Chapter Text
Caged bird was the inconceivable creature which bore past, future, and death in its tongue - lapping up to dust all who, by mere chance, came into being. Gazed upon, it could be swift on its feet, teeth ravaging the flesh of the cosmos, claws hooked onto the eyes of suns. Or treading lightly on the blanketing dark, a woman softly plucking breaths out of existence, lying forever so still that the dust encases her.
The bird is both and the bird is neither, but the bird is all. Once, as a speck of the bird’s skin: it was, is, and will be a man’s home and ship.
The tale of The Bird was something meant to soothe young girls like Ode, to serve as their sign of hope and offer the Vast Incomprehensible on a plate in the hopes that they can understand on the same plane as their mother and their mother before them. Whether she did not know how to eat or the Vast Incomprehensible desired not to be eaten yet, it only served to prove the world to be more intricate than she imagined. She only heard it was, is, will be loose and uncontrollable, both wildfire and mistress. How was that to soothe her at any rate?
She brought this knowledge when she found herself in the hallways of an unfamiliar place. The floors and walls seemed to buzz, indicating a machinery nature, but the more she stayed and lingered the more it felt like the room was breathing. Like looking at someone else and knowing you breathe the same hair, the hallways buzzed with the same familiarity that made her skin warm.
Forwards she walked, coming towards an opening to a rounded room with a honeycomb-like design on the walls, a yellow glow warming the round room. Despite its unfamiliarity, an ease was brought to her by the buzzing, as if welcoming her, asking her to walk.
“Somebody there?” a voice rang through the room, unhostile but neither friendly - cautious, rather.
Ode stopped on her tracks, caught off guard and staying as still as possible. Tilting her head sideways, she caught a peak of someone’s legs on the floor, their upper half obscured by a tall, round thing sitting in the very middle of the room.
When the body slid out and sat up, Ode studied the man’s face. She had not seen it before, but it seemed she couldn’t make herself remember that she had, as once her eyes drew away and looked back, it was like seeing him for the first time all over again. Again and again. Over and over.
“Oh hello there, you alright?” The man made his way towards her, confident in his wide strides before crouching to her level. “How old are you now? Six? Seven?” He squints at Ode’s face, picking apart the details of years gone by. “Nine?”
But she had met him before. But she hadn’t. But she is. His face. Gone from memory but burned upon it at the same time. It reduced her to staring at him if not blinking, still attempting to memorise his features.
She opened her mouth to correct him with Ten but no sound came out. With that, she was gone, and he faced an empty space.
Ode looked around the room, eyeing the redone walls and redecorated space, from chairs that seemed to be made for looking rather than sitting to the fireplace that looked far too ornate to be exposed to heat. She couldn’t deny the air of lavishness as well as the feeling of seeing an old friend that now appeared to be a stranger.
She leant against the open balcony doors, halfway inside and halfway out, one ear towards her parent’s conversation and the other towards their redone garden. Gone was the overgrown lawn, replaced by a more well-kept one, flowers strategically planted to form pathways and ornate diamonds, a gazebo overlooking the park lake outside their land.
She found herself missing blades of grass, the strange white-ish living room wallpaper stained throughout the years by tobacco amongst other things. When she walked through the doors of the house, she knew from the entrance it was no longer her home. Despite redecoration only being redecoration, memories had been taken down, repainted over, redone, recrafted, embellished. She wondered if it was still her home if all the parts that made it home were cut off.
“You want one?” Oli, her step-brother, cut through her thoughts and stood across her, holding out a pizza slice as he ate another. “If we finish, dad might order us another one,”
Ode huffed out a small laugh, shaking her head and taking the slice. “As if you haven’t already eaten an entire pizza,” she swirled what was left of her wine with her other hand, mind still drifting off.
“Yeah, well,” Oli shrugged, “That’s ‘cause I’m not paying for it, so this is my last and only chance to order endless amounts of it until I get back to uni,” he grinned at Ode’s incredulous look towards him. “Perks,”
”Perks,” she mimicked, knowing her dad could easily finance all his pizza if he so asked. The bitterness fought with her want to be happy for him.
“Hope you’re not too mad about what they did to your room,” he added, studying her face for any sign of bitterness or possibly resentment. “I told them you may still want it, but, you know…” his voice fell, replaced by a flat, attempting smile.
Ode turned away, wanting to brush it off and instead looked at the new garden. “Your mom was in charge, wasn’t she? Of the redecorating?”
Oli hummed.
“Guessed so,” she wanted to laugh at the idea, but some part of her held onto the memory of her old room. The largest of all loss in the house. “She mailed me the decoration I left, at least she didn’t throw it out,” she took a bite off the pizza slice, squaring her thoughts into something more optimistic, lest she 'dampened the joy', Oli’s mother would say. “Besides, you can never have enough study rooms,” a sarcastic huff escaped her, not gone unnoticed by Oli.
But he said nothing of it. Though they regarded each other as close as siblings could be, his mother was the one line neither wanted to cross. “What time’s your train going?” he asked quietly, picking at the under-side of his nails from crumbs.
“Uh…” Ode slid her phone from her back pocket. “Hour and a half. I’ll probably get home around eight-ish, nine,” Her eyes wandered back to her father and step-mom in the living room, deep in conversation on the couch, the world silenced around them, it seemed.
She was happy for them, she could swear. But the more she looked at her step-mother, the more her mind brought back reminders of who used to be in her place. She blinked and looked back at Oli, pulling on a smile. “Think I should go now, though. I’ll just hang around the station, work on some stuff,”
Oli’s face wilted. “Oh come on, the entire family rarely gets to be together anymore,”
“Aren’t you?” Ode placed a burning gaze on her brother, searching in his eyes for something that would refuse her. She hadn't meant for it to sound bitter and yet it did. “You three are usually together when given the chance. Same thing, isn’t it?”
He fell silent, brows knitting together. “Ode…” her name escaped his lips in a whisper. “You’re my family, too. You know that,”
Ode’s heart clenched at his words. So much love for him was held within her and she could feel its grip when he tried to pull her back into the fading sense of 'family', she felt him trying his best, loving her back just as much. “I know,” she gave him a trying smile, “But I’m not sure I'm theirs,” she glanced back at their parents and sighed, slipping her phone back into her pocket and straightening. “You know just as much as I do,”
She spared him a glance before making her way out of the room, walking past the conversing couple and into the hall. She let go of a long breath, tears pricking her eyes at the sight of the new frames at the stairs.
Walking up, she glanced at each photo frame - family photos. Oli at a lacrosse match, her father holding a new-born Oli, Oli and his mother on a couch frozen in laughter. No sign of a little girl.
Ode led herself to the new study, pushing the door wide, some part of her hoping she’d open her eyes to the same purple wallpaper. Just as how it was, with the crayon-adorned desk by the window and museum posters blue-tacked to the wall, the sheer blue curtains and daisy-printed duvet. Instead, dark wood shelves lined the walls, a sturdy office desk and chair by the window, impersonal in a way that it invited any and everyone to sit and lounge or work.
She stood there for a moment, taking in what was not there. Her chest ached at the acknowledgement of her erasure. She could still picture her single bed by the corner, her night-lamp screwed to the wall, the pink series lights that used to sit on her headboard. All a ghost.
“Um… happy birthday to your...” her father’s voice rose from behind her, hesitant, bearing the kind of politeness you used for a stranger.
Ode nodded, the slightest bit grateful he had mentioned her. “Yeah, yeah,” she gulped, wondering how else the event could’ve gone. At least it wasn’t sideways. “I was thinking of visiting Aunt Nena next week, have dinner or something,” she turned slightly towards him, hoping he would look back at her. “You could finally meet her. Do you wanna come?”
He stilled, stood beside her under the door archway. “It’s not a... no, not a good idea,” he cleared his throat, shaking away the topic. “How’s your… sleep?” he asked, sounding as though the question had been stuck in his throat. “The dreams?”
Ode side-eyed him, surprised he even cared enough to bring it up as he never really cared much for it before then. “Fine,” she said in short. “Still there, as they’ve always been,”
He nodded, seeming unaffected. “Less? More? The same?”
Again, Ode gave him a glance, unsure what he intended by his inquiries. In her entire life, this was the most he had ever asked her about her overactive dreams. “I don’t know… more? I suppose?”
Her father’s face twisted into a sort of frown, but he usually looked like he was frowning which only made things more confusing. “Hmm… well,” he gave away a breath and shifted his weight onto another foot. “We redecorated,”
Ode didn’t turn back, knowing she could burst into tears if she looked him in the eyes. “I noticed,” she swallowed, heart wild in her ribs. “Looks good. Very… antiquey,” her eyes wandered around the room, attempting to find something she liked. She hated it. Didn’t look too bad, but she hated it.
Her father cleared his throat, a low 'hm' emitting from his throat as he thought of something else to say. “She said it would make a nice study,” he added, making Ode even more unsure where he was intending to go with it - if it was meant to comfort her or bring her even more conflict. “Natural light, park view and all that,”
Nodding, Ode gave a half-hearted laugh, trying to find some sense of comfort in his words but coming back empty-handed. “Did you say no?” You fought for me, right? was what she meant to say.
A minute passed with silence.
Ode nodded again. “Okay,” the word came out with little strength. “That’s… it’s alright,”
She could hear him gulp and take a breath, so she braced herself for greater impact. “We think…” he paused, as if plotting out how to word his intent but had already decided what to say. “She would… prefer,” he started again, putting on a tone Ode only ever heard when he talked to his colleagues or during meetings. “If we didn’t spend as much time together,” his eyes appeared distant, looking straight past Ode. “And we’d appreciate it… if you didn’t come back here,” he cleared his throat, “Anymore,”
It fell out of him like it was choking him from the inside out, now it stumbled and attempted to find its footing, attempting to be received well when he could barely confront her eyes. While she kept herself silent, her body robbed of all warmth all of a sudden. There it was. The house had said it all along.
“She, you know, she thinks you…” he quieted down, eyes running against Ode’s profile. “Well, you remind her of Lucia. It hurts her,” his voice softened while Ode’s insides screamed.
Her cheeks had grown hot with embarrassment, disappointment, something red and black and boiling inside her stomach. She had come to this house as a daughter and she was going to leave a stranger, having assumed she was welcome.
Wordlessly, she turned and calmly walked down the stairs, hearing her father’s footsteps chase after her. She rethought it again, unsure if he was even someone worth calling that word. The more she considered it, the more the word felt as though it needed more qualification.
She strided straight past the living room and out the front door, leaving it open before making her way through the lawn, heart drumming against her bones she could hear its rage in her ears.
“Ode!” her name wore her father’s desperate voice. “Ode, come back!”
She continued her decisive strides as she made it out the gates, eyeing the bus stop not too far ahead, glad nobody else was standing in wait. She felt, for once, the teenager she wanted to be - walking away from your shouting parent, gut burning with a tantrum, hands curled into fists to contain what would otherwise be words sharpened into daggers.
“Odirea, you come back!”
Ode stopped at her tracks and turned back at him, eyes hooded by angered brows.
Her father stopped a few feet away, slightly panting. “She… it’s not you, you know her, she just—”
“Then why isn’t she here talking to me instead of you?” she cut back, nails dug into the meat of her palms. “God forbid a girl looks like her mother,” she spat each syllable with venom, tainting the air red. “God forbid your husband loved someone before you.”
She watched her father’s eyes filled with grief. A stranger’s eyes. At that moment she realised who exactly he had been for the past few years and it wasn’t her father.
She looked behind her at the sound of a vehicle running towards them, eyes met by the bus she needed to catch. She gave one last glance at her father, swearing she would keep to his request that she’d never return. That’s what she wanted to give them. Her lack of presence. If they so want it, they can have it, she thought and smiled. “I’m glad I took mom’s name instead of yours,” she said before turning and half-jogging to catch the bus.
She found her seat by a large window, sleep drifting in and out of her uneasily.
If ever her eyes drifted to her reflection, she wondered just how much she resembled her mother. She’d seen photos of her but it had been a long time. Her father never kept her photos, so if the opportunity came that she visited her aunt, then she had all chances to see family photos. But it had been long enough that her memory of her mother’s face was slightly blurry.
It saddened her she didn’t inherit her mother’s blue eyes but rather her father’s brown ones. She didn’t despise brown eyes, but only the fact that she got hers from her father - only then did it become muddy water, murky skies, darkened sewers.
She closed them and leant back, her body being shook a little here and a little there now and then by the train, as if being cradled.
She became impartial to the lull around her, people talking, some show being played earphone-less, a page flicking, something falling, a shoe tapping.
She hoped to find the quiet between the noise, sifting through the muffled conversations and the low, slow buzz of the speeding train, and for sleep to steal her away. Hide her.
Quietly and slowly, between the noise and the buzz, the hum, to be stolen away.
Quiet and slow.
It was a sort of woody, navy blue.
She stood beside an open, wooden door, eyes wandering inwards what looked to be a console room, wires all about the place, a strong orange light making the room look warm.
One step at a time, slow and wary, Ode made her way up the stairs. She recalled the few times she’d been there, a few times as a child, and fewer the older she got. But one thing remained throughout most of her dreams: a man whose face never made it to her memory. She knew he was around, she knew he seemed familiar with her, the way imaginary friends looked at you - but she could never commit his features to memory.
“There you are!” a familiar voice sprang out of nowhere.
Ode looked downwards towards glass flooring, seeing the man beneath it wearing the widest grin. He climbed out and gave her a once over, eyes falling slightly sorrowful.
Ode made no effort to remember his face anymore, knowing that after two decades of dreaming about him every attempt was futile. Despite this, her heart found relief at the sound of him, grateful for the entirely different world he provided in her dreams.
“You’re close,” he muttered loud enough for her to hear.
Ode tilted her head in confusion, disregarding his face at that point and only focusing on his words. She opened her mouth to ask what do you mean? but refrained, knowing she would be cut short. Instead, she crouched to his level, clutching her knees together.
He took a step closer, hands interlacing behind him. “Soon,” he whispered. “Soon, you will see… everything,”
Ode gave a small, quiet laugh at his words. He always said the vaguest, strangest things, so she never took any of it seriously. She wished she understood him sometimes, as now and then she could feel from his tone that his face might be in a frown or something in upset, but what use was understanding if she woke up just before she sought to touch his face?
She traced her finger on the glass floor, swiping it clean to form a small smiley face. That was as close she could get to communicating with him. One time, she considered learning hieroglyphics if it meant communicating but ultimately thought it overboard.
He reached out at the drawing, his finger grazing hers momentarily. When he looked up, there was nothing but empty space.