suffocated by the swarm } charade

Onyx
Capitol Resident

1,169 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Jan 3, 2023 15:20:14 GMT -5

in between somewhere and nowhere

suffocated by the swarm } charade Sept 8, 2016 5:04:05 GMT -5

Post by Onyx on Sept 8, 2016 5:04:05 GMT -5

URBANE

MAGPIE

I stand in front of the sink, and watch the sediment-saturated water fall one drip at a time into the putrid basin below. On the window-sill, the dry skeletons of ex-plants stand stiffly, as if yet with some hope of redemption, resurrection. The smell of mildew is thick, damp and stifling. Although the night is dark, it is far from peaceful. The world is sick, and everything is dying.

How many magpies roost at home tonight? My bed has been without company for so long I can no longer even count my husband among the brood, and the rest have one by one flown the coop after my cuckoo child's broken body was brought back from the Capitol in an industrially-stamped crate. It feels like a hundred years have passed since then, yet at the same time it feels like only yesterday.

It's hard to claim that I ever loved even one of my strange flock, not truly. I thought that being a mother would endear me to those around me, but all it ever did was ostracise me further. As more spilled out of our imaginations and into existence, I had no choice but to retreat back into myself, spreading my wings only far enough as to shelter those ~~seven~~ six odd creatures from a world which would only ever accept a selection of them for a selection of their features. The pain of each of their quirks, for most far too difficult to love, became a pain within myself; a splinter driven up my spine, a barbed wire closing around my throat, a thousand needles forced urgently into every soft piece of flesh or soul I still left exposed.

So is it really a sin that being so alone now brings me such relief?

There is at least one I can expect to return home tonight. The new moon has passed, and through the old warped window at the front of the house I can see the early grin of the moon, sharp as a bite, leering at me from behind a gossamer of clouds. I never wish to know what draws my eldest daughter into every month's darkest night, but that doesn't stop me coveting the freedom and anonymity she takes for granted. Justice lacks fear, lacks the consideration of the consequences of her actions. The latter is a trait I now emulate, in a way; although I take the time to realise what I might cause, I could never let such a thought stop me committing what I want to commit. And now that I have finally drawn up the determination to rebuke her, I will demonstrate that standing when my daughter returns home.

At the sound of her footsteps, or rather, the sound of the house groaning its welcome to her meagre weight and the porch floorboards greeting her bare feet with song, I retreat from the sink and into the shadows of the kitchen. Let me become the shadows, to greet her from within the arms of the darkness, that friend she spends her time cohorting with. Then, from that darkness, let me emerge with retribution towards her.

Why? Why, when I prefer the unsilence of the house, a domain I can command in the bliss of solitude, would I punish her for giving it graciously to me? The answer is simply that. Justice has taken control out of my hands and handed it back to me like a prize. Now is my time to seize it back.

someday we'll be drinking with the seldom seen kid

charade
Retired Staff

3,811 POSTS

last seen Jan 6, 2024 4:36:58 GMT -5

Thinking

suffocated by the swarm } charade Sept 8, 2016 19:55:34 GMT -5

Post by charade on Sept 8, 2016 19:55:34 GMT -5

If anyone had been out and about in the middle of the night they would have seen the eldest Magpie child dancing around the oil drills, humming incessantly all the while. She climbed a piece of construction equipment and plopped herself down on the edge unceremoniously.“I know you're watching.” She said to no one. “But you’re silly if you think I’m going to jump. I’d just float away and we can’t have that now, can we?” She spared a minute or maybe an hour or three to gaze at the stars and imagined getting lost in the darkness above.

Then Justice climbed down the ladder carefully and lay in the grass, rolling around in what her mother would have said was a most unladylike fashion. It was then that she realized she was barefoot, and that she didn’t remember taking her shoes off. She wiggled her toes experimentally and then twirled twice before starting to skip down the road, singing a little ditty as she went.

“I wonder where my shoes have gone, have gone. Did I leave them on the lawn? The lawn? The lawn? Or were they stolen by a boy named John? Were they stolen by a boy named John?” She cocked her head to one side and put a hand to her ear to listen for a reply. When no answer was forthcoming from any source, Justice shrugged and continued skipping barefoot all the way down the path to the Magpie household. She’d look for her shoes in morning. They couldn’t have walked very far without her.

Justice unlatched the door and stepped inside the kitchen, immediately becoming aware that she wasn’t alone. Perhaps she heard an exhalation of breath, a foot shifting the weight of the body it was holding up; or perhaps one corner of the kitchen was a black hole, absorbing everything that came towards it, even light itself.

But black holes were never shaped like people, except when they were. People could be so many different things when they forgot to be human. But Justice knew it was not a black hole, nor was it any of her siblings. There was only one that the dark figure rising out of the swirling shadows of the kitchen and coming towards her could be. This fact being known to her, Justice felt it might be prudent to offer her mother a greeting and a compliment.

Perhaps, sway some of her ire away.

“Hello, mother.” She said, tilting her head to one side and affixing her eyes to the general direction of Urbane’s face, which was hard to see in the lack of light. “You were so still, that for a moment I thought you might have been dead.” Justice’s head straightened out, and then proceeded to tilt down towards the opposite side. “It’s a good look on you. You should try looking dead more often.” She continued, blinking owlishly and nodding contritely.

“I could help.” She said innocently.

16 Jul 12, 23:43
GB: I bet you just sit at your computer with a tea cup and a monocle