Word count: 2422
BREAKDOWN: In 1993, a group of five college students accompanied their history professor on an archaeological dig within the ancient Egyptian pyramids and discovered a nest of hyper-intelligent aliens. The aliens unlocked hidden abilities within the five students’ DNA, granting them powers beyond mortal man. VANITY, UMBRIEL, CHINDI, HOURGLASS, and WIPEOUT have XTREME GENES, and they’re gonna use them to kick some XTREME BUTT!
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It’s not me was the only thought in Phyllis DeFarge’s head while assessing her form in the dressing room mirror. She scowled, realizing at that moment after so many years of living and dreaming that she felt more comfortable looking at dresses than she did wearing them. This was her first time ever feeling brave enough to try something like this.
That’s when she started crying.
It’s not the dress itself which was the problem. It was fine. It was just a dress. She wasn’t even sure what sort of dress it was other than it looked nice among all the other dresses she’d seen in the boutique.
I’m the problem, Phyllis thought, feeling gangly and awkward and unsightly. The dress hung off her bony shoulders, accentuating her thin frame. She felt grateful at the time none of her friends, or rather, her teammates, had followed her into the vintage boutique. Phyllis didn’t want them to see her like this.
“Miss?” Came a knock on the door. “Is everything okay? Do you need help?”
Gasping, Phyllis stood up and started wiping away at her eyes. “Everything’s fine!” she answered. “Sorry. Sorry.” Those words only spoke the truth once Phyllis slipped out of the dress and back into her regular ensemble of jeans and a button-up flannel shirt. She ran her hands through her messy, shoulder length brown hair then shook her head until it looked the way she preferred. “Sorry,” she apologized again as she exited the dressing room to find herself facing the store owner. The woman greeted Phyllis earlier when she entered with an effortlessly pleasant smile. Now that same woman wore a concerned expression.
“Are you alright?” The store owner asked.
“I’m fine,” Phyllis answered with the dress in her arms. “It just didn’t look good on me. Sorry. I meant I couldn’t make it work. The dress is fine. I-I’ll put it back.”
“Don’t worry about that.” The shopkeeper calmly took the dress back from Phyllis and smoothed it out. “I can put this back for you. Do you need help?”
Phyllis noticed the shop owner didn’t include “-looking for anything else” in that sentence. She was asking if Phyllis, specifically, needed help.
“No,” Phyllis said. “No, I, for now I’ll just browse around if that’s okay. I promise I’ll buy something before I leave.” She immediately felt embarrassed saying that. Why did she have to make the situation more awkward than it already was? Phyllis wanted to dig a hole with her bare hands, deep into the ground and bury herself so far beneath the planet no one would find her no matter how hard they’d look.
She could do it, too.
“Well, if you need help don’t hesitate to ask, it’s what I’m here for.” The shopkeeper turned around and headed in the direction of a display of dresses.
“Actually-!”
The shopkeeper turned around to face Phyllis again.
“Do you have anything in… brown?” Phyllis asked. “And silk. Anything brown and silk.”
Bracing herself for this to be met with an odd expression, Phyllis refrained from looking surprised when the shop owner pleasantly replied “Of course.” Phyllis followed the woman as she went to find something; she didn’t want to make the woman carry anything back with her after asking her to look. It felt rude. Why did she worry her request sounded strange?
“I have some pants over here if this is what you had in mind.” Gesturing to a rack of trousers, the owner smiled the smile of someone who hoped you would purchase their goods but also sought to make their potential customer happy. Phyllis thought about the store owner as she went to help another customer, thinking God what I’d give for those cheekbones while checking out the selection before her. She was well familiar with the color brown. Her hair was brown like her mother’s. Phyllis was thankful she inherited her mother’s looks. It made things easier. Her hair was the only part of her appearance she felt pride in. She liked that earthy brown color.
Phyllis’s domain was the Earth. Working with dirt and rock and mud and clay. Feeling the pure energy coursing through the ground and channeling it as an outward force in the name peace, love, and justice.
Or to just beat up costumed villains, evil doppelgangers, and other superheroes.
Many people thought brown was an ugly color. Dull or gross. Those many people were tasteless, prejudiced fools in her opinion. It’s not that she specifically chose this power when she picked the name “Umbriel.” She expected something related to darkness or shadows, assuming the name was connected to “Umbra” which she was familiar with. How was she to know it was the name of a gnome, a male gnome at that, from The Rape of the Lock. Moreover, how did aliens who spent thousands of years within the Egyptian pyramids ever hear of Alexander Pope?
But it was too late to change. Her genes had been locked and this was her power. The only way she’d get a new ability was to die first. No matter how depressed she got, Phyllis wasn’t that depressed. She made her abilities work as best she could. To her credit, she didn’t let her emotions affect her control or that might cause trouble. Granted, her power wasn’t quite as stealthy as Tanya’s shapeshifting, but at least it wasn’t as random as Ahmed’s tattoo. The elemental balance was still thrown off within their team since they didn’t have a fire member. Opposite Phyllis, there was Amber’s wind manipulation and Jake with his water abilities. Only five of them had journeyed that deep into the pyramid and found its secret inhabitants.
Phyllis sighed again while perusing the articles of clothing before her. She ran her fingers over the soft material, trying to choose which shade she was most comfortable with. Chocolate. Bourbon. Walnut. Bakelite. Bakelite was brown, right? Colors of her power. Of the Earth. Of life.
With all this power, and I’m worried about what color pants I want to wear. Like I don’t wear a neon green and shocking pink bodysuit for my day job.
As the boutique owner returned to ask if Phyllis needed more help, she said “I’ll try this.” She’d gone with her first choice, a pair of silken pants a glossy shade like milk chocolate. “Thank you.”
“Not at all. Let me know if you need anything else, miss.”
Phyllis would’ve said she needed a lot of things, but still feeling embarrassed for her crying bout she said nothing else. Browsing in silence, she wondered how much time she had left before her teammates came looking for her. A nearby collection of oversized shirts featuring flowers, kittens, teacups, the kind of things you’d find on kitschy jigsaw puzzles or in cabinets inside homes owned by old ladies caught Phyllis’s attention.
Grandmas. These are Grandma shirts.
Phyllis would’ve bought all of them if she had the money.
Returning to the dressing room for more self-torture it seemed, Phyllis dared to hoist up her current shirt to yet again reveal that flat, hairy chest she loathed. Not the flat part, you understand. The hair. It would be ridiculous to say she had too much, but it was enough for her to say she hated it. Hated seeing it, feeling it, touching it, knowing it existed. She wanted it gone permanently. She never wanted to see a single follicle of hair growing on any inch of her skin aside from the top of her head.
Maybe I could ask for that as a Christmas gift.
Phyllis didn’t care what others had to say. Empty platitudes about her “being fine as she was” and “you’re beautiful anyway” meant nothing to her. People saying those things usually said more about them than it did her. The only opinion that mattered about Phyllis’s body was Phyllis’s.
It’s my body. I’m the one who lives in it.
It was this body of hers which she applied words like “she” and “her” to after the foolish mistakes made in the past of utilizing “he” and “him” from people who didn’t know better. Phyllis didn’t believe she was wrong in the words she fought to apply to herself and be acknowledged, but she wondered if she finished answering the entire question. At the time, it felt good to say she was who she was, but Phyllis worried if this was all there was. Were there other words, other answers, out there which she believed could resonate with her core being? What were they? Where were they? Why couldn’t she find them just yet, and why is it she couldn’t find them no matter how often she found herself navigating a mirror and the depths of her reflection?
How deep were her answers buried within the Earth, and why, for all the mastery she had of the Earth, couldn’t she find what she was looking for?
Yet. Why can’t I find them yet?
She wondered if she could ask her friends for help, but she was scared they wouldn’t be able to help her. Phyllis was initially satisfied all of them accepted her as a woman, but was that really enough for her anymore? They knew her as the grounded one, the Earthy one with a sardonic comment ready for any occasion. If they’d seen her tripping over her words, making a big deal about asking for brown pants, would they ask “Who is this person? That can’t possibly be Umbriel, scared to try on a dress.” Did they know her well enough to ask that type of question? Did she know herself that well?
Phyllis wondered if they were really her friends. More importantly, was she a friend to them? What did she really bring to the group aside from being the grumpy one who always complained. At least it felt like that’s all she did.
Amber’s the chipper one, even though we know she doesn’t summon wind but ghosts. Tanya’s the haughty one and probably the smartest. Ahmed and Jake act like they’re in some pothead comedy. I don’t know if I bring anything that matters to the equation.
When it was decided to take this holiday-adjacent trip to New Orleans, the boys declared it would be “Christmas in Mardi Gras.” This made no sense, as Tanya quickly explained Mardi Gras was an event and not a place. Phyllis figured Ahmed and Jake knew it sounded stupid but said it anyway because they thought it sounded hilarious.
If they’re my friends, why was I so eager to get away from them?
The pale pink shirt she’d chosen with artwork of a mouse in a kettle on it was big, airy, and comfortable. It felt like a dress but not really. Alongside the chocolate silk pants, Phyllis thought the ensemble needed something for completion. That’s when she remembered seeing a black cardigan somewhere in the store when she was initially dress hunting.
Luckily Phyllis didn’t have to search very hard for the cardigan of her memories. Grateful she didn’t need to bother the boutique owner yet again, Phyllis enjoyed sliding her arms into the black sleeves. The cardigan was cashmere and felt nice on her skin.
Third time was the charm as she assuaged her appearance yet again in the sanctity of the dressing room. She didn’t know what to call this look, a mixture of chocolate and black and a shade of pink she believed was orchid. This ensemble felt acceptable to her. Safe. Sighing once more, Phyllis folded her arms across her chest and hugged herself. Her lack of smile hid her desired sense of comfort in her clothes and herself.
“Can I wear these as I pay for them?” Phyllis asked in the front of the store by the cash register.
“Of course.” The shopkeeper smiled as she added the amount together for Phyllis’s purchases. At this point Phyllis wondered if the woman was actually a robot from the way she deployed that exact same smile multiple times during Phyllis’s excursion within her clothing boutique. She knew robots definitely existed, so the likelihood wasn’t too far-fetched. “And you were able to find everything you were looking for?”
“I think so.” Phyllis handed the woman a couple of twenties and a ten dollar bill from her wallet.
“You’re sure?” The woman asked as she handed Phyllis a bag to carry the clothes she came in with and a receipt. “You’re okay, I mean?” The woman wasn’t smiling anymore. “You seemed upset earlier. I don’t mean to pry if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“I…” Phyllis sighed again. “Just a lot on my mind.” What was she doing? “Nonsense, really.” What was she saying to a total stranger? “I don’t know how to properly put it into words. Lately I feel like… sand and snow.”
“Sand and snow?”
“Sorry. Again. I mean like two things that don’t mix. You wouldn’t really think of sand and snow together in the same place, and when they are it looks ugly. Contradictions. They look ugly together. That’s how I feel.”
Oh God what is wrong with me why did I-?
“I don’t know about that.” The shopkeeper appeared thoughtful. “I think sand and snow can look beautiful together. Especially in the desert. Maybe all it needs is a different perspective.”
Different perspective. Phyllis wondered where she could find one. Maybe she could ask her friends.
“Miss, if you don’t mind me saying,” the shopkeeper interrupted Phyllis’s thoughts, “I love your hair.”
“Oh!” Was Phyllis blushing? “I mean, I don’t do anything with it.”
“It suits you.” The woman added “You wear it well.”
In a quiet voice, Phyllis said “Thank you.”
“You must get compliments about it,” the woman figured.
“Sometimes.” Phyllis suddenly laughed. “But I’d kill for cheekbones like yours.”
“Oh stop,” the woman waved off the compliment. “You don’t need them.”
From outside the store, the other members of Xtreme Genes stood slack jawed as they watched Phyllis Defarge laughing and smiling as she conversed with a total stranger.
Author’s Note: Sand and Snow is a prose piece about superheroes. Specifically, a trans or gender questioning superheroine named Phyllis “Umbriel” DeFarge dealing with a lot of emotions and questions about herself as she dares to buy a dress for the first time in her life. I was listening to “Sculptures… for Frigid Fortress Past,” from the soundtrack to the fan game Sonic: Time Twisted, so I wanted to include it in the project for texture.
The art work created for this project was made by Stardustrobin (2024).
Jude Deluca is a nonbinary aegosexual Capricorn (pronouns he/him/they/them). Their areas of interest are magical girls, slasher fiction, young adult horror, superhero dads, and big beautiful men. They enjoy writing about the ways in which we influence media and media influences us. Jude frequently tries to find new ways to blend old ideas with new touches and see how different genres can intersect. They’ve previously been published by such groups as Dollar Store Magazine, Knight Writing Press, Two Gargoyles Comics, Ghostwatch Zine, The Crow’s Quill, and Naked Cat Publishing. They can be found on twitter as @judedeluca1990, and everywhere else as Jude Deluca.
Banner: URIEL, by Stardustrobin (c.) 2024.
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