Dear Fairy God Mother,
It’s me again. I hope you’re well and that you’re not too exhausted by the post christmas and new year Trauma Interventions. I am well aware that the needy are numerous and that your schedule is hectic, but I was wondering if your P.A actually let you know that I wrote last September.
Literally begging for an appointment, I was.
No? Thought not.
Well, it doesn’t matter now, Fairy God Mother. I’ve more or less pulled through, and that’s without the 50mg capsules of Hubris I’d asked for. I also sat myself down and gave myself that stern lecture on falling in love with people six thousand miles away. I sat myself down quite a lot, I fact. I even made lists and took resolutions. Don’t worry about not doing your job, really, it’s ok. I know you’re busy. I’ll be alright now, I’ve ripped up my will and I’m flossing, which is always an encouraging sign. I know, I know, perhaps I am overestimating my recovery, since I have after all turned down a date for tonight and I plan to sit at home instead and read a book. In fact, this is what I am writing to you about, FGM – the state of today’s literature. Being a discreet yet pivotal element of a certain genre of traditional fiction, I know that you can only be sensitive to what I’m going to say.

Fairy God Mother, you know my attachment to old fairytales, don’t you. Sexist and traditionalist as they may be, I like their simple formula, their predictability and their intentions: reassurance and empowerment. I like their rationale, which is to provide a satisfyingly strict pattern: the hero(in) suffers but grows through her ordeal, and all is well in the end, and then I can sleep at night because the virgin-eating giant’s been rightfully emasculated and the evil, scheming stepmother pushed warts first into the barrel of acid, and after that Snow White shags her prince and the simple people of the forest and the bunny rabbits live happily ever after. Violence, scheming, revenge and sex. Good stuff.

After I did some growing up, since I couldn’t get enough of that simple, gratifying pattern but was no longer in awe of virgin-eating giants, I graduated to detective novels, where spunky high cheek-boned female detectives track down murderers and instead of emasculating them send them to jail for life and then probably live happily ever after, and then I could sleep at night because justice had been done. Violence, suspense and revenge. Excellent stuff, if lived vicariously. Mostly.
And now this is all coming to an end, FGM. There is this whole new trend of detective novels I’m reading, and the spunky detectives get there just a tad too late, never catch the serial killer, lose out. The homicidal bastard’s vanished, and all the detective can do is pick up the gory remains of the victim and go home and make a cup of tea to recover. Not so good stuff. The pattern is being broken, the reassuring rationale is gone, and sometimes I have to look under my bed before I can get some sleep. Do you think that’s right, Fairy God Mother? Do you?

What am I supposed to do for predictable reassurance? Where’s my bubble gone? These days, reading escapist fiction is just as bad as watching the news.

So, dear FGM, you see my predicament. I just wanted to vent a little.
I hope to see you soon. I could always do with an Intervention, you know. Or just pop in some day, you owe me a game of poker.

With all my love,
Your faithful goddaughter