Mockingbird (short story)

She has a peculiar flavor when he kisses her. Lollipops and broken glass.

Unlike everything else about her, that flavor is a constant. Unlike her hair, which changes more frequently than her mood--which is to say, quiet often--black, brown, blonde, ginger, electric blue, cotton candy pink, rainbow; viper, viper, viper, lovelovelove can't you feel the love sweetheart it tastes like--

In the mornings she has a schedule, only he never knows what it is. Some days she'll sleep until four in the afternoon, sometimes she's up at the crack of dawn, her voice like the crack of the whip. And then there are The Days where he'll wake up and she'll be with him, curled up next to him with a soft smile on those

--cherry red pale blue bright purple dark green soft orange neon yellow shiny pink all the colors of the rainbow just one taste just for you baby--

lips.

Those are the good days.

Those are not the days where they kiss and she bites him, copper blood mingling with the jagged sweetness.

She is a sharp woman, painted with sharp lines and harsh angles and unbearable softness that she hides in a coffin casket tomb mausoleum box.

She is the woman who will never bear his children--she says--because--she doesn't say--it will make her soft and she simply cannot have that.

He wakes up this morning--afternoon, two o'clock holy shit!--and sees her not curled up next to him, but sitting at the window seat in the oversized blue pinstripe shirt he left discarded on the floor last night. The coffee mug in her hands is a decoration, he knows this. This is one of The Other Days, where she holds the World's Worst Mother World's Best Lover World's Coldest Edge

--happy valentine's day I hate you love--

cup and waits for the steaming to cool and the liquid to chill. He crawls out from the bed, readjusting his baggy blue pinstripe pajama bottoms and sits on the floor beside the window seat, waiting.

Her hair is silver today, like dimes and nickles and quarters. Like second place. Like the moon on the water.

--one is silver and the other is gold--

Her lips are unglossed unconditioned unkissed unpainted, and it makes her look old and sad. He leans his head back and peers up up her and she looks back down, placing the mug on the window seat and sliding into his lap.

Her head fits right into the curve of his neck and chin and her body contours against him. There is a stick in her shirt pocket, made of white plastic and unforgiving signs.

"It turned blue."

Backflash two days ago, his girl stomping down the hall in stiletto heels, black jeans, and a blue shirt, hair a cascade of blonde framing her small face and flashing silver eyes.

--viper viper viper lovelovelove can't you feel the love sweetheart it tastes like--

Blackflash last night, his girl sitting on a chair in a soft green dress, brown hair and crying silver eyes and a ring on her finger.

--viper viper viper lovelovelove can't you feel the love sweetheart it tastes like--

Backflash two seconds ago, his girl looking sad where has her mocking loving firing burning unforgiving unrelenting

--his girl his pretty girl she's a spitfire dragon with a heart cased in ice and eyes made of coals--

face gone?

He places his hand on her stomach, smiling not knowing what she'll decide, not sure if he will ever see the small consciousness blooming inside.

--So hush little baby don't you cry
Cuz mama loves you and so do I--

His girl has a peculiar flavor when he kisses her, one that he's never understood. She tastes like a child in a woman.

Lollipops and broken glass.