Impossible Perfection

A 1-post collection

Challenge #01023-B291: No Such Thing as Normal

This poem: http://bonehandledknife.tumblr.com/post/130524095600/if-you-are-a-monster-stand-up-if-you-are-a -- RecklessPrudence

They called it the DevilPurge, and they came for all the creatures of the night. They came politely, with notarised invitations and assortments of red tape.

They helped the vampires move out. They assisted the werewolves. They kindly and gently moved the mausoleums of the undead. They bussed the witches, wizards and warlocks into a faraway place on the very borders of the kingdom.

To make things better, they said. To improve land prices, they said. To make things perfect.

The new town on the very edge of the kingdom was very nice. It had mansions for the vampires and spacious cemeteries for the undead and the ghouls alike. It had scenic cottages for the witches. Towers for the wizards. The people who had made it had made certain that the things they insisted would move there did not want to move back.

They were very good at their job. And we were happy. There was no hate or prejudice among us. We helped each other.

And every week, there was another string of busses. Another host of unwanted faces who we made very welcome. We got them on their feet. Or fins. Or wings. Or motive appendages of choice. And they were happy with us.

The busses slowed to a trickle. Of course they did. The Kingdom ran out of monsters to ship away. They were down to thieves, ne'er-do-wells and other denizens of your average hive of scum and villainy.

We made them so welcome, that they forgot to be criminals.

Then the volunteers came. The weirdoes. The strange ones. The people who were a little on the odd side. They could not stand the kingdom's idea of perfection and came to our flawed welcome. Some of them wept to finally feel at home.

We were a kingdom of our own, without a king. A crowded, chaotic, magical, and marvellous miniature of all the flavours and colours that those in the Capital did despise.

After the odd ones finished coming to us, the not-quite-perfect came to visit. To steep their toes in what we had become. They were afraid of not being 'normal', but loved our bizarre too much to stay away.

We housed the homeless. Fed the hungry. Found a place for every odd piece to fit. We worked together, as was our way. And we taught our way to all who came.

The kingdom didn't like that. And sent the not-quite-perfect to us. They had a few troubles, and we understood. They didn't want to come, and being forced made them angry. They came around in time. Redirected their anger into other things.

By that time, there were so very few of the perfect left, that the Kingdom gave up on perfection. Stopped purging strangeness from its Capital. But by then, we didn't care to come back.

We built the monarchs a palace, on the very edge of our allotted lands, and invited them to move in.

We have yet to see if they do.

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