Author Games Compilation [Cycle 2]

Task 4 [SEPT]

AUTHOR GAMES: FROM THE GRAVE - QUARTERFINALS

Nine years prior, two birds nestle down upon the cotton and polyester of a couch, locked away on three sides by windowed walls and the dripping of spring trees. The littler bird - but by no means a bird of less-than - readjusts her long sweatered plumage, for this is all she wears beyond undergarments and woolen socks. She reaches down to crack her toes, much to the disturbance of the larger bird - but by no means a bird of more-than - and presses her head deeper into the crook of his wing. This is enough to ease him, and his creased features soften enough to let him peck her forehead in a far gentler way than most birds do.

And the little bird asks, "What would you do if I died?"

The larger bird starts, taken aback. "Well, to start, I won't let you." Typical. He always thinks he can keep everyone from getting shot out of the sky. Of tripping out of the nest and breaking their scarlet necks against the earth.

"But if I did, though." She sighs. "Just...I think about it, sometimes. I think about it a whole lot sometimes. And the way I see it, well." She pauses to close her eyes and smile, not because the idea of death brings her joy, but because this moment is serenity. "When I'm gone, I'm gonna be going home."

She sits forward a bit and spreads her wings out, forehead pointed towards the ceiling. There are galaxies beyond the plaster, she knows. If only her wings could take her beyond the cloudline.

The larger bird nudges her back with his palm, and she responds quietly. "Shh. I can hear you getting all worried and sniffly back there. You don't need to cry." Her eyes open, left wide and green, and she turns back. And he is crying, but not in the sad way, because there's this smile pressed between the blotchiness of his cheeks. So she asks: "What?"

"I just don't want to think of times like these not existing anymore is all. That's all."

Times like those ceased existing anymore, eventually, and as much as Everett Greffon claimed he wouldn't ever let her fall out of the sky, the cessation of life caught her in the headwinds. Her feathered body tumbled and spun, and when she'd struck the ground, there was dust.

Dust. September Greffon laid in dust, and, were anyone to enter the locked storage room, they might find a clean patch right in the middle of the floor, swept up to mimic her silhouette. They wouldn't see her atop it, though. Just the outline. It wouldn't be any different than tracing chalk around me again.

Very rarely did she leave this little 'ole room full of her castaway items. Very rarely could she bring herself to peel her energy off the floor in general. Never did Everett come in - not since her lash-out months and months ago. Was it months? Perhaps it was only weeks, or days, even a year or two. There wasn't any calendar here.

Anyways, September had only a general idea of what time of the year it was based upon the reactions of the household beneath her. She had time - all this time. She had time to listen to the careful jingle of carolling and coos of "Merry Christmas!" and the chorus of laughter that came when tiny little boxes lost their wrapping. She had time to hear the distant explosion of embers and color on New Years' and the exaggerated oohs and ahhs set out to tell a toddler that this was a wondrous time. She had time to hear the content chuckles of a couple and their late night pleasure leaking up through the floorboards on Valentine's Day and, frankly, any other weekend night.

And you really wanna know how that felt? It hurt. It hurt and she knew it was all her fault that this was the case, not because she'd left, but because she'd decided to stay. Lingering where others had moved on was a second death sentence, and she knew she shouldn't because she harbored too much hate, too much hurt. This house was a hopeless place. But it was also a crackhouse in the sense that it was addictive.