EMMANUELLE KNAPPENBERGER
What Party?
In the smallest apartment on the highest floor of the oldest building, a light flickers on. Then another. And another.
It takes a moment, because the apartment is so high up and so barely in view and so easy to look past, almost as though it is trying to shimmy out of view, but the lights shift and dance until you realize that you are not looking at lights, electric and lifeless, but small balls of fire. You blink. You blink again. And somehow, for some reason, you can look no longer.
But if you could, you would see the floating balls of fire spread out across the tiny apartment, lighting up patches of the floor where the ceiling leaks enough for some grass and even a few flowers to grow and an old sofa with a garden of mushrooms taking up every seat and an old carpet that has peeled up enough at the edges to allow the apartment owners to shove it aside and reveal a trapdoor.
You cannot see the trapdoor from the street, of course, but if you could, you would see a pair of webbed hands reach down and yank it open. You would see two and then three and then six and then twenty and more and more figures pour out of it. You could try to look directly at these figures, if you managed to remember that you had seen the apartment at all, but all you would see are mice and rats and birds. And some of them are. And some of them aren’t.
The toads that own the apartment, giant things, around the size of small dogs, help the creatures into their apartment. They offer their hands to the gnomes and move aside to let the fairies fly out and ask the animals for permission before lifting them into the room. More creatures emerge from the trapdoor in the ground than the small hole could possibly hold, but you cannot make this comment because to you, the apartment does not exist, or if it does, it is not interesting enough to remember.
Your mind, of course, is lying to you.
Because once the tiny apartment is filled with creatures from the forest, the bobbing fires begin to shake and split, energized by the presence of so many beings packed into an apartment made for two. They dart around the room, dragging their heat behind them so that occupants of the room cannot register the warmth until the fires have already passed. They laugh as the fires run laps, not because the fires are funny but because they are filled with so much joy, they can no longer hold it in.
The toads usher everyone into the apartment, admonishing the creatures that walk to wipe their feet and reminding the creatures that fly to mind the lamps, please and thank you, because if something gets knocked over and someone comes knocking, it’ll be a big hassle to get everyone back into the underground. Some of the flying creatures listen, and some don’t— they’ve been locked up for so long, after all.
The toads begin laying out platters covered in fruits and sandwiches too small for your human hands and pen caps full of some liquid that sparkles and sloshes. The creatures descend on the meal, and it is a good thing that you cannot remember the apartment, because the sound turns chilling. The fairies bare teeth, and the gnomes start shoving, and the rats dive past the curious noses of their brethren. The toads are ready for this, and they begin herding the creatures from the trapdoor into lines and doling out the food in careful portions.
The creatures protest, of course they do, but the toads remind them— it is a language that you could not possibly understand, but I will translate as best as I can— that there is only so much of the forest left, and they must make sure that they have enough for everyone. The creatures grumble, of course they do, but they have done this enough times to know that their protests are only performatory. They grumble because they are in a bad situation, like anyone would, but they also know that this is a party, and no one likes to listen to grumbling at a party.
If you were still looking up at the apartment building, if you had been able to keep looking, you would envy the party of the forest creatures. The balls of fire whip the room into a brighter mood, and their flames grow hotter as the forest creatures laugh off their annoyance and begin to appreciate this moment of freedom. A satyr pulls out a fiddle, and a fairy pulls out a flute, and after a beat they find a tune that keeps the mood from souring.
But maybe you would have pitied the party. Maybe, if you had been able to look long enough, you would notice the tenseness of the forest creatures’ posture, the way their eyes keep darting to the windows, to the door. Maybe you would notice the way the toads carefully time the party, the way that once the meal from the forest is gone, they begin to herd the forest creatures back under the trapdoor. Maybe you would notice the fear in their eyes, even from so far, when there is a soft knock on the door, a noise complaint from a neighbor that disperses the party so fast, it is as though it has never happened.
But you could not stay. You could not focus on the tiny, moldy apartment. You continue down the street, humming a melody that you can’t place and searching your mind for a memory that isn’t there. Oh well. Must not have been important.
Emmanuelle Knappenberger is a senior college student from western New York. Her other work can be found in the Wondrous Real Magazine and GLITCHWORDS and is forthcoming from The Agapanthus Collective. You can follow her on Twitter at @emknappenberger for writing rambling and cat pictures.