picture postcards

"See the brightest star up there? You make a wish on it and if you wish real hard, it'll come true! Don't you believe it?"

Santa Claus, fairies, wishing stars...bahumbug! They were all bogus, nothing more than lies made up to get little kids to sleep earlier. Yet, once upon a time she did believe too...sitting under the starlit skies and wishing with all her might on the first star she saw that night. All the way until...when exactly did she stop believing?

"Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse..."

Milk, cookies, fireplaces and christmas trees. Material items. What was it about gift-exchange that turned her off? Was it how people no longer bothered with the element of surprise and simply bought what you wanted or was it because they didn't give with a sincere heart? Gifts given out of insincerity and for the sake of showing off weren't gifts at all. They were nightmares.

"Every time you say you don't believe in fairies, you kill one!"

Only she knew how many fairies she had killed thus far; only she knew how many kids' hopes she had killed. Murderer. Magic, fairydust, elves...did these people really believe in them? Why were they running from the truth and wallowing in what was obviously not true? Or was she the one hiding from what she could have believed in too?

"Beep beep! BEEEEP!... ...heart rate, abnormal; pulse, weak..."

That bright light was drawing her closer into the unknown and yet, it hurt her eyes. Where in the world was she? Well, definitely not in this world. Then the most impossible thing happened: Santa and Tinkerbell AND pinocchio's fairy godmother appeared...to her? The world's biggest cause for kids' tears.

"Have you been a good girl this year? Do you believe in fairies? Which star did you wish on?"

Questions, questions, questions. With each question, came a revelation. With each revelation, heartache. With each aching moment, shattered beliefs and disbeliefs. With each fragment, new hope brimming from within. Her head hurt and her throat tightened. Her heart went still and her mind went numb...Goodbye world, I came a hopeful person, lived as a broken mirror and now leave as a renewed being. Goodbye...

"BEEEP! BEEEP! BEEEP!"

Oomph! She rolled over and turned the alarm off. Wait. Didn't she just experience death..but...no that wasn't it...yet...it must have been...wasn't it? Looking up at the ceiling, she saw millions of stars but one particular one stood out. It was the brightest and largest. Winking at her, it dropped a beam into her hand and vanished with the rest of the stars...just like her dream. On her bedside table, a plate of half-eaten cookies and a glass of half-drunk milk. Lying next to the mess sat Rusty, her childhood friend, companion and teddy bear. His bow was still that shiny red satin from Noah's toyshop and her initials were on his right paw. Rusty...but there was something different. That brown satchet on his paw...fairy dust! She sneezed...

"There can be miracles, when you believe. Though hope is frail, it's hard to kill. Who knows what miracles you can achieve?"

Hello. Mum? Is Rusty by any chance on the shelf? No? I didn't think so...No. Nothing's wrong. Mum, do you believe in miracles? ...