challenge entry
challenge: [53] undine
title: la ángela, la sirena
word count: 545
notes: a battery muse story - spoilers if you're waiting on the novel. ♥ & apologies for my internet spanish.
There's nothing there, in that gutter beside his studio. Not now. On the roof, there's no trace of an angel - his word, his name for her. Un ángel, la ángela. Not a single feather, her mermaid's scales. They all float away, autumn's fallen things, feathers, leaves. I paste them, add glitter, add faces from magazines. He paints them, traps them in his canvas where they can't flee or fly. She made art, she was art, a leaf, a feather. Rain. Her name was Hiromi.
I try to remember, were there sirens, an ambulance? Chika, her face was dead white. He'll kill her, she said. I thought about what Nita said before, something about light, what happens when you try to break it. I couldn't think of her name, then, couldn't think how I got my room - my fish. A girl. Flaquita, I called her. Skinny. Overbleached hair with dark roots, brown eyes. We'd met in high school. She moved away, she went back to Japan with her parents, her lover. She hit it big and went to draw comics, take photos, paint trees by blowing ink across paper. I'd only known her in Los Diablos, back in grade school with the chain-link fence. I'd never known her. She was a face from a magazine, pasted into a collage - sequins like a fish's skin, feathers from a bird's. The October mermaid, the angel with a shy smile who liked to lick the last of the brownie batter from the bowl. Hiromi.
Light can't break by hitting the ground. Nita - my youngest sister - she didn't say that, but something close. She sank to her knees by the gutter, started picking out white down, red maple leaves. This is my body, this is my blood. Abuela was Catholic, our parents, Elena - all my sisters. Nita has a rosary beneath her jacket. Chika tried to break down his door, the windows - wire across them, her cage. We couldn't remember her, but we saw her jump and fly. La ángela. He stood on the roof. He had a gun. He had a knife. His hands were stained from scaling fish, plucking birds. He was laughing, screaming, glowing, the last of her light fading from his body. He was saying anything but her name.
There's nothing in the gutter. I don't know about beauty - I kissed a few girls, a lot of boys. I watch Chika sleep, her hair all tangled into a nest (it catches the ideas she has, the ideas Hiromi left us both.) I throw glitter on sequins on feathers on paint, that same paint he made of her blood, her body. I remember a girl suspended in flight, never hitting the ground. I look at the face from a magazine.
I name my fish Angel and Mermaid.
Nita hangs up her rosary, gets a straw to blow herself some trees. Chika bakes brownies without me looking over the batter; she makes extra. I hold out the spoon. Next year at the end of October, there won't be a grave to visit. La ángela, la sirena, Hiromi, she is light, she is foam, she is the way leaves flow in November from the branch to the gutter to the sea.
title: la ángela, la sirena
word count: 545
notes: a battery muse story - spoilers if you're waiting on the novel. ♥ & apologies for my internet spanish.
There's nothing there, in that gutter beside his studio. Not now. On the roof, there's no trace of an angel - his word, his name for her. Un ángel, la ángela. Not a single feather, her mermaid's scales. They all float away, autumn's fallen things, feathers, leaves. I paste them, add glitter, add faces from magazines. He paints them, traps them in his canvas where they can't flee or fly. She made art, she was art, a leaf, a feather. Rain. Her name was Hiromi.
I try to remember, were there sirens, an ambulance? Chika, her face was dead white. He'll kill her, she said. I thought about what Nita said before, something about light, what happens when you try to break it. I couldn't think of her name, then, couldn't think how I got my room - my fish. A girl. Flaquita, I called her. Skinny. Overbleached hair with dark roots, brown eyes. We'd met in high school. She moved away, she went back to Japan with her parents, her lover. She hit it big and went to draw comics, take photos, paint trees by blowing ink across paper. I'd only known her in Los Diablos, back in grade school with the chain-link fence. I'd never known her. She was a face from a magazine, pasted into a collage - sequins like a fish's skin, feathers from a bird's. The October mermaid, the angel with a shy smile who liked to lick the last of the brownie batter from the bowl. Hiromi.
Light can't break by hitting the ground. Nita - my youngest sister - she didn't say that, but something close. She sank to her knees by the gutter, started picking out white down, red maple leaves. This is my body, this is my blood. Abuela was Catholic, our parents, Elena - all my sisters. Nita has a rosary beneath her jacket. Chika tried to break down his door, the windows - wire across them, her cage. We couldn't remember her, but we saw her jump and fly. La ángela. He stood on the roof. He had a gun. He had a knife. His hands were stained from scaling fish, plucking birds. He was laughing, screaming, glowing, the last of her light fading from his body. He was saying anything but her name.
There's nothing in the gutter. I don't know about beauty - I kissed a few girls, a lot of boys. I watch Chika sleep, her hair all tangled into a nest (it catches the ideas she has, the ideas Hiromi left us both.) I throw glitter on sequins on feathers on paint, that same paint he made of her blood, her body. I remember a girl suspended in flight, never hitting the ground. I look at the face from a magazine.
I name my fish Angel and Mermaid.
Nita hangs up her rosary, gets a straw to blow herself some trees. Chika bakes brownies without me looking over the batter; she makes extra. I hold out the spoon. Next year at the end of October, there won't be a grave to visit. La ángela, la sirena, Hiromi, she is light, she is foam, she is the way leaves flow in November from the branch to the gutter to the sea.