Transubstantiation [Blac/Birdie Blitz]

Aunt Birdie came down the stairs slowly, and Blackston imagined she’d had another one of her nights. He’d taken to trying to keep tabs on all of it, and make sure the fridge was stocked with chicken noodle soup (high in salt) and fresh, cold ice water for her to drink when she’d gotten into it. He tried his best to smile with his biggest grin when she’d descended, to be as welcoming as possible. Bless her heart, she just needed so much saving, and Blackston wouldn’t rest until he saw her as she’d been a few years ago, before –

Blackston.... what— Her words came out and like a crow bar, started to rip away the smile from the young man’s face, What the fuck are you doing?

He flushed and brought his hands together to his front, and chewed his bottom lip. It may have been a little odd the way that he liked to look back on old writings and read them aloud. And yes, maybe more so that he debated the finer points of death and spiritual life with stuffed animals on occasion. At least once he’d worked himself into such a fuss debating with Father Yarn (his tailless tiger) on the topic of limbo that he’d broken into a sweat.

“Why Aunt Birdie, it’s a pleasure to see you today. Care to sit and join the sermon? I was just telling the congregation about the meaning of treating others as we’d like to be treated,” Blackston smiled and waved his hand at the couch. “To save their immortal souls.”

Blackston clapped his hands together when Birdie took a seat at the couch. He smiled and then remembered himself, and moved one hand to smooth back his hair. He had thought she might march right into the kitchen, or perhaps drop off to the toilet to wretch for a while, but instead was willing to sit for his sermon. Oh happy days! Perhaps the good power above was giving him a chance to start saving Birdie, too. He knew it would be a challenge but he felt he could try.

I don’t think your stuffed animals have souls. They’re, uh— they’re stuffed. And what exactly did my cat do to deserve eternal damnation? Birdie brought up her skepticism, Pistachio in her lap, purring, and Blackston nodded along.

“Well Father Yarn, Sister Squid, and Brother Ripred all help me become better seasoned in preaching the good word, Aunt Birdie. Through my grace they too can be saved,” Blackston grinned. He knew they didn’t have souls but at the least he could pretend they did, to make himself feel as though he was doing something. “And I believe animals have souls. Just like us they’re born with a weight upon them that only gets better through learning the truth with a capital ‘T.’”

He did like Pistachio, and the cat was quite kind. He still worried though that he too would be condemned to eternal hellfire should Blackston not learn him the way of the being above.

“It’s all about what we do ourselves, to be better. Not necessarily how the others or the world act.” Blackston figured it might be hard for Birdie. She seemed to always let others dictate how her world revolved. “Don’t you feel better when you’ve done something for someone else? It’s like a little bit of life that makes you better, and one day, when you’re gone, you’ll have enough to transcend.”

Blackston knew what it was like to live a place where he went unnoticed. It’s what he saw when he looked at Aunt Birdie furrowing her brow. He’d never have the courage to tell her, but half the reason he came to live with her was that he believed in her spirit. She was tempestuous, but made a decision, even if it blew her off course. He may have known how to fry eggs or make his bed tight enough to bounce a quarter off of, but he couldn’t say he stood with a hair of confidence.

As pistachio jumped to the ground and brought up his hindquarters in a stretch, Birdie spoke again.

'Pistachio is a cat. He doesn’t understand what the hell you’re talking about. When he dies, he isn’t going to go anywhere, just like us. He’s just going to be dead.'

A quiet came over Blackston then as he stared back at his Aunt. He knew that she was hurting over her daughter’s death, and could forgive her for not believing that there was life after death. He so desperately wished his brother was alive, there was a time that he had believed he was fooling himself into making up stories to feel better. But that was the essence of faith; he had to live with the unknowing, to fold it up into his heart and know that it was his own beating that gave meaning.

He knelt to scoop pistachio up into his arms. The little cat rag dolled in his arm, drilling out a purr. “Pistachio is like all those who don’t know the truth. He may live forever not knowing, but with enough prayer and love,” Blackston put a hand at each side of the cat’s flank and slowly lifted the thing above his head, “He will ascend with us all!”

He brought his face up close to Pistachio, whose eyes went wide, and his tail twitched. “Isn’t that right little believer?”

Pistachio wiggled to and fro, and Blackston moved to put the cat upon the carpet. Blackston knelt down in front of Birdie, careful not to mess up the pleats of his corduroy pants.

“My brother may have died but I always feel him, all the time. It makes me happy,” Blackston powered through the last word, all soft as silk. “Aunt Birdie, don’t you want there to be something more?”

‘Just because you want something doesn’t mean it actually exists,' Birdie told him, and as she rose to leave the service, Blackston made sure to stare squarely at the floor. He folded his hands together and pressed each pair of fingers together, bouncing back and forth. There were enough reasons for him not to have friends, he knew, but worst of all was that he tended to say the wrong thing all the time. He said it with such conviction, too, that Blackston felt as though he’d never have a single person understand him his whole life.

“D-don’t worry Brother Ripred. I still believe.” He crouched closer to the couch and rested his head on his hands. “No, Sister Squid, today probably isn’t a good day for a baptism. I don’t think Birdie would like that one bit.” He pulled at fuzz on the couch and flicked a piece across the room.

The coffee machine whirred to life in the kitchen. He was happy to have a wall between him and Birdie. ‘Are you going to do this every week?’ He sank further into the couch. He placed his face into the upholstery so that no one, not even Father Yarn, could see the beginnings of a set of tears forming in his eyes. ‘Because I think you should get a different hobby.’

“It’s not a hobby,” He said into the couch, voice muffled. He knew it was bad to talk back to an adult but he wanted to at least say his piece (especially if she couldn’t really hear him).

Maybe it wasn’t his fault. Aunt Birdie had a shorter fuse than most, especially when something was affecting her. She had enough tragedy in her life, and had a habit of inviting it back in week after week.

Blackston sat up and wiped his eyes. He leaned into the black button eyes of his tailless tiger. “You’re right Father Yarn. This is a test of my faith.”

He positioned himself in the door frame, and held one of the papers he’d gotten from the market in his hands. He cleared his throat, and began to read,

“Oh great and powerful, protect this house and those within it; As smoke vanisheth, so let them vanish away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish…¹” Blackston kept his eyes on the paper, slowly enunciating the prayer that was to ward off the worst of spirits.

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¹Excerpt - Exorcism Prayer Against Satan and the Rebellious Angels