COURIER IN THE BIRD MASK

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

Day Thirteen and beyond- Epilogue

Mama, Papa.

Emotions. I have never felt real emotion like I did when I lost you two. Emotion. A mental reaction like anger or fear towards a strong reaction. Emotion. To feel deeply. Emotion, what makes us human. There's no way to truly describe the things we express— no way to use these words to express how much I miss you. It's like everyday a hole is carved and filled up with useless items only for it to be carved again but this time deeper. In my thoughts, I talk to you two.

I dance with a memory that I know never existed, one where I'm 15 and you're alive and well, dark hair and dark eyes, smiles bigger than the sun and eyes brighter than the moon. Over these last few days I've felt a lot of emotion, empathy. Konstantin and his lover, learning Yekaterina died from her own hands or... seeing Young Isidor just another dead body in the piles. So many bodies, hundreds, thousands of them piled in front of a theatre only to be burnt with words never sent. Words never told, dying alone in a deathbed— who were they? Was that woman a mother of six, with six letters to send that never went? Or is the man a lover of another? The child is just three years old, mercy killed by their parents? Are they like you, Mama and Papa? Leaving behind someone in the wake of tragedy. I write their feelings- emotions I can never even think of expressing properly because goddammit, I’m human, I can’t do it. But I couldn’t let their final words go unsaid like mine did. 

My words went unsaid, my words to you, my feelings, my grievances, my agony went unsaid, unsent and unpublished for five years as I watched your bodies burn, faces burned into my heart— and I still can't tell you how I feel. I think words aren't strong enough to tell you how much that hole in my heart aches, how much I wish I could feel your embrace. All those letters— I wrote them. I put their incoherent sobs and dying breaths into words and gave them to their families. I sat next to them in an Executor costume and read aloud all the things their family said. I comforted the families when I told them that their friend, father, lover, died and I was the last one to hear their voice. I felt so helpless, there was nothing I could do but tend to the almost dead.

So– I think I know how to tell you this. I [the rest is scribbled out.] love you. I don't know what Love means anymore, I've seen love shattered and betrayed so much over those 12 days, but I love you and that's all I know. It's this feeling, this deep pit inside me that feels intense. Like a fire, but on days where it doesn't do anything but flicker, it feels like a warm hug. That's what I think love is, in its most abstract form. And I miss you— I miss my parents who I haven't missed in 5 years. That's a lie, I did miss you, I just didn't let myself miss you because admitting that I've lost something is harder than pretending I never had it.

Given, I was 10, but I was also alone. I had no one but you, so I became just another orphan on the streets, alone and wordless without a true understanding of what it meant to love— how am I supposed to love and feel if my love was taken away by a disgusting plague before I could learn?! I know now, I know how to express this. And I'm going to do it— I know I can. I just need to— [the rest is scribbled.]

I want you to know that every second I was with you two was more than I could ever ask for, I don't remember you two much besides how much Papa loved music and art, Mama loved science and logic: perfect halves, the right and left.

If God is real, I hope you and your Polyhedron dreams are above the clouds. If there's no afterlife, I hope you're in peace now, the plague can't hurt you in death anymore.

I love you. I know what that means now.

Angie.

And that’s the end of the diary. This memoir- short and sweet, retells the plague through my eyes… and yet nothing will compare to living through it. This feels like a sad parody of reality. How do you do it? How do you cope with what legacy you’ll leave behind, feeling like every piece of “art” you make won’t ever hold a candle to the mysticism that is living in the real world? How do you regain that love of creation again when you feel like everything you make is just a sad rip-off of reality? How do you live knowing everything you make, everything you are, everything you express will never be the truth, be what you wanted to express. 

Sitting here, in front of my typewriter, I struggle to come up with even a rough draft- of both this epilogue and the prologue. I ask myself- how do I write something like this?! How do I explain what the town is and how do I explain recovery when my story isn’t inspirational? I don’t become a famous writer, I don’t go on radio shows and talk about how difficult it was to live, and how brave I was for going through it. No, this memoir will end up in a thrift store in the back alley, next to copies of shitty romance novels and cookbooks. My life, all the heart, emotion, pain, agony- all of it will be read by a dozen people maximum. How do I pour my heart out, sing and tell the stories I’ve helped write? How do I do this- how do I portray reality accurately, the intricate emotions that I can’t express through words but only abstract ideas. I know that many might not even believe me. Part of the population doesn’t even think that the Sand Pest happened, and I can’t blame them. Sentient plague sounds like a made up story, like something children write, but yet- it happened. To me, and the only reality that I know is mine. 

Grin and bear it. I do- I write this, I relive those days in painful detail because I am Angelika Zakharova- I have to protect, to listen, to write, to be the keeper of words they can’t quite write down themselves.