Starling Drives Out the Ghosts of Day

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

A starling sits, atwitch, upon an old dead branch of a tree on the ground, his feathers ruffled by the water in which he has just bathed himself. He twitches and turns some more, looking vaguely indignant and more than a little cold and unhappy as the wind riffles through the layers of his wings.

He's a beautiful bird, all bright pencil-yellow bill and iridescent robes, with a short sharp voice like a clear crystal bell.

She was always told that starlings were nasty birds, dirty, something to be chased off, not welcomed in.

Now, she can welcome them, feed them, invite them to stay.

Sometimes, it seems that all she need do is the exact opposite of what she was ordered to do as a child, and she can be sure it's the right thing.




The ghosts never rest, of course. It's not even so much that they roam independently of their now-gone bodies, no. It's more that they've managed to free themselves even from that constraint of distance and attach themselves to her by way of the umbilicus of memory, and no matter how many times she cuts the cord, it always grows back of its own will, or at least of that of the ghosts. For something so intangible, their imprints are shockingly three-dimensional. 

Days like this are exceedingly difficult, when seemingly the whole world conspires to bring the ghosts into her every waking moment, and into not a few that are less fully conscious. They come gibbering almost happily, weighted under carpetbags and duffles and every conceivable kind of portable burden — none of which, of course, they intend to shoulder themselves; they come expressly to lay that yoke across her own back. It's a physical thing; throughout the day, she catches herself shrugging and shaking her head, an attempt to throw off the weight that will surely crush her if she lets it as it tried to do every day of her life before the ghosts became ghosts.

She hasn't slept in days, not really, and she likely won't for more. It's not only this day, after all; tomorrow is a marker of another sort, and one about as unwelcome as this. For the moment, she awaits the setting of the sun with something like anticipation, an expectation of relief. Its brilliance on this day seems a typically cruel joke, a reminder of all that things are supposed to be and yet have never been, of what she should have done and should have been and yet did not and was not and now cannot, a great cosmic laugh at the continual failure of her being.

At least when night falls, there will be no running joke from  the universe about what is light and bright and beautiful and what it is that things should be.

She's never been good at what things should be, anyway: For as long as she can remember, she's preferred stormclouds to sunlight, roiling skies and whipping winds and the dark blues and purples, the intensity of weather, to the bland yellow color of a still-piercing light that too often hurts the eyes.

There's no reason to stare into something that induces more tears.

But the ghosts have never understood that about her.

Now she knows they never will. It's up to her to choose not to look. And she's prepared to stop looking, at least for the remainder of the day.

Soon, she'll emerge into a world softened again at the edges by night, a world like the starling's feathers sprinkled with the dust of his very name, with shining stars that soothe the eyes.

And for a few hours, she'll be able to see without tears.




All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.