It Wasn't Meant To Turn Out Like This

Brian poked listlessly at the last few floating parcels of cereal in his bowl of milk. The television was on in the living room, but he wasn’t paying much attention to what it was saying. However, the mention of fairies by the news anchor had Brian raising his head.

“It’s been exactly one year since the fairies, once again, invaded our world, this time on a rescue mission for their comrades,” the anchorwoman said. Brian rose to his feet and walked into the living room, sinking down on the couch across from the television. How had it been a year since Mayza left? For the past year, his life had either gone by in a blur almost too fast for him to comprehend, or it had traveled along at a snail’s pace.

“More than ten thousand fairies all over the world were freed from their masters and taken back to the fairy dimension that night,” the anchorwoman continued. “Only ten humans were reported as having been hurt, and those ten only sustained minor injuries.”

As the anchorwoman continued to speak, grainy home videos began to play on the screen. Some were from security cameras even. All showed fairies sprouting up out of practically nowhere and running off, or showed fairies breaking into houses and freeing their comrades.

“Scientists are not sure how the fairies opened the portals or how long exactly the portals were open,” the anchorwoman said as the camera switched back to her sitting at her desk. “However, funding for researching how to open these portals have dried out and most of the world’s scientists have moved on to other projects. Perhaps one day, we, too, will learn how to open these bridges to the dimension parallel to ours.”

“Why, so we can enslave the entire population?” Brian grumbled, reaching for the remote and switching the television off. He stepped back into the kitchen, put his bowl in the sink, and headed out the front door to the studio.

Many fairies had been freed that night, but many more fairies still remained on Earth, a good majority of them still enslaved. All of the freed fairies, and some humans as well, continued to advocate for fairy equality. And despite huge opposition, they were making headway. Laws were being made to enforce better treatment of fairy slaves. Perhaps one day, fairies would be as free as humans.

Brian remembered when scientists had lost all their funding for reopening the portals; the news channels had all gone crazy talking about it, holding debates about whether or not research should continue. Many prominent scientists were interviewed on the subject. Even if the project got funding somehow, the scientists had agreed it was nearly impossible to open the portals again. Humans simply didn’t possess the right technology to force the phenomenon to occur again.

As Mayza had wished, Brian explained to his family and friends what had transpired the night the fairies had stormed Earth. While they were all sad that she had left, they were all glad that she was back where she really belonged.

Life went on without Mayza. It wasn’t the same life, however. For the first sixteen years of Brian’s life, he didn’t even think fairies existed out of fairytales and movies. But once he’d known that they existed, and met a really spectacular one, a fairy who turned out to be a great friend and a great person, life felt emptier without her around. It was like he’d started out his life without a guitar, had a guitar for just long enough for him to start taking it for granted, and then had the guitar taken away and thrust back out into life. He appreciated Mayza’s company more in the year that she was gone than in the entire time he’d known her. But that seemed to be the way things worked out. You really only began to appreciate something or someone once they were no longer in great abundance.

Brian knew Mayza would’ve been proud of the band if she was still on Earth. They’d continued to flourish and thrive over the past year. They donated regularly to a charity that helps get recently freed fairies on their feet. They volunteered at sort of a homeless shelter for freed fairies whenever possible. Also, they openly advocated fairy equality and freedom, one of many celebrities to do so.

As for Brian himself, he attempted to date other girls despite his feelings for Mayza. She had insisted that she didn’t like him more than a friend, but he wondered sometimes if she did feel a bit of the spark he felt. Any relationships he’d been in turned out to be complete dead-ends. They hardly ever went past three dates before Brian realized the girl would never be like Mayza and ended it.

Brian pulled into a parking spot at the recording studio. With a sigh, he rested his forehead warily against the steering wheel.

Huntington Beach just wasn’t the same anymore without the beautiful pink-eyed fairy that once lived there.