Fluffies

In the foreground is a small world where everything matters and everything belongs to someone. A boy pulls a newspaper off his head — it had been serving as his hat — and is distracted from his Rubik's cube: at the feet of the girl across from him, a blue butterfly circles, and she holds the hem of her red dress, waiting for the moment.

Behind them stand the others. Each one has two mouths and no face — only pinprick eyes and jaws. The two mouths say different things. One teaches honesty; the other lies. In the dark, the monsters' eyes and teeth glow — like the thoughts that start spinning the moment you turn off the light.

But in that same darkness, the butterfly glows too — quietly, with its own light. It never disappears. There is something worth reaching for, even when you're afraid.

"Fluffies" is a tender name for something not tender at all. Childhood calls frightening things by funny names, so it becomes possible to live alongside them.