‘Fair Is Fair’

John Bishop is an abstract expressionist painter based in Houston, Texas, who creates gestural mixed media work in acrylics, ink, collage, pencil and marker. His work centers on layering color and mark-making to create works that allow a different experience up close than at a distance. His art draws one deeper into discovery and recognition. ​ Though his passion for art began as a teenager, he was steered away from an artistic career by well-meaning parents. Instead, he became an English teacher and later a librarian, working in five different countries over the course of three decades.

Fair Is Fair

This story begins here, above the fairgrounds, above the people walking around with fairy-floss, above the fair tent, and above the fairies. 

Somewhere fairly far off in the distance is a fair-bricked castle, gleaming like the first fair star in the sky. From here fairly far above the ground we can see the fair castle, but it wouldn't be fair to assume that the fairies and people with the fairy-floss milling about the fair cannot feel the fair-bricked castle above their heads and in their fair hearts and woven into their shoes and worming their fair way into their fair 

thoughts. 

It also wouldn't be fair not to mention the fair lady who lives a fair life in the fair-bricked castle. We haven't waited that long to mention her, I don’t think. A fair amount, but a fair fair amount, we'll say. 

Now that I've mentioned the fair lady, I must mention her show the fairies perform that the fair shows. It shows the story of the fair lady, and how she brought about this fair land. Ah, I think it’s starting now. Shall we go watch? I think it would only be fair to go watch the fairies. 

In the fairgrounds tent, on the fairgrounds floor, the workers with no wings on their back scuttle like bugs. One of them, with a crooked nose visible even from the audience, places a stool on the floor and stands in the back watching. He whispers something to a fairy before she walks out onto the fairground's tent's floor. 

A fair portrait of the fair lady is the backdrop in the fair tent, stretching from top to bottom and left to right. She is looking at us from out of the painted portrait, looking over her shoulder and at us with the fairest eyes one could imagine. She is a fair beauty. 

“Hush!” Some mother in the crowd hisses. “Look!” Her child cries aloud. A pudgy finger points above the portrait of the fair lady, all the way to the ceiling of the fair tent. 

A fairy perches delicately on the frame of the portrait, a long, flowy, white dress spilling over the edge like the foam on a waterfall. A stage light shines on her. 

The lights below flash on, lighting up the fairground's tent's ground. A fair amount of fairies dressed with patterned handkerchiefs in their hair and layered aprons on their waist. crowd the fairground's ground. “Fairly, I listen, for today is fairly sure to be a fair day of reckoning,” one with a bucket in her hands says, reciting her lines like they're fair-colored oatmeal. 

“Today is fair enough for the fairest of us,” another repeats from rote. 

“Oh. But how. He is to be killed for a fairly small crime he (we are fairly sure) didn't commit,” the bucket fairy says. 

Someone in the audience yawns. The fairies were never known for their acting. 

“Fairly sure is not fair enough for this to be an unfair thing.” 

“But still I feel some fair judgement is needed for this to be a fair day. Do you not fairly agree.”

The spotlight on the fairy perched on the frame of the fair lady's portrait lights again. “I, the fair lady, agree with you, fair dear.” She drops off the frame and floats down on her crystalline wings, the flowy fabric drifting around her as she drifts down. All the children clap loudly when she lands. Someone whistles. 

The fairy villagers gasp. The fairy playing the fair lady walks over the bucket fairy. “I couldn't agree with you more. Fair judgment is needed to make a fair land.” 

The adults in the crowd applaud this time. Fair aphorisms like this about fairness are fairly good at making adults thinking they are fair-thinking adults applaud. The worker with the crooked nose and without wings in the wings claps too. 

The fairy playing the fair lady turns to the audience. “And I the fair lady will make it so this land will always be fair with fair judgments.” She turns and walks to the stool while the audience applauds again. 

A line of fairies playing fair villagers line up in front of her. One of them turns to the audience and says: “we love our system of days of fair questions. We get to go to the fair lady and say our fair grievances.” 

The fair lady moves through the villagers quickly as they peel off one by one from the line and go back to the front. They line up side by side. “Thanks to our fair lady, we live a fairly happy and fair life.” They bow. There is another round of applause. A piece of fairy-floss falls to the fairground ground. The worker with the crooked nose scrambles out to pick it up before scurrying to grab the stool. 

Let's go. The show's over now. We shall go back above the fair and watch as the people with their fairy-floss leave the fair on their way back to their fair home. 

Look, you can see them leaving now, pouring out of the fair's fair tent and out of the fairground. There are still some on the rides, or sitting on benches. Most are heading home towards the fair-bricked castle in their fair land. A few guards stand at the gate of the fairgrounds and make sure everyone is leaving the fair fairly without stealing on pushing through lines. Soon the workers will be leaving too. 

There go the workers now, little ants carrying their tools for managing the rides, putting up the tents, or cooking the food. The guards stop every one and check them thoroughly, so they don't steal from the fair. The pockets of the jacket that all of them wear are checked and the shoes have to come off and their backs patted down. Well, their backs are patted for a different kind of search. 

“Argh!” A scream rings out. A guard rips off a worker's uniform jacket. Shards of fabric fall to the fairground ground. 

Wings. There are wings on the worker's back. 

“Halt!” A guard yells, throwing his sword in front of the fairy to stop her from moving forward. “Pay your fare!” He thrusts a paper in her face. “Fairies must pay a fare when leaving designated fairgrounds! Where is your fare?” 

“I don't have any money,” she cries. “I don't make any here.”

The guard throws her backward back into the fairground on her back. She lands with a fairly loud thump and a cry. A group of other fairies are crowded near the fair tent, watching. They are too afraid. Can you blame them? 

“Then you may not pass. Not without a fare.” 

She nods, still on her back on the floor. “I-I shouldn't have done it. O-ok?” She hiccups a fair bit. The guard slaps her with his sword. “I won't do it again.” 

Someone runs to her side. The worker with the crooked nose. He is not wearing the worker-jacket. “Answer fairly, are you alright?” She nods. 

“I'll go for you. Your grandmother, yes? I'll send her your fair love.” She nods. He rises. Walks to the gate. The guard still has his sword drawn. 

The guard pulls off his shoes and pats him on his back with the butt of a sword. He is cleared and walks through the gate. “I'll find her!” He calls through the gate. “I will!” The gate is slammed shut. One guard pushes him away. The others turn to the fairies, who draw closer into a group. 

The worker runs home. 

He runs across this fair land towards the fair-bricked castle where the fair lady lives. If he were going home, he would keep going straight towards the fair-bricked castle towards the town. But today he heads west, into the sunset, to the fairy village. We needn't follow him all the way to the house. We'll meet him again when he reaches the grandmother. 

“She sent her love, your granddaughter,” he says. The old fairy is lying fair flat in bed, breathing fairly loud and slow. “She wanted to come herself. She tried.” 

“Stew-pid girl,” the grandmother drawls. “I wish she had come.” 

“Can't you question the fairy lady on a fair questioning day?” He asks. The sun is a fair orange through the window. 

“Ha! Not allowed, sweet boy, not allowed.” 

“Not allowed?” A fairly clear plan forms itself in his fair-thinking mind. “Why'd she go work in the fair if she didn’t have money to pay the fare to leave?” 

“Think she had a choice? Ah! To be an ignorant boy. If you care so much, go visit your fair lady, and see what she thinks.” 

“I will.” 

We'll meet him again after he's found out all the fair rules and regulations that go with a visit to the fair lady. He had to be searched again (for wings and weapons), answer some questionnaires, and do a

background check. And have his picture taken. He's always been embarrassed about how his crooked nose looks in pictures, but it was all fair if it kept the fair lady safe. 

He's fairly sure he would drop of exhaustion when he met the fair lady, but he must stay at least fairly alert. He mustn't lose his focus. His fairness. 

“Ask your fair question,” is the first thing the fair lady said when he entered the fair lady's throne room. She is a fair bit more beautiful than her fair portrait he was accustomed to. She has a veil that has been dropped to the floor. He scratches his crooked nose before speaking to organize his thoughts. 

“Is the fare fair, my fair lady? I find it important to find out the fairness of the fare on fairy travel.” 

"Why, fine traveler, what a fair question you ask! The fares on fairies were formulated to be as fair as fares can be. Fairies only pay a fare when flying outside of designated fairs, you know with the tents and candy and hullabaloo." She waves her hand in a delicate manner, such to imply that she herself thought fairs a fair bit beneath her. "Fairies are meant to..." She shrugs a bit, her gown slipping slightly off her shoulder. "Entertain, as it were." She makes no move to fix her dress. The teeth she showed when smiling were the same white as the fabric of her dress. Very white, that is. 

He sighs through his crooked nose, and steps forward, careful not to step on the veil on the floor. "That may be so, fair lady, but is it fair that fairies are to be... imprisoned so in the fairs? I mean, and not to be impolite, fair lady, is the imposition of such a fare fair, not is the amount the fare is fair?" 

She laughs. "Oh, fine traveler, I understand you've a fair reputation, and through this it is fair to assume that you are simply misguided in your questioning! Fares such as these on fairies are fair in their core. Fairies are meant to stay in the fairs, and to entertain men! Surely a man with as fair judgment as you understand!" Her hand flutters to her fair face, and her dress slips further down her arm. This must be how her veil came undone, dripping down her body, melting of fair wax from a candle. 

His eyes flit to her bare skin, of which she was now showing a fair amount, but it isn't fair of him to be looking at his fair lady this way. Oh, her skin is supple and fair as fair could be, and he must look away! He wasn't thinking, wasn't hearing anything beneath her fair words. 

"I-" he could not come up with a fair answer to her fair question. He scratches his nose again. "Of course, m'lady." He bows and leaves the room. Of course. It is always fair.

Alexa Levitt is a 14 year old writer based in New York hoping to one day become an author. Her poems have appeared in The Fib Review, "Beautiful Truth- Echoes of The Mind," and "A Celebration of Poets." She has not yet (at the time of writing) published a work of fiction.