The Jar of Jealousy

That nasty little mind-worm wouldn’t stop writhing. Melanie wanted it to go away, but it wouldn’t. It seemed to bore holes, but then not to have bored them, because it needed to do so again. She was jealous. She was jealous of Vivienne, and she couldn’t help it. Vivienne was her best friend, her most steadfast friend, the friend who put up with her moods and her singularities and had, so far as she could recall, never spoken a word in anger to her, but she was jealous of her.

     For the first time she was beginning to see why relationships between the two communities were discouraged. There had been a time when they were completely forbidden, but that was past now, even though some people thought that the government should have had the courage and sense of responsibility to be unpopular when people’s welfare was at stake. They were even allowed to marry and to have what Melanie’s grandmother called “conjugals” with each other, raising an eloquent eyebrow that said she wasn’t going to appear intolerant, but that didn’t mean she approved.  Such relationships were almost always unable to produce children, which was probably as well, and on the rare occasions that they did, the child had always been either one thing or the other, which was probably also as well.

     Or maybe the powers that be were just being pragmatic. It had been going on for years, for decades, anyway. Ever since – well, ever since it became relevant, though that was a confused and troubled time that it was best not to think about too much.

     It was generally thought best not to acknowledge that it had not always been the case, that there had been a time before the two communities. As if, if people didn’t think about it and didn’t mention it for long enough, it would cease to be.

     But Melanie wasn’t in the mood for such deep thoughts at the moment. There were the two communities and that was that. Some called them the Magics and the Tragics, but that was officially discouraged as periodically some spokesperson with a fixed smile and a honeyed voice would make a speech stressing that both were of absolutely equal value and nobody should think otherwise. The semi-official and sanctioned term was the Spellers and the Tellers. The spellers were the ones with the powers, the ones who could click fingers and nod heads and swirl round and make things happen or not happen. Of course the clicking and the nodding and the swirling weren’t necessary, they were either there for dramatic effect, or perhaps as a courtesy for notification purposes. The tellers were the ones who did not have such powers, whose genetic line had not been effected by that strange business that happened in the atomic power station all those decades ago, and who were duty bound to report the events, both banal and dramatic, that went on around them. Melanie was not unaware of the irony of the double meaning of the word to spell as the tellers most definitely had to be able to spell, too, though of course it didn’t matter nearly as much as it used to. The spellers and the tellers generally had other jobs, too, and theoretically they were open to everyone, but that was another one of those things it was good manners not to talk about but knew perfectly well – there were jobs that Spellers would not want to do, and jobs that Tellers would be considered less capable of doing.

     They did not dress differently, but most people, in either community, weren’t fooled. You knew.

     Melanie and Vivienne had been pupils at the same mixed school. Melanie’s parents had argued about that, her mother saying it was fine at junior school, but after that it was best to face things as they were in the real world and not to pretend otherwise. But her father put his foot down, especially as she pleaded not to be separated from Vivienne.

     They were in the vacation before their last term at high school now. Melanie’s parents expected her to help out in the home, and with her little brother Cyrus, but had excused her from having a holiday job. After this there were her exams, then helping out at the youth camp, then university, then the adult world. 

     This should have been a golden and glorious time. And Melanie knew it. She was young and healthy, her family loved her dearly, and she’d never lacked for friends. 

     But Vivienne had always been her special friend, although both of them had other friends too and weren’t cliqueish. Still they had something both of them cherished and had always said that business about Magics and Tragics or Spellers and Tellers would never make an electron of difference to them. 

     After all, she thought, the sun shone just the same on Spellers and Tellers, and welcome or unwelcome rain fell on both of them, and they both could smell the same scent of the spring flowers, and see the same moon and stars, and hear the same music.

     Well, that wasn’t strictly speaking true. The Spellers, particularly the very good ones (because all Spellers were not created equal, and though there were some things all of them could do, there were others only some could do, and even then some easily and some only with practice) could affect the elements. They weren’t supposed to, or only (and that only applied to adults in positions of responsibility of course!) except with official sanction and in cases of dire emergency.

     Melanie could still clearly remember the rumpus at school when a Speller called Raymond got it into his head that winter was his favourite season, but he loved light mornings and long days, so there was no reason why he couldn’t combine the two. And he did. At least in passing. And to tell the truth he wasn’t the only one who was quite enchanted by sparkling snow seen in the light of a small hours sunrise. But it wouldn’t do, of course. The whole school was called together for a serious talk. There was no point to pretending it hadn’t happened as many of those there had witnessed it, and everyone had heard about it, and Raymond, whether naïve or boasting or both, had clearly announced his intention of doing it.  The lecture (and their headmistress, whom they called Magistra Emma came into her own on such occasions) was delivered more in sorrow than in anger, as she reminded the Spellers of their especial responsibility, and the Tellers that it was far, far better to have no powers at all than to abuse them purely for one’s childish self-gratification. But she had been seen drinking in the scene as well! Anyway, Raymond was sent to a school for the Specially Gifted, and though that sounded very impressive, Spellers resolved to be on their best behaviour to avoid such a fate, and Tellers were relieved they didn’t have to bother about it. 

     That was 3 years ago now. Melanie realised that she was already beginning to find that time passed more quickly than it used to. She had to remind herself that Cyrus – who was a good kid – wasn’t being bratty and awkward when he said “But that’s FOREVER,” when told that he couldn’t go to Auntie Mina’s house in the country that weekend but could the next. 

     She was also realising that things used to be far more simple. There wasn’t this jar of jealousy. It seemed to be both in a jar, like that worm in her mind, and to be a jar, a jolt, a jerk out of happiness. But there’s no point to pretending otherwise, she thought, climbing up the hill that some hopeful cartographer had named Unity Hill. She WAS jealous of Vivienne. Of course it wasn’t Vivienne’s fault, and she would do her best not to let it show, but it was there. 

     That friction between the two communities. That awkwardness. That resentment.

     She tried to think of happy things. Of the view that she would enjoy from the summit. Of the rainbow she had seen that morning as the morning shower softened to a glistening dew, and there was the sweet, fresh smell of rain on grass. It had a name, petrichor, which Melanie thought was a beautiful word. And yes, she would have liked Vivienne to be by her side looking at the rainbow and the dew and breathing in the scent, and wondered if she were outside her own home, doing just the same. She wouldn’t have been surprised.

     But it would have MEANT so much more to Vivienne, she thought! And that is why I envy her and why this worm of jealousy is boring its holes in my mind even though I am willing it to go away. Because there are things I cannot do.

     There were things she could, and many times over, and with no great difficulty. She could have willed a hundred rainbows into the sky every day, and right now, she could just click, or not click her fingers, and she would be at the top of Unity Hill, with no effort whatsoever. Because, although she was careful not to get in trouble like Raymond, she knew she was skilled well beyond the average. 

     Yes, it IS cruel to talk about the Magics and the Tragics, thought Melanie. And it is all wrong. But at the same time, it is right.

     Because Vivienne, and the other Tellers, would always have far more magic in their lives than she, and the other Spellers, ever would. They would never see rainbows and the morning dew and the view from the summit of a hill as banal and mundane things, accessible any second without any effort or waiting of hoping. 

     She had an absurd thought. Would it be possible to use magic to banish magic?

     In the end she decided she was too afraid to risk it. At least not yet. She was aware that it might make what Raymond did look like a bit of kindergarten mischief.

     But she knew she would spend her whole life with that thought fattening the worm. Even in glorious sunlight on a heather-strewn hilltop.