My Mutilated Valentine

Trixie the Pixie is having a bad Valentine's Day

Trixie the Pixie was very sad. Her secret crush was already taken for Valentine's Day. Trixie's best friend forever, Barbie, had asked the mystery man to dinner at her Malibu Mansion.

Trixie the Pixie

Trixie contemplated where she'd gone wrong. When had she missed her chance, she wondered. Was the single dead rose she'd sent him not a symbol of affection? Was the red-ribboned silk pouch of her toenail clippings not a totem of amorous intent? The candle of earwax had not beguiled her beau with its musky scent?

Trixie the Pixie flew up to her apartment in the big evergreen in the corner of the backyard. After a long bath, she looked hard into her bathroom mirror. "If both voodoo and hoodoo failed," she reasoned, "it must be my looks." Trixie was not ugly, but her stomach coiled at the thought of Barbie's perfect polystyrene figure. A little make-up goes a long way, she thought, penciling in darker eyelashes.

Mascara was a start, but Trixie had always hated how the mould lines on her body ruined her skin's jaundiced complexion. She reached for a sculpting knife.

I thought I had a toy knife from one of my other action figures. Sucks that I had to make do with this crappy one.

Better. Much better, she mused. Her wings fluttered slightly. "Hmph," Trixie frowned. "Barbie doesn't have wings. I don't want them either." Swik swak went the knife.

Her thoughts--and the blade--moved faster now. Not thin enough. Shoulders are too wide. Knees too knobby. She cut, and she cut deep.

Before Trixie lost consciousness on her bathroom floor, her doorbell rang. She crawled to a window to see her caller. Down, down at the base of the big evergreen in the corner of the backyard was a doorbell. Next to the bell was a man holding a red-ribboned silk pouch. Trixie slid back down to the floor, longing to fly into his arms. Her left wing lay a few feet from the toilet, still and bleeding.