They used to call her
Delirium but that was after she was this. Your socks are okay. Stop worrying about them. Or rather, they used to call her this, but then they called her something else after. Or maybe it was before the after. No really. I told you. Your socks are ready.
Her brother left about then. Or was it before? She remembers but she doesn't recall, and it hurts too much to think that alligator into submission with a windpipe, so she often thinks about other things. After the before there was a before to after, but no one else discovered that until she lost time. It's always the last place you look for something because you stop looking after you find it. Did you know that? That's why it's the last place. If you ever keep looking after you find it, bad things can happen so don't do that. Green mouse ice cream was the worst. She didn't like that at all.
She knows. She used to be something before the after but she can't remember what it was because it makes her face wet, and it hurts her soft mushy place somewhere near her tummy, and that's when she wants more sticky chocolate people on rice and beans in the summertime. Even when it's winter. She thinks about rainbows and fluffy clouds, and what it would be like to make a fluffy cloud out of rainbows. She tried it once but then it smeared and the blue tasted like onions so she had to eat at a delicatessen to get the taste out of her hair. The deli was delightful because Suzy was there and she was on a sidewalk with cracks in it but all she could see was tooth enamel. It was really fun but Suzy didn't make it and sometimes she still thinks about her and the happy man with the needles in his eyes.
She thinks about animals in cages and cages in animals, and tries not to confuse the two but occasionally she does and she remembers that sometimes people are in cages but they usually make up their own. She makes up her own pudding recipies sometimes, and flavors of ice cream that no one has ever tried. She finds delight in greeting card flavored ice cream, and chopstick flavor is always fun. Never socks ice cream though because she doesn't want to forget them for you. Orange milk chocolate covered cranberries flavor. Garlic pizza flavor. She got the idea of chopstick flavor when she tried sushi ice cream and it didn't work out too well because it made him all unhappy inside. So she made chopstick flavor and though she put too much elephant in it people felt better for awhile, which she thought was delightful.
Telephone flavor was okay, after she remembered the socks for you. Little fuzzy frog with a beak flavor didn't go over too well, and it wouldn't melt right so there's still some out there somewhere. Ice cream flavored ice cream was the worst though. She almost hurt a lot of people with that one and someone accused her of making pearboxes that could kill. She didn't mean to. She tried bluejay icecream but the puddings felt ignored and attacked it. There are other times which make her hurt to think about. Like the time she go so mad she made him think he was someone else, and he thought it so hard he became that someone else but not before he visited her in the cemetary and then she saw him again much later and she tried to apologize because it really wasn't his fault even though it was but it only was because of the broom closet in the side of the ceiling downstairs but his face was already gone by then. That wasn't delightful so she tried to hopscotch a small city but it just got bigger and she had to run away.
And she thinks of more but it will come to them in a minutes or one. Did I mention that your socks are okay? Do you still think about them? It's okay. Don't worry. She likes biting off their heads, but they don't scream because she's already chewing their mouths. It's only chocolate. And they're not really real they just think they are because that makes it more interesting. She has a doggie and she wants to be a kangaroo when she grows up, but she'll always be the youngest and that's delightful and sometimes she looks in the mirror and wonders where she went but that's when the funny feeling in her tummy comes back and she tells herself to go away and she does but then she comes back and the pretends to be a submarine in a bathtub that's been hit because that makes her feel better I mean no wonder where you go there you are that's what they tell her.
There are more fishes. They don't need the water. They don't know they're already dead yet shh don't tell them they might turn into something else. She was following her fishies because they always know where to go. She tried calling him Plippy Ploppy Cheesenose once but they told her it had to be a real and proper name so she suggested Elbis O'Shaughnessy which no one liked. She asked him if he liked it but he couldn't talk and he wasn't a he, he didn't have anything down there dangling but sister Death said okay and sister Despair shrugged so Elbis O'Shaughnessy it was but when no one was looking at her she'd call him Plippy Ploppy Cheesenose when no one was looking because when no one was looking they couldn't smell what she tasted like to the eye sockets of the one with dishpan hands that wouldn't sleep. When no one was looking, I mean.
She misses her doggy, even when he is there. He never gnawed on shoes or boots because he wasn't that kind of doggy. He sniffed at a sock once though and she told him not too because they were special. When he is not there it's okay because she knows where he's not when that happens and he's a big doggy almost as big as he is when she is around so she can take care of himself very often almost all the time and she helps her too whether she's feeling delightful or not and doesn't mind that she's not who she is anymore because he didn't know her then unless you count that one time but she doesn't and he doesn't remember so he doesn't either. She misses her doggy even when he is there. He asks her to remember that fire is not something people are allowed to bathe in because it punishes his epidermal underthickness or something like that he was mumbling but she remembers what he sounds like because the children were laughing in between spasms.
Mister the Borghal Rantipole went away. The leash was only made out of spaghetti but the air got to him so she called for him hello but there was no answer. She can be delightful sometimes but she isn't Delight anymore, though sometimes she's still mistaken for someone. Someone asked if they needed ro replace her, but someone else said that was alright. Paper clips can't keep stockings up like safety pins can but she doesn't know why they're called safety pins because they can be real dangerous if you're not careful or if you're too careful enough. She came apart once and put herself back together and she couldn't remember for a moment whether the silver flecks went into her blue eye or her green eye, then she decided a doggy would be a nice thing to have. Finger nail polish can make a mess, but only if you're too careful enough. She had the doggy once but he misplaced her or she misplaced him or the place they shared misplaced them she couldn't remember but when he returned to her she felt very delightful even though she couldn't be herself anymore she almost wanted to be but then he left again and she read the Tarot cards but they didn't read back so she wished her brother was there but he wasn't either and the man with the bandages spoke with the girl laughing half a face and if he deserved her he must have been very good indeed she is following her fish. Her fish knows where to go.
She met a street who was gay once. Not the people in it. Well some of the people there were gay and some were straight, and she thought that was funny because some of them were crooked but none of them were happy until she showed the street that it was okay, and he felt better and that was delightful and some of the people felt delightful and some of the other people left but the sewage treatment plant down the river had bad things to say and she told it to mind it's own business she didn't want to hear a mean old sewage treatment plant say mean old thing about her new friend. She was following her fish when a special sock told her where to go. So then these people who called themselves doom came and things got noisy so she left. Everywhere is strange but she feels kind of welcome in some places more than others.
She found everyone's socks once. That was a long time ago. When she was her. She was so delighted. She let them go though. She told them they were free. I thought you might like to know that. She set the lost ones free so if you ever worry about them still that's where they went and they were happy too so don't worry about them anymore okay I know you worry. She was her once. Did I tell you? She used to be her but then she became someone else. So she's no longer her she's Delirium now but that was before the after came and she let the socks go free. She was so beautiful then. Her hair was all one color and her eyes were all one color though not at the same time. And her skin was.. well she's still the same color there but other things her clothes were all the same color and there was less to go around her so she felt a little cold often except for those times she didn't want to be cold anymore and she'd climb up into her brother's lap and wrap his cloak around her until he told her not to but he never did so maybe she's still there wrapped up inside him somewhere keeping vigil on the sigil never before and never again until the rooster crowed for the high noon of rush hour. Birds used to fly around her sometimes too and sing. But she prefers fishies now. She's not who she is. She used to be but she's not anymore. She found your socks though. And they're okay. She wanted you to know that. They were behind the couch. It's always the last place you look isn't it? Don't keep looking after you find them because sometimes bad things happen.
I haven't got any parents. There was a big flood once and I got really wet in that, only it wasn't rain, it was the gunky stuff inside people's eyes. I wish I could remember what it's called.
Delirium