He leads you blindfolded between rows of ticking clocks for that first meal. It was, he said, the first time he had cooked human food, and its appearance was greatly wanting. You do not understand how he thinks this could bother you, knowing what kind of a house your grew up in, and what kind of food was put on the table, but it is enough for you to know that it bothers him. You allow it.

The color of the blindfold is red. So is the cloth loosely twisted around your wrists. You have not seen that cloth, did not see it before the blindfold covered your eyes, but the color is vivid beyond mere vision. It is not a color you usually associate with him.

It is strange, you think, but then you are strange, the two of you, singly and together.

Ghosts are strange. Time is stranger.

Whatever ritual this is, you let it pass, unremarked.

You are seated. You know all at once that it wasn't only the meal that was made for you. So was this chair. So was this table. So was this very room.

He insists on serving you, feeding you. Your hands, still bound, rest idly in your lap.

The first feather brushes your lip and you know something is terribly wrong.

You open your mouth anyway. He was very excited to do this, and you do not want to hurt his feelings. You think, perhaps, that you will try to convince him that you should cook together, next time. You are not worried that this meal will harm you. There is very little that could.

The feather lies along the length of your tongue. You chew and swallow. It is not… bad, exactly. You can taste salt and savory, and the lime-and-copper of ectoplasm, and tentatively identify a handful of herbs, courtesy of your gardener best friend (not to be confused with your technophile best friend). You also would not describe it as good. It certainly isn't something from any human culture you have ever heard of, although it is true that you are not acquainted with every human culture that has ever existed.

You've eaten worse, all told, even if the texture is hard to get past.

The meal is light, but filling. You imagine you feel feathers, whole ones, brushing against your stomach lining, and wonder if you should have chewed better.

Are you sure it is only your imagination?

He leads you out of the room, and back through a maze of clocks. You go blindfolded all the way to the front door. You wonder if this is about confidence, control, or something else entirely.

He presses a kiss, feather soft, to your forehead before he removes the blindfold. He does not untie your hands, but that doesn't matter. They're only tied with a half knot, and it gives under the slightest pressure. You put the cloth in your pocket.

You fly home.

(The cloth was red.)

.

You sleep uneasily and dream of feathers. You do not eat breakfast. You aren't hungry. This is normal so it goes unremarked - Skipping breakfast, that is, not the lack of hunger. You're always hungry. That's why you agreed to let him feed you. One of the reasons, anyway.

But the lack of hunger becomes something like nausea. You can feel the feathers in your stomach pressing outward, growing upward.

You think that can't be right. That doesn't make sense. You think this might be heartburn. Maybe even food poisoning. Although, that would be impressive. You have eaten worse.

The lower end of your esophagus prickles.

You have probably eaten worse.

You go to school. You always go to school, when you can. You don't have any more sick days, and you've been forced to skip too many classes.

The day marches on. You march on. The feathers, too, march on, anchoring themselves further and further up, ticklish and soft.

You are frightened. But your fear is not the desperate kind, or the dread that comes from facing something like death. Maybe you're desensitized. Maybe you face too many ghosts in your life. Maybe it is the simple knowledge that you can't die of suffocation if you don't really need to breathe.

Or die at all, if you're already dead.

By the last period of the day, the feathers are in your throat. They muffle your voice, make it as soft and silky as the barbs of a feather. By the end of it, they tickle the very back of your tongue.

You go to the bathroom and stare at the mirror. You imagine what they look like, and you think they should be red, as red as the blindfold and the cloth still in your pocket.

You open your mouth. You see no feathers, even though you can feel them brushing the sides of your tongue, new, downy feathers sprouting from your gums. Your hand trembles as you raise it, as you reach into your mouth to touch.

The feathers, it seems, are invisible. It is convenient. You think it could be convenient. At least, this way, no one will see.

You walk home. You aren't in the mood for flying. The feathers fill your mouth bit by bit, coating your tongue, the roof of your mouth, your cheeks. It reminds you of the night before, of when he placed the feathers on your tongue with careful precision. They grow between your teeth, filling your mouth full, as if you had taken a bite out of a feather pillow. They grow all the way out to your lips, then stop. They tickle the back of your lips, but go no further.

It is quiet, somehow, without the feeling of feathers growing inside you.

You open your mouth as you walk, and raise a hand to brush the feathers. They pull weirdly on your skin, but they are so, so soft, like what you used to imagine clouds must be like, before you could fly up and touch them yourself. You grasp one, and give it a sharp pull. This accomplishes nothing but making you yelp - and the sound of that doesn't leave your throat.

You arrive home, sulking, and leave just as quickly. You go back to him, to the halls and towers full of clocks and ticking. He is not surprised to see you. He never is.

However, he is surprised when you take his hand and raise it to your open mouth, so he can feel.

He apologizes, then, and blindfolds you again. You offer up the cloth that bound your hands. He ties them differently, this time, palms together, facing up, as if to cup something, but no more securely. He leads you back to that room, the one where he fed you, and you sit again, in that chair meant for you, and only for you.

His thumb brushes over your lips, and you open them. He takes a feather between his fingers, the very same one you pulled on earlier, and with only the gentlest and softest of pricks, it comes free. He places it in your cupped hands, then pulls free another, and another, and they settle together.

He apologizes again. You think he might be crying.

There is something not entirely unlike life forming in your cupped hands. There is warmth. There is something like a heartbeat, between the feathers.

He apologizes. He says he was not made for this. Not kindness. Not care of something smaller and softer than himself. Sitting there, in this room made just for you, that you have not yet laid an eye on, with something like a bird, soft and warm, cradled in your bound hands, you think you were not made for this, either. You were not made for anything. You were not meant to be made.

You think, perhaps, that this does not matter.

You think, that was only the first meal, not the last.