Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá's blog

Small Fiction.


Everything was very quiet. If she were to take an educated guess - for she had been sitting there for quite sometime, looking around - she could safely assume that she was completely alone.

"Today, I'm somebody else", thought the girl, sitting in front of her computer. She just knew it, I guess. Even her skin was different, apparently breathing (yes, the skin breathes) with more intensity. In fact, all her senses seemed amplified.

"Today I'm somebody else and I want to write about that."

"First, I should start stating the obvious: if I'm somebody else, I'm not myself. My mother wouldn't recognize me, for all I know, and that's saying a lot. My mother is the most intelligent person I know, and she can see through people. It's weird how she can tell who somebody is just by looking at them. But she's not the topic of my writings, I am. Or the person I'm now."

She paused. Suddenly, she was confused. Who could she be? Of course, she was still herself, but if she could also be somebody else, and could be anybody else, who, of all people, could she fancy herself being?

"I guess I am a completely different person than my former self. So, for starters, I'm a boy, and not a very clever one. I don't know that last bit, of course, not being very clever, but my life seems fine without the complications of a brilliant mind. In fact, I think a good deal about myself, for I have a most unusual profession, one that involves the power of the imagination and that can guarantee my fulfilling all of my fantasies: as a boy, I am a comic book artist."

Another pause. A noise could be heard in the not very distant downstairs hall, the clicking of the key and the whisper of the wood under her brother's feet. And as his feet continued to cause the wood to whisper, the girl could easily follow his climbing the stairs and opening the door of the study -the atelier, he liked to call it, but she knew it was just a room with a drawing board (which also is just a big table with a fancy name).

"It's time for you to go to sleep", said the brother. "I have to work."

She stood up and vacated her brother's chair. He took his habitual spot in front of his drawing board, opened his folder, took out some pages and positioned them on the table. They were already pencilled and he took his brush to start inking them.

"Do you think I could be a comic book artist?", asked the girl.

He smiled at his sister.

"No, dear, you're too pretty. And you have a lot of friends. And they're all normal."

That was not the answer she was expecting and she left her brother alone to work. She thought, as she was closing the study door, that if she were to actually be somebody else, she would like to still be pretty, have a lot of friend who would still be normal, so she could never ever be a comic book artist.

Relieved, she smiled the same smile her brother just smiled a moment ago and she went to bed.