thatcher kapuścińska ; district eight . fin

THATCHER

"Time is of the essence!"

The little white rabbit says in a hurry, she's fidgety, jittery, her mind is a ticking clock counting up and down the seconds- minutes- hours- eternity- endlessly. I watch her in amazement, not the kind of where envy has potential to run a course, but the kind of where it's almost a form of humorousness. She contains the mind of a train wreck, watched solely for entertainment, but then again we all do.

"A f-false statement has-s been spoken."

Too quick to talk while my mind can't keep pace, my words flow, in a stutter, with each other precisely to Carmody, more known as the White Rabbit, however they speak as a whole, as though the statement made came from the call of a crowd. The orphanage wasn't a crowd, but a handful of plenty, almost so empty that the echoes were what occupied the walls of the house, aside from us.

I grin. They'd always call me Cheshire due for fact the smile that lays naturally across my face when the corners begin to turn in on themselves, it's resemblance is almost torturous. It's all a taunt. It's all a ruse.

"T-time is figurative. Subjective-"

Pause. I can hear the clockwork grind in her occupied mind, the clocks ticking and it's making its rounds; backwards- forwards- again again AGAIN- forwards- continue- continue- "oh wait" (she can hear it)- back again. It's never ending, the hearing, the ticking, the sound of a tick, a tock and the pendulum that belong to the grandfather clock which resides once in place, once in time.

"Imaginary. Ma-man made. In here- it doesn't matter."

I address the crowd. Perched upon the ledge of a rickety, old wooden fencing that guards from falling down the stairway. Smoke surrounds my peripherals, trailing to the white rabbit, Carmody looks with disapproval, with distaste, annoyance, but I look back with satisfaction. She holds her tongue, ("Wha'sa matter? Cats got yah tongue?") of course I do. The smoke fills nostrils, the burning ash falls against my bare scarred thigh, my jean shorts too far up my ass to care- I welcome the fiery singe.

("We get it Thatcher. You evaporate smoke vape.")

She scoffs. I smile. I blow smoke to her disgusted, scrunched  face before dissipating within the cloud, leaving a fading trail. She's annoyed. I laugh. I grin. Cheshire.

("Look at the stars, and how they shine for you. It's like they're our own.")

I smile, my sparked gaze following his finger, my mind gathering millions of thoughts to which they'll soon process, and within them is facts to prove him wrong. From A to B, but sometimes stops are made along the way ranging from C to Z before getting there. In the end, however, it always reaches the destination - From A to B.

"I-It's s-s-so-"

He hushes me, tells me to slow down, tells me to relax even just a bit, it works, but not for long. He tells me time isn't of the essence, everything perfect takes time to form, and it's why I must slooooow dooooown. He waits, unexpectedly. I dropped the thought, focused on the next.

"What a fallacy. Th-They aren't ours-"

I pause, I think. A sense of regained consciousness flows through me, I talked too fast. No. I thought too fast this time, and my words caught up with its pace. My head lays back in the grass, I swear a ladybug crawls onto the tangled strands, but he picks them out before I could realize. He smiles, he kisses my cheek gently. My voice grows into a hollow whisper.

"Can't be claimed, like us. Can't be stolen, like us. Can't be bought-"

I stop. I'm wrong. Perhaps majority of the time I am wrong -  if time is even a thing, if not then perhaps I'm not - but in other cases it's backed up. From A to B, through C to Z, no matter what it's always gotten there. Not now, though, because now I'm wrong.

He looks at me, he smiles just a bit before brushing my hair from my forehead. I miss him sometimes now, proven when the golden specks on my high cheekbones are flushed with trails. It's not often, though. I look at him, and it's the last time I can remember because damnit it was so fucking long ago. The panic, the moments as they ticked- ticked- ticked- away from us, and the next they'd put me between floorboards to watch.

It was the last time I'd seen their smiles, their faces. They're frantic now, and it echoes in my head. How wrong can someone, like me, be. It wasn't a question, for once I admitted it. ("Can't be stolen, like us.") Oh how wrong I'd turned out to be.

"D-d-d-d-da-"

It returned. He hushed me and promised to do the same. Speaking his last words with a kiss to the forehead. I thought I'd proved them all wrong, but it was true. Or - at least in this case.

"Time is of the essence-"

KAPUŚCIŃSKA