LJ Idol Week 17 (3 of 5): Fatberg

[flipflop_diva]

Charlotte Normandy had known all her life that the town of Fatberg was the last place on earth she should ever go. Which was fine, because there was no reason on earth anyone should ever need to go to Fatberg in the first place, at least according to her parents.

“It’s just a clog in the way of decent people,” her mother always said, mostly when guests pointed to the horizon and the flumes of red smoke that would often be seen coming from the east where Fatberg resided.

“They should just burn the whole thing to the ground,” her father would often add. According to him, there were no decent people in Fatberg. Just criminals, liars and human garbage. It was why, he would say, there was a wall surrounding the city. Because the people there shouldn’t be let out and no sane person would ever want to get in.

That always made sense to Charlotte. After all, she had never met a person from Fatberg, even though she had met people from all the other towns in the surrounding area, mostly at the downtown diner that made the best milkshakes in all the land (as the sign that hung above the door claimed, and Charlotte was pretty sure you couldn’t hang a sign if it wasn’t true).

Plus, there were always weird things happening in Fatberg. Besides the red smoke that seemed to pop up a lot, Charlotte had sometimes seen flashes of light above the town when she and her parents had passed by via the highway that came within two miles of its border.

“They didn’t dare put the highway any closer,” her mother once told her. “They couldn’t risk the blight of that place infecting other places.” She had shuddered as she spoke.

Charlotte had always thought it was fascinating that there didn’t seem to be any roads leading into or out of Fatberg.

“Don’t they drive?” she once asked.

“Of course not!” her father had said, horrified that she had even broached the topic. “We don’t want those people infecting the rest of us!”

Charlotte hadn’t been sure how that really answered the question, but she decided maybe they only picked prisoners who didn’t have their licenses to live there. Maybe prisoners who did drive had their own special town somewhere else.

She also decided the prisoners and everything they needed to live must arrive at the town by helicopter instead of car, so they didn’t have to open any gates. She had never seen any helicopters above the town, but she had never seen any cars drive toward it either, and it just didn’t make sense that nothing went in or out.

“Charlotte, the less you know about that place the better,” her dad said the time she tried to explain her theory to him. “Those are not people you ever want to interact with.”

Charlotte figured her father was right. After all, he was the grown-up and she was just a child. And her parents would never lie to her.

But all of that changed the year Charlotte Normandy turned sixteen. Her parents didn’t change their story any, and she didn’t believe her parents any less, but something odd started to happen.

Every night when Charlotte went to bed in her room that faced the same direction as Fatberg, she began to see lights and colors in the sky. Swirls of blue, curls of red, sparkles of green and orange. Like a display of fireworks without the noise, lighting up the world below it.

No one else in her life ever mentioned the colors. Not her parents or her friends or her teachers at school. Once she mentioned it to Tina Needleman, whose own bedroom faced the same direction as Charlotte’s, but Tina just stared at her blankly and like she thought Charlotte must be crazy. Charlotte thought maybe Tina just went to bed too early and missed it.

But along with the nightly light display came something else. It started small, with just a thought, but then it grew and grew until it couldn’t be denied. Charlotte Normany needed to get inside Fatberg. She needed to see what was behind those walls. Just once. Just for a few minutes. But she needed to. It felt like her destiny.

Charlotte didn’t like the thought of disobeying her parents, but she knew she couldn’t tell them what she wished. They would never allow it and would only remind her of how Fatberg was not a place anyone should ever go. But what could a minute or two hurt?

It took a long time for her to actually build up the courage, but by then, she felt like she was going to pop out of her skin. The desire was so strong, it was almost all she could think of. It was an itch she needed to scratch, a glass of water she needed to drink.

She waited until past midnight when her parents were deep asleep before sneaking out. The lights over Fatberg were brighter than ever. So bright she didn’t even need a flashlight.

Their neighbor, who had lived beside her parents since before Charlotte was born, had an old car he never locked. The keys were inside the glove compartment where he had kept them since he bought the car.

“I never lose them this way!” he had once told Charlotte, quite proudly. Back then, she had thought her neighbor was really, really smart. On this night, she was just really, really thankful.

The old car started up right away, quiet as could be in the still night, as if it had been waiting for her to take it out for this very reason. She pulled on to the highway that was just yards from Charlotte’s house and her neighbor’s house, pointing her car in the direction of Fatberg.

Fatberg didn’t have an exit off the highway, but as Charlotte approached the town, she noticed there was construction on the side of the road, construction that had conveniently left a hole in the perfect place for her to reach Fatberg. She turned off the road, right on to a dirt road she had never noticed before in all her years of driving past with her parents. She thought maybe it just wasn’t noticeable from the highway.

She stopped the car a couple feet from the giant stone wall that surrounded Fatberg. There was no gate that she could see, no door indicating an entrance. But there had to be some way in.

She walked up to the giant stone wall. The light display above the town was even brighter now, if that were possible. She stared up at it, almost mesmerized by the beauty. And for a moment she wondered how a place so awful could produce something so amazing.

She reached out to touch the cool stone. It was hard under her fingers. She placed her full palm against it, then did the same with her other hand.

It was almost as if the stone began to melt away. She felt it soften, loosen.

She should have been scared. She should have screamed and raced back to the car. She should have driven home and never looked back.

Instead she walked through, calm and sure of what she was doing.

There were a crowd of people on the other side of the wall, standing in clumps. Mothers, fathers, children. They smiled as Charlotte appeared before them, almost as if they had been waiting for her.

She looked them over. They were dressed in bright colors. Their hair were shades of turquoise and pink and purple. They didn’t look horrible or mean or like they were evil.

They looked like they had been waiting for her, like they were happy to see her.

The crowd parted slightly and an old woman, with long pink hair, stepped through. Her blue eyes crinkled behind her glasses. She held what looked like a gorgeously carved stick in her hand.

She walked up to Charlotte, reached out a wrinkled hand.

“Welcome, Charlotte, dear,” she said, in a kindly voice. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“You’ve been waiting for me?” Charlotte repeated.

“Of course we have,” the woman said, and she smiled at Charlotte. “You are my granddaughter. And the one witch who is going to save us all.”







fiction.
though i've always wanted to be a witch. a good one, of course.




Thank you for reading! This was written for Week 17 of the therealljidol. We each had to write five entries this week. If you would like to read the entries from the other contestants, you can find them here!

Comments

[babydramatic_1950]

This is wonderful! A wonderful story on its own, but also a wonderful metaphor, considering all the talk about walls lately.

[rayaso]

What a great story! I was certainly not expecting the end. I, too, thought it was going to relate to current politics. It would be interesting to see how she saves them. Is this part of a series?

[itsjust_c]

What an enjoyable story! I, too, was not expecting that end. I thought it was either going to be related to current US politics or thought she had somehow died on her journey to Fatberg.

[halfshellvenus]

There IS always that possibility, isn't there? That instead of the other culture being terribly 'bad,' yours is repressive or some kind of cult, and that's the one that's bad!

[sonreir]

Ooh, I want to know what happens next! Well-written! :D

[dmousey]

This was right up my alley! I love creating tales such as this, well done! 😊🐁✌🐭🎀