Disclaimer!
Most of this is straight out ripped from the original book Chapter 1. I translated most of it freehand from my Swedish copy, but I want to make it very clear that if you recognize the sentence it's because it's the original author's, Tahereh Mafi's, words not mine.
Other than that, enjoy!
I have been locked up for 264 days.
I have nothing but a small notebook and a broken pen and the numbers in my head to keep me company.
One window, four walls, 144 square feet of space, 26 letters in an alphabet I haven't spoken in 264 days of isolation.
Except to him. Tybalt.
We seldom speak. He sits in my hair, close to my ear, and I can barely feel my lips move. And so whispers pass between us.
Have we've gone mad yet?
Hushed, hush, more quiet than Tybalt's wings that lay to rest against my throat, where our heart keeps beat beat beating.
6336 hours since I last touched another human being.
They told us they were going to give us a roommate. For good behavior, they said. No more isolation.
We wanted to tell them we were happy as we were. That we didn't need company, company that would jump and chase after Tybalt. They always did. But no one listens to us. No one cares. Not this time either. The wardens with the dog daemon and the porcupine daemon.
We don't know where we are.
We know that the sky falls down every day. And once upon a time, a long long time ago, it used to be the color of lapis lazuli. I only remember what it might have looked like because of Tybalt. I don't see him often. Only when the light falls in a certain way through the small window that is cold to the touch. But when it does, and when I see him, he opens and closes his wings shyly.
And for a moment, I remember the sky.
I wonder what the sky looks from outside the window...
"Perhaps a roommate won't be so bad, after all", I whisper to him in the evening.
"Do you really think so?", he asks. Hesitant.
I'm quiet. 5 beats of my heart. Twice he spreads his wings.
"Yeah...", I say.
"I think it will be nice to speak to someone else. It's easier than writing."
"We need to practice", he says, and he flutters away to sit on the steel railing of the bed.
He opens and closes. Waits.
And we practice. The entire day until the sun cracks its yolk at the horizon. Letters into words into sentences into dialogue.
We're both surprised that I even remember.
They never told us when our roommate would arrive. And so we wait.
And we wait.
And we wait for too long and fall asleep.
I open my eyes to see two eyes two lips two ears two eyebrows.
Tybalt almost hits the ceiling.
I almost gain wings off my own and follow him.
"You're a b-b-b-b-"
"And you're a girl", he says. And he sits back and my eyes are jumping from him to the door and back again and Tybalt is flying circles around my head.
They did this on purpose.
His arms are tattooed from his wrists to his elbows. Dark brown hair.
Blue eyes. Dark blue eyes like lapis lazuli. But I don't have time to think of the fact that it looks like Tybalt has duplicated and landed on his eyelids because on his shoulder-
Grey body white tipped wings yellow head with large circles of red on her cheeks like a child who has found her way into her mother's make-up case.
She notices me stare at her and suddenly there is a fan of yellow on her head and she lets out a startled chirp.
My lungs have forgotten how to breathe.
She turns her head and just as quickly the crown of yellow is gone, tucked flat on her head.
He laughs and they must think I'm scared and he steals my bed my blanket my pillow and I'm left on the floor.
Yet I don't object. I just place myself in the corner and Tybalt lands on my head and it must look like I'm glowering at him, the boy, as he tries to make small talk.
"Are you crazy or what? Is that why you're in here?"
Tybalt opens closes.
We're not crazy.
We're not crazy for staring at his daemon as she tucks her head above her wing and sleeps. We're not crazy for trying to understand how out of all daemons that she could be she came here how she flew out of our dreams to land here in our cell.
I've never written from Juliette's POV, but I must say, using "we" as a pronoun felt the most strange. And I probably made Juliette sound even more insane than usual. I'm not very used to rewriting other people's work like this either...
Please comment and tell me what you think! I'm not scared of feedback!
Skip this if you want the daemons to stay vague:
- Tybalt is a butterfly. I was very conflicted on having him be a butterfly instead of something more lethal, but I'm thinking since he'd settle when Juliette had such low self-esteem it makes sense that he's a fluttery insecure insect that tries to melt into the background. But he's still extra enough that he's cobalt blue.
- Adam's daemon, who doesn't have a name yet, is a cockatiel. Not as cool as a cockatoo, but I wanted to use his bird tattoo somehow.
Thank you for reading! :)