trigger warning for eating disorders and generally bad mindset also, animal death?? kind of?? a fly dies.

word count: 1,235

notes: I'M SO SORRY I'M LATE. this one took. a hot minute. and by hot minute I mean that I wrote the first draft in June, abandoned it, and picked it back up again, and rewrote the whole thing over about a week. this one kinda hits hard for me, and it's an idea I've been trying and failing to fulfill since before I even started the first draft. a couple of these are kind of therapeutic, this is one.

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There was a fly in the window.

Not on the window, in it.

It was stuck between the bug screen and the glass pane and had been losing hope for the last few minutes, buzzing petering out as it inevitably fell to the sill.

There was a boy on the bed, and he felt oddly sympathetic for the little fly. It had tried so hard, everything except the most obvious solution which would be to fly out the direction it flew in from.

He knew the feeling.

The boy seemed worn around the edges, stretched thin and fraying like the sheets spreading underneath him. They were a lurid blend of oranges, yellows, browns, and pea green and the boy stood out clearly against them. He was done up in greys and blues, not quite primed for summer and missing the sun.

Speaking of which, it kept falling, feeling everytime like a theme, an overture, a liminality. The light turned red then cold and the fly dropped dead.

The boy stayed laying on the bed.

Rain started, falling in sheets that obscured the neon of car lights and gaudy chain store signs. The room didn't get dark, not really, that would require black out curtains and evidently those were too expensive for a hole in the wall motel that hadn't been updated since the 70's. Passing cars and dripping ceilings replaced dying flies in the boy's mind. He found a comfort in the transient nature of his observations, remembered that what for him was barely enough time to catch up in class was a lifetime for a fly, a vacation for people, and a stormfront sweeping the country. It was all just temporary, he was eternal.

Thinking of eternity brought his mind to the Bible sitting dry and good as new in the drawer. Seemed fitting for a place made for vagabonds and creatures of the night (like him he didn't think). The boy had never read the Bible before, had no need to, and all he knew of religion was deep Latin chanting and tinseled up dogma. He didn't know what to do with it, so he started on the first page. The light outside was enough, and it was surprisingly entertaining if he ignored the way the pages seemed to reach out and try to cut him and scramble their words mid-passage, as if hostile to his touch. The boy blamed it on exhaustion and kept reading, trying not to think about how the McDonald's sign was casting red light on his hands that made it look as if they were stained in blood.

He read until the light turned grey again. It was later than he had expected, the stormclouds and rhythmic rainfall had disguised dawn and brought it late. The sun was a Trojan Horse and his sins and flaws sat heavily in his chest. They seemed stuck somewhere between his bleeding heart and clogged up throat. If he didn't think about it, he could pretend it didn't feel like he was filled with concrete.

But it was a curious thing. The lighter he got, the heavier he felt. Some mornings, he could see the greedy hands of the earth reaching out to hold him down. Those mornings, he didn't get out of bed. This was one of those mornings. Rain had awoken the dirt, and worms weren't the only things wriggling out of it. The boy could see the fingers swimming up through concrete and carpet, disguised by shag and dirt. This was, of course, fake. Hunger and isolation did unusual things. That didn't stop him from being terrified to move off the bed.

Which turned out to be a good thing.
He fell asleep as soon as the rain crows started calling for the storm to return, eyes slipping closed to the golden midmorning light.

This happened often, feeling everytime like a theme, an overture, a liminality.

He didn't see the way the midday light brightened the room considerably, flowing through the wide window he loathed in the night. He didn't see the bustle of life through it, flowing forward and backwards through arterial streets. He didn't see that this city was a heart, and he was stuck in an airless chamber because he never turned on the light to find out. He was stuck drowning in his own toxic life force, and didn't even see it.

So the boy slept for a while before being shaken awake by nightmares and hunger pains. He reminded himself that his family would be back soon. He couldn't tell whether that was meant as a punishment or reward (or maybe it was a crime, letting them in all the time).

Clouds rolled in again. They loomed cold and dark over the city, occasionally rumbling threateningly. It would be another storm. This time, though, two men were racing up the countryside with it, rumbling at the front of change. Their car looked like the night and a few prayin' types mistook it for the devil, what with the storm and all. It was a little ironic, given what they were headed towards. Coincidentally (not), the whole time the boy had been in town, there had been unforecasted storms and pests had been particularly bothersome. No one knew to make the connection, not even the man in the driver's seat. He had made monsters and demons his business, yes, but his youngest son... not so much.

The two men reached the motel the boy was in as soon as the storm arrived. They swept in like the storm, one dark and billowing, the other consistent and calming. There was a moment where the boy's matchstick legs couldn't support him against the onslaught and he almost fell in on himself like a house of twigs. A hand shot out to grab him.

Everyone pretended they didn't see it.

"You been slacking off training?" The father demanded. He was scared but fear was weakness so he got angry, righteous. It worked. (he hoped. he fucking hoped.)

"No, sir." The boy responded honestly. Training, cleaning, and watching time pass is all he'd done. But it didn't show through the layers of grime and burning muscle mass.

"Do you think I believe that? I'll repeat myself: have you been slacking off training?"

He wanted to respond truthfully, and maybe he might have. He might have if he were ready for a fight. Ready to disagree with something. Ready to get angry. Ready for that kind of energy.
But he wasn't so he didn't, and somehow that failed to terrify him.

"Yes, I slacked off training... sir."

A lecture was waiting, the rain seemed to have let up a bit in anticipation, but it never came. The man just told him to pack it up and get into the car. He was too relieved to yell at the ghost that had replaced his son.

So they did. Pack up, that is. Within twenty minutes, it was as if the boy had never been there, never left the dripping remains of his insides on the floor. Never laid on the bed and let himself rot slowly, death seeping into his skin and sheets. They left.

The fly still lay on the windowsill, a grave marking a grave. The bible still lay on the nightstand, a revelation barely made. The storm is the only thing that moved, changing constantly, everytime feeling like a theme, an overture, a liminality.

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notes: thinking abt making this a 'verse. it may or may not all be in this style, but would you guys be interested in that? I have plot bunnies for it, if you are.