Oneshots

Birds

The boy didn't speak.

He didn't look at anyone, really. If he had it his way, he wouldn't even exist.

If he didn't exist, then people wouldn't bully him. He wouldn't have to dart around the edges of social groups in hopes of sparing himself a beating. He wouldn't have to take the long way home over the bridge; the one where he spent the entire duration hoping the bolts would suddenly unscrew and leave him falling to his death. He wouldn't have to spend hours every morning trying to cover the bruises on his hands with his mother's foundation, and the bruises on his heart with a smile. To him, the smile hurt worse than any amount of injury could.

When he was a child, the boy always pictured himself as a bird. In his mind, birds could always escape danger, because while other animals were stuck on the ground, the bird could nest among the clouds. The boy always saw himself as a bird, and every other child on the playground became a cat or a dog- some sort of earthbound predator. But now that he looks at it more closely, he sees that he is the one stuck on the ground, and all the other people are circling above, diving down to pick at him when he comes too far out of his burrow.

And this is why the boy hides.

The rough bricking of the wall is a friend to the boy. The little scrapes it leaves along the wavy surface of his jacket are just reminders that it's there, protecting him. He doesn't mind the rough patches of skin it leaves on his palm from hours of gripping onto it's rusty surface. The boy loves this wall. He slips pieces of paper into it's cracks between classes, notes to thank the wall for it's loyalty. He's careful that nobody sees him do this, checking over his shoulder half a dozen times before. But there's one person he doesn't see.

The girl sits in the tree. She perches really, almost as gracefully as a hawk would grip onto a branch. Her legs never grow tired from sitting in this position, mostly because she ignores them when they do. She sits and watches the boy, day after day. She's seen him receive the harsh words without flinching, and take the kicks without complaint. She admires him for it, but would never vocalize her opinions. In a way, she's hurting him more than they ever can.

The boy is not aware of the existence of the girl. Long ago, she was a vague presence on the playground, just a shadow in the backdrop of childhood. But unnamed faces fade from the boys memory. This is why he gives names to the faces he knows to avoid; names like “square-chin” and “steel-eyes”. These are the sorts of names that he will never forget because they are burned into the features of their owner. The boy does not take the liberty of learning their real names, because that would give them personalities and flaws. The boy knows too much of his own flaws to desire to know those of others.

The girl has flaws. For years she has sat and watched without making a sound. This is her fatal flaw. There is nothing more in the world that she'd like to do than pick him up from the ground and carry him to safety, but she's frozen in her stance. Nothing she tells herself can ever change that. When he passes beneath her tree, she stops breathing, terrified that he will look up and discover her.

The boy does look up anymore. He finds no curiosity in the identity of his attacker any longer. He used to take the time to differentiate between the style of beatings but now they all feel the same. A kick to the ribs may as well be a knee to the groin in terms of the marks it leaves inside of him. Sure, there are easier marks to hide on the outside, but the ones beneath his shirt he no longer attempts to cloak. His parents have not seen him in less than a sweatshirt and jeans for years. They do not question his secretive behavior. They have no need to. He would not tell them even if they did.

His hands are the only place he still tries to keep presentable. Somewhere he read that a person's hands are even more important than their face. A hand is something that is surrendered in order to show submission. If a person does not maintain his or her hands, they do not maintain one's image. The boy does not know why this sticks with him, but it does.

Ironically enough, his hands are a garden of imperfections. Starting with the roughness of his palms, vines of swollen veins pulse beneath the yellowed skin. Prickly clumps of scabs rest on the surface, and even after being collected, each leaves it's own raised scar in the dirt. The boy would give anything for the clean hands of his peers, something to hold pride in, but no matter his prayers, he is only granted more flaws.

The boy hates his flaws.

The girl loves his flaws.

It's a cold spring morning when the boy reappears into the girl's view. In one hand he clutches a wrinkled sheet of paper and in the other, a rope. The girl watches as he folds the note impossibly small, and places it into the last unfilled crack within the wall. On the inside, the girl is screaming as he wraps the length of rope around her branch, knotting the end into a familiar necklace. But her fatal flaw holds her back from anything but silently observing.

The boy steps onto the chair. The girl does nothing.

The boy fits the leash around his neck and tightens his final tie. The girl does nothing.

The boy mumbles a prayer to the sky. The girl does nothing.

The boy steps forward off the chair. His weight adds to that of the girl and the tree moans with discomfort. There is nothing the girl can do, but wait until the boy is no longer struggling. She watches as the air is disallowed to enter his body. His face becomes blue with panic, but his eyes are the calmest she's ever seen them.

Now is the most beautiful the boy has ever been.

And as his heart shuts off, and his brain is left to wonder for another three minutes, the branch breaks. If the girl had been watching it instead of the boy, she would have seen the way it splintered upwards. But she did not. As she hit the ground, the wood pierces through her chest. She is left with just enough time to take the boy's cold hand in her own.

“You're beautiful,” she whispers, her curse finally broken.