Once upon a time, there was a little girl. The little girl was beautiful as roses and daisies and baby cats and all of the loveliest things that the lord has ever put on this fine earth. She had hair like white gold and it fell all over her tiny shoulders and onto her little back. Her eyes sparkled like broken glass on a parkway, with mischief and beauty and no real colour, but like the ocean at sunset, in an earthly and heavenly combination that made dolphins swim into trees and birds fly through coral reef. The girl was very smart also, she could add and subtract and do all of the things other girls her age could do, except this girl had one very unique talent she did not share with her friends or parents.

You see, my friends, this little girl could see a young man who she did not know in every person she ever met. When she was finally old enough, and her parents let her out, she painted her dolly cheeks pink and her eyelids purple and her lips a tender shade of burgundy and went out to meet new people. As she was walking along, she saw the young man she�d known in all of the people she had met. She ran up to speak to him. �Hello good sir, I think I know you somehow,� she told him.

The young man laughed at her. �No, I�m sorry miss, I do not know you at all.�

The girl was quite befuddled. She turned home and went inside and sat down to think. When she came out again, it was years later and the little girl was no longer so little, nor was she quite so pretty and charming as she had been. Her cheeks had lost their blush, her eyes had lost some of their shimmer and her hair had lost its golden tones. She stalked around the streets, and people saw her to be wild eyed and dangerous.

The girl began to talk to a nice young man she met at the fountain. He had kindly eyes and a smile and she began to grow fond of him. A woman passed by and the girl realized he was not a young man at all and she ran away, completely out of sorts. �Please,� she cried to her creator. �I don�t know what to do anymore about all of this! I feel lost.�

At last she ran into an old apothecary. �The lord has answered my prayers,� she thought. �Sir,� she began. �I need you to make this young man stop haunting me. He has been in my life for far too long and I don�t even know who he is!�

The apothecary smiled a cruel smile. This girl was not as shimmering as she had been. He handed her a potion. �Here you go, young miss. Drink this and sprinkle a dab at your feet and you will be able to stomp away his memory with your dancing shoes.�

The girl thought that this sounded reasonable. She returned to her room and drank all but three drops of the potion. She then stepped on the drops on the ground with her shoes. Immediately she fell to the floor. �Oh no!� she thought. �The spiteful apothecary has poisoned me!� And then she slept.

The girl and the young man were very happy. They kissed and they smiled. There was a magical bond between them. They walked hand in hand. They smiled and laughed. They were extremely secretive with their affair. The young man kissed her hand and stood up, walking slowly away from her body laying on the floor. The girl awoke.

�Of course! We are secret lovers! I don�t understand why we shouldn�t proclaim this to the whole town!� And with that the girl rushed out and found her young man.

�I know that you love me, and I realize that you think we must keep our great love a secret but you must believe me that it is so great that it mustn�t be a secret!� she gushed.

The young man smiled. �I am so glad that you have confronted me, but alas, you cannot tell anyone of our love.�

The girl could not, however keep their love a secret, and told her nursemaid since birth. The next morning, the young man denied knowing that the young girl even existed. �I do not know you, girl. Please leave me alone.�

The apothecary could be heard laughing in the distance. �Can�t you see that you are too impatient little girl? You want everything the way it was when you were small, but you lack the charm that you used to possess. You�re ruined now!�

The little girl began to cry tears of blood into the street. �Please,� she cried to her love. �Help me!� The young man simply began to walk away, going about his business. �No, please you must come back!� she screamed. Blood was dripping down her cheeks. She shook and crawled after him.

�She is most pathetic,� whispered the townspeople. �Delusional.�

The girl died in the middle of the street and the only person who even noticed was the transsexual from the fountain, who pulled her corpse back to his home and stroked her lacklustre cheeks and lifeless hair. Each night, he kissed her dry cracked lips until they decomposed. When she was nothing but yellow skeleton, he made dolls from her bones and sold them to the little girls of the village to make their eyes light up like broken glass on a parkway, with mischief and beauty and no real colour, but like the ocean at sunset, in an earthly and heavenly combination that made dolphins swim into trees and birds fly through coral reef.