Delirium (person)

One of The Endless from Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series of graphic storytelling publications.

Dream went with her on a search for their brother Destruction once, but when they found him he didn't want to be found, and the chocolate people were all sticky. She got to keep Barnabus though, though the dog has a tendency of keeping her instead. He can talk. Just like all talking dogs can talk. Desire dislikes her fashion statements but Delirium just tells her its not the clothes that do the talking. It's the dog. Despair is a good sister and a good friend but makes people sad which is sad. She would like to call one of them DeeDee, but that would just confuse people.

She got to drive once. She was very good. She only hit a few pedestrians but it was her first try. She would like to drive again but people are always taking the keys away. Delirium thinks Destiny, the oldest sibling of the Endless, is stuck up. She likes to put him in his places. Delirium is the youngest of the Endless and used to be Delight but something happened, that is not even written in Destiny's book, which changed her. Every once in awhile she reminds her oldest brother of that, just because she can.

"Delirium is the youngest of the endless. She smells of sweat, sour wines, late nights, old leather. Her realm is close and can be visited; however human minds were not made to comprehend her domain, and those few who have made the journey have been incapable of reporting back more than the tiniest fragments. The poet Coleridge claimed to have known her intimately, but the man was an inveterate liar and in this, as in so much, we must doubt his word. Her appearance is the most variable of all the Endless, who, at best, are ideas cloaked in the semblace of flesh. her shadow's shape and outline has no relationship to that of any body she wears, and it is tangible like old velvet. Some say the tragedy of Delirium is her knowlede that, despite being older than suns, older than gods, she is forever the youngest of the Endless, who do not measure time as we measure time, or see the worlds through mortal eyes. Others deny this, and say that Delirium has no tragedy, but here they speak without reflection. For Delirium was once Delight. And although that was long ago now, even today her eyes are badly matched: one eye is a vivid emerald green, spattered with silver flecks that move. The other eye is vein blue. Who knows what Delirium sees, through her mismatched eyes?"
Neil Gaiman Season of Mists

One of her eyes is now a different color than the other and she has uneven hair that keeps changing colors, but she likes it better now, especially when the goldfish fly in it. Oh, and she is always smiling, except for when she isn't. Thinking is not a plate of fruit for Delirium because her dragonflies get all taxidermy, and if too many pieces of eight begin to fill her coxcomb then the wrong window burnings will come out of her fireplace, causing penguin dancers to misinform their ears in her face. She tries though. She's smart but not in the backwards way that teachers teach and students learn. She's smart like mermaids walk and blindfolds see.

There are no traditions that she upholds, except for the ones that she attends, or those age old rituals in which she makes them up as she goes. Though she may be sitting with you playing checkers with a deck of cards, she is also in the infirmary observing the sick, in the poor houses attending to the downtrooden. She's over there at the bar suggesting maybe he should get a taxi and not go home. And she's in Ohio telling that girl's reflection in the mirror she isn't really so fat that's just jello, and she should put the gun down. Someone wants to jump, and she recommends he miss the ground. She tries to be helpful but things don't always go as planned. It might help if she planned ahead, but that means thinking backwards and it hurts her ankles when she does that. She helped them when it was cold and wet once. She convinced the players to keep on playing, because music would make it easier for them to wait for her sister to come. Death was a little late to the Titanic but that's okay. Delirium was there. Then decades later they made a movie about it but forgot to write her in which made her sad.

You know the best thing about aeroplanes? Apart from the peanuts in the little silver bags, I mean. It's looking out of the windows at the clouds, and thinking, maybe I could go walking in there. Maybe it's a special place where everything's okay. Sometimes I do go walking in the clouds. But it's just cold and wet and empty, but when you look out of a plane it's a special world...
Delirium, in Brief Lives

Hers is the realm of madness and disorder, and those who lose their grip on reality are welcome to her care. Others visit for brief periods. Most come and go as they please. All know her whether they want to admit it or not, for even the smallest inchworm loses it every once in awhile. There is more to say about her, but Delirium is pancakes to the logging chipmunks. So I will have to distill the water colors for the pastel chicken later.