearing hats.” He’s turned out towards the town, eyes taking in everything, everyone. “Each and every person. There is not a single person in Avera without one. And that’s what I see, Mia. That’s all I see. A top hat is part of an Averian, yes, but they are so much more than their hats,” His eyes lock mine. “You are so much more than your hat, Mia.”

For the second time today, I feel seen. Ruth looked at me and remembered me for more than just the things everyone’s said I’ve done. She reached out and touched me. She’s waiting for me outside right now. The Mayor is looking at me, and I see in His eyes that He really means what He says. He sees the top hat, who could miss it? But He sees the rest of me too.

“Mia, you are more than your hat. You are more than Mia the Roadkill, something on the side of the street people try not to see. You are incredible talents. An amazing wit. A loving heart that’s been beaten fragile and crushed broken by life’s cruelty. You are unjust circumstances and poor decisions. You are loved by people you never dared to love back and wounded by those you made the mistake of letting in. But you are someone whole, Mia. And someone with amazing gifts to offer.”

I can’t stop the tears. They run down my face and drop onto the roof of the Mayor’s office. He looks at me, and I know He’s not embarrassed by my tears. He understands them. He understands me.

With every tear that smacks against the cement of the roof, I feel a strip of my shame peeling away. I cry until the ground is covered in it. In my mistakes and my anger and my hate. I cry until there’s nothing left to cry out anymore. And He is there through it all, never leaving my side, never stepping away in disgust like all the others.

Once I’ve cried myself dry and peeled myself raw, He leads me back down the steps into His office once again. We’re sitting across from each other and I feel lighter than I have in years.

“I have a question to ask you, Mia. But before I do, do you have any other questions? Is there anything else you need to know?”

My mind is still on the roof, looking over Avera at all of its people, moving through life, wearing their top hats.

“I guess—I don’t really understand. Why do you only make an appointment with someone every once in awhile? Why don’t you meet with people every day?”

He nods. And then looks out the window of his office for a moment, “I’m never very far from Avera, you know. I do a lot of work outside of the town, but I’m always able to leave what I’m doing and be here as soon as I’m needed.”

He turns to me, “Appointments work both ways, Mia. My office doors are always open. I always make sure I can be reached should anyone ever need me. I make sure to have contact information left behind whenever I go out on a trip, so that anyone can find me and speak with me at any time. There are a few that come to visit, or who call me when they need to, some of them even choose to work with me in this office. But there are so many… so many, Mia who walk by this office every day without pausing. Who go through their problems alone when I would be so glad to help them through it. I make appointments when I need to tell an Averian something, or to ask something of them. But mostly, I would love for them to seek me out. I would love to be able to give them a hand, no matter what they need. But—” and His eyes fill up with an ancient sorrow, and, again, I can barely breathe because of how deep it is, “��there are so many people who never ask.”

I look at this man, this wonderful and amazing man who clearly cares about Avera so much. So much more than anyone realizes. And I force down a hope that I feel rising in my chest.

“So, now we get to the purpose of your appointment, Mia. You see, I have a favor to ask you. Mia, you are someone so completely needed, so wonderfully unique. You’ve seen Avera at its worst, Mia, because of the way it treated you. You’ve seen how cruel people can be and how little they understand about the people around them.” Ulises. The hens. “However, you’ve also seen what I see. You’ve seen that these people are really all the same. They are small, and they need guidance, they feel lost and they feel remorse.” Ruth. “But they are capable of so much good if only they’d let Me and my employees help them when they need it. So what I need to ask of you is no small thing. It will not be easy. It will require a lot of work and patience and care for a group of people who rarely treated you kindly. But Mia—”

The hope pushes through my barrier and starts to rise once more.

“Mia, how would you like to start working with Me?”

A battle starts inside of me. Anger clashing against hope. Hurt fighting with peace. The hens, Ruth. Ulises, The Mayor. My top hat. My top hat.

I look up into the Mayor’s kind, accepting face. A face that washes away any memory of Mia the Roadkill. Suicidal Mia. Mia who’s done it all. I look into that face, and I am just Mia.

 “I think… there’s nothing in the world that I’d like more.”

A smile buds on His face and blooms into the most joyous grin. He laughs a deep, honest laugh of relief and excitement and says, “Well then, let’s get to work.”

We turn to leave His office and, through the window, I catch a glimpse of Ruth. She’s still outside, still waiting on the park bench. For me. Just like she said she would. The Mayor is at my side, eyes already seeing what I see.

“There’s always work to be done, and we want all the help we can get.”

With a nod, I head for the door. Not believing how a life can so quickly be changed. I’m out the doors, taking in Avera, as I realize how slowly some people can be changed too. I see the faces of all the people who have scorned and rejected me through my life. Who have whispered about me and called me names, refused to help me and hated me without cause. But then I see Ruth, with her mouse eyes looking at me with concern and questions. I allow a smile to finds its way onto my face, it feels like the first one that’s been there in years, and I hold out my hand to her.

“Come on, there’s Someone who wants to meet you.”

esther.aria

[esther-aria]

Top Hats: Part One

There’s this town. I guess, the only way to describe it is as being somewhere far, far away. It’s small. The kind of town that isn’t marked by a road sign or anything if you’re traveling. The kind of town most people just, pass by. But—as it normally goes—to the people living within its borders, this little town is the world.

In it, there are houses filled with families, streets lined with stores, a post office, a fire station, a library, the Mayor’s office, a school. The people there go to work, pay their bills, laugh with friends, and go home to sleep in their beds every night. A nice normal little town…

Of course. There is one thing that isn’t quite so normal. In this town, every single person, big or small, young or old, boy or girl, wears a top hat. All day. Every day.

Now. Let me get one thing straight. The story I’m about to tell you, it isn’t some fairy tale. Every detail of it is true. I should know. I was there. Avera was my world. My name’s Ruth, for what it’s worth, and I have a story of how these hats dictated the lives of the people of Avera. Because you see, what we wear, they’re not just hats. They’re your life on display for everyone to see. The hat is a symbol of every wrong thing you’ve done in your life. The taller your hat, the more mistakes you’ve made. And every single person knows it. I mean, it’s not really something you’d point out to someone’s face. More something that’s discussed behind their back. The hats influenced your life. In many ways the hats were your life. A summary of it anyways. A summary of all of your wrongs, your mistakes and, really, that’s how most people evaluate their lives anyways, right?

But this story isn’t just about the hats. It’s about a girl I knew. A girl whose life was more affected by the hats than anyone. Her name is Mia. And she wore the tallest top hat in Avera.

to be continued

esther.aria

[esther-aria]

You smile like a sunset. After seeing it, everything else seems like darkness.

[esther-aria]

I like drawing my romances in stick figures. See, for those girls in middle school writing “Mrs. Tommy Spears” all over their notebooks, they didn’t stand a chance when he turned around to pass a hand-out back and saw his name plastered all over the margins. They saw their hopes for love shrivel up and die in the light of his grimace. But for me, he’d never see that it was actually him and me holding hands in front of a water view sunset on the cover of my notebook. He’d just glance down and glance back and I could happily remain heartsick with him none the wiser.

esther.aria

[esther-aria]

Veins spider-webbed blue ink across parchment skin

[esther-aria]

Encouragement. There will be good days and bad days. Don’t be ashamed of what you are feeling. Feel it. But remember how fleeting emotions are. Happiness is an emotion. Joy is a choice. As is forgiveness, mercy, and love. Choose to do these things. God will get you through.

[esther-aria]

The Incendiary Destruction of Cynthia Jameson

AMY MULLINS A woman in her early 30s. Her dark hair is cut into a sleek, fashionable bob. She has an aura of put-togetherness and always appears to be in control of her actions and responses.

MEHGHA RAO Amy’s co-worker.. Slightly younger than Amy, she has wild waves that are almost contained into a low ponytail. Her personality is much more spastic than Amy’s. She is full of an unending energy and is never really able to sit still.

STELLA CONROY A woman in her late 40s. She has a slight Irish accent. Her hair is graying and tied up in a furiously high bun. She has severe spectacles perched on the edge of her nose and appears to be in a constant state of complaint.

SCENE 1

(Lights up on a living room. The room is a simple tri-fold, with a large back wall. There are two doorways which are simply large rectangles cut into the wall, no doors or doorframes. One doorway is along the stage right wall and the other is on the stage left side of the back wall. There is a short couch against the stage left wall and a simple table and two straight-backed chairs along the back wall on stage right. Amy is standing center stage, facing the audience)

AMY

Cynthia Jameson’s job was her entire life. And I do mean that, her entire life. She always kept an extra set of clothes at the office in case she ended up staying the night working. She kept more of her personal items at work than she did at her apartment. We always would joke about the fact that if the office went up in flames, everyone would lose a few personal affects, but Jameson would lose her life. At last year’s Christmas party, some of the secretaries on the third floor got a bit too tipsy and tried getting into her office, you should’ve seen her spitting flames. And what happened to those secretaries. Marion Agyeman is the only one who still has a job here. And that’s because her uncle’s one of the higher-ups and Jameson wouldn’t dare touch her.

There’s not a person in our office without some degree of fear towards Jameson. She blackmails, threatens, ruins lives, all in the name of making our company better. Of protecting the reputation of this firm. Well, she’d screwed with enough lives in my opinion. And I decided it was time for something to be done about it.

SCENE 2

(Lights up on the living room. AMY and MEHGHA are sitting, cross-legged on the floor in center stage playing a game of Yahtzee. They are both in business clothes and a large briefcase lies downstage of AMY.)

AMY

Your turn.

MEHGHA

(She rolls the dice)

Dang it! I already got the full house.

AMY

You can try going for 5s, you haven’t done that yet.

(Pause)

So what do you think?

MEHGHA

May as well, right? No point in going for 2s again…

AMY

No! Not that. The other thing.

MEHGHA

(Laughs)

Amy. Please. I’m not nearly drunk enough for us to talk about that.

AMY

We’re not drinking.

MEHGHA

Exactly! Could you remind me why that is again?

AMY

(Grabs the dice and shakes them)

Because, if we decide to torch Jameson’s office, I want the decision to have been made when we’re both completely sober. I would want to remember every glorious detail of it.

MEHGHA

If we torch Jameson’s office—and granted that’s a big if since we haven’t even begun to talk logistics yet—I want to be completely smashed. Out of my mind. Eyes rolling back. Mouth drooling. The whole ugly affair.

AMY

(Rolls)

Well that’s just rotten luck.

(Grabs all of them back to roll again)

MEHGHA

Yeah, once you’ve used up all your straights, it’s just pathetic hopping from one number to the next, you know?

Anyways. Say we’re able to get all the supplies, right? Even get transportation up to the building. Even buy some sick ninja night gear and black paint to smear on our faces. There’s still the matter of getting IN to the office! I think you’re missing the big problem with security here.

AMY

Stella will cover that.

STELLA

(Yelling from off-stage)

Like hell I will! There’s not a bleeding chance in Maine of my helping the two of you with this mad plan you’ve got.

MEHGHA

Oh stuff it, Stella! We know you hate Jameson just as much as we do.

STELLA

(Enters through the doorway on the back wall. Still in her work clothes as well, she’s holding some computer cords in her hands and occasionally waves them around to emphasize her points)

Look here. I hate Cynthia Jameson with every fiber of my being. That woman’s had something coming to her since she stepped off that train from Hicksville, Wyoming. But if you think for a hot second that I’m gonna stick my neck out there to help you, then you have another think coming.

AMY

You’ll help us, Stella.

(Passes the dice to Mehgha who begins to roll)

STELLA

Yes, Miss Amy? And why would that be?

And Mehgha, for goodness sake, don’t go for a large straight! You haven’t a prayer.

MEHGHA

Well then which?

STELLA

Shoot for the threes I guess. They don’t matter a lot in the top count anyways.

MEHGHA

Of course they matter! I got a crappy 10 on my 5s, I need a good 3 to get the bonus!

STELLA

Whatever, lady. It’s your funeral.

Now, Amy. Enlighten me, please, about whatever ethereal force it is that will cause me to help you.

AMY

Steven.

STELLA

(Hard)

Leave him out of this.

MEHGHA

What? What about Steven?

STELLA

It’s none of your business. Either of you.

MEHGHA

Come on! Tell me! It can’t be th—

STELLA

I said it’s none of your business. Look, I just came over here to snag an HDMI cord since I can’t seem to find mine anywhere and, now I’m gonna be on my merry way. It was a mistake coming here in the first place. I should’ve seen through you offering to lend me yours.

AMY

Stella don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t invite you here to trap you into anything.

(STELLA snorts)

I mean it. If you’re not comfortable with this, I don’t want to pressure you into anything. It just… it seemed to me that you had more reason to want to dethrone Jameson than any of us. I know Stev—

STELLA

That’s enoug—

MEHGHA

Please just tell me!

(A beat. The three look at each other, tense)

AMY

I know Steven is important. I know you don’t want to do anything to jeopardize your job or put him at risk. But isn’t what Jameson did… didn’t—wasn’t that worse than anything a backlash from this could cause? I mean, I have a lot less incentive than you do—I mean I only would have lost my job if she’d managed to convince Liu that I’d actually messed up those tax forms—and I can’t bear the thought of sitting here and letting her continue on without any backlash for the things she does!

STELLA

Not going to pressure me, huh?

AMY

You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry. I just want you to realize that you’re not alone in this. She’s hurt everyone. Me, Mehgha, even Mehgha’s family… I just want—

STELLA

I’ll think about it. I’ll bring you your cord at work tomorrow, yea?

AMY

That would be wonderful. Thank you, Stella.

(Stella exits)

MEHGHA

Well I still don’t get it.

AMY

The point is, Mehgha, that Jameson’s office won’t be standing for much longer. Now come on, three more rolls then we’re heading to Lowe’s for supplies.

MEHGHA

Alright, alright. But after that can we buy booze?

(Lights)

SCENE 3

(Dim lighting in the living room, it’s clearly nighttime. The room is empty until we hear a heavy pounding on the door. There’s a pause and then more pounding. Mehgha enters nervously, wearing pajamas, through the backstage door, baseball bat in hand)

MEHGHA

(Quietly. The person pounding clearly would not be able to hear her)

Wh--- who’s there?

(More pounding)

I said who’s there?

(Pound pound)

Who is it!

(Amy enters—also in pajamas--and briskly walks past Mehgha towards the door)

AMY

Don’t be ridiculous, Mehgha. It’s only Stella.

MEHGHA

Huh? How do you—

(The sound of a door opening. Then Amy reenters with Stella behind her. Stella is still in her business clothes from earlier that day, though her hair has fallen out of her bun slightly from hard thinking)

AMY

So you’ve decided? [STELLA nods]  You’re sure about this Stella? I mean it’s a big risk we’re taking.

STELLA

Oh stuff it, Mullins. You knew you’d get me in on this the second you mentioned Steven. So now you’ve won. You’ve got me in. What exactly do you need from me?

AMY

Well mostly just getting us past the security measures, like Mehgha said. I’m hopeless at technology and, well, as head of the technology department I figured you’d be able to handle that.

STELLA

I could figure something out pretty quickly. And Gregor and I had a thing a couple years ago. He showed off a lot of the equipment to me when he found out I was such a tech junkie.

AMY

Perfect. That’s better than anything we could have hoped for. And really, Stella, you don’t have to do any of the actual dirty work. I wouldn’t want to get you any more involved than you need to be.

STELLA

Oh no, don’t try that. I said I’m in and I mean it, I’m all in. All the way down to lighting the match.

MEHGHA

(She’s been standing throughout this entire conversation in the same position, baseball bat raised, mouth slightly open in confusion. She’s attempted entering the conversation several times, unable to get a word in until--)

Now—just—hold on! Wait just a second!

AMY

What?

MEHGHA

Ok, now I understand why Amy is doing this. The Tax Form Incident nearly lost her her career. And I know why I’m doing this. Jameson dug up that information about my family’s citizenship problems a few months ago when we had that disagreement over the Millington Files. She got my aunt and uncle deported. But Stella, you’re Jameson’s right hand. She sneezes and you’re there with a tissue to wipe up the mess. And all the five years I’ve been working here, I’ve never seen an iota of dissent from you. What’s changed? Why now?

AMY

Mehgha, Stella doesn’t need to explain her—

STELLA

No, no. You’re right, Mehgha. I probably owe you something of an explanation.

(Beat. Readying herself)

Steven was not always in a mental hospital. He used to live with me, at home, where he belongs. He was never a threat to anyone… he wouldn’t have hurt a fly even if it’d flown into his eye. But, you know, I couldn’t very well leave him home alone. I hired a nanny for him, but every once in a while I’d give her the day off and bring him into work with me. He’d find something to entertain himself and sit on the couch in my office or watch me work. And we’d take lunch together on the lawn out front. He loved watching the cars go around the roundabout, you know? Tried to make a game of it.

You know Jameson had been there for… maybe a year before you joined the company. [To MEHGHA. MEHGHA starts to interrupt but is silenced by a look from AMY] Well, she—she was set against Steven from the minute she met him. Prejudiced wanker. It was one of the days he was there with me in the office and she came in to meet me… He was just being friendly but he got up real close to her and drooled a bit onto her suit jacket and I pulled him away right away, but, I saw it in her eyes. That disgust.

A few more months went by and, well, she tried so hard to stop me from ever being able to bring him in. Tried telling Liu and a few other higher ups that he was a threat or that it was inappropriate for him to be there or some other crap. They came in to talk with me and I assured them that Steven, well like I said, he’d never hurt a fly. I just liked bringing him in to work every once in awhile to give him a change of scenery. And Liu agreed, said it wasn’t a big deal and—like a fool—I thought that’d be the end of it.

MEHGHA

I don’t underst—

AMY

Shh!

STELLA

(Plows on)

One day I left Steven in my office for a meeting. We were just wrapping up when Marion came sprinting into the room telling me that security was coming upstairs to escort Steven away. That he’d apparently had some sort of episode and had attacked Jameson when she came into my office to drop off some papers, stabbed her in the arm with some scissors…

The judge took one look at his history and wouldn’t accept a word I said. It was all “Cynthia Jameson attested to this” “His school records say that” “Your neighbor submitted a complaint about this” and nothing about the circumstances! Nothing about me! Nothing about how taking my son away from me would destroy me! Would leave me empty! Would leave me crying myself to sleep at night every day since!

(Heavy silence. The bat hangs limply at Mehgha’s side. Stella has turned away from them, but neither feel like they should approach her, knowing any comfort they offer is superficial)

So, Mehgha, in answer to your question: Nothing has changed. And to the other, well. I guess I’ve finally found people with the desire and ability to repay Jameson for the hell she’s created in our lives.

MEHGHA

Stella, I—

STELLA

Don’t say you’re sorry. If anything, don’t say you’re sorry.

MEHGHA

No. No not sorry. I was going to say—Stella, I think it’s time we sent that demon of a woman straight to the hell she came from.

STELLA

(Beat)

I’d say there’s little else I’d like more in the world.

AMY

Then why don’t you come in for a cup of tea. And let’s find out how much a one way ticket to Hell is going to cost us.

(There’s a moment. The three of them form an impressive tableau and you can feel in that instance that they will accomplish this incendiary destruction. And Mehgha swings the bat over her shoulder and an arm around Stella and they walk through the back doorway into the kitchen. Amy turns to follow them and pauses, and then with a smirk--)

AMY

Yahtzee.

(Lights)

[esther-aria]

toodle: to putter, waddle, shuffle

a new word and its definition according to my mother

[esther-aria]

A Canvas Filled

They say they feel the pain of it. When looking into an artist’s rendering of an instance. Splayed out on a canvas. They separate themselves, the onlookers, they fill themselves with an other’s suffering driving out the suffocation of their own.

The illustrator. Has managed to harness his own chariot race. He takes the reins of pain, of a heart wrung dry, flaking suffering in specks down onto an artist’s safe. The box where he locks away the onlookers, his emotions, trapped in the grip of a canvas.

He steps back, eyes the canvas with tension. The weight of his own passion, without onlookers outside the two pain- filled eyes of the artist’s. Yet these serve as the strictest judge of his suffering.

It hangs, symbol of long-suffering hours, of emotion realized. A canvas heavy with sighs that an artist’s soul could no longer contain with his own fleshed form. He’d torn them off with pain- staking tenderness. Now visible to any onlooker. So now they come, these onlookers, a Roman mob ogling a gladiator’s suffering while his life’s blood is ripper out of him by the pain of their gaze. This canvas. They cannot bring themselves to turn, their own lives lost in the overwhelming Life of the artist. They search to be lost. Lost in an artist’s capturing of that with the onlookers can’t face within themselves. Unable to own their chariot, they cannot stand as suffering gladiators in a coliseum. Their canvas remains empty, void of the story of their pain. There is a strength required to own one’s suffering, to pull the artist from within and crush the onlooker underfoot, it requires touching the canvas and filling it with pain.

[esther-aria]

Top Hats: Part Twelve

His eyes lock mine. “You are so much more than your hat, Mia.”

For the second time today, I feel seen. Ruth looked at me and remembered me for more than just the things everyone’s said I’ve done. She reached out and touched me. She’s waiting for me outside right now. The Mayor is looking at me, and I see in His eyes that He really means what He says. He sees the top hat, who could miss it? But He sees the rest of me too.

“Mia, you are more than your hat. You are more than Mia the Roadkill, something on the side of the street people try not to see. You are incredible talents. An amazing wit. A loving heart that’s been beaten fragile and crushed broken by life’s cruelty. You are unjust circumstances and poor decisions. You are loved by people you never dared to love back and wounded by those you made the mistake of letting in. But you are someone whole, Mia. And someone with amazing gifts to offer.”

I can’t stop the tears. They run down my face and drop onto the roof of the Mayor’s office. He looks at me, and I know He’s not embarrassed by my tears. He understands them. He understands me.

With every tear that smacks against the cement of the roof, I feel a strip of my shame peeling away. I cry until the ground is covered in it. In my mistakes and my anger and my hate. I cry until there’s nothing left to cry out anymore. And He is there through it all, never leaving my side, never stepping away in disgust like all the others.

Once I’ve cried myself dry and peeled myself raw, He leads me back down the steps into His office once again. We’re sitting across from each other and I feel lighter than I have in years.

“I have a question to ask you, Mia. But before I do, do you have any other questions? Is there anything else you need to know?”

My mind is still on the roof, looking over Avera at all of its people, moving through life, wearing their top hats.

“I guess—I don’t really understand. Why do you only make an appointment with someone every once in awhile? Why don’t you meet with people every day?”

He nods. And then looks out the window of his office for a moment, “I’m never very far from Avera, you know. I do a lot of work outside of the town, but I’m always able to leave what I’m doing and be here as soon as I’m needed.”

He turns to me, “Appointments work both ways, Mia. My office doors are always open. I always make sure I can be reached should anyone ever need me. I make sure to have contact information left behind whenever I go out on a trip, so that anyone can find me and speak with me at any time. There are a few that come to visit, or who call me when they need to, some of them even choose to work with me in this office. But there are so many… so many, Mia who walk by this office every day without pausing. Who go through their problems alone when I would be so glad to help them through it. I make appointments when I need to tell an Averian something, or to ask something of them. But mostly, I would love for them to seek me out. I would love to be able to give them a hand, no matter what they need. But—” and His eyes fill up with an ancient sorrow, and, again, I can barely breathe because of how deep it is, “—there are so many people who never ask.”

I look at this man, this wonderful and amazing man who clearly cares about Avera so much. So much more than anyone realizes. And I force down a hope that I feel rising in my chest.

“So, now we get to the purpose of your appointment, Mia. You see, I have a favor to ask you. Mia, you are someone so completely needed, so wonderfully unique. You’ve seen Avera at its worst, Mia, because of the way it treated you. You’ve seen how cruel people can be and how little they understand about the people around them.” Ulises. The hens. “However, you’ve also seen what I see. You’ve seen that these people are really all the same. They are small, and they need guidance, they feel lost and they feel remorse.” Ruth. “But they are capable of so much good if only they’d let Me and my employees help them when they need it. So what I need to ask of you is no small thing. It will not be easy. It will require a lot of work and patience and care for a group of people who rarely treated you kindly. But Mia—”

The hope pushes through my barrier and starts to rise once more.

“Mia, how would you like to start working with Me?”

A battle starts inside of me. Anger clashing against hope. Hurt fighting with peace. The hens, Ruth. Ulises, The Mayor. My top hat. My top hat.

I look up into the Mayor’s kind, accepting face. A face that washes away any memory of Mia the Roadkill. Suicidal Mia. Mia who’s done it all. I look into that face, and I am just Mia.

 “I think… there’s nothing in the world that I’d like more.”

A smile buds on His face and blooms into the most joyous grin. He laughs a deep, honest laugh of relief and excitement and says, “Well then, let’s get to work.”

We turn to leave His office and, through the window, I catch a glimpse of Ruth. She’s still outside, still waiting on the park bench. For me. Just like she said she would. The Mayor is at my side, eyes already seeing what I see.

“There’s always work to be done, and we want all the help we can get.”

With a nod, I head for the door. Not believing how a life can so quickly be changed. I’m out the doors, taking in Avera, as I realize how slowly some people can be changed too. I see the faces of all the people who have scorned and rejected me through my life. Who have whispered about me and called me names, refused to help me and hated me without cause. But then I see Ruth, with her mouse eyes looking at me with concern and questions. I allow a smile to finds its way onto my face, it feels like the first one that’s been there in years, and I hold out my hand to her.

“Come on, there’s Someone who wants to meet you.”

the end

esther.aria

[esther-aria]

Top Hats: Part Eleven

The doorknob turns and suddenly he’s there. And it’s true, what everyone’s said. A man so good, he doesn’t even wear a hat.

“Mia, I’m so happy you were able to make our appointment.”

His voice washed over me, covered me, welcomed me in like a reassuring hand pushing me forward. I walked through the door and left my fear out in the hallway behind me. It was me He wanted to meet with. There hadn’t been a mistake, He’d actually wanted to see me. 

He guides me over to His desk and offers me the seat across from His. He gestures for me to sit without touching my back, almost as if He already knows how little I like to be touched. He sits across from me and regards me for a moment, His eyes staring directly into mine. No darting, no flinching, no gawking. He just looks at me as if we’ve met each other before. Then He speaks, with a voice as warm as His honeyed door. “So Mia, I know why I asked you here to see me today, but I was wondering if there was anything you wanted to know before we started talking about that?”

His eyes were full of care, and I knew that no matter what I asked or said, He’d listen to it, and He would hear every word, regardless of how irrelevant, or strange, or dumb my questions might be.

“I guess…” unsure how to ask it, I figured I’d just say it straight. “The people in your office…”

“Yes?”

“What’s with their hats?”

His eyes crinkled a smile. “What about their hats?”

“Well. You’re the Mayor. But there’s so many people working here with tall hats…”

“Why shouldn’t I employ people with taller hats?”

One of my eyebrows shot up. What kind of trick was He trying to play? “… Tall-hatted people, I mean, they’re the ones that screw up all the time. They’re the ones who do stuff wrong. That’s… why their hats are so tall. Everyone knows that. Why would you want to hire people to work here with hats so tall? Like, what if people find out you have tall-hatters working for you? Nobody likes to work with people with tall hats, nobody even likes to be around people with tall hats.” Nobody likes to look at roadkill.

His smile’s gone, clouded in an instant with a storm. And His eyes—I nearly gasp aloud from the pain that fills them so quickly. Without a word, He stands up and walks over to a door I hadn’t noticed before. “Follow me please, Mia. I want to show you something.”

Confused, and slightly nervous from the emotions I can read so clearly on His face, I get up to follow Him. Who cares so much about tall-hatters anyways? It’s not like I’m worth much worry.

He pauses on the stairs and looks back at me, only for a moment, but again I’m thrown by the sorrow that has written itself across every inch of His face. What could possibly be causing the Mayor of Avera so much pain? Why would a man without a hat ever be so sad?

The door leads to a stairway and climbs higher and higher. We keep going up until we pass through a door that puts us on the roof of the building. The Mayor walks towards the edge of the roof, the side that overlooks all of Avera. “Mia, I want you to tell me what you see.”

I stand near Him and look out on the town that rejected me, that beat me down and left me alone in the world. From here, up on the hill on top of the Mayor’s office, it looks so small. I can see the people moving around in the square. From this height… it’s impossible to tell who is who. Or even—

“You… you can’t tell. From up here, on the roof, you can’t tell how tall anyone’s hats are. All you can see is—”

“Is that they’re all wearing hats.” He’s turned out towards the town, eyes taking in everything, everyone. “Each and every person. There is not a single person in Avera without one. And that’s what I see, Mia. That’s all I see. A top hat is part of an Averian, yes, but they are so much more than their hats,” His eyes lock mine. “You are so much more than your hat, Mia.”

to be continued

esther.aria

[esther-aria]

Top Hats: Part Ten

She holds out her hand and quietly urges, “Mia, He wants to meet with you.”

More scared than I’ve ever been of anything in my life. More than Ulises. More than my father. More than the kids in middle school. I take her hand, and we run.

-- -- -- -- -- -- Ruth -- -- -- -- -- -- --

We make it to The Office at four minutes past. There’s a crowd of people poorly pretending that they’re not watching. I walk Mia up to the edge of the property, but stop—unsure if I should go any further. 

I turn and look into her diamond eyes and discover they’re not cold and unreadable anymore. Each bit of them is glittering with a different emotion: pain, relief, fear, confusion, and hope. She hasn’t let go of my hand yet. She lifts her foot towards the steps that lead up to the Mayor’s office, but she pauses—hovering.

I give her hand a squeeze. “You can do it, Mia.”

Her eyes dart at me, and then back up to the building on top of the hill, and with a deep breath in, she places her foot down on the step. Her hand slips away and she starts to climb.

“Mia—”

Diamond eyes find mine again.

“I don’t know if—if you want, but—I can… I can wait here for you. If you’d like. I can be here, when your appointment’s over. I, I don’t have to leave you alone, if you don’t want.”

And then I see something I never once imagined was possible, a smile—the smallest of genuine smiles found its way onto Mia’s mouth. And though she didn’t say anything else, she turned and continued her walk up those stairs, that smile was all I needed. So I found a bench in the square and I waited.

-- -- -- -- -- -- Mia -- -- -- -- -- -- --

I reached the end of the longest walk of my life and found myself standing in front of the tallest oak doors I’d ever seen. Should I… should I knock? Or just go in? I don’t even know how these appointments normally—

The door starts to open and I’m face-to-face with a girl in business clothes. “Mia?”

I nod quickly, “Yea, that’s me.”

She smiles a warm, full smile and opens it wider to let me inside. And that’s when I notice. Her hat. It’s nearly level with mine. And she’s here? Working in the Mayor’s office? She leads me through the lobby and past several rooms of offices and I… it’s so weird. The people working, their hats are all different sizes! In fact, I think there might be even more people here with taller hats than shorter. A man with an incredibly short hat walks up to us and I know, I just know what he’s about to say. Sorry, there’s been a mistake. He doesn’t want her. Just send her back out into the streets and go get the real candidate for the appointment.

But he just smiles at me too. “Is there anything you want today, Mia? Maybe something to drink or eat?”

“Oh, um. No. I mean, I don’t want—no I’m alright.”

“Are you sure?” His concern is so confusing. What on earth could a man with a hat so short be doing offering kindness to me?

The girl who let me in leads us to the elevator and we ride it up to the top floor, the floor where the Mayor’s office is supposed to be. There’s another door. This one stained a golden honey color, and I realize I’ve never been so afraid of a door in my life. But I’ve also never wanted to go through a door so much either.

With a smile of reassurance, the girl turns to go back down the elevator. “He’ll be with you in a minute, Mia.” And I’m alone.

As I wait, I begin to realize how little I really know about the Mayor. It’s not like I’ve ever seen him. It’s not like anyone has ever seen him. Are all the rumors people say about him true? About where he goes?  Why he’s never in Avera? How long he’s been our Mayor? And his hat? The fear trickles down my back as I eye the honey-colored door and I start to really wonder what on earth this man could possibly want to talk about with someone like me.

But then I hear steps. Steps from the other side of the door. My heart just might drop down out of my chest. My stomach is twisting itself into all sorts of knots and my nails clench into my sweating palms.

The doorknob turns and suddenly he’s there. And it’s true, what everyone’s said. A man so good, he doesn’t even wear a hat.

to be continued

esther.aria

[esther-aria]

Top Hats: Part Nine

My eyes turned towards the Mayor’s office and, I swore, a figure moved in one of the upper windows. Then I flicked back to look at the clock one last time. I knew. No one should go and tell Mia this news but me. I looked up to the sky, sighed, prayed my legs would make the trip. And then I ran.

-- -- -- -- -- -- Mia -- -- -- -- -- -- --

What kind of cruel prank is this? After all of this time, all of the anvil-dragging, Ruth comes running to me, screaming my name, telling me this obvious lie. As if the Mayor would even bother to wave to me on the street, to give me directions to the grocery store, as if he’d take a minute out of his day to spend with me, Mia the Roadkill.

Ruth’s dragging on my hand, talking a mile a minute, but my feet stay planted because there’s no possible way I’m going to let them do this to me.

“Please, Mia. We have to hurry. You only have ten minutes before your appointment’s supposed to start. We have to go!”

Her eyes lift to meet mine and I find my fire.

“We? No. We don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to do anything. I don't know what kind of joke you hens are trying to pull, but I’m not having it. I’ve had enough of all your talking about me outside my room, gossiping about what exactly it is I’ve done that’s made my hat so tall. Enough of it! Now let me go and leave me alone.”

My hand rips out of hers and I finally start moving. Away from them all. From the hens, the hospital, and Ruth.

“Mia! No—wait, Mia… Mia! Please!”

I’m storming. The fire’s roaring in my chest. Just who do these women think they are? I thought sick jokes like this ended in high school. I guess nothing ever changes.

My feet are rolling and I’m out on the street. I don’t know where I’m going to go, but wherever it is, it’s not going to be anywhere near here. Not with these people. Not anywhere anyone in this town can look at me. Can ogle and point and shun. Where my hat and I can just sit and stare at each other and our ugliness. Our tallness. Our—

That hen Ruth is back. Walking two steps behind me. How long has she been there? Why can’t they just let me be!

I spin. “Are you honestly still trying to keep this going?”

She cowers. Less of a hen actually, more of a mouse. With her frizzy hair and fluffy sweater and wide, frightened face. She’s staring at me with her sad mouse-brown eyes like I’m the one that’s hurting her.

“No, Mia. Mia, please listen to me—”

“I’ve had enough of this! Just leave me alo—”

“Mia, I’m sorry! I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the nurses. I’m sorry for what happened to you in the park. I’m—I’m sorry about that time in high school when I didn’t��� when I should’ve…”

That stops me.

I turn and am confronted with mouse-eyes that are threatening to spill tears. My fire dies a little. I wait.

Ruth takes in a breath and, “I should’ve helped. I’m sorry, Mia… I should have helped you. You were alone and you were in pain and… and I should have helped.”

A thousand things fly through my head: fiery comebacks, words that drip venom, memories I’d thought I’d erased forever, but one thing screams louder than all the rest.

“But—nobody remembers me.”

Now her tears really do fall. “I remember, Mia. I remember every day.”

We stand for a minute, so very apart. Roadkill and Mouse. Tall hat and short. And I try so hard to come up with something to say that will send her away, far away, to give me time to close up this gaping hole she’s just torn in my shell. But instead, she steps closer. Her eyes hold a kindness I can barely recognize, it’s been so long since I’ve seen it. She holds out her hand and quietly urges, “Mia, He wants to meet with you.”

More scared than I’ve ever been of anything in my life. More than Ulises. More than my father. More than the kids in middle school. I take her hand, and we run.

to be continued

esther.aria

[esther-aria]

Top Hats: Part Eight

Now, Avera isn’t a place that many people leave. We’re a small town and, for the most part, businesses are run by families and everyone is fairly content to settle down where they’re at. And Renato had always seemed that way too. But now, at the Mayor’s call, he packed a suitcase and his cats and left town with a smile. Going out to do work the Mayor had laid out for him.

So this morning, as a cleaning team moves in to prepare the Mayor’s office for his arrival, the question everyone’s asking is, of course: Will it be me this time?

-- -- -- -- -- -- Mia -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Today’s the day. Freedom be mine. Not that I really have anywhere to go. Ulises never even tried to come see me so, no point in trying to plead my case.

They laid out the clothes I came in with on my bed so, I guess there’s nothing left to do now but leave. There’s a group of hens out in the lobby, clucking away like usual. As I get closer they all turn as one big flock to stare at me. Eyes wide, beaks open. That’s weird. I mean, I’m the road kill. There’s normally a flicker of eye contact, a flash of disgust or fear, and then avoidance. This is just open gawking. Maybe this suicide scare has put me over the edge. I’ve moved to full-on freak show. Well guess what hens, that’s nothing new. Mia the Tall-hatter, just add suicidal onto the long list of names I have trailing along behind me.

The hospital doors snap shut and I’m free. No more hens. No more twenty-four hour watch. And no more Ruth, with her anvil-weighted face, dragging along past my room every day.

At least that’s what I thought. Until I heard my name being yelled behind me. Who in the town of Avera wants to yell my name out in public? I turn and see Ruth jogging after me, a group of hens clustered around the doorway to the hospital are watching, fluttering and jostling.

“Mia!”

-- -- -- -- -- -- Ruth -- -- -- -- -- -- --

They made the announcement this afternoon. I had stopped at the post office to mail in some bills when I saw Aqilah Pradhi sprinting towards me.

“Ms. Ruth! Ms. Ruth! You have to go tell her, you have to go get her right now! She can’t miss it!”

Aqilah’s normally a calm, sensible girl, so it took me a minute to process through her ramblings.

“What’s happening, sweetie? I have to tell who what? Slow down for a second and just breathe, ok?”

She allowed a few starving pants of air into her lungs before “Ms. Ruth, the hospital! You have to go and get Mia right now or she’ll miss it!”

“Miss what, Aqilah?”

“Her appointment, Ms. Ruth! Mia’s been picked for an appointment! Today, at 3 o’clock.”

Dramatically, the clock tower in the square began its chiming to announce half past two. Aqilah and I turned to stare at it as her words finally gained meaning for me.

“Mia? Mia has an appointment. Today?”

Aqilah nodded. “At three. Ms. Ruth, you have to go get her!”

My head full of jumbled thoughts, I look down to tell Aqilah that there’s no way I can make it in time and that we should just call the hospital and let them know. The words are on the edge of my tongue, making their way up to my teeth when I hear it. The sob. My heart skips. I see her diamond eyes bearing into mine for an instant, before—like in The Bathroom—in a flash they’re gone. My eyes turned towards the Mayor’s office and, I swore, a figure moved in one of the upper windows. Then I flicked back to look at the clock one last time. I knew. No one should go and tell Mia this news but me. I looked up to the sky, sighed, prayed my legs would make the trip. And then I ran.

to be continued

esther.aria

[esther-aria]

Top Hats: Part Seven

The Mayor… coming to town. But that’s, no. Something small started to tug on my heart but I grabbed it and smashed it before it could take hold.

Not a chance, Mia.

-- -- -- -- -- -- Ruth -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Arden’s running around the office telling everyone the Mayor’s coming to town. Now, normally I do my best to hear what Arden says in one ear and then push it out the other as fast as possible. But in this case, well, I think she might be right. The Mayor’s offices are being cleaned out. Which can only mean one thing.

The Mayor’s coming to town.

Now, I know for most places the mayor lives in the town where he works. Runs business every day, meets with council members weekly, all that. But that isn’t true for Avera’s Mayor. He doesn’t live here, he’s always out travelling, working on projects. But he does come to visit. And when he visits, he doesn’t hold council meetings, he has appointments. He’s been our Mayor for as long as anyone can remember, coming in and out of town, but a constant presence nonetheless. Not many people have seen him up close. But one thing I know for sure, the reason he’s our Mayor, the reason we’ve never even considered electing anyone else, it’s because of this. The Mayor is a man so good, he doesn’t wear a top hat.

The Mayor’s appointments are not scheduled things. There’s no rhyme or reason to them, at least none that me or, well, anyone else in town for that matter can figure. Sometimes rumors fly about them for months before they’re announced. And sometimes they come up with no warning at all. But, when they do happen, the whole town comes out for it. It’s only happened once before in my lifetime, and Renato Nova was chosen to have an appointment with the Mayor.

Renato ran the bakery in town. He was a nice man. Thick black hair, a pleasantly plump belly, a fairly short hat, and a smile that would shoot across his face when he made eye contact with a customer but have disappeared by the time he’d turned around to locate their order. He never really bothered himself with anyone else’s business, preferring to make and serve his sweets and little else. He lived alone and might’ve had a cat or two. Just someone vaguely kind that most people in Avera didn’t spare too much thought on. At least, not until he was called for an appointment.

The day they announced it the whole town turned their eyes to Renato. I was only a young girl then—not even in school—but I remember him walking by, seeing only the Mayor’s office ahead of him. And smiling. Not his normal lightning shot, shy smile. But like the one someone gets right after they’ve been shocked by friends at a surprise party. Afraid, but also bemusedly joyous. Knowing that even though they’re scared, the thing that’s scared them is wonderful and exciting and good.

He was in the Mayor’s office for a long time, Renato. Almost the whole day. I was in bed when those tall oak doors finally opened and he stepped out. My mother told me though, he came out of that building a different man. The doors closed behind him, he took a deep breath and walked home with this… purpose. As he passed people on the street he smiled and waved with a new sort of assurance. Strangest of all though, was that he walked home and immediately started packing a suitcase. Started throwing a bunch of his clothes into one, some of his most important belongings. He told his neighbors that the Mayor had told him about a place where his skills were needed. Somewhere outside of Avera, someplace new.

Now, Avera isn’t a place that many people leave. We’re a small town and, for the most part, businesses are run by families and everyone is fairly content to settle down where they’re at. And Renato had always seemed that way too. But now, at the Mayor’s call, he packed a suitcase and his cats and left town with a smile. Going out to do work the Mayor had laid out for him.

So this morning, as a cleaning team moves in to prepare the Mayor’s office for his arrival, the question everyone’s asking is, of course: Will it be me this time?

to be continued

esther.aria

[esther-aria]

Top Hats: Part Six

-- -- -- -- -- -- Ruth -- -- -- -- -- -- --

She slept for three days.

We’ve been watching her the whole time. Twenty-four hour suicide watch because we can’t be sure yet. The whole town’s talking about it. A group of teenagers walking to school in the morning literally stumbled across her lying down in the middle of the path, unconscious, barely breathing. One of them, little Aqilah Pradhi—she babysits my kids when my husband and I go out—she had the sense to call an ambulance. They rushed her in and pumped her stomach while the nurses gossiped. Then she slept and the stories flew.

But today, she’s awake. Not talking to anyone, but she’s awake. Those cold diamond eyes are at work again. I can feel them on my back when I walk past her room. A dozen times today I almost bring my eyes up to meet hers, but I can’t. Because every time I try I hear that sob again. The one I can’t face. The one I can’t accept happened. 

-- -- -- -- -- -- Mia -- -- -- -- -- -- --

They think I tried to kill myself.

Like I’d go to that much effort.

I’m stuck here for a few more days while they continue “observing” me. I’m off suicide watch, so I guess that’s nice. Not really a lot to do though, I told them not to let Ulises in (if he even bothers to show up), and it’s not like there’s anyone else to visit me so… I just sort of sit here. I suppose you could call it peaceful. If it weren’t for those snoopy nurses sticking their beaks in my room and in my business twenty-four hours a day. Stupid hens. Clucking together in a pack as they gossip about the town, the doctors, each other, me.

Except that one nurse.

Ruth.

She never sticks her beak in my room. I barely see her ever even near my room. And when she does it’s like. Like… her face is attached to an anvil dragging along the ground underneath her. Short dark hair frizzes around her face, bangs hide her eyes from me. It’s like no power in the world could make her look up at me… It’s almost like she remembers.

But how could she. It was years ago and only for a second. And no one remembers me anyway if they can help it.

My eyes are following Ruth and her anvil-face when a small flock of nurses hustles past my doorway. There’s something weird going on with the hens today though. More clucking than normal. And it seems different. It doesn’t look like the typical hush hush gossip that they normally do. They’re all waddling around excited, moving from pack to pack and back again.

May as well find out.

“Hey!”

One of the hens pauses in her mad run down the hallway.

“Yes, Mia? Do you need something?”

So polite. So fake.

“Yea. What’s going on today?”

“Oh! Oh— no, I guess you wouldn’t— And it’s absolutely fantastic news! If it’s true that is. My neighbor, Rona Hedda, was telling me that she’d heard from the man who was bagging her groceries yesterday that his aunt was—well. Basically! That a cleaning team just went out to the Mayor’s office!”

“The Mayor’s office huh? That’s… interesting.”

She nodded her head in a hen-y bob and scurried off again.

The Mayor… coming to town. But that’s, no. Something small started to tug on my heart but I grabbed it and smashed it before it could take hold.

Not a chance, Mia.

to be continued

esther.aria