All Hallows

It was past 9 o'clock when the carriage arrived. Silver four-wheel-drive – not a hint of the other thing about it – blasting dubious dubstep at a volume that made conversation mercifully impossible. She'd cobbled together her costume in the hour before: mouldy black top from the goth days at the back of the wardrobe, dykey more-pockets-than-shorts, barely passing muster in response to the unequivocal phone call just on the brink of too late: You SHALL go to the ball.

It would never do. Something more was needed, some sparkle that she couldn't find.

It was the Ice-Queen who pulled it out of the hat, swooping down in a cloud of glitter like some glammed-up deus ex machina, arms full of lotions and potions, ready to make some magic. She (or he, according to official identity records and the determined ignorance of the Thai government) had powers all of her own. Not a post-Freudian wand in sight; just some sort of alchemy with eye make-up and determination, effecting a transformation more worthy of the occasion (already she was feeling more capable of syllables; clawing her way along the edges of the gutter). She knew at once that she was in good hands: she read it in the down-turned corners of the Lady(boy)'s smile, the glint of mischief in her eyes, the deftness with which she handled the eyebrow pencil.

And soon it was done, and she was smiling for the camera, affecting the appropriate wicked grin. Can't cry now, anyway; you'll smudge your eyeliner. The thought had that sinking feeling in it, like a dropped ice cream melting in the summer sun. She would have to reign it in, that creature from the cracks in the pavement. Tonight someone else entirely was called for.

The Ice-Queen made the finishing touches, and then flew her down the road on her pink motorbike to await collection. She only had to loiter under the streetlight on the corner for a few moments, laughing to herself to let everyone know that it was all in jest. Then he pulled up in his silver chariot, and it was time to become...

DOCTOR INTOXICATION!

...and his sidekick...

THE (counting) CROWESS!

...no...

CRAZY CLOWN!

...no...

...well, the name would have to wait. She was only the sidekick, after all. And her usual moniker had too much of the fireplace about it.

So back to the dulcet tones of dubstep as they careened through streets she would never have found on her own (they would all have turned themselves around, she knew it; she wouldn't have made it past the first 7/11, and then the Chang, straight on til morning; oneway).

They were the first to arrive on the scene. Their mission: to turn this house into a party, using only good British humour and alcohol and hope (the former being a somewhat dubious choice of implement in a room full of Americans). She didn't feel up to it at all, to be honest. Felt like crawling back into some crack or corner and waiting for it all to blow over. But she loaded their ammunition into the fridge anyway while he prepared his shots: syringes full of Sang Som and cranberry to inoculate against faux pas and take the pain away. He poured a glass of the same mix for them to share, that small but palpable gesture of compassion, meting out her medicine: not too little, not too much. She didn't need her to make an appearance tonight, not in full force: whatever the occasion, she was not invited. But she still needed just enough of her edge to get through this, that glimmer of broken glass, damaged and dazzling. Quod me nutrit me destruit. So suck it up slow, one eye on the dark figure taking shape in the ashes...

No. That wasn't the narrative she needed. She was not, tonight, that burnt-out shell of soot and recriminations. She was...

But there were others arriving now at last. Zombies and fairies and pirates and a deer. Even V verily vaunted his visage, though painted black – another dark passenger? - the beauty of a mask is that you'll never know. It took the pressure off of her disguise. She kept to the sidelines, sipping life's-blood from a shared glass, watching as one by one they slid into the slipstream of the evening and left her behind. Halloween alienation in a fuck-load of eyeliner. She played that part well, at least. Years of practice.

You want to hear a horror story? So, hey, when I was fifteen...

Not a conversation starter. Not even in her head. Taste of ash and bile at the back of her throat. Never been good at parties. Shouldn't have come.

She needed a beer to wash it away. But she slipped the bottle-top into her pocket, anyway, in case she needed to retrace her steps. Drifting from room to room, she tried to lock on to a conversation, find the right frequency, but she couldn't seem to tune in: something about necessary blood alcohol levels and consciousness needing to be sunk deep in a bottle (whatever the tattoo said – the irony was never lost on the ensuing hangover). And what was that quote? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. But wasn't repetition also part of the learning process? Like riding a bike: there were only so many times you could fall before you started getting it right, before the muscle memory kicked in and kept you balancing, made the whole thing seem less precarious, more like common sense.

That was it: she needed to regain the muscle memory for conversation. Hold eye contact (but not too long); articulate without intimidating; throw in some reflex humour; stretch creaking sinews of positivity to make them less brittle, less prone to snap.

Be here now.

So easy to think it. So hard to actually do. She was more inclined to inhabit multiple timezones; an insurance policy against ever being truly alone. Just like that, she could shoot off a metatextual side-note to a comrade amigo celebrating half a century on the other side of the planet, and know that, somewhere, her lacklustre performance was being forgiven by someone who could see what was tangling the strings.

But the sympathy vote was not what she wanted tonight. It was time for some new resolutions. She set her better self to the task in hand.

The ensuing note from Head Office read as follows:

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

• Phase 1: initiate positive social interaction
• Phase 2: make convincing approximation of small talk (note: this should not include political commentary, prophecies of the eco-apocalypse, or intimate revelations of personal psychodrama)
• Phase 3: disengage at mutual convenience, without bitterness or rejection paranoia
• Repeat as necessary

It was written in a hand that resembled her mother's. No real surprises there. And how hard could it be? Just like riding a bike: throw yourself into the flow, don't think about falling, have some faith in the universe, and...

“Hey, how's it going?”

She turned around to see Hunter S. Thompson smiling at her, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

“My name's Johnny,” he said.

The universe apparently still had a sense of humour.

Phase 1 complete.

Phase 2 seeming like less of a challenge already...

“So who are you supposed to be?”

The inevitable question rolled around. She could hear teeth grinding in her brain. Keep it light. Keep it spinning. No vendettas, no agendas.

“I didn't really get that far,” she replied, carefully. “Wasn't sure I was going to make it tonight”.

“Well, we'll have to come up with a name for you,” he said. “Something feline. Catwoman? Nah, too cliché...”

He tossed her some suggestions, and she tried them on, gave them a whirl, but nothing quite seemed to fit. She liked the idea of remaining anonymous, but as he pointed out, it made introductions a bit difficult. In the end they settled on a compromise.

“CAT NINJA,” he said. “It's got the feline, and the fight”.

She accepted it gratefully: “Cat Ninja it is”. Not quite the shape or weight she was looking for, but it was something to run with, and beggars can't always be choosers. It seemed at last her costume was complete.

Phase 3: disengage – handled smoothly, with a smile, and good odds of their paths crossing again.

Mission accomplished.

Time for another beer.

The rest of the evening increasingly became a blur, commensurate with the bottle-tops in her pocket and the shots administered by the good Doctor himself. She got caught up in conversation with Captain Phillips and Oliver Twist; she fended off advances from a French-speaking pumpkin; she shared a cigarette with a bar of soap, and snuck off into the bedroom for cuddles with the kittens. She even persuaded V to part with his mask, though she did breach Head Office protocol in the process: the politics of the personal, the personal apocalypse, the apocalyptic environment of politics, or all of the above – it was hard, when you thought about it, to disentangle one from the others, especially after a good amount of Sang Som. And at some point she found herself telling the Doctor a story about the sound of wings, but the party reclaimed him before she could finish. No one wants real horror on Halloween, anyway. Demons come wrapped up in black and orange and coated in candy; devils in low-cut dresses with plastic pitchforks and red-lipped smiles; the tacit reassurance that all our dark passengers can be dressed up pretty and dragged into the light.

She'd had enough. It was time to hit the pool, glow-sticks and underwear and neuroses and all; time to make the most of those moments before midnight, before it all fell apart and the carriage came to take her away. Hunter S. was already there. But back-flips were easier than making conversation. So she flung herself off the diving board again and again, splashing back into the slipstream as if it was the simplest thing in the world. Like riding a bike. Or falling off the wagon. Some things have their own rhythm. It's all about trust. Just don't look over your shoulder, don't allow yourself to see what it is that you're doing; just forget yourself for a while, don't let yourself intrude.

Just like that. And she was catapulted into the moment. Glow-sticks and underwear. No recriminations. She didn't even realise how much her make-up had run. But of course, in the end, it was time to go home, with laughter still catching at the back of her throat and a smile that she could feel all the way to her toes. It was past midnight, and the sun had finally come out in her head, on the brink of too late: she'd finally made it to the ball.

 It took a while to locate her flip-flops – she was forever losing her shoes – but at last she had everything and was ready to go. The carriage was waiting, towels draped over the seats, the good Doctor sat patiently in the driver's seat ready to fire up the dubstep and take them both home. She climbed aboard and gave him a little piece of her smile, as much as she could spare: the rest she knew she'd need for herself, and for her, to light up all the dark corners where she liked to hide. Sooner or later the sun would go in again, in her head, after all. She had to let it shine, when she could, to give things time to grow. Like any garden, it was always a work in progress. Growing trees from ashes took time. So she smiled, and shared her smile as best she could, and hoped that the sun would still be there in the morning, to keep the smile going when she woke up.

 A little blessing was all that was needed, really. And it was All Saints Day, after all.