Thingy Thursdays #7

A fascinating object that begged at the chance for a story. 

(Pinterest)

    A number and a fingerprint. 
     That's what everyone gets. 
     We are required to wear it around our necks on a chain. 
     Why, you ask?  I suppose I can tell you. 

     Why does everyone ask why?  That's what I want to know. 

     But I don't make empty promises, so here goes.

     I'm not like you.  There.  I said it.  Me and my friends.  We aren't like anyone.  And sometimes, we can't hide that difference. 

     Some people call us demons.  I prefer shapeshifter.  We're not anything evil.  People are just afraid of us.  Afraid because they do not understand.  But that's okay.  I understand, and I'm used to it. 

     I know you're thinking it.  You want to know what exactly I shapeshift INTO.  Well. It clearly isn't human, or we wouldn't need to carry fingerprints around our necks.  The people here always want to know who we are.  Or, more accurately, who we were.  They think that somehow it justifies their ability to judge us.  Treat us like human, and just maybe we will be.  

     I laugh in their faces.

     Who am I? Who are WE? We are creatures of myths and legends.  We are the ones you warn your children about at night.  We are in fairytales.  We are in dreams.  We are in nightmares.  

     But even more than that, we are in your world.  Most of the time we look like you.  But don't think for one second that we ARE like you. 

     The ones that keep us locked away have many theories, but nothing they can prove.  We've been called aliens, monsters, demons.  But it's not always bad.  One time my little sister was called an angel. 

     What the people don't seem to understand is that they see only what they want to see. 
     We are not people.  We are hopes.  Ideas.  Imaginations. 

     And yet we still have fingerprints. Well.  Allow me to explain. 
     There IS a part of us that is human.  In fact, we are nothing more than children.  More like the ghosts of children, to be honest. 

     Please don't think I mean this literally.  I don't. 
     
     I'm not a human child that has died--no.  I'm the child inside you.  Or--I used to be inside you.  But then you grew up. Very few adults have learned how to keep their inner-child.  The little person full of magic and wonder.  

     So now you see, we can be anything.  Anything at all.
     Why are people afraid of us?  Perhaps it is because they don't want to accept the fact that they have grown up.  Left us behind.  We really are ghosts. 

     The fingerprints we wear are not really ours.  They are of who we used to belong to.
     My fingerprint...is it yours?



God bless,
~Amy Rochelle