The Zillion Tuesdays of the Unbreaking Crow and Pigeon

OF THE HALF-LOVES

165 000 000 AF

Even as a ten year old, I can tell Rowan is going to be a fantastic artist. He has that light in his eyes, you can see the colours and the forests and fields and oceans through his pupils. The images flutter around his brain like glitter in a disturbed snow globe. There is something special about him. He knows it too, and he’s dedicated to living to reach his full potential. He carries a sketchbook with him everywhere he goes.

We sit in our tree fort in silence for hours, he sketches and I read. Other kids always get bored and leave when we bring them with, so we stopped bothering with other kids. The tree fort is not really ours, we did not build it, but we found it abandoned during one of our escapades deep into the forest. After a week of tentatively observing and inspecting it, we agreed that whoever owned it before has not been by in a while, and if they want it back then they could come get it. There is no harm in us using it in their absence. So we cleaned it up and made it our own.

I tend to read books that my teachers tell me are too complicated for my “level of understanding.” In truth, they are too complicated, but I will never admit it. So I always have two books on my person, one is a dictionary. I got into an argument with the school librarian today when I tried to take out a copy of Dante’s Inferno. She said I was just taking it because I liked the cover , that I was going to damage it and there was no way I would understand it. I told her the cover was lame and I already read the first page and there were a few words I didn’t understand but I would look them up, and that I had never hurt a book in my life. She would not budge. I left the library in righteous fury. I’m angrily re reading my copy of The Shadow over Innsmouth for the thousandth time. It was this same librarian who looked down her nose at me with the book in my hands and told me Lovecraft was a hack and the book was hateful racist propaganda. I looked back at her and informed her that Lovecraft was inbred so it goes without saying that no one should pay attention to his attitudes on breeding and also technically it was a novella.

“Miss Burr is a dumb b***h and I hate her,” I mumble out of nowhere.

Rowan laughs and I smile a little, but I try to hide it. I’m still angry.

“My mom has a copy of The Divine Comedy. That’s the whole thing, Dante’s just a tiny piece. I’ll ask her if you could borrow it,” he speaks without looking up from his page, “It’s boring though. Dunno why you care so much.”

He does not see me looking at him with stars in my eyes.

“Really? Will she let me?”

He shrugs.

“She doesn’t read much. And she doesn’t really like that book,” suddenly he looks up, and catches my unguarded gaze on him, “And she likes you. So she’ll say yes.”

He smirks. I feel my face turning red as I force my eyes back down to my novella.

“Thanks,” I mumble.

A lot of the girls at school don’t like me. They don’t like me because Rowan is the tallest boy in our year, and he has the bluest eyes and the straightest teeth, and he ignores them all and hangs out with me. And I’m too tall for a girl. And I cut my hair shorter than Rowan’s. The girls at school try to copy the way I dress and some even cut their hair short (not nearly as short as mine) because they think that he’ll like them too if they do.  I feel bad for them, they don’t realise that he hates knock-offs and copycats more than anything else.

“Wanna see what I’m drawing?” he asks.

“No,” I reply, my face is still red for no reason and I don’t want him to look at me.

But he gets up and comes to sit next to me anyway. He puts his sketchbook down on top of my open pages. He drew a skinny boy with a scowling face and an army jacket that almost totally covers his hands. I realise it’s not just some boy. It’s supposed to be me.

“I don’t look like that,” I say, pushing his sketchbook back at him.

“I know,” he does not seem offended, only frustrated, “I’m not good enough to draw you yet. You’re beautiful, Leslie. It’s hard to make drawings properly beautiful. Mostly they just look like crappy smudges and lines on paper.”

He called me beautiful. He thinks I’m beautiful. My head is buzzing. I get up and walk away from him, to stand at the edge of the fort with the toes of my boots hanging over the end plank.

“Leslie?”

“Don’t call me that. I told you I don’t like my first name,” I blurt, feeling dumb, not really giving a s**t about names.

I hear his feet creaking over the boards as he comes to stand next to me.

“I’m sorry, Shrike. I try to remember, your old name’s just a bad habit.”

I don’t look at him.

“I like your drawing,” I admit, unable to keep a lid on it, “I wish I looked more like that. More like…”

“A boy?” he finishes the sentence I didn’t dare to.

I look at him, shocked. It has been said. It is the truth, and it cannot be unsaid.

“That’s what you look like to me, Shrike.”

“But you said I was beautiful?”

“Boys can be beautiful,” he grins, “Just look at me.”

I laugh but I feel like crying. A pigeon lands on the branch above us. It looks down at us with an accusatory eye.

“SLUTS!” it shouts, “SLUTS!”

Rowan ignores it.

“I want to kiss you,” he says.

He’s not smiling anymore. I’m not laughing anymore. I don’t know what to do. I think he is beautiful too. I want to kiss him too.

I push him off the fort instead. He lands on his arm and breaks it.

***

170 000 000 AF

We are behind the maintenance shed. This is where I smoked my first cigarette. It is also where I kissed a girl for the first time. It is where my now girlfriend (that same first girl I kissed) and I sneak off to meet between classes. Alice is an A student, I am not. She says I’m smart and I could do well if I just tried a little harder. I tell her I know, but I don’t want to.

Alice is everything I am not. She’s kind, friendly, and patient and her skin is naturally dark like coffee with just a drop of milk and she’s got big hair and big boobies. I do not understand why she even looks at me. The boys don’t understand it either. I used to hang out with them during recess, play basketball or whatever. They didn’t care that I was a girl, I’m fast and tall, they’d fight over who got me on their team. Until the rumors about Alice and me started. Then they got weird. I don’t play with the boys anymore. Now Alice is all I have. I think she likes it that way. I don’t care either way.

Alice leans out of the kiss. I’ve got my hands in her back pockets. Her ass is warm and soft beneath that thin layer of denim.

“I thought I was straight, then bi for a while. But I’m a lesbian. I’m almost certain now,” she says, “I’ll never love any boy like I love you, Leslie.”

I stare at her for a long moment. We have been together for just under a year now. A trio of crows descend on the roof of the maintenance shed, with the scuttle of claws on corrugated iron. Alice glances uneasily up at them.

“Well, well, well.” The largest one shrills.

“What have we here?” the smallest one snarks.

“Well, well, well indeed,” the middle one snickers.

Alice tries to shoo them and they curse at her.

“I think we should break up,” I finally reply.

Alice laughs because she thinks I’m joking. I don’t laugh and she realises I’m not. I take my hands out of her pockets, unable to explain how she soured it.

Alice bursts into tears. Then it’s the crow’s who are laughing. I cannot comfort her, because I want to cry too. I stand leaning on the wall next to her, listening to her sob. I light us each a cigarette. She does not normally smoke unless she’s drunk, but she takes it now. She manages to get through half of it before breaking into a coughing fit and stomping it out under her heel. She has not stopped crying.

“Why are you doing this?” she whimpers.

“I can’t explain.”

“Try!” she yells, “At least try Shrike! Please! Do I mean so little to you?”

I feel tears behind my eyes, but I don’t let myself cry. I have to be the bad guy here, I understand that. So I shrug.

“I just can’t be your girlfriend, Alice. I’m sorry.”

The answer is in there, if she looks for it. But she does not look for it. She runs away crying like the selfish child she is, too wrapped up in her own stupid pain and her own stupid sexuality to pay attention to anyone else. I forgive her, because I’m a selfish child too, my stupid pain is no greater than hers, but it’s all I can feel.

I’m alone with the crows over my head, and they laugh and laugh and laugh. Until they take off, and then I’m really alone.

Alice gets a new boyfriend within a week. I don’t get anyone. I don’t want anyone and no one wants me.

I have given up.