a blessing from above | shelby/nicoli [VT]

Home is still hell and I am burning.

I thought that perhaps the piece of paper handed to me upon arrival would be something of a special sort— fancy letterhead or ink-stained corners or something different from every unknown place revisited. I expect a note to improvise, to speak from the heart to be splayed across the page instead of traditional, typed text, but in the five minutes prior to taking the stage of Eight seen so many times over the years, I am left with a white page of paper, black computerized lettering, and an empty yet still heavy heart.

Here I am left with the desolate feeling of two other lost families and my own joining their ranks. Here, my mother and father stand with their hands behind their backs and their eyes turned forward as stone. As I close out with promises of forever under my hand, I am brought to face my mother and father, in an order of the opposite. My father says nothing, but embraces me with stone cold hands that do not bend at the knuckles. My mother follows his lack of speech, but I see a tear roll down her cheek as her chest heaves, hollow as my own.

I do not know if it is in my best interest to apologize, but even if it had been I could not find the words to say so before they were gone once more. I do not know where pride lay in their bodies, but I could almost think it safe to assume that it was not in their hearts.

With a lack of kin besides a last name I begin to greet strangers and acquaintances alike, one by one with a cracked smile that gave way to its identity only at the edges. I speak of gratitude too many times to count but cannot name one occurrence that it felt genuine.

Most people say little, and worry even less. Most people say nothing other than half-congratulatory comments and half-envious remarks about a relative lost to similar circumstances. My body quivers, hopes to quip back about having lost Cha and empathy, but then I remembered that I would be required to tell them that I am just another case of a failed suicide, and then the magic would be lost.

The magic is always lost, somehow.

I am brought out of my stupor by a voice soft, but still strong enough to move the ground beneath my feet out from underneath me, “What a blessing it is to meet you, Shelby Leviane. I am Nicoli Rasoio, cousin of Jenoah who represented the District in the Seventy-Fourth. It seems Ripred has really granted us with a wonderful gift.”

I crack the corner of my lip, this time not from automation but from a lack of faith, “I do not know if I would call it a blessing.” I feel the cold glare of Adessia from over my shoulder and I rush in to path the error of my ways, “And thank y— you, for your cousin and his sacrifice for our District. It has not gone unnoticed.”

I have already forgotten his name.