The Feathers and Other Important Happenings

  

“I had the lonely child’s habit of making up stories” " George Orwell (Why I write)

 

The day the feathers grew had been an important day for Piper. Not in the sense that the feathers growing had made the day important, but rather that the feathers had grown on a day filled with important happenings. There had always been wisps of them that flew through her ebony hair, getting caught in hairbrushes and being pulled out by giggling friends. Many were under the impression that she spent a lot of time in the bird room at the zoo, sneaking under fences and playing with the assortment of birds that were copied into her school books. She denied anything of the sort. Then the feathers grew. They had bloomed like microwave popcorn, turning from a buttery mess into a fully-fledged Friday night meal in minutes. Unlike popcorn, there had been no popping that made children smaller than Piper shriek and laugh at the wonders of science. They had merely crept onto her head replacing her hair between lunch and dinner. Her eyes, once magnifying glasses of colour that jumped out at you from her dark mop of her hair, now melded into her face, camouflaged amidst embellishments typical of a tropical bird.

            Piper’s face showed all the promise of true handsome beauty possible for such dark-haired, fair-skinned, bright-eyed creatures. She was naturally astounded at the growth. Just as naturally she accepted it as face, as only children’s minds have the capability to do. Her family had their thoughts turned to more important happenings. The only acknowledgement of any kind of change was a raise of dagger-sharp eyebrows by her surly older sister.

At school all the girls thought it was fabulous, convinced it was a wig and tried to tug at it like a doll’s head. The teacher told them to quiet down and concentrate on their grammar lesson. Piper plucked a feather from her head and began to draw it elaborately, shading in the details with precision far beyond her years, far beyond many of her elders. Each feathery tendril slanted to the same angle, followed the same pattern but each slightly deviated, with their own kinks and curls. 

Eight years later Piper woke up, now well equipped with her own dagger-sharp eyebrows. Years of example from her sister had taught her the exact angle to raise them at to shoo off children gazing at her feathers. Grammar lessons had turned to English Literature and a comprehensive study of the conceptual framework of art. Piper had grown tired of plucking feathers from her hair with long, skinny fingers and sketching the nooks of each one. Her classmates were no longer enthralled with the state of her hair. The feathers could not, or perhaps would not be restrained in plat, bun or ponytail. She chose to sit at the back of the classroom, rather than sit and be mocked for covering the view of the whiteboard. She draw lions with feathers for manes, zebras with bright pink feathered stripes and trees filled with birds that hung like bats from the branches.

Her assignments were done sporadically, and it became a frequent habit of her teachers to pull her up after class and saying they thought she was a lovely girl, but her hair - they called it hair " was really impeding her academic success. Her family was pre-occupied. Parent-teacher interviews and report cards were often left unattended and unnoticed.  Other more important happenings must be thought of.

She sat in cafes smoking cigarettes that had been bought for her by older, less mature boys, drinking coffee that was too strong for her dainty, nymph like body and painting with watercolours that sacrificed detail for broad washes and abstract appropriations of the world around her. Flicks of feathers made their way onto the page subconsciously, dancing in the paint that leaked a little too much and hanging on the edges of her reckless strokes of impatience. A calm smile was strapped to her lips, boys told her they thought she was beautiful.

Piper’s old sister was at university now but still came back every now and then to use the laundry. Her I’m-really-too-busy-at-the-moment look never changed, but Piper thought some kind of apologetic quality had seeped into it over the years. She gave her cigarettes every now and then with a quick smile and a wave goodbye as she whisked herself back to other important happenings.

Another eight years passed Piper picked herself up after a night of over-zealous drinking at an art school reunion. Piper was surprised she had been invited at all. She had dropped out after the second year. She dipped her teabag in and out of her mug, watching the hot water pull the flavor out of it in spirals of deep brown. Her feathers were still a source of excitement and clamour on buses, in restaurants, those types of public spaces. Piper tended to stick to her studio apartment. Draped with half-finished canvases, half-finished cups of coffee, half-finished books and half-finished relationships: it demanded nothing of her. Piper sometimes wondered if she too were half-finished, a sort of half-human, half-bird hybrid who could not fit either animal order.

She worked in a bar to pay for rent, buy food and all the necessities. She even finished and sold a painting every now and then. She had forgotten to pay her bills once and they’d shut off the hot water. She had sat in the shower for five minutes with freezing cold, sopping wet feathers hanging in her eyes before she realized the hot water wasn’t going to come. Nevertheless she lived easily. She went back home every now and then, held stilted conversation with her sister who had moved back in after a messy end to a messy relationship.

She went to a best friend’s wedding. She was supposed to be a bridesmaid, the bridesmaid of honour, but her hair clashed with every dress, it claimed too much attention. There were more important happenings to be focused on. She sat in a chair up the back, and watched with a quiet joy and an even quieter sorrow at the happy couple swathed in black and white.

Another eight years past and Piper was looking after the same best friend’s daughter for her while her best friend went to court to fight her now ex-husband for sole custody. The girl played with Piper’s feathers and told her with childhood innocence that she was the most beautiful woman that had ever existed. Piper plucked a feather out of her head and tied it up in the girl’s hair. She held her hand, still new to the grasp of a pencil, and taught her how to draw each stroke of the feather. Her best friend won the case, abusive fathers very rarely came out well in these sorts of things.

One day Piper woke up and realized her feathers had come to her this day twenty-four years ago. She picked the largest canvas she owned and painted that day, clothing it in the adornments of memory. Her miniature self four times over, between lunch and dinner, each variation had a few more feathers. She hovered over the painting with her brush, her hand shaking ever so slightly, knowing there was an important happening missing, there were other things everyone had been focusing on. Smack in the middle of the lunch time and the dinner time Piper painted her father, with a noose around his neck, looking down at her eight-year-old self with muted eyes and veins bulging with blood that had stopped dead.

 

 

Word Count: 1313

Reviews

[Deyan]

The imagery and repetition in this are absoulutely beautiful and haunting. I really enjoyed reading this.

[roarke]

hmmm.... gruesome ending. Otherwise a great piece of writing and character development. Great images and you built the interest of the story steadily without slowing the pace of the narrative. Good stuff, thanks for sharing.