Muirarret Egierg

Cerise Slate had been living in a Glitch for as long as she was really aware, summer was a good season, but it was always cooler than it should be, the same could be said of winter as it fared warmer.

She'd managed still to find desires appropriate to the season though, and despite the erroneous nature of time and its movements, little Myrtle was born in a textbook manner. Though in line with the glitches' influence nobody could recognize the girl. From conception to the ripe old age of seven, nobody else was able to remember her or any of the things Cerise did as her mother to accommodate her. 

Not the width of her stomach, not the swell of her breast, not the burden of labor. Certainly they all happened, but like the rain that doesn't really fall and the snow that doesn't either, it was all easily forgotten. 

"I wonder why I'm reading this, it's not like there are really four seasons." she pointed out astutely, certainly people acted like there were, but for a little girl like Myrtle how people acted wasn't often a clear analog to what was true. 

Her father hot from a summer that was really rather cold, didn't bother correcting the girl, that was Cerise's job as he'd decided that morning she was tutoring the girl. Like the night before when he'd realized she was babysitting, and that the girl would be picked up soon. 

Cerise had known about the glitch for as long as she could remember, but Myrtle had known at least that most things couldn't manage to be true long enough for everyone else. Luckily the glitchy nature of the world asides from them meant they could live unfettered so long as they didn't bother being honest about it. 

She knows that she's tried before, with Myrtle's father, this worked for a few hours, but ultimately like a punishment for noticing the glitch he'd forgotten. Being aware for most of her life she'd been worried that like a lot of things, it retroactively didn't happen, that her little romance hadn't been and that she wouldn't have to live with it. Like how her mother was dead rather than the one who raised her. Or how often her father's face changed sometimes, his nose or his eyes or his teeth. 

The world outside never matched, but it didn't seem to matter. 

It was relatively peaceful for an outer world that rarely matched anything written about it, something about Thursdays. In any case, Cerise tried to live healthily with her baby even if nobody seemed to realize what she was doing with her life. 

She'd raised her baby in the top drawer of her dresser, then besides her, then wherever made sense, she had to learn how easily money glitched like everything else. But like with everything else, she was a little scared she'd disappear. That Myrtle would suddenly shift like all those other things and simply not be her's.

But then her daughter reminds her, "it makes me sad that grampa doesn't like me." and she remembers how lonely it was to have lost her mother to the glitch, only to be left with an equally glitched father whose changes given age and perspective made her uneasy. 'Cause thats the thing, her mother glitched too, before she disappeared. Certainly everyone does whether they notice or not, but she does, and she wonders "do I glitch too?" will she disappear and leave her little girl who thanks to a million little neglects first knew that glitches were, but also in the mind of a child learned the worse lesson, that this abandonment was of a personal nature, rather than the whim of glitches which didn't care one bit about anyone. Not a single raindrop. No matter the season. 

But since nothing ever fell anyway she'd assumed that things were fine, she'd make dinner like she'd been doing forever, and her daughter would finish whatever she was working on. School work, a picture. And they'd go to bed, which she'd like to believe remained familiar despite them not always being in it. Like how the kitchen wasn't always shifting. 

Sometimes Cerise would dream about what would happen next, a graphic foreboding, the glitches half formed before they inevitably carved out her sense of the world. Other nights, when she'd toss and turn Myrtle would dig her from the empty parts of her mind and remind her there was somebody else that really existed. Because even if she was never certain that the mirrors couldn't change, she wanted to believe that her daughter had a reason to care about her.

A reason to feel familiar even if her face changed and went wrong, if her features changed for no reason, or if the glitch took her away and left her baby lost in whatever space was left for those unfortunate children who knew the world was not honest. 

The thought of disappearing, of changing face in front of her child when everything else couldn't bear a constant in regards to her was horrifying. What if it was soon? What if her father didn't notice or care? What if she starved because she wasn't anyone real?

What if she was replaced with the lover who'd glitched out and forgotten everything? With the shifting form of a complete stranger?

She pours the boiled water into the pot, a pot she bought when she realized the glitches covered up theft as much as children and imagines rain like it was described, like it's never existed before and without her really thinking, somebody walks in. Myrtle. 

Myrtle doesn't sound pleased this morning, how she breaths is heavy when she asks, "how many times have you needed to introduce yourself to somebody you liked?"

"Everyday sometimes." she said, as the water steeped, the hot water became a bolder color. A sequence in order, where she'd touched it. 

"Its not just memorability is it?"

And suddenly she's certain, my baby knows, she's aware. "No. It isn't." 

"Does my face ever change for you?" 

"No. expressions maybe, but you haven't. Not really." 

"Thanks. I guess." 

And just like that it rains for the first time outside, and she's rather certain the world will actually end. But first they'd have tea, since it hadn't glitched out of reach.