A Fairytale by A L Dyer

The air was not really for breathing any more. It was for indexes and inhalers. Factories and idling engines filled the air with Victorian smog. Old and young wheezed along the pathways of Hong Kong covering their faces with masks or cloth or clothes. Many began to live inside. In virtual bubbles. The fortunate could afford oxygen chambers while playing outside was banned. Lovers skyped and texted but rarely met. Sex was usually carried out online wearing electronic stimulators. Those cocooned from the air and growing rich from sales of air substitutes still experienced the pleasure of touch, as masseuses and stylists scuttled through the service walkways to tend to their charges.

One family at this time seemed to profit while others lost. The matriarch had suffered from breathing problems during her first pregnancy and due to her reputation as an aficionado of all things hedge and fund found funding for her new business to be no barrier to entry. The business was named Crystal Clear and produced all things to protect you from the dissolving world outside. Masks and gloves and wipes and oxygen tanks and eventually their most desirable item: The Crystal Clear Residence.

The Crystal Clear Residence was on the Southside of Hong Kong Island near many other prestigious properties but on its own piece of uncontaminated reclaimed land. The air was distilled from the waters of Faxaflói, a Fjord in Iceland most famous for it’s proximity to the country capital of Reykjavík. This water was said to combat pollutants so was at a very high premium. Few tasted it. A select few had ever breathed it. Those at the Crystal Clear Residence sipped and inhaled at length. The Nautilus inspired structure would sparkle in the humid sunshine casting rainbows across the island. Top ecologists had been called in to ensure the residence could exist with as little outside input as possible so workers such as gardeners, plumbers and cleaners need only enter rooms when the residents were elsewhere. Those who would enter the residence to carry out manual tasks were known as the ‘air breathers’ and viewed with disdainful pity from the inhabitants of the residence.

It was in the Crystal Clear Residence that baby Kenza Leila was born. A small child with giant eyes. Her mother named her after the Arabic words for treasure and dark beauty as she was her heart’s delight. ‘Kenza’ she would whisper to her daughter, ‘you are my heart which now walks around outside of my body.’ And every morning as the sun rose up over the compound, Kenza Leila would be shown the plants and the flowers that grew within. As the sun set, Kenza Leila was shown the stars in their magical patterns and told stories of the gods and goddesses who had blessed her heart, her treasure with such deep ochre eyes and calm countenance. Sometimes, late at night, Kenza’s mother would wake to check on the child that never cried and find her staring through the glass ceilings at those stars, or at the changing clouds during the day. She never cried. But nor did she laugh. And as the years passed by and Kenza’s hair grew into dark curls, her rosebud lips learnt to smile when required.

Residents would speculate that she was a wise old soul and would visit her with gifts of expensive perfumes and fine clothes to see if they could learn what she knew. Kenza so rarely spoke that visitors would place huge meaning on her utterances. Her refrain, ’Ew!‘ at a clucking chicken in the sanitised petting zoo led to their removal from the Residence and a ban on all poultry. The following year a strange Avian flu purged the rest of Hong Kong, while the Residence remained pure. While leaving for their Autumn break, Kenza wrinkled her nose when the first class tickets for Bali peeked from the travel case. The trip was cancelled while the bombs decimated the Balinese tourist strip.

Kenza Leila was no longer one mother’s treasure of dark beauty. She was the Oracle, the Sibyl. The foreseer of good and bad. The most precious of the Residence. She was revered within the Crystal Clear Residence but her premonitions came at a price. Residents began to complain that she was unnatural. A freak. Inhuman. These terms would undulate through the manicured gardens and glass lifts. A chatter of Chinese whispers dispersed from the highest echelons of society to the lowliest air breathers.

‘She knows so much. She could guide us through the markets.’

‘She knows so much. I shall find out the name of my sweetheart.’

‘She knows too much. She will destroy the markets.’

‘She knows too much. She will bewitch my sweetheart.’

Fortunately for Kenza, her detached demeanour insulated her from such idle gossip and her beauty ensured that people could not help but be kind to her face. Besides which, she was an inhabitant of the Crystal Clear Residence, the most expensive real estate in the land, her parents were influential people. Kenza would spend her days taking long swims in the large indoor heated pool following the Nautilus shell tiled pattern beneath her body to swim in endless spirals, in and out. She carried herself with a regal bearing and whether swimming or strolling or attending ballet classes, her long limbs behaved more like those of a gazelle than a normal child.

Years passed and her 16th birthday approached on the 24th February.

To be continued...