Teardrops and Feathers

It happened on what would have been a normal day. Although if any day in this town could be called normal, well, I could be called a cheesecake. Every day I sit on the hard brown grass that covers old decaying corpses and wait for her. My love, my wife, my angel…

While I sat, cold and lonely, I watched as people passed by the cemetery. They dared not even take a glance at my face. Why? Oh, they knew what I was; a man with a heart so bent and ripped it no longer exists as a heart, but merely a limp blob inside my chest. It is this coldness about me that leads people away, for without a heart one cannot live, yet strangely enough, here I am. A cursed soul, bound to walk the earth until I meet Death and gladly follow him.

Bruised and angry clouds offered little comfort as they covered my head and a chill wrapped around my body. In the rain, nobody notices the daunting being, lying among the dead with empty beer bottles in his hand, tears gleaming on his face. The wind picked up and whistled as it past through the tall trees of the woodland surrounding the town. My hair whipped at my face violently as I stared aimlessly into their dark secrets, my limp blob jumping around my ribcage as a black feather lofted silently to the ground.

Staggering to my feet, I squinted against the storm's fury and slowly made my way over to the sign that supposedly warded off "evil spirits" from the cemetery. Ha. Good luck with that. It had already failed its duty if I was standing there.  

The black feather drifted around the edge of the woods but was weighed down by the rain. It landed a short distance from my position and I lumbered over to hold it. The wind had clearly blown it into a sharp object; the feathers were all mattered and damaged. The owner had obviously been hurt. Traces of blood could be seen at the base of it, but it was blood unlike my own; it was a deep red with no impurities in its colour, even as the rain poured down on it, the colour remained, staining the feather.

They say that the blood of a crow is a sign of forbidding fate. This feather, although black and quite like that of a crow's, was not. It was much longer and slender, with a small white spot on the tip. I had no clue to tell me who this belonged to, and although I was intrigued to know, I let it fall to the ground as I walked away.

The storm overhead screamed at me to remain next to the old oak I had been next to so it could strike it and cause a branch to fall on me. Generally I would be very obliged to wait patiently for my death, but I had been given a sign. My angel was nearby, waiting for me to come and claim what was once mine. She still had something of mine, but that was hers to keep forever. I had the gap in my chest to show it.

Referring to my life, I have been inspired to do nothing. All the people who have held me up always let me down. My mother had abandoned me as an infant, leaving me with my abusive and drug dealing father. I'd come home from school to find him lying in his own filth on the kitchen floor, leaving me to gather the smashed beer bottles and air the house of the smoke that seemed to lie over me like a thick blanket.  

I couldn't touch the money he left around the house; although he constantly drained his brain of any intelligence, he still knew if even a pound was out of place. So I left the notes and coins where he threw them and hid in my room, receiving too much of nothing.

The day my father died was the best I'd felt in a while. I was free. There was nobody there to tell me what I couldn't do. There was nobody to leave me behind when they stepped forward. There was nobody there at all. But after some time I came to realise I had even less to live for. With no one earning money, I was forced to find work to support myself and the only family I had left, my bat of a sister. She was this skinny little thing, mentally disabled from constant beatings and forced alcohol and drug intake caused by our father when she was a youngster. She was 6 when he passed on and hadn't a clue what to think about it. She didn't know whether to be happy that she had escaped her doomed fate or to be extremely scared that she'd been left with me. Perhaps she didn't think anything at all about it.

Either way she felt, it was still bad for her. I had no one to mind her while I worked, and she didn't attend school, so she had to come along. I worked at a machinery factory, working with heavy material and hot metals. Generally, not a place for children, as I learnt shortly after my sister became interested in the grinder, wondering how it compressed and chopped all the rock-hard pieces of metal. Her brain wasn't functioning properly that day. Or any day.

She decided to rest on the conveyor belt that, at the time, had been switched off as the workers had lunch. She'd returned inside to fetch her "lucky" piece of string. I had stood in the cold snow outside and glanced at my workmates with their packed lunches, probably by their parents or wives. I had a piece of bread. It was enough to keep me going, but not enough to prepare me for what was coming.

We were ordered to "get our worthless selves" back to work. So I wandered back inside, subconsciously turning the power on, starting up every major machine in the building. Including the conveyor belt on which my 9 year-old sister lay, asleep, with her lucky piece of string.

It seemed that it had been my brain not functioning properly that day, not hers. How could I be so stupid? I hadn't even thought about where she might be or what trouble she could get herself into in that factory. I'm an idiot.

After that, I fell apart. I had no life. I had no one else's life to hold onto. I had no family to care for. I was nothing, at least until I met her; the angel that changed my life. Her name was Luina and she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. She had eyes like diamonds, sparkling when she blinked and shimmering as she cried. Her golden hair lay gently by her side as she walked and she always had black clothing wrapped around her. Luina showed me another part of life I'd never been a part of, or known before. She showed me love.

I had been brought back to life, the memories of my grieving past forgotten. The small village in which I grew up meant nothing anymore, so we decided to move on, heading north. We followed a train line that was bordered by a huge forest filled with mysterious noises and shadows. At times we were faced with fear and hunger, but still we pushed onwards. Nothing in the world could defeat us.

A year Luina and I spent travelling together, side by side. A year it took to reach the town I later called my home. A year it took for Luina to know that she could trust me. A year it took for my child to be brought into the world. A year was all I needed to know that I had a purpose.

On the night our baby was conceived I knew I wasn't alone anymore. I had a family again. My heart, once cold and blue now flourished with warmth and love. I was overcome with happiness and joy that I thought could never leave me. But, alas, nothing lasts forever. And I had a whole lot of nothing.

I was told that the child had escaped its mother's womb in the early morning/late night. The squirming little thing screamed and cried non-stop. It had the contents of its stomach coming out of both ends twice a day and it snored so loud that even a bear would whimper in fear. A blessing, they would say. Ha.

On the eve of the third month of the child's life a deep rumble grew loud during the night as the town lay sleeping. I'd awoken to the sound of the house creaking and felt the thatched roof splintering my face.

Luina could sleep through a meteor crash without raising an eyelid. I had difficulty waking her but I eventually managed to drag her from those enchanting dreams of hers. The rumbling had increased dramatically by the time we were both up and we hastily ran to the baby's room. Dust filled the air and I found it hard to see my child's cot through it, but I knew the room inside out. I felt around with my cut and bleeding hand, not feeling the pain, but the chill of the baby's skin. I fixed my arms around the body and leapt towards the doorway.

The earthquake was horrendous. The last thing I remember that night was a woman screaming in pain and anguish as she learned of the death of her only child. The roof was hit by a falling tree and it collided with one of the rafters, sending it hurtling to the ground. It had been directly above my beauty…

There is no amount of happiness in the world to remove my heartache. Why do these things happen to me, I often wonder. The only good thing to occur in my entire life was that woman. And now she's gone, our child along with her. It's just unfair.

So I sit one ordinary day on the hard brown grass that covers old decaying corpses and wait for her. My love, my wife, my angel… Vision blurry, mind buzzing and my chest throbbing in beat of my ice cold heart, I wait. Even if the rain spits threats at me and the birds circle overhead, even if the wind tried to pick me up and throw me, even if I have no hope left, I wait.

Days pass. Weeks pass. Months pass. A year passed. Still nothing. She's not coming back. Why would she, anyway? I have nothing to offer her. I am nothing and I have nothing.

For the last time I stagger from the cemetery, my face plastered with dry tears. I turn and gaze at the dent in the grass where I'd sat all those years. A black feather had landed on that exact spot. Coincidence, I thought. Nothing but a bloody coincidence. I took a swig and wiped my mouth and beard, swaying as I walked away. With one last glance, I left the cemetery and my love for her with it. I'm done with waiting.

I should have turned around just once more. After years of lingering around that cemetery, what should happen on the day I give up on everything? Two angels met at the spot where I'd sat. One hid behind a dark cloak, his face a mystery to all, his white wings mesmerizing. The other was more docile. She had golden hair and eyes like diamonds casting light in every direction. Her black wings left feathers lying around her, and she smiled as she gazed over at me.

But the decision had been made. On the one day I'd finally given up, they'd come. She'd come. An angel can only feed off your hope and happiness. That day, I had neither, and she sensed it. Death had won me over. I was the same as him; I had no heart left to rip and bend. My soul had perished.

Luina's figure gently circled in the sky and a single drop of water fell as I was taken by Death. One more day with the slightest of hope was all she'd needed. I'm sorry for losing hope, my love, my wife, my angel… But I'd waited. And waited. And waited.