The Pear Drop Girl

Sometimes there is a moment in your life that you remember, if vaguely, forever. You compare then to now and then to the future. Although these moments are very rare, they normally occur at least once in everyone's lives and so they are not really considered something special.
This story is just a nostalgic view of something that happened in my past. Something that affected me deeply then.
This story is a photograph of the past.

I sat across from a friend of mine in a small, dimly lit café. The café itself was situated on the corner of the street and was uninspiring from the outside, just an off-white exterior with a couple of little windows and one basket of dying flowers.
The décor inside contrasted with this to a nearly terrifying extent. Red satin curtains hung to the floor and never closed, even at night. They complimented the dark wooden panelling on the walls and floor. The tables were made from the same dark wood but the chairs were padded and decorative, with minuscule carvings etched into the legs of each.
This was my regular hideout from life.
My friend, a girl of my age whom I had met in my English class, was busy drinking her latte while I attempted to eat a chicken sandwich. I was not a fan of meat.
We were sat in silence. She wore an oversized, pale green jumper with a tiny cartoon rabbit head stitched into the collar. The jumper made me uneasy, the green clashing a little with everything in the café.
I wondered vaguely where the rest of the cartoon rabbit was as I took a bite out of my chicken sandwich.
That was when a girl I had not seen before entered the café.
Initially she bore a striking resemblance to a shadow, but one with the ability to cast a flat replica of itself onto the floor as it walked. Her hair just reached to her shoulders. It was a complete blackness that accentuated her pale skin in a peculiar way. Her long, charcoal jacket blended with it until she almost appeared to be a floating face amidst a near darkness.
Her face itself was neither beautiful nor ugly, but in some indistinct middle ground that forced her eyes to be narrow, but not small, her lips not too thin and her nose not too long.
The main thing about the girl that caught my attention were the bright pink and yellow hair pins that stood out from her dark ensemble. They hung in her hair like two tiny pear drops which had been flung into the night sky. They caused my eyes to widen ever so slightly and my gaze to follow her until she took a seat on the other side of the café.
My friend of course, finished her latte at that point and tapped me on the arm. I still held my sandwich in a kind of numb shock, my concentration broken. I looked at her with incomprehension as I realised she had spoken.
“Pardon?”
“You could really offend someone, the way you act sometimes!”
She smiled a little, bitterly amused by my absent mindedness. I noticed a strand of her pale brown hair falling dangerously close to the empty cup before her, but refrained from saying anything.
“Sorry, sorry. You know how hard I've been working.”
An easy excuse, but effective. She immediately laughed and pushed her negative feelings about me into the far corner of her mind. Her laugh was heartfelt and genuine. This was the reason she was my friend. I could trust her.
My gaze drifted back to the dark shadow of a girl who sat alone in a corner of the café. A phantom.
The two tiny pear drop pins glinted and caught my attention once more. They stood out as if they were unafraid of being ridiculed or scrutinised by passers by. They seemed to hold themselves up as best they could; strong, untouchable. I could almost hear them shout: “This is what I am!”.
I suddenly felt terribly jealous of those two pear drop pins. They were unaware of any feeling anyone had towards them.
Now that my mind had decided the hair pins were sentient (which of course, my logic demanded I debate with myself), the girl herself stood out less as a separate being from them.
The name suddenly sprung into my mind, like a bubble popping. A sudden, delightful clarity.
Pear Drop Girl.
She was stared straight at me as that name entered my mind, as if someone other than myself lived in my head and had decided to scream it at me.
The Pear Drop Girl's dark eyes watched me with a disturbing emptiness, but I could feel the pear drop pins guide her gaze and implant a bitterness in her slightly curled lip. It was as if their colour was only there to make the girl herself appear even darker.
My friend was talking but I was unable to hear her words. The Pear Drop Girl watched me, without blinking, never moving her gaze. My eyes were locked to hers as if I were under some sort of spell.
I found myself standing, my hands clutched to my chest as though I suffered from extreme pain. I realised it difficult to breathe.
“Hey, what's wrong with you?”
My friend looked up at me, confused and a little spooked by my unusual behaviour. I noticed that other people in the café were looking at me. Their impassive eyes scrutinised me.
You have no right to look at me like that! I wanted to scream at them, but no words left my half open lips.
I dragged my gaze back to the Pear Drop Girl, but she no longer looked at me. It was as if I was of no interest to her. I felt tears sting my eyes, but did not understand why.
I turned and fled from the café, my heart pounding in my chest and the heat spreading to my cheeks.

My friend had caught up to me later and questioned me about what had happened to make me ran off like that. She told me that I had suddenly gone pale then run away.
I had already planned the excuse that I had forgotten some work that was due in later that day.
My friend had merely looked at me for a few minutes before she finally sighed and told me not to work too hard.
I knew that she hadn't believed me.

For some unknown reason, I found myself sat back in that café the next day.
I was alone, of course. My friend had just shaken her head when I requested her company. I felt bad for lying, but there was no way she would understand why I had left that day.
It was particularly quiet in the little café today. Only a few workers sipped coffee on their lunch break and one mother talked quietly on a mobile phone while her child slept. There even appeared to be fewer staff than normal.
It was into this near silence that the Pear Drop Girl stepped.
I knew she had arrived even before I saw her. I could feel the coldness in her gaze as she watched the back of my head. After a few moments she walked past me, but stopped before the table she had sat at yesterday.
I held my breath, feeling my heart leap into my throat.
She turned slowly and the two pear drop pins glinted in the artificial light. Her small black loafers made no sound as she glided back to where I sat and slid in next to me.
She wore her thick, black coat inside the café, even though it was a warm day. I saw that she wore black woollen gloves.
We sat in silence for a long time. Her shoulder so close we almost touched, yet there seemed to be infinite space between us.
I could not see her dark eyes beneath her heavy fringe, but I knew she watched me.
“Well, it's-” I began to speak, but she cut me off sharply.
“How did you know?”
I sat for a few moments in stunned silence and blinked a couple of times before replying. “Know...what?”
She turned her gaze up to me now and I was once again under the scrutiny of her empty eyes. I felt a chill run through me and a deep coldness settle in my gut.
“How did you know?”
The question was the same, but the tone demanded that I answer. It was as if she had spat a venom at me which stung every pore of my flesh.
“Those pear drop pins... They're very....”
“We are not what we appear to be. Many would assume we are what they see us as or that this host we carry with us is just mad.” Her pale lips began to smirk. “There was a book that understood madness. Oh, we read that so many years ago.”
“B-book?”
They made her shake her head, glinting again and again in the light. “No, we are not what you think. You are not like those...” Here, her arm gestured to the others in the café. “But you are not like us, or those who understand what we truly are. You are in... a mental limbo.”
A small, unnatural laugh came from her small, red mouth. I realised that they must not laugh much.
“You are not a threat and yet you have attracted our attention. You are... peculiar.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Her stare was directed at me, not amused by my sarcasm.
“We do not think you will tell anyone, as you do not know what we truly are and so do not comprehend our purpose.”
I shook my head.
They used her narrow legs to stand and her hands pulled the collar of her coat up as if to keep out the cold. They made her body shiver.
“This place... it is so cold.”
With a final examination of my eyes, they guided her gently towards the door and out into the sunlight.
I sat there at the café table, surrounded by people I didn't know, and suddenly I smiled.
Needless to say, I never once saw that girl again. The Pear Drop Girl, dressed all in black, was gone. For what purpose, I had no idea.

The Pear Drop Girl was gone.