Los Diablos
She lived in darkness.
Los Angeles, they called it, Angel City, but she knew better. It was a mirage; a pretty painting of pink and orange and violet over a crack in a old, dirt-kissed stone wall. Los Diablos was what it should have been called- if only they were honest.
Seemed silly, seemed strange. How could a little girl that lived in a glittering home of movies and art, dance and love, be so obsessed with darkness?
Witch Baby didn't want to be, not really, she wanted to see a world full of wishes dreams love music sparkles. She wanted to run through a sprinkler naked, streams of water kissing her skin, not worrying about curled toes. She wanted to blow out birthday candles and make wishes for herself sometimes, not always for other people. She wanted photographs of her family where she was included, she wanted to make My Secret Agent Lover Man's dark eye-circles go away.
But she couldn't bring herself to do any of these things, to ask for any of these things. Instead she lived in a world of My Secret Agent Lover Man's cigarette smoke, of Brandy-Lynn's tears and martinis, of her own dark hair that stuck out and poked every which way in harsh tangles. Her wall, covered in clippings about diseases murders crimes that would give her sister nightmares, was the only way for her to understand. She lived in a family of blind people, dancing dancing around like the whole world was the same as their home.
But it wasn't and she knew, she could see feel touch taste smell that with every breathe step glance thought. That was why she didn't belong.
So each night she posted clippings onto her wall, sad ones that kept her from being blind. If you live in Los Diablos, she thought, you have to be prepared.