TO MOST FOLK IT would seem reasonable to think a girl with bright blue hair might stand out in a crowd. Yet somehow one in particular most certainly did not. She was known colloquially as a Blender. Her inborn skill was to blend in wherever she might be for as a member of the Blue Hair Clan her presence would be deemed unwanted at best and positively threatening under most circumstances.
'Rumour has it Blenders are moving through the area,' one shopkeeper in Wonky Lane advised his fellow retailers.
'Great. Might be able to create space for all the new secondhand stock I want to shift,' another down-at-heel trader replied on hearing this ominous news. Everyone knew the Blenders were a bunch of thieving rascals. Why else were they so secretive, anti-social, and brilliant at never paying rent or taxes like everybody else?
For the Blue Hair Clan however, it was their destiny to be misunderstood, mostly.
What their origins might be no one was really sure. Or why they all had blue hair, unless it was to reinforce some sense of identity. For this was the great issue among the wandering people themselves.
What was their ultimate aim? Why were they destined to wander apart from everyone else? They seemed to stand on the sidelines of society awaiting a calling, a purpose that never seemed to materialise. Thus they looked inward and discovered things about themselves and the world around them that somehow reinforced the separation.
They learned to not be there, or be in more than one place at once. And as they watched and learnt and saw things others could not they acquired an uncanny appreciation of the human condition. Yet none of this answered the ultimate question of what they were seeking for. After generations of wandering all this began to take its toll upon the spirits of many of them as well.
There were even sinister rumours that no one ever left the Blue Hair Clan. If the urge appeared to seek another way of life that urge disappeared with the person who manifested it.
For the children of the Clan things were less intense. They could merely play at being Blenders if they wished, performing impossible feats of hide and seek, catch-if-can and ambush with those of their own age. Only these youngsters ever came close to a normal childhood though they never went to school. Once they reached a certain age however such games no longer seemed appropriate. They had honed their skills to blend in and now those same skills would put them in good stead for that most crucial role of all Clan members, to resolve that yearning for something, to seek in the world they so quietly passed through for that one magical thing which would allow them as a people to end their wanderings and find peace.
Thus it was with Truancy Mundane. She found herself reaching a point in her life when she too needed to ask questions of those around her, not by interaction but simply by observing and learning and trying to understand. Like so many before her she hoped to glimpse some telling answer from the actions of others, those others who filled every spot of Frangea with a zest for life, ambitious dreams and a sense of direction.
This was perplexing. One might map out a person's hopes and dreams to a point yet there was no certainty how one achieved fulfilment while the fire of determination burned at its brightest. Only when that fire dimmed in the twilight years of the elderly did there seem to be a satisfaction in a life lived long and well, for some anyway.
In Frangea though even the elderly could be spotted out jogging, admittedly with little forward motion, but still seeming to wish further achievement so close to the grave.
All the girl with blue hair could do was watch and wonder. Though there was still a little fun to be had along the way.