Disclaimer: Acrid Bitter Candy does not belong to me.
THE BOY WITH THE UMBRELLA
Casey didn't question the rain. She didn't ask where it came from, or whether it eased or worsened the pain. By now, it had turned to a numbing feeling.
Over the slick cement the girl shifted. Gentle tinkling fell to her side, glinting jewels scattered across the pavement. Shaky hands reached for her back and brushed the last shards of glass. She breathed softly, her small body staggering inside the empty alleyway, and the little girl took quiet recluse in the concealment of brick walls.
Casey never cared for looks, but she couldn't stop her mouth from gaping open at the striking image reflected in a shaded window. A young girl stared back at her, cheeks stained with dirt and brown hair mussed and tangled. A horrid state for a child so young. This shouldn't be happening, she realized. Children shouldn't have to escape and barely stand on the brink of freedom.
Her throat closed up. Tears spiked her eyes like darts, and she wiped them with the grime of her fingers. Casey huddled in the dark cloud of the alleyway, let the shadows engulf the one single figure alone in the world. Maybe only she bore the burden. Maybe the rest of the world slept soundly this time, heard the rain as quiet streaming of a river rather than the horrible thunder booming in her ears. Every window of the city turned dark, every glass pane shut and locked tightly with the click of a switch.
But her home? Her sad excuse of a home blared with yellow lights in every little hole, like a monster woken from a long slumber. If the master fell, the house fell. Men in uniform had barged through the doors upon the news. Through an eye of the monster Casey had shattered through, tumbling over the ground and ducking her last fluttering strand of hair in the depths of bushes and trees. She had dissolved from running shadows and spinning sirens, lights that scanned for the tattoo, the tiny black lines that looked like bars of a jail cell and the grainy numbers that would never completely chip away. The tattoo that would stay engraved on skin even when her master's eyes closed forever.
Rain pounded her skull, trails of water sliding down her cheek and dripping from her chin. She stared at the ripples of a puddle grazing her feet, and realized how strange the sight was--
Her vision. It was clear.
The sky furled gray blankets, the rain crystallized glass panes and yet she held the clearest head on her shoulders. Wasn't this not right? Wasn't she supposed to screw her face and howl as loud as he could? Wasn't she supposed to mourn over the loss of her master, the one who had treated her so kindly?
She tried to remember his face before it had lost color, his voice before it had croaked and died resting in his throat. His warm hand on her shoulder, the one that never smacked or hurt a single part of her. But...
"Don't," a deep voice echoed.
She often stared out the window and watched the tiny birds in the nest bob their heads up and down, their little beaks clattering like two cymbals clapping together, chirp chirp chirping. One had hopped to the edge, its claws wrapped tight around the flimsy twigs, and then the baby jumped as far as it could, flapping its fully stretched wings. But a mere breeze knocked the bird down, sent it hurdling over the ground and landing on a broken arm. It twitched, weak sounds uttered from its beak.
Casey had nearly bolted out the door before her master's hand stopped her. Don't go. But why?
Gently, he said, "You're not allowed to come outside."
She had watched the leaves scatter over the body, the feathers slowly drift one by one from the wind's invisible plucking fingers. The bird sunk deep into the ground of the earth, never a breath more puffing from its chest. Her eyes softened. The poor bird never had its freedom.
Shivering, Casey wrapped bony arms around mud stained knees. Crystals rained from the dark blanket that cloaked the world. Droplets dabbed skin like the sting of bees, slicked a brown trail from the scabs of Casey's knees like tears she did not shed for her master. What an awful girl, she thought to herself. Water was slipping everywhere except from her eyes.
A river streamed below her ears as Casey laid down and listened to the sewers drinking gallons of rain. The wet cement scratched with each shift upon the rough surface. Maybe she ought to sink into the ground like the foolish bird, as well. It was her fault for trying to fly away with weak wings the wind could effortlessly beat down. Her fault she jumped too soon and left the nest, while the others stayed and didn't quite understand. They were perfectly content, weren't they? Staying in their own little world, waiting for the bigger bird to return with food. And she was the only one who tried to fight against the wind, when she didn't need to, she didn't have to at all...
"Hey, you're going to get sick!" a voice piped up.
Casey opened her eyes, only to have them burned by furious rain. Scraps of newspapers scattered the streets and ripped through gusts of wind. Beer bottles rolled through the pavement, but something new emerged from the eerie shadows, the dark depths of her mind. Worn out shoes stained with dirt and mud. The chip of toes split like a bitten tooth. Then the rain stopped pattering on her head, and she looked up.
A face stared back at her, small and round, with the lightest brown eyes in the world of gray. He looked a few years younger than Casey, but from where she sat curled on the ground, he stood as the tallest boy she'd seen. His arm had outstretched, the lanky cane in his hand sprouting a curtain of red that made her feel as if she sat under an enormous mushroom top. But he did not want her to sit.
"You can stand under my umbrella."
Steady feet rose from the ground. Trembling fingers clasped over the handle as if they had never clasped before. Casey took a long look at the boy. Then, as if thunder had struck her to the very tip of her hair, she realized.
Another voice echoed down the alleyway. The boy turned to the sight of a grown man standing in the sidewalk, a loud and crying baby held in his arms. The man made a signal with the flit of his hand, and then the boy gazed back at Casey. He merely smiled and bid good bye before disappearing at the corner, the wails of the baby fading quieter and quieter.
Casey stood still. Rain pattered softly on the umbrella, water slicking from the smooth surface with ease. Years from now, the boy's face would turn blurry, like a reflection in a puddle, but she'd never forget the black grains burned into his skin. The slits of bars and array of numbers that etched on his cheek like scars that would never fade. She would never forget that he, too, was a slave, and he, too, must have known what it felt.
Knuckles turned steely white as fingers wound around the cane. The wind swept papers, tousled her hair, howled for the girl with its breathy message. But what? What would she do? She looked up at the umbrella, where drops tapped over plastic and trailed like strings, then leaped off the edge as if they had no other choice.
She had a choice. But Casey knew there could only be one road paved for her if she wanted the right to live.
When light broke out from gray clouds and shined over streets like gleaming jewels, she folded the dripping umbrella and propped it on the wall of the alley. Stepping out, Casey flinched at the bright light, then continued on, her eyes slowly opening to the blinding road before her.
The girl didn't know what was ahead. but she promised to herself one thing. One day, she would make him free with all the rest of the others. She swore she would make sure every slave would walk the same path, the path of freedom, as she did. They would step past slippery pavements and never stumble, as she did. They would walk into the light no matter how blind it was, as she did, and never look back.
~ * ~
"Hey, you're going to get sick!"
Casey blinked. A shadow hovered over the girl, and when she looked up, instead of the raindrops burning her eyes, she stared at them pouring on a plastic red. Beside her, Andy stood with the cane in his hand.
They had been walking all night long to her headquarters that the rebellion leader hadn't realized it was raining. The boy gazed at her, a soft look in his brown eyes. Somehow, at that moment, he seemed different than his usual flirtations. This time, Casey saw herself in his eyes, and realized she had gaped her mouth open, and then even wider when he uttered the next few words in the most tender, innocent tone he had ever used.
"You can stand under my umbrella."
Casey couldn't find her breath for the next few words she wanted to say, or rather, she didn't know what to say. A ray of light scanned over her face, and the clouds separated for a new sun to march over the sky. The rain slowed to a drizzle, then sprinkles, then nothing but fresh dew slicking over blades of grass. Vien cheered while swinging the jacket Andy had lent him for the rain, then sprinted over to the muddy side roads, stomping and tapping over fresh, wet soil. But the child's laughter reduced to background noise, as Casey could only stare at one person and one person alone.
She breathed, "Doesn't this sound a little familiar to you?"
Andy gawked at the girl. He scratched his cheek, stubby nails grazing over the band-aid he often taped over for the symbol he didn't like showing. Then the boy's eyebrows jumped up, and his jaw dropped open with an expression of impeccable realization.
"It does," he said, then with a snap of his fingers he pointed out, "It sounds exactly like that Rihanna song!"
Casey gaped at Andy breaking into a run over the grass fields, joining Vien in a dance with the sunrise. The two sang at the top of their lungs, spinning around on their heels and making grandly arm gestures as they chorused the pop song. Casey shook her head, muttering under her breath the familiar word she often found herself using a lot lately, idiot.
Then again, she had a moment of idiocy, too. For a second, in a lapse of judgment, she actually thought Andy was that boy. The rain made her nostalgic sometimes, she assumed. Of course he wasn't. He could never be the boy, that boy who made her realize what she must do and swear to save him one day, when Andy was the one trying to stop the rebellion and couldn't care less about what was going on in the first place. She had never met him before. And as for that little boy, the cynical part of her knew he must have been dead by now.
Sighing, Casey wrapped the strap around the umbrella Andy had shoved in her arms before dancing, and shook the droplets off the material. She tucked the folded device under her armpit and continued on the road, ignoring the two boys as if she didn't know them. But each step on the path surged a feel of reminiscence through her. The ground slicked wet, but the girl did not slip or stumble. The light from the sunrise blinded her eyes, but she could continue on without a single flinch.
And yet, she found the umbrella still held under her arm, and couldn't manage to throw it away. She found herself at the end of the path, where the rays of light touched her by the tip of her nose as she stood still. Then something strange happened for that split second, something that made her unconsciously understand that from now on, things would be very different. Her feet stayed put. Her hip twisted. Her arm tightened the hold on the umbrella. Her eyes gazed at the two boys dancing over the muddy side road. For the first time, she had looked back.
End.