leela joshi (clarity) wrote in thecaldera, @ 2018-03-26 08:28:00 |
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At the front of the store, betrayed by a forgotten crack, a bird wiggled between the gap of Frankly’s two doors and waddled into the space. More specifically, the bird was a crow; more specifically, the crow had a strange, dirty piece of paper dragging from underneath her wing. It impacted her walking, to the point where she listed a bit to the left as she carefully made her way through the store, her little heart carefully leading her towards her first stop of the day. Her head jerked up to see the time, even as she knew she couldn’t read the dang contraption. (Humans and their hubristic pride against nature! It was so precious.) Still, she saw the bars of sunlight and their length already; better get a hop on. As she bounded, the paper occasionally rustling loose from underneath her wing, she darted left-right left-right, hoping it would gain her knowledge of the aisles and their inhabitants. Eventually, she saw a shadow; her hopping became a sensible walk again as she approached. Meanwhile, Leela remained absolutely oblivious to FMD’s winged visitor. Had she noticed, a certain billboard about odd crow behavior would have come to mind. Instead, Leela bustled about an empty shop, arranging items and counting merchandise - her Monday morning task in the quiet refuge following the weekend rush. A pen jotted across an inventory sheet as she noted what needed to be restocked, refilled, and reordered for the following week. Occasionally, a grocery item or after-school event popped into her head and she scrawled a reminder to herself in the margin of her sheet. So preoccupied was Leela with her own thoughts that the little black bird continued to go unnoticed, even when she was at the human’s feet. “Excuse me?” Hyacinth said tentatively, her little human voice unsure. “Excuse me, Ms. Joshi?” She waited to see that she would not be swatted rudely before continuing, carefully ducking her beak underneath her wing to retrieve the piece of paper before depositing it at the woman’s feet. It took Leela a beat to recognize her maiden name - Formal addresses were something she left behind in Los Angeles and ‘Ms. Joshi’ was something she was still getting accustomed to, even months after she had started introducing herself as such. However, once it registered, she snapped to attention and looked around the store. Her mistake, of course, was searching at eye level. Then, she looked downward, realizing that was the direction from whence the voice came. Upon seeing a crow, Leela's skin jumped with shock. She looked around, again, as if that would answer her questions. Maybe this was a joke. Maybe someone was hiding behind the shelves. Maybe she had missed the signs of a prank in her initial glance around. When that didn't appear to be true, Leela looked down at the speaking(?) animal again and the note(?) it delivered at her feet. “So sorry I cannot stick around, so I must give you the short story! Which is that you have been blessed with a gift from the caldera, which I do hope that you love and enjoy. This paper will tell you more!” And with that, Hyacinth pushed off into flight, gliding through the open air of the entrance behind them. What seemed like minutes passed as Leela, dumbfounded and bewildered, looked from the scrap of paper to the open door through which Hyacinth disappeared. Her head swiveled around the empty shop as she, once again, looked for a witness who could confirm what had just happened. Of course, she was unable to find one. Denial told her to continue with her work, and Leela obeyed. However, her attention and gaze continued to drift back to the scrap of paper that the bird had left behind. Caution told her to ignore it, while reason told her to just take a look. Curiosity and impatience told her that this internal debate was stupid, and Leela agreed; she returned to the spot where Hyacinth stood and picked up the note. As the paper relaxed open, sad and crumpled and stained, merely the careful and muddy footprints of a crow revealed themselves, ‘writ’ plain. What the hell. |