The Ultimate Wingmen

The night was cold and dreary, and the sky was a blanket of almost-black grey, heavy cloud. Not a single star nor the moon shone through the carpet of the heavens to comfort the suffering soul beneath its embrace, but She was watching with her keen, experienced eyes, and could see through all, without hindrance.

She saw through the rain pounding from the heavens and bouncing from the pavement, and through the intentionally wild garden brimming with lovingly tended roses of a variety of rich pinks, whites and reds. She wandered further still, through the rickety window panes shuddering in their frames through the force of the storm they held just barely at bay, and through the warmly decorated house up their cricketey, creaky stairs. Turning the corner, She finally reached its sole inhabitant, her caller, a figure slumped over a beautifully decorated desk.

The most luscious, fresh rose heads from the garden at the front hung gently up the sides of the vanity mirror, woven through its frame of delicate willow braiding, accented by sprigs of myrtle held in place with soft knots of twine. Flickering candles of pink , red and gold beckoned her attention. They were thoughtfully positioned to frame the edges of the desk on white saucers, and inside their protective frame there was a somewhat chaotic assortment of pink, white and red crystals; a collection of soft duck feathers in all different lengths, and at their centre, beneath the mirror lay a pristine and polished conch shell, ready to be placed against her ear to hear the familiar comfort of the ocean waves.

She cast her eyes down from the display, bringing her gaze to the source of the cries that tore at her heart. The girl’s wild hair was the first thing She noticed about the figure, lively and spry, loose corkscrews of artificial rose gold chaos sticking out at all angles with frizzes galore from her mad dash inside to avoid the rain but beneath the curtain of bush like hair, there was a soul hiding away from the world nestled into her crossed forearms, the soul of a suffering woman with a broken, battered and beaten heart.

A loud and messy sobbing echoed through the candle lit room. The warm light bounced softly from the pale pink walls, casting a warmed glow over the woman at her desk. Her shoulders shook in place and her face lay buried into her arms, although they did little to muffle the sound of her heartache and pain wracking through her like aftershocks. She looked on over the girl at her desk, as the words began to ring clearer through the cacophony of rain pouring at the windows.

“I’m NEVER going to find a decent man in my LIFE at this rate! Why have I been cursed like this?! What did I do to deserve this?!” Her sobs tore through her already fragile and shaking speech as easily as if it were wet, sopping paper and her thick salty tears rolled in a continuous trickle.

Wicked coughs shook the woman from the inside out, as She looked on with a deep pang of sadness at seeing the girl so pained and worn by life. The tears of the woman in pain made their way down her rounded cheeks, forming small puddles on the worn wood desk beneath her.

“Fear not young one,” She cooed to the woman, brushing a lock of her hair from her face. “Not all hope is lost. All you must do is ask, ask and I will provide.” Although She knew that the woman would not hear her voice, could not hear her voice, She let the comfort of her words hang in the air with their magic and drape over the woman to give her some warmth, a moment of solace and respite amidst the agony. The woman’s shoulders shuddered once more and finally stilled, and She spared her a soft smile, despite knowing that the woman would not see it.

“I wish I could be heard. I wish someone would actually care and maybe even help me, I’m so lost, so afraid, I don’t want to be like this forever…” The woman trailed off sadly, unaware of her audience, as she picked her head up and stared into the mirror before her.

Her almond shaped eyes that usually radiated warmth, acceptance and welcome were brimming with sadness, loneliness and tears. Her cheeks were a puffy, angry red from all of her crying, starkly opposed to her faded tan. She noticed that the thick, uneven bands of black completed the look well, born from the long since cried off mascara and eyeliner that stubbornly clung to her cheeks. The woman let out a watery chuckle as she realised she looked like a sad racoon.

“Look, it’s like a sad superhero!” The woman weakly joked to herself, before she sighed hard. “C’mon Luna, you can do it, you can smile!” Luna encouraged herself in the mirror, forcing her tone into something more upbeat and energetic.

Her fingers prodded and pulled at her cheeks, perhaps rougher than she ought to have done, She noted to herself with mild concern, in an attempt to manually twist her visage into one that showed her usual bubbly, happy self.

Despite all of her holding and pinching, wrangling and positioning, no amount of her physical intervention could disguise the pain in her eyes, from herself, and from her watcher. Luna’s lips trembled weakly at their corners as she attempted to force a smile onto her face without the aid of her fingers, and her eyes filled with fresh tears once more as her expression crumpled once more to show her raw hurt.

“I just want to love and be truly loved in return, without the guy being the WORST type of person, That’s really all. It isn’t too much to ask, is it?”

She gazed upon Luna with a soft smile, and rested her hand gently on Luna’s shoulder, watching them both together in the mirror. She supported Luna from behind as Luna slowly relaxed and unknowingly leaned into her touch.

“Speak child, tell me what ails you to such a state” She murmured with barely a whisper in the wind, trailing her soft finger across Luna’s cheek and capturing her in a subtle spell. In the renewed silence, Luna began talking animatedly once more.

“I’m just…SO sick of the dating pool, and how hard it is to find a ‘decent’ guy, just to find they aren’t even half way decent at all! Adrian cheated on me, with my BROTHER of all people! I get Daniel is handsome but really?! My own brother?! I know Daniel didn’t KNOW I was dating the guy but Adrian damn well knew him from my pictures! Rich tore through my savings like a lawnmower through a field of balloons would you believe it, Jared told me ‘You would look so much better if you lost weight’ every morning instead of ‘How are you?’ Or even a ‘Good morning’ as if HE himself were some sort of supermodel which I can very readily assure you he was not, David was a love rat who used me to cheat on his wife, his WIFE! I was mortified when I found out, He told me he was an unattached bachelor and the only thing that tipped me off was a damn tan line on his ring finger! ‘An unfortunate scar’ my ass! and Michael… Oh Michael….” Luna’s tears started once more as she snarled at her reflection unconsciously.

“That dirty rat BASTARD left me to rot with an STI test thrown at my head and a sneer after everything he did to me, all the girls he fucked and SPREAD DISEASES TO AND FROM HOUSES IN EVERY STREET LIKE THE LOCAL CHLAMYDIA POSTMAN, The day I see him again it will be too soon! I was worried I was going to be the most infected person in history and that is NOT what I want a world record for!” Luna’s watcher hardened her gaze as She stroked the tears from Luna’s cheeks with a featherlight touch, knowing Luna would be too far gone under her spell to notice the comfort.

“And what would you do, were you able to, child?” She spoke once more, with her harshness lacing her words with promise, turning comforts that had been gently flowing and flowery into words of intention as sharp as the roses’ thorns.

“To Michael? Hell, to any of them… Nothing. He’s not worth my time, and neither are the rest of those assholes, and I’m sure his consequences will eventually reach him, there’s no need for me to act.” She smiled warmly at Luna’s head as she ran her fingers softly over her hair with a featherlike ghost of a motherly touch.

After a lull and pause in the girl’s admissions, She opened her lips to continue her questioning of Luna further-

“If I were able to, I guess I’d like to help people, on a real and meaningful level, y’know?” Luna volunteered freely. “Sure I’d love romance and love to meet someone and experience the whole thing, have a good time and make memories but… I’d really love to help find happiness for others as well, I have a lot of love to give, in a lot of different ways. But for right now?”

She paused abruptly with her soft pouty lips just ever so slightly parted into a smile as Luna let her torrent of thoughts bubble through her once more. Luna sighed heavily with her eyes half closed, unconsciously leaning into her touch.

“Well… Right now, I’d quite like to drown my sorrows in a tub of cookie dough ice cream and maybe a wine or three, and I think that’s EXACTLY what I’m going to do.” Quick as a flash, She removed her hand from Luna’s shoulder and stepped to one side to watch her return to her usual self. Luna righted herself in place, her eyes regained their usual sharp focus. With a soft, weary smile, she used her palms resting on the table to push herself up with a hearty spring.

Luna finally managed to put her smile onto her face and abruptly span on her heel to turn to leave the room.

As Luna bounced out the room with a renewed sense of vigour and a spring to her step, her curls swung wildly behind her all the while. The room was silent once more aside from the howling winds and pattering rain outside the window, and She took to Luna’s vacated seat and perched, deep in thought.

She cast her warm gaze over the décor, slowly stroking the spines of the conch shell with her perfectly matte manicured fingertip, She was pleased to see the ruby red of her nail standing out strongly against the shining blush pink of the shell. Luna's efforts would not be ignored.

“Don’t you worry, little Luna,” She started slowly, letting a slow smile stretch across her face as the idea stuck her, “I think I know just the thing to aid your weary heart. Leave it all to me.”.

With that whispered promise that crackled ominously as it hung in the air with its sheer intentions, She vanished into a soft pink smoke with a glint of humour shining in her eyes and an almost mischievous smile stretched across her face jubilantly, just as quickly as She had arrived. This, was going to be fun.

Not a moment too soon, Luna reappeared in her room, pushing the door open with a well aimed kick that left her staggering in place. She recovered her balance luckily without dropping any of her precious emotional-recovery cargo; A bottle of Lambrusco under one arm with her laptop held tightly under the other, and her prize, her cookie dough ice-cream held precariously yet preciously by her stretched out fingertips clasping round its top with a spoon jammed between the lid and her hand.

Luna tiptoed through the minefield she called her bedroom with great care, dodging the scattered tripping hazards left in her wake from the morning… or night before.

Discarded crumpled clothes and pillows she had yet to tidy away were the terrain obstacles she avoided gingerly on the balls of her feet, with her arms glued to her side awkwardly. Luna dodged the dress she wore for her date earlier that evening, and dipped well past her abandoned too-strappy-for-comfort heels.

She caught her breath as her toe smacked with a resounding thud into the bedside table, damage at the final hurdle almost causing Luna to drop her precious load with a flinch.

That was definitely going to bruise, she mused to herself, but Luna kept her head and finally, she arrived at her bed. Luna crowed in relief at having made it without tripping or breaking something. She smiled and cheered to herself, all traces of her broken heart temporarily forgotten in the shine of her little victory.

Luna popped the still safe and shut ice cream onto the bed, beside her laptop and gently placed the lambrusco on the bedside table with a relieved sigh. Success at last, with no casualties! At least something could go right tonight! She turned to begin looking for her abandoned nightie from the night before, but while looking for its soft satin, a sparkle in the carpet caught her eye.

“When did I drop body glitter? We didn’t even go out this week yet and I hoovered three days ago…” Luna narrowed her eyes and took a step closer, bending to reach her hand out to the glitter to see exactly how bad the damage was, but she failed to recognise the bump to her side. Luna leaned in, dismissing the bump again and-

she heard a loud pop originating from her bed. Luna tore her attention back to the nest of pillows and soft pinks that was now decidedly wet in sheer, abject horror.

“Oh shit the bed and shit it twice, not the booze!” Luna cried out in dismay as she pounced forward to collect the now heavily leaking bottle before the wine destroyed her laptop, or even worse, her solace, the ice cream. She just managed to upright the bottle with fumbling fingers and a heavy heart after half of the wine had emptied itself, all over her fluffy den. I suppose no casualties was too much to ask for, but please don't be broken I've only just got it fixed! she whined internally as she hurriedly collected her items for a solid look over, but at least her laptop looked untouched.

The Ice cream's paper pot however was definitely dampened, but no matter, it could be a speed eating challenge. With a relieved sigh, Luna's eyes fell on her bed and her jaw dropped.

“Are you serious?! I JUST changed my bedding last night!” Luna whinged loudly, grumbling to herself furiously as she carefully placed the remainder of the bottle on the bedside table, far enough back to NOT fall once more, and popped her laptop and Ice cream on her desk chair.

She quickly busied herself with stripping the sheets, with a heavy dose of grumbling and agitation as she ran the sheets and her hastily gathered discarded clothes into a bundle. "Well I suppose if I needed a reason to actually clean up after myself, I guess I got it." Luna sarcastically mused under her breath.

Luna ran the lot downstairs to the washing machine in a huff, of course it had been too much to ask that after her most recent dating disaster she could have an easy evening. Luna absentmindedly tugged last night’s towel out of the bundle and tossed onto the newest stain on the now bare mattress’ collection of mishap caused patches.

The shimmering glow that had sat in the carpet vanished much like its creator, fully forgotten.