COURIER IN THE BIRD MASK

TRIGGER WARNINGS child death, suicide, abuse, plague, sickness, breakdowns, first person, spouse death, starvation

Day Eleven

I walk through the town, and I see a stranger. Lit in red, bodies line the theater as they lay, surgeons and doctors doing their work by candlelight. Executors and their bird masks stand against the walls, each one more cryptic than the last. The hospital is red, covered in blood and silent. I can’t hear anything other than the wails of those who we must operate on without anaesthetic. I sit there for hours, the smell of blood strong, and the taste permanent in my mouth. As I write this, I listen to their begs, it’s too loud and too silent all at once.

Leaving the theatre- it’s no better. The sounds of rain fill your ears, almost calming if it weren’t for the distant screams. As you take steps, the muddy swampland underneath your feet would make horrible noises. The streetlights flicker as you traverse through a camp of soldiers, passing by dead bodies covered in fabric. Nameless, faceless casualties to a war that they chose to not fight in. Dogs, without owners, bark as glass breaks from a street fight between a plagued and a healthy. Birds fly overhead, barely visible against the dark nighttime sky. 

A vignette of experiences in front of you- 

A woman, burning as the fire-men would burn the sick. Their groans and screams and cries all too human, the sound of flames just quiet enough to prop up the sounds of terror and pain. The fire doesn’t smell welcoming like one might find a campfire. No, it smells like burning, rotting flesh, the smoke thick in your mouth, 

People stand against a wall, soldiers in gas masks pointing guns at a couple who assumedly killed a man, his dead body lying on the floor, testament to the fallen. Blood paints the brick behind the assailants, their hands covered in warm red, and tears rolled down their cheeks, mixing with the pungent blood. They almost made it out- if only… and you look away as you hear gunshots. 

You continue down the wet street, stone brick under your feet as you hear glass shatter- a parade of fire leaving their confines once called windows. Black swarms of plague litter this street, this was the worst part of the town yet. It’s covered in small fires, spreading from building to building as the wails and screams seem louder here than before. You hear banging, begs to be let out of their homes as a large red X- an indicator that the plagued must be kept inside- marks their door. There are walls of sandbags, a barrier to keep the sick in. 

It’s so dark, it’s so cold, the September twyre suffocating as you continue past this infected district. The lights, the framing, the entire town seems to be guiding you past all the dead, and to the brightness in the sky. What was once a beacon for hope to a town so caked in isolation and solitude.

The Polyhedron.

Defying all laws of gravity, it sits there, laughing, watching as the ants, the worms, the bugs, squirm and die from a plague of its bringing. It laughs at you, watching as you watch- a mirror reflection twisted by misery and impossibility. 

It stares at you, knowing that no matter what you try, no matter what you do, you will die just like everyone else. You will get sick, you will perish.

Looking at the town, it doesn’t feel like the Town-On-Gorkhon you knew, grew up in.

It’s not the town I grew up in. 

The town is so loud, it hurts. I can’t find a single spot of quiet, but yet in the steppe, it’s too quiet. A ghost town to the outside eyes, I want to leave, I should’ve left long ago, but the trains have stopped, and this birdcage wont let me go. I want to leave, abandon the town, I have no family here- and my only reputation before this plague was that of “author.” Now, I’m the damn “Courier in the Bird Mask”- sending only messages from the dead or to the dead. If I indulge in a bit of purple prose- I raise the dead in a way, I say the final words of those who are dead, I raise their spirits, name, thoughts from the grave and let what they want to be known, known to their families and friends. The dead surround me as they hollow out my heart. If my heart were more than hollow, I might end up one of those deaths. I can think about what I’ve been through after the plague. Right now, I have a job, and I will work at it.

Ivan,

How long has it been since I've last seen you? My heart aches, it's killing me, this rotting body of mine hurting me endlessly as the plague shakes through me like a stranger. I can't see the mirror anymore, but if I did I'm sure I'd see someone I can't recognize. How long has it been since you left us?

How long has it been since you've ran away to the Capital and abandoned us all? Your memory hangs like a corpse above us, Ivan. Mother weeped for you, over and over and for years without a letter, she's dead now. Dead, hanging like your memory but physically. I saw her, I was the one who took her down. Grace, the gravekeeper, took care of her. We tried to send you a letter and you never ever came back.

The dark body of your memory hangs over us. I wish it were real and I almost wish you were dead so she could be alive and you don't— [scribbled out] you don't deserve to have us as your family. You abandoned and left us for what? For your own gain?! I don't care about academia, I just care about you. I wish you were dead because God, that would be better than knowing you're alive and happy and in school while we are dying here.

The Sand Pest is going to kill me and I never got to tell you how much I hate you but I just want you back. Goddammit, Ivan. I hope you're happy with your education and new life because we weren't enough.

Goodbye.