The Wings Of A Caged Bird | First Draft

chapter 57: happy birthday

17 August, 2019

"Wanna go out today?"

I look up from my book. He is sitting at the windowsill, hands outstretched as he plays with the leaves outside.

"No, let's stay in," I reply quietly. I don't want to see anyone else but him in the final scene of this movie.

"I was thinking the same," he says, eyes still out the window.

It's late afternoon, the heat of the sun slowly beginning to cool down, the sky fading to a yellowish hue. The sun will set in less than 2 hours. The sky will go from light blue to deep blue to a deeper blue until it finally reaches midnight black.

And just like that, July and I are now on our last day together.

Our last few hours. Last few minutes. From days to months to hours to minutes to seconds, the number of digits keep increasing, creating a false illusion of longevity, when at the end of the day they all mean the exact same thing.

July and I don't really talk about it. There is a massive elephant in this tiny room, its eyes digging into the two boys living here. And though we can see and feel its piercing gaze, we choose to not acknowledge it to each other.

"But," July says, "let's go out a few hours before your birthday. We shouldn't celebrate it here in such a cramped place. Let's celebrate it somewhere pretty!" There is excitement in his voice, seemingly masking his inner agony.

But I can't put on that kind of mask. "My birthday is the last thing in my mind right now, July."

"Well it shouldn't be!" he protests. "You're entering an important stage of your life. Live it, remember it. You can only be eighteen once, you know."

I still find it hard to care about that right now. I'm fully aware that I'm entering the age Dawn was so afraid of entering, and I'm fully aware that adulthood isn't something to look forward to. Perhaps there will be more freedom. But that seems like nothing compared to the hundreds of other things that I'll have to deal with.

I shake my head. Those thoughts can wait. The only thought in my mind right now, should be the nearby future.

It's still hard for me to comprehend the sheer extent and inevitability of what will happen within less than 24 hours. I make scenarios in my head about the second death of the person he was, and the first death of the person I saw him as. I make questions I'll have the answer of soon enough. Will he dissolve into a flock of dimly lit fireflies and float up to the sky, until I can no longer distinguish him from within the myriad constellations overhead? Or will he dissipate into thousands of tiny sand particles and get carried away by the breeze? Will his body slowly fade away, flesh by flesh, organ by organ, as the image of beauty I had of him gets replaced by a grotesquely horrifying one? Will I be able to hold him as he disappears, feeling his existence in my arms for as long as I possibly can?

Will I be able to survive another crushing loss?

I don't know, and I wish I didn't have to.

The truth is, what ends will end, and by 'what' we mean everything. Whether it's good times or bad times, it will end one way or the other. Maybe there will come a day when the absence of Dawn and July in my life will no longer feel too vast, because there will be other people to fill in much of that absence. Maybe there will come a day when the thoughts of my cherished memories with them will make me smile instead of paralyzing me with grief.

Maybe, there will also come a period of time when I will not think even once of Dawn or July for days at a stretch.

This is the burden I have to carry as the one who lived.