My thumb traced the smooth lines and a hard gemstone onto a silver bracelet I took from Eva and pressed it onto my lips, as the green gemstone aglow against the dimmed light, speaking to it, pretending the cross was Eva answering to me, easing my inflictions.
“Eva, my sweet angel, I wish you’re here with me. Always,” I murmured aloud. “Why must my angel fly away and live in a dark tower, when she could stay in the light with me.”
The lingering darkness answered me in exchanged, remembering her lips against mine.
27
Eva
Feeding the ravens at the bench by the town square is how I spent time on distractions, distractions from a loaded job I endured for a couple of weeks. How animals are evident of a better company than anyone.
Ravens are the most beautiful creatures to ever be created by God. By the second closest I can be close to is the felines, with their doll-like eyes and long whiskers, their purrs resounded as I combed them with my fingers. Same rule apply with ravens, too, black feathers ruffled and waddled as soon as they spotted food portions on my palm.
But ravens are much more mysterious than any living creatures. These large-featured friends in Fort Heaven are larger than a regular sized pigeons, and they squawked a lot, liked to mimic sounds that aren’t familiar, human or an inanimate object like toys and music. Ravens are intelligent. I fed pigeons, sometimes doves, but ravens are the companions I tolerated. Their black beaks pecked on my open hand whenever I distributed seeds and pebbled food, or fried cuisines I recognized. Ravens eat and eat until they’re full. It took them long to trust me, but I approached as softly as I could muster, to catch a glimpse of their silky feathers. My palms shaken in terror, but I convinced myself that I’m undisruptive because of my gloves.
Like how white moths resided in their dimmed lights and dusted covers and wooded pillars, most ravens resided atop of the buildings, sometimes at tubular wires, watching every shift and hear multiple noises at once. Raven titled their heads often,and their large puckered beaks squawked once in every minute, sometimes waddled in complete silence.
Moments later, three ravens waddled towards me, their beaks opening. In my pouch, I got the dog treats; stolen from Mrs. Peach’s house and scattered it on the concrete, three birds pecked their meal briskly until heading to collect some more.
The break has extended for us.
Mrs. Rivers announced our lunch break is an estimation of thirty minutes. Thirty minutes to spare time to gather my thoughts from a crowded area, thirty minutes to recollect and rest my limbs, not wanting for my limbs to tear down from a challenging job, and thirty minutes to place myself in a sanctuary where no one comprehended me.
Thirty minutes was better ten or twenty.
If it was lesser than ten, I might as well collapsed entirely and sleep until tomorrow.
In a lightest hope faintly beating in me, Mrs. Rivers might add another numbers to an exact equal of an hour, but I doubt she wanted her workers to prolong their repose. She despised people who are lazy, as Adrian mentioned beforehand, and how Mrs. Rivers expressed at a labor instilled an overwhelmed reaction from the nuns.
Two fingers poked on the sides of my waist, turning my head to see Marceline inclining to an empty side of the green bench, her arm swooped back and positioned it on the bench frame as she crossed her legs in a carefree attitude.
“Sup, Sister Eva,” she greeted in a casual way, the chunk range of her platform boots were surprisingly high.
“Hi,” I replied, tossing the food at the ravens, squawked at a lower volume.
“Feeding birds?”
I nodded stiffly, watching the birds flocked in silence, unconfident to start a simple conversation.
People had it easy, and I was stuck.
Boys had it easy, and I stuttered. Boys picked who electrify them for a thrilling moment, boys picked who are easygoing and
Girls had it easy, bubbly and promiscuous, and I was a broken doll who couldn’t mend the damages in decades, tucked myself inside a broken shell I still call ‘home’.
“So are you planning to go to the party?”
“What party?” I muffled in confusion.
“Duh, the party that my other friend was setting up,” Marceline exclaimed. “Everyone worked hard for the past couple of days at the charity event. They’re going to get a huge payment out of this one. Mr. Rivers was generous.”
I perceived a slight grumble coming out from Marceline’s grunted lips.
“I thought it’s Mrs. Rivers who will distribute the money, based on how she took charge with the staff members,” I assumed.
Marceline slumped. “Nah, she’s not going to do it. She’s planning to spend her money on aDolce & Gabbanapurse and big jewels she caught an eye on.”
My head tilted to the side, clueless.