I wrote this piece of flash fiction about five years ago. Maybe six. I'm not too sure, but that's sort of the point. The
He
lays behind her on the bed and pulls at her remaining feathers,
whispering softly to himself with each pluck: “She loves me she
loves me not...” She is brushing her hair, vaguely looking out the
slits between the blinds into the morning sun. It is the day of the
Anniversary and he can feel the tension in her shoulders, the
apprehension in her spine.
“Are
you alright?” he asks. She shrugs. Her face falls into a
confused sort of frown. She stops brushing and looks down at her
hands, unsure of what to do with them.
“Are
you going out today or staying in?” she asks.
“Probably
staying in. At least until it's over,” he says. She nods.
Outside
the window the city is caught in morning gridlock. Cars snarl in the
hot September air, spitting fumes out at the masses of pedestrians
that weave between them. He has not been to the window to see, but
he can imagine the same tension that is in her shoulders gripping the
city, preparing to tighten and immobilize it.
“I
hate watching the clock like this, waiting for it to happen,” she
says with a sigh. He plucks another feather, twirls it between his
fingers and then sits up.
“You'd
rather be blissfully ignorant?” he asks.
“I'd
rather go back to how thing were before it all happened,” she says.
“Blissfully
ignorant,” he says.
“That
was so long ago I don't remember what it was like,” she says.
“All
you did was sit around with wings you never used singing songs you
didn't believe,” he says.
She
is about to speak as the clock strikes 8:45. In unison, the city's
ten thousand church bells ring once, sending a deep shudder through
the streets that echoes in every alley and every foundation.
The
population stops in its tracks, the tension clamping down on every
leg, every lung, pressing down on every shoulder. It is the
Anniversary of the day the tallest buildings in the city tumbled
down. It is the Anniversary of the day the angels started to lose
their feathers.
She
sits rigidly on the bed, staring out the window, waiting for a breath
of movement in the stifling stillness of the city. He picks at his
nails. Finally he sighs and plucks out one of her last two feathers.
“What
are you doing?” she hisses.
“What?”
he asks innocently.
“We're
supposed to stay still,” she says.
He
shrugs. “And you're supposed to stay quiet.” She glares at him.
He rolls his eyes and walks over to the window. He pulls the blinds
up, jerks the window open and leans his head out the window.
“Hey
you all down there,” he shouts, “You're dead already, you just
don't know it yet.” He pulls his head back in and turns around.
She is staring at him, shocked and speechless. She opens her mouth
but does not know whether to speak or scream. He walks back across
the room and lays down beside her on the bed. He pulls out the last
of her feathers.
“How
in hell did you just do that?” she asks, her voice trembling
between terror, hatred and fascination.
“You're
like all of them, above and below. You're immobilized by your fear.
You traded in your wings for this stillness and it killed you. You
just don't know it yet. I'm too angry to be held down by that sort
of fear, too angry at everyone else for falling into it.”
“You're
a monster,” she says.
“And
you wish you could be one,” he says. She looks down at him and
then stands up without saying a word. She walks across the room and
slams the door behind her as she leaves. He lays back in the bed
with the very last of her feathers resting on his chest.
She
walks back through the city to her own apartment. She packs only
what she can carry and puts a note and a check on the kitchen counter
for the landlord. She walks out into the September sun, past the
frozen mobs, past the rumbling, idle cars and buses. She walks to
the river and, when the city timidly starts to move again, takes a
ferry to the other side, leaving behind the island fortress of
skyscrapers.
On
the mainland, she finds a bus station and buys a one-way ticket. She
decides to head south, where the air is warmer, where things move
slower and where people revel in their fear of God, death and change.
*
* * * *
He
does not watch her go but can imagine her storming through the silent
streets, propelled by her anger. He picks up the last of her
feathers off his chest and says to himself: “She loves me.” He
smiles and rolls over, away from the window.
God
might, but he does not blame her for being afraid, for being angry or
for walking out on him. “She is,” he says to himself, looking at
the pile of discarded feathers on his bed, “only human.”
- Kid