Her name was Clair. Is Clair. I can't decide. We label crumbling bones in graveyards, so maybe she still has a name.

Or maybe she is just crumbling bones in a graveyard. (I will concede that whatever made Clair, Clair, is gone. Poof.)

And now, a confession: I like parties.

Crumbling bones and parties. (I can't get over that word. Crumbling. I've tried to think of other ones, but have only come up with decaying. It leads me to thinking about a rotting corpse, flesh peeling off the bone and

I just

can't.)

So

Parties. I'll explain.

You saunter up a drive that's lined with trees, their branches curling down to block your view. The only way you're aware of the party is the soft glow of lights flickering through the leaves. It would almost be picturesque, save for the fact that there's some Top 40's pop song blasting apart the night, pounding through your chest and rattling your rib-cage.

It's fine though because it brings you to life. The song isn't just a song. It sings electric, fizzling through the night and your blood. And you are a l i v e.

So your saunter turns less graceful, more frantic. The house and blaring music and throbbing life are a beacon. Addictive and intoxicating in their own right.

That's where you see her first. She's beautiful, yeah? And you don't even notice the physical beauty first (though, to be sure, it's there). Even through her slightly smudged eyeliner, her eyes positively gleam in the pulsing half-light of the party. Fierce and bright as diamonds.

The world spins around her, like it sprung half-imagined from her mind.

You amble up to her, trying to play it cool. You aren't interested in her. You are enraptured. Everything about her, even more than the party, screams life. It howls above the music, haunting and vibrant. Her hair flicking side to side, shimmering like strands of moonbeam. Her head thrown back and swaying to a rhythm that is something more than the music.

She is life.

And now she is not.

But this is where you first see her. It's where she offers you a red, plastic cup and clinks hers against it. There is no small talk because she is not capable of it. (She cuts to your heart, but later you won't be sure if it's true or not. Alcohol muddled your thoughts somewhere along the way. It's easy to imagine she is magical and mythical when everything turns foggy and the edges of your mind turn dull.)

Maybe that's how it goes. Life so pure can't exist long in this world

(Maybe this is how they used to choose human sacrifices. Did they take the best of us and offer them up to the gods? A pure sacrifice was worth something, and perfect life needed to be given?

Or taken?)

Anyway, the party ends. You wake up in your bed the next day, not entirely sure how you got there, remembering only the fiercely bright girl from the night before.

So, like all proper stories, it started with a girl.