User:ScatheMote/Conversation

{|width=80% The quiet rustling of autumn leaves.

Esther was suddenly wearing a new mask, one carved of wood, painted blue. It had a long dolphin snout, almost rostrate. On its face was struck a smile of black ink. Of her head, only her browned neck and ears were visible, tangled and mixed with her sunburnt hair. She was clutching my shoulder, hard. I felt the shifting of each of her fingers as they dug deeper into my flesh.

I fired again, into the bitter wooden brambles of her Estate.

“You missed, Vashti. You missed.” Her voice was hollow beneath the mask, a quiet echo, hollow beneath the mask. “Try again. Try again.”

I drew the pistol back slowly, still unused to its heaviness. Its wooden barrel smoked with saltpeter. I did not dislike the smell. I rotated the flint cock back up. I flitted my eyes over the small table beside me until I found the leather pouch of powder. Gritting my teeth to the pain, I took it with my broken hand, picking it up with only my forefinger and my thumb, Gently, with unsteady hands, I poured the powder into the muzzle, spilling spot blackness onto my hands and dress. I would have to manage, for now.

Esther’s mask loomed as I picked up a lead ball, wrapped in paper. Even through its covering, it still felt strangely cool to the touch. I positioned it over the top of the barrel – the bullet only barely fit. With my unbandaged hand, I pushed down firmly – only to drop it all on the grass entirely. The pistol tumbled and bounced, weakly spraying powder from its nozzle. The shot fell somewhere I could not see – like the wind, it was long lost in the reeds.

Esther did not release her grip as I stooped down to pick up the gun. “Do it all again, Vashti.” I realized that the changed timbre of her voice made it sound like she spoke from inside me. “I know you can do it, Vashti. So do it all again.”

I moved more quickly this time. From anger? No, perhaps more from disappointment. My sea-green dress ran dark with slithering tides of powder. With determination to look better than before, I shoved the lead ball in. From the table I then took a long thin ramrod and inserted it hard into the barrel. Over and again, until I felt the rod could push down no further. The satisfied shot was stuck there, deep in the caverns, when I drew out the rod again. I felt nothing from the action, not even a sense of duty to Esther. Just the weight of the task, and nothing more.

The dolphin smile carried on.

I scattered a bit more gunpowder onto the flashpan, and the pistol was ready. I raised it slowly up, my fingers tracing the designed struck into its metal. The top of the gun was molded to look like the Ocean on a calm day – placid waves danced on the barrel like dorsal fins, hovering over schools of fish. The base of the handle had a large silver hilt, carved into a bearded face with a three pointed crown. The pointless ornamentation jutted against my palm, leaving deep grooves and blisters there.

“Are you ready, Vashti?” I felt her sharp nails guiding my shoulder, digging deep until the gun came level with my eyes. “Look. Aim. Be productive.” I looked over the sight, above the barrel.

There, among the dying leaves, covered in orange tint, there, among the boughs, oak ancient and secure, there, among the rustling, which could be heard for miles, there, among the garbage, little tins growing rust, there, among the wind, the sound of sound itself, there, among it all, was a bird. It stood unmistakably on the forest floor, its long stylus legs a contrast to its plump torso of burnt orange feathers. Its tail displayed ten long feathers, these a darker red, that extended into a wispy curl. The wings were small, vestigial things, unfit for any sort of flight. Its neck, long and triumphant, met its small head, which was crowned by a few loose yellow feathers. The beak, small and sharp, was covered in fine down.

The bird blinked slowly with bright green eyes as I steadied my aim.

“Is it really the last one?” I asked, softly, already knowing the answer.

“No, it’s not the last bird.” Esther spat out the last syllable with as much venom as a masked woman could muster. “We will get there eventually, one day.”

“I mean, of this kind. This color, this shape, this…” I did not want to say beauty.

“Oh, of course. This is the last one of these.” She waved her hand dismissively. “That is precisely why we are killing it.”

I cocked the hammer. But then, for some reason, instead of firing I spoke again. “But then, why do I have to kill it? If it’s the last one, then it’s going to die anyway. There’ll never be any more of these.” The bird turned its face toward me. Its expressionless eyes somehow seemed serene. “I get it when there’s lots of them. When the pigeons clog the gutters and the sparrows eat the bread, I get it. They have to die. That’s what I do.” I looked at the unchanging dolphin which remained unchanging. It slowly turned to face me, and I realized I could see Esther’s sea colored irises through the mask.

Suddenly, I found I could no longer speak.

“Oh Vashti, what are we ever going to do with you?” She moved her free hand down my shoulder, down my left arm, until she grasped her palm against mine, her flesh against my bandage. “Have you ever felt the need to be important?” She continued without pausing. “Don’t answer that, it was rhetorical.” Her laughter resonated. “Of course you have. To feel important is to desire. And we have all desired. Desiring love, desiring attention, desiring possessions – all ways that we display our importance to the world. And those who have fleeting lives – like you, for example – find it necessary to stretch that attention past your grave. Once, long ago but still in my memory, you people were content with just living to old age. But now, now that society exists, you need more, don’t you? Not just a full belly, but a full legacy. You want to be remembered, don’t you?” She playfully squeezed my broken hand. It took all my strength not to cry out in pain. “But humans – like you, for example – think that to be remembered is to be remembered by humans, that only stories can beget stories. So they write tales of their glory, rise to carnage unimaginable, have little children that have little children that have little children. But that is not the only way. Stories are not the only way. The Earth can remember, the Sky can remember, and even the Ocean can remember. If you kill this bird, you will be remembered. The blood that scores the dirt of the land will always be singing your name. The maggots that worm the flesh of the bird will be yours and they will tell your name for ten thousand generations. The birds, of course, will never forgot, and they will curse your name and peck at you and cast you into the darkness, and that is kind of importance and a kind of memory.” I must have flinched, because Esther suddenly placed her soft fingers on my cheek. “Don’t worry, I will protect you. You can be afraid as much as you want without consequence. Don’t worry. Hadassah will rage and writhe against what you have done, but you are mine and cannot be touched”

I found my voice again. “I am yours?” My words creaked like the tide on a lonely spit.

Her fingers suddenly jerked my face toward the mask. “You know that I need you, Vashti. I need you to do it. A god can do nothing to the demesne of another. But you, you can destroy what I cannot touch.”

“But am I yours?” The mask seemed without depth, without form, a shimmering ceaselessness of being that stretched without stopping. “Truly, am I yours? Am I yours the men who come here, trotting on pampered horses past the brambles, who spend the night softly speaking your name? Am I yours like the sand on the windswept shore, colored black from my brimstone, colored red from their blood? Am I yours like the waves at noon, when the tide is just coming in, just enough to lap at my toes and feel its warmth? Am I yours when the calm comes rolling in, and the guiding stars twinkling against the lens of a sextant? Am I yours like the jellyfish that float by a ship in a storm, the ones that wrap their tentacles around the broken planks, around the sailors who cling to them?” I realized that I was shouting now, but found that I did not care. My shaking hands clung to the gun like vines. I never let the bird leave my sight. I will never let another bird leave my site. “Am I yours by the moonlight? Am I yours by the sunlight? Am I yours when holding hands? Am I yours when holding you close? Am I yours today, and will I be yours tomorrow?”

Esther turned the mask toward me. It looked with a double expression – the tender paint smile contrasted with her sea-colored eyes. “You will always be Vashti, who will always be my property. You made sure of that many years ago, even before you were born.” Her fingernails dug further into my arm. I winced, not because she was bruising me, but because I didn’t stop her. “So do what I tell you, and do what I require, and then you will find that what you want will follow.” She motioned her mask head at the gun. “Fire the gun, Vashti. Do it for me, just this one time.”

I waited for her to say something more, to say that she cared for my happiness and my own future, that she wanted me to smile just for the sake of it, and I would forgive it all in an instant. I knew it was not coming today, maybe tomorrow, but not today, still I waited anyway, for a few more moments.

I looked intently at the bird before me. It had not taken its gaze off me the entire time. Its eyes looked so intelligent – slow and measured, with none of the animal intensity. From somewhere within its plump plumage, its tiny wings shifted and came out from the body, and I realized they were not wings at all, but tiny arms, veiled in black gloves. In its right hand, it held a staff that swirled with a single golden snake. It reached its staff higher and higher, until the serpentine head was level with mine.

The quiet rustling of autumn leaves.

Esther was suddenly wearing a new mask, one carved of wood, painted gold. It had a long fat catfish face, with two long hispid whiskers falling from its cheeks. On its face was struck a smile of black ink. Of her head, only her browned neck and ears were visible, tangled and mixed with her sunburnt hair. She was clutching my shoulder, hard. I felt the shifting of each of her fingers as they dug deeper into my flesh.

I fired again, into the bitter wooden brambles of her Estate.

The bird fell abruptly to the ground. Its face was utterly ruined, splattered lumps of flesh and gore and pus. The wound gushed too loudly. There was no sign of the staff.

I put the gun back on the table. It clattered.

“Good job, Vashti. I’m proud of you.” Esther suddenly released her grip of me. I nearly stumbled to the ground. I involuntarily clutched my shoulder. It was wet to the touch, even through my dress. “I’ll see you again tomorrow. Same time, same place.” She looked briefly at the bird’s corpse. We both knew it would be there too.

I looked up at Esther. She was placing the pistol and all its parts into a small floral print bag, like she always did. “Aren’t you going to break my fingers?” She did not respond. She did not even acknowledge me. “I missed, Esther. Aren’t you going to break my fingers?” No response. “We do it every day. Please, Esther.” I hated how pleading, how high-pitched my voice was.

Her mask face finally looked up at me. “I was waiting for you to ask.”

She approached, and I felt normalcy come back alongside her.