i showed up at heaven's night. i had just finished pawing through soft darkness that was also created by his wish. sound was wrapped in a black wedding dress, and taste was blanketed in a black wedding dress, and time was wound tightly in black petals and pantyhose, and I had crawled out the wrong way – heels first. i took my first breath, and my mouth filled with silent hill's fog. i opened my eyes and saw for the first time that I was all alone. 

I don't like being alone… 

the gun was my unicorn horn. it shouldn't have been in my hands. it felt hot and strange there, like tongues, and i wanted to put it somewhere less intimate. but since i was born from a wish, i was never allowed anything like privacy, or no privacy. i could only ever know myself in an unbuttoned sweater. i could graze my thumb over the unicorn horn. i could press it to my forehead, where it belonged. i imagined it turning my brain – if i had one – into rainbow sprinkles. 

but i was stopped by the blood of his wish, flushing my face, sustaining my odd heart that should have been biologically impossible. 

i went toward katz street, with the fog sticking to me like a dandelion puff. monsters sprouted over sidewalk cracks, looking like they'd been plucked raw, and i was frightened by the way they twitched like they wanted to say something. 

There's no one here… just monsters. 

i wanted to yelp, but i had no anatomical facilities for screaming. my anatomy was fucked. dream girls aren’t meant to do anything in all this cotton fog except choke on it, and so i did, and i walked in circles. i had a song looping in my head. one of his favorites: "did she call my name? / i think it's gonna rain."

My name is… Ashley Maria. 

i was scared of the widower's power then. when i came upon a grave, i hoped it was left open for me. i wanted to stop floating, like the butterfly tattooed on my hip. i wanted to freeze into ice cream and shatter. 

i knew i wouldn't enjoy holding his hand. i knew i wasn't meant to be human, or speak to humans. imagining the look on his face disappointed me. i wanted to tell him telepathically, "it's not my fault i'm awkward and physiologically improbable. it was you who did this to me. you wished me from the ocean where hippocampuses swim, and you made me have legs. you pinched me out of the sky where pegasuses soars, and you made me have arms. i’d been praying for eternity to become a pearl, not a person."

kneeling at the gravestone, i could see clearly. it didn't say my name. 

James… 

soon i started to forget why i was so unhappy. this happens to all of us clay dolls who come from the bottom of the ocean, relaxing for eons until a guy makes a stupid wish.

i’d been walking for a long time. my veins were opening and closing like a baby bird’s mouth. things in my unbelievable body were shifting. my anxiety was becoming overpowered by desire — the desire to give him each of my blood cells. 

one last time, the tide pulled out. briefly, i felt shame burn pink. it looked like blush, and i knew i was beautiful, like a real dancer twirling down the pole. 

i slid toward the lake… 

Do I look like your girlfriend?

i don't believe in fate. but i knew anyone with a functioning brain would have seen me as a ghost then. you know, it's not God who grants wishes. 

I don't look like a ghost, do I? 

silver. revolver bullets still clinked in my pocket like vending machine money, but it was too late to anoint them with unicorn blood. shells and sugar can melt in water. human beings dream of running fast enough to fly. living dolls have neither luxury. 

so i felt it then, loneliness. i had run so many blocks trying to escape the feeling, i hadn't realized its permanence. i sensed in my stockings that God gave me loneliness as a vaccine. i should have resisted both death and the waking death of his wish and chosen to be alone.

but… i didn't want to… and i was already on the boardwalk. his nervous footsteps came closer, dragging behind me like a garbage bag. 

the monsters around toluca lake moaned with relief. 

until the laws of the universe changed, i would be his to wish for, and his to forget. we were never at peace after that, and we didn't deserve it.