Letters from the Other Side of the Rain.

Dear Humanity,

My sestina addiction has worn off. It's sonnets, now. I wrote two last night. Also, a short story about Sweeney Todd and a girl of indeterminate identity. The girl of indeterminate identity will be a constant in her own series. I shall call them the GOII series, because acronyms are nice. For questions regarding the identity of the GOII, please see disclaimer.

And now, the sonnets.

Poor Butterfly

Poor butterfly, poor butterfly, flying
Alone to Mecca or Jerusalem.
Poor butterfly, to loved ones goodbying
You cannot stop your flight to embrace them.
Poor butterfly, poor butterfly, who lost
The one to whom she'd given all herself
Poor butterfly, who did not know the cost
Who must now put her joy upon a shelf.
Poor butterfly, poor butterfly, waiting
For a change in the wind, from frigid gusts
Poor butterfly, naught is her thirst sating
Patiently she struggles on, as she must.
Poor butterfly, poor butterfly, won't cry
Or even sigh. What now, poor butterfly?

Sophisticated Lady

Sophisticated lady, sophisticated lady, where
Did you get that dress drenched in diamond booze
And what of the jewels? And why do we care?
Sophisticated lady, smear your rouge.
Sophisticated lady, sophisticated lady, you
Got to go out tonight, make an entrance
You're the life of the party, can't be blue
Sophisticated lady's gotta dance.
Sophisticated lady, sophisticated lady, when
You're tearing up the floor, you'll be okay
Or at the very least, you can pretend.
Sophisticated lady, whatya say?
Sophisticated lady, perfume on.
Pretend it doesn't matter that he's gone.

---

Also, a sort of Pledge of Allegiance. Sort of.

Sledging's Obeisance

Please stand.

I plead ebuliance
Two queens, ragged
In a mighty state of hysteria
So hyperbolic, the witches stand
A consumnation, under sod
Life unlivable
In kibbutsing and mustang's
Thrall.

You may be seated.

---

Sweeney Todd and the Girl of Indeterminate Identity

"Hello," said the girl, and stepped inside.

"Hello," said Sweeney Todd. "Have you come to make an appointment for your father?" She shook her head, mouse-brown hair stiffly rustling. "Or perhaps you have a young man needing his first shave, eh?"

"I haven't got a young man," she replied, "or a father, really. If I did I wouldn't be here. No, what I want is different. I want somewhere to sit and sew, and a place by the fire, and a person around who doesn't chatter like teeth on a cold London morning." She shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her thick black coat.

"Please, have a seat," said Sweeney Todd.

---

"Who's she, then?" asked the gentleman in the barber's chair.

"Oh. She's my apprentice," answered Sweeney Todd absently, mixing the lather.

"A girl? A young little girl?" The gentlemen looked up, alarmed. "'Ey, Mister Todd. Is there something nasty going on 'ere?"

Sweeney Todd glanced at the girl sitting on the chest of drawers. She was embroidering. It seemed to be all she ever did, save scribbling in a tiny memorandum book. Reminding herself to - what? He did not know.

"Of course there is nothing nasty," said Sweeney Todd, and slit the gentleman's throat.

---

It had been a long time since the girl had materialized on Sweeney Todd's doorstep, gripping, white-knuckled, her embroidery ring, her body buried inside the thick black coat that never came off. Sweeney Todd sometimes idly wondered what there was beneath that coat, but he didn't say a word.

It had been a long time, and now the girl was standing in front of him with a piece of cloth, upon which was unexpertly embroidered the alphabet, and the numbers one through ten. "It was my first," she said. "I was losing myself between the stitches. I did it to be doing it, not to have done it. But here it is, if you want it."

Sweeney Todd did not move. "You want something of me in return," he said.

"True," she replied. "I do not give without reciprocation. I learned that lesson only recently."

"What do you want, then?"

"Teach me how to. . ." Her eyes flickered over the blood on the floor from this morning's customer. ". . .shave men."

Sweeney Todd looked at the girl for a long time. He looked at her face. Strong and metallic, but fearful and soft about the mouth. He looked at her body with the dispassionate of one who has become assexual through grief. She was not beautiful. But she was - what was the word? The same had applied to Mrs. Lovett. Raw. Undiluted.

Sweeney Todd cocked his head. "Why do you want to learn that?"

"Because. . ." She swallowed the words, then managed to get them back. "Because I fell in love. Because I was taken in by an illusion, that took in the illusionist as well. Because even though the illusion is smoke and mirrors, I still believe in it. Because that illusion was the realest thing I ever knew. Because even though outside the illusionist is gone, he isn't gone inside of me."

"Very touching," said Sweeney Todd.

"Don't mock me," said the girl.

"I wasn't," said Sweeney Todd. "Do you remember what it felt like to be held?"

"I have a memorandum book," replied the girl, and opened it to an early page. As she reread it, Sweeney Todd watched her cheeks redden. "I'm afraid it's a bit high color to read out. . ."

Sweeney Todd's laugh was deep and rumbling, like jovial boulders crashing in an alarming fashion. "Don't worry. I know. And I know that that's what you want back. But you cannot have it." He watched her small face harden. "You cannot. You want to hold a corpse, to feel its warmth - they stay warm for a while, you know - you want to feel hot sticky blood run down your -"

"STOP!" She screamed, rising convulsively from her seat on the chest of drawers. "That's disgusting. That's inhuman."

"On the contrary," said Sweeney Todd. "It is uniquely human."

He walked to the window. An organ grinder was playing in the streets, his monkey dancing on a collar. "Would you like to go down and see the monkey, girl? Girl?" He suddenly realized that he had never asked her name. It had not seemed important. Indeed, she had not seemed to have a name. She had not seemed like a name-having sort of person.

She seemed to know his thoughts. "Don't worry," she said. "Even if you knew it, you couldn't pronounce it. I think that I should like to see the organ grinder. Give me a penny, Mr. Todd, and I'll give you my embroidery."

"All right," he said. "The gentlemen might as well have something to look at as they're. . .shaved."

She laughed then, a sound like a bicycle horn, and turned down the steps, tossing the embroidery over her shoulder. Sweeney Todd flipped the coin towards her, and she caught it. "Goodbye, Mr. Todd."

Sweeney Todd did not say anything. Instead, he listened to her clatter down the stairs, and watched through the window as she lobbed his coin to the grimy organ grinder's equally grimy monkey, who did a tiny dance of pleasure. Then, Sweeney Todd began to tack the embroidery up on the wall, where all his customers could see.

---

The girl knocked the grimy slush of her boots. "I didn't realize it was snowing," she said to the organ grinder, feeling thankful for her thick black coat. "When I went in there it was summer."

"You go een," said the grimy, obviously foreign organ grinder, "who the fuck knows wheen you come out ageen?"

"Good point," said the girl.

"Where you goeeng now?"

"I don't know," said the girl.

"One more questeen."

"Make it quick."

"How old are you?"

She gave a weak smile. "As old as my tongue," she said, "and a little older than my teeth."

With love,
Kat