January 7th

After strolling through a few more quiet, ice cold streets, my sister passed a small grocery store. She went inside. It was bright, the LED lights created a stark contrast to the grey of the outside world. She looked over a few shelves filled with many colourfully merchandised products, and then halted at a fruit stall full of apples, bananas, mangoes, avocados – and oranges. A quick glance to the clerk told her he was currently occupied reading through a newspaper. In the blink of an eye, she grasped one of the oranges and put it inside her bag, and then walked out, leaving the store behind.

The street continued onward for a while, leaving further out of town. Eventually, clangorous noises appeared from far away as she approached the railway station; the squeaking of iron hinges, the thundering of freight trains and the bells of a train barrier.

The easiest way out of town was to walk through the railway building. Not many people were here as the trains suffered long delays due to the harshness of the snow storm. Up until a few years ago, homeless people had usually slept in and around the railway station in niche places next to the entrances, but by now they had all been replaced by small spikes in the ground.

As the Future paced through the station building, despite her appearance, she didn’t draw a single gaze from anyone, as the people were mostly occupied checking their phones, listening to the voice declaring departures and arrivals, or just sitting and standing around, staring holes into the air. She walked through the tunnel leading to the exit on the other side.

The sun had set, but the light from the town reflected back and forth between the clouds and the snow, enveloping the environment in a reddish hue. After a while, the Future left the main path and entered the woods. She was headed to a small collection of abandoned huts in the snow quite a way out of town, and for some reason, went faster with each step, as if in a hurry. It was a tidy needle forest; the trees were aligned in a neat grid, not many brushes or other hindrances.

Suddenly, though, a rifle shot echoed through the forest.

The bullet entered on the side of my sister’s neck, went through and cleanly exited on the other. Immediately, blood started gushing from the wound as she choked; then, succumbed to her knees, and fell over to the ground, where her skull crashed into a pointed stone, cracking.

Immediately, a group of voices started echoing through the woods.

―Oh, shit!

―You hit it!

―Wait, what the fuck, that wasn’t an animal!

―Oh my god. You fucking killed her.

―Why the hell do you shoot at a person!?

―I didn’t know! I saw something moving, so I pulled!

―Oh my god.

―I thought we came here because no one else would be outside here in the storm.

―No! You don’t fucking shoot unless you know what you are aiming at!

―God, that’s a lot of blood.

―We better check on her.

―What do you mean check on her. She dead. No way she isn’t.

―I think she’s bleeding out.

―If she dies, we’re in trouble.

―…

―We are already in trouble.

―We shouldn’t even have been out here. If my dad finds out, he’ll―

―Easy now, how is your dad gonna find out?

―The fuck do I know! I’m just saying, if he―

―Shut up. How is he gonna find out. She sure isn’t gonna tell anyone.

―This fucking sucks. Could you have not just watched where you shot. This was supposed to be a fun afternoon. Jesus Christ.

―What is in her bag?

―I’ll go get it. God, it’s heavy. How did she even carry this. This is crazy.

―Open it.

―Yeah, maybe we can find some ID. See if she could know us. Maybe she isn’t even from around here. Then she can’t tell on us.

―Are you dumb? Look at all that blood.

―Is this… wood?

―It’s full of wood. Why would she be carrying a buttload of wood around? Seems fishy. Maybe she’s an artist?

―You gotta be kidding me.

―This fucking bitch.

―Stop kicking her. It’s not her fault you don’t have freakin’ eyes in your head.

―Dude, what are you doing? Are you building a pyramid? Just leave the wood alone.

―Hey, really, don’t stomp on her like that. I’m gonna vomit.

―It’s just, you know. All this wood. We could, you know.

―What are you saying?

―…

―No, really man. What are you saying.

―I was just thinking we could get rid of the evidence.

―…

―…

―That’s probably the stupidest idea I have ever heard.

―Shut up, Tiberio.

―Who’s gonna help me?

―Me.

―Who’s got a lighter?

―I do. We need to set up the smaller pieces of wood first, so they are in the middle. Then build the others on top.

―This is never gonna work.

―Stop bitching and help us, damn it!

―This stuff is super dry. It’ll burn easily.

―…

―… Nice. This actually lights up.

―I can’t dump her on that alone. She’s too floppy.

―Are we sure we are gonna do this.

―Why are you such a coward. It’s four to one. Nobody is on your side here.

―I don’t know about that… I don’t like the idea, either.

―I mean, but… Wait, are you sure she isn’t still breathing?

―Nah, no way. That’s just the wind or something. It just seems that way. Ignore it. Come, help me.

―…

―Ugh. God. Who knew a girl so thin would be this hard to move.

―Now let’s see how this goes.

―…

―This looks kind of disgusting.

―Oh my god, that smell. I need to get outta here.

―Wait, what the fuck are you doing!

―This is wrong. I’m pulling her out.

―…

―If anyone ever asks, I wasn’t here.

―None of us were here, you idiot.

―Yeah.

―Mmh.

―…

―Hey, man. Did you really not see she was a person when you shot?

―What?

―I just mean. It seems kinda hard to mistake her for an animal, right.

―I don’t know what you are trying to say.

―I just want to make sure this was an accident. You didn’t shoot her on purpose, right?

―Man, what can I say. It was just too tempting.

―Jesus Christ. If we ever get in trouble for this, I’m telling on you. Are you kidding me.

―If you had had the rifle at that moment, you would have shot, too. I know it.

―You are mental. This was the last time I came with you.

―Sure, dude. You say that every time.

―Let’s just get going.

―This isn’t over. I can’t believe this.

―We need to get away from here first.

―… Fine.

They left my sister lying right next to the fire they started. The wind blew strongly, stoking the fire to a huge pillar, while her blood sank down into the snow.

The girl with the bird egg stepped close to my sister and looked down to her motionless body. The child’s hair and dress were waving furiously in the storm winds, but she stood there as if her bare feet were anchored in the snow by heavy weights. She squashed the blackbird’s egg in her fist in anger, the contents dripping out between her fingers.

“Broken again,” she mumbled. “All in vain.” She opened her fist and looked at the bird’s remains. “I should wash myself,” she whispered and vanished in a flash of light.

For about an hour the dark winds swirled around, draping my sister in powdered white, until her hand finally twitched. The fire still blazed as she was already half buried in snow. Her gaze lost itself in the flames for a while, as the winds slowly subsided. She rose up weaving her hands through the snow. First, she found the tube containing the tears. After searching a while longer, she pulled out another, empty tube, and opened it, letting a driblet of her blood fall in from the tip of her finger. Finally, her fingers felt the orange under a heap of snow, and she got up on her weak legs to stumble further towards her destination.

As my sister went on, the forest turned more and more dense. She left a scarlet trail of blood behind herself, and the orange’s bright colour gleamed in the ashen flurry. After a while, she entered an area with small abandoned cottages, mostly reclaimed by nature, now worn down, broken, with holes in the plank walls. Everything here had been left behind. One of the huts bore home to a small, flickering light, with hints of smoke coming out from a hole in the roof. The Future entered with light footsteps.

Despite the light, the inside was barely warmer. The door was broken and wind howled through large rifts in the walls.

Inside the living room was a small area with a dying fire; next to the fire, on the ground, was lying a person with no other home; a man in his late fifties, long since not shivering any more. Five bottles laid on the ground next to him; four of them empty, the last fallen over with half the liquid leaked out.

The man's short, curly hair was sugared in snowflakes that had fallen in from the hole in the roof. It seemed as though he’d been here throughout the entire storm. Crusty, frozen vomit stuck on his mouth and jacket.

He was just resting there, silently, with disturbingly unsteady breathing. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much longer to live. My sister bowed down to touch his forehead. It was ice cold. She sat down next to him, opened her cloak, laid her burning hot, blood thumping, broken arm around his shoulder and ignored the pain in her body to tug him closer. In doing that, she spread out blood and mucus from her wounds all over his clothes.

He sighed weakly. His eyes found hers when he felt her warmth. Something unintelligible, maybe a word, or maybe just a sound, came free from his throat. As things were now, the Future had no means of helping him. All she could do was huddle against him, donating as much little warmth as was left in her meagre body.

The man’s eyes fixated the orange that was almost shining brighter than the embers of the hearth, and they widened as the Future plunged a finger inside it to break its skin and slowly peel it off, until she could break out a fruit segment. Slowly, holding it between two of her fragile fingers, she lifted it up to his mouth. He tried to grasp it between his lips, but he could not chew it, so it fell onto his chest. She placed the rest of the orange on the thin layer of snow in front of them.

There it came, and she had to react very quickly to catch the tear that lunged out of the corner of his eye.

May 13th, 2014

Pontian gathered up the coins from the counter.

“Thank you, thank you!” he said to the man who had just bought a bag of vegetables. Then, he took a sip from his glass. “Please come again.”

Upon realizing that this didn’t come out as the usual, good mannered phrase, but instead more like a desperate plea, he scratched his beard to hide his annoyance at himself.

“You sure you should be drinking while working, Pont?” asked the customer.

“Not like anyone else is going to come in today.”

“My, my! Don’t be such a downer” the man laughed, and Pontian imitated the gesture. “So, how’s your youngest?” he continued, even though he was already holding the bag of goods and was ready to go.

“He’s doing well, very well,” Pontian replied. “Of course, it’s been tough. Ever since his mother died. But Aaron is keeping tabs on him. Just…” ― he bowed over, continuing in a whisper, ― “Don’t tell, but Aaron has some seriously weird interests. He’s making and selling puppets, of all things. If you ask me, they are creepy as hell. But I can’t say nothing about it. Young ones get offended easily nowadays, right? On the other hand, he is constantly nagging me. Saying if I don’t get my shit together, I shouldn’t expect him to be there for me in the end.”

“Jesus Christ,” said his friend. “Sounds rough.”

Pontian shrugged. “It’s all good. Thanks for lending an ear, though. Been a while, right? By the way, how’s Chris?”

“Ah, he is doing well. Him and Aaron are still friends, so I hear about him every now and then. Both giving their best at work, I hear.”

Pontian forced out a smile and raised his glass towards his friend as if to make a toast, then gulped down its entire contents.

With that, they bid their farewells and Pontian was alone again in his shop. He rubbed his beard while looking around. His small grocery store with all kinds of fruit and vegetables. Apples, figs, cucumbers, peaches… Much of his life’s efforts went into all of this, and he took pride in it as much as in his sons.

He sighed and leaned back into his chair with an old man’s groan. Eventually his hand opened the drawer under the counter. Then, he hesitantly took out a batch of papers from it and sourly slapped them onto the table. He took out a pen from the shelves behind him and eventually bowed over the paperwork.

The uppermost sheet was the first one of an unfilled insolvency application. He glanced over the empty lines and boxes, turned pages, and looked at everything very carefully. But he never used his pen. Instead, he took out his budgeting notebook. Things were looking grim.

After a few minutes, his eyes found their way back to the application papers. At some point he would have to do it. Instead, he took out his bottle and poured in another dash to gulp down his throat. Once done, he just dropped the glass.

Standing up, he pushed the papers into the trash bin, walked into the middle of his store and in a fit of anger threw over a box of tomatoes. He walked out, kicking one of them to mush.

January 8th, 2017

Hours went by, in the midst of the night. The Future felt no more warmth emanating from the body next to her. She had clung to him with all her remaining power, and even now continued to do so, leaning her head against his.

It took her a long time to let go and finally leave, herself now being cold as ice. The day had left her weak. She walked slowly under the night sky. Her home was far away.

It was at four o’clock in the morning when the Future finally stepped through the garden gate of the house she lived in. By now, no lights were burning in there any more. She fiddled about the lock for a while with her cold, half frozen hands, until it clicked. The door swung open and the warm, heavy air pulled her in gently with a cosy embrace.

She walked up the stairs and entered the bathroom where she took off her deep red cloak and blood-drenched torn dress. She looked into the mirror that spanned over almost the entire wall and saw the most colourful contusions and wounds decorating her skin like watercolor paintings. She opened the tap and caught a bit of water in her hands to wash her face. And, as if they really had been just paintings, the wounds washed away from her face together with mud and blood.

Suddenly some rustling resounded from the floor behind her. Footsteps and a door swinging open. Then, a person wearing a revealing nightgown entered the bath ― she was a woman with raven black, curly hair and a darker skin tone and was about a head smaller than the Future. In her hair was a single green coloured strand.

“There you are, sis!” she said with her tired and full, low voice. She rubbed her eyes since the light in the bathroom was too bright. “You’re so late,” she mumbled reproachfully and gently turned my sister around. Then, she took a small towel from the counter next to the sink, placed it in the Future’s hand and guided her to drench it in water, then to slowly cleanse away the gunshot wound from her neck. Afterwards, the woman took the towel and cleaned the blood from it in the sink.

“How was your day?” she asked then, and listened to the Future’s answer while swiping away the remaining blood and dirt from her hair and face.