by Jeremy Wayne Couch
The Crystal Swan was broken
Hundreds of minuscule stars were now trapped
within the carpet's shaggy clutches
I got down on my knees
to pick one of the shining fragments up
"No."
the quiet girl
with the moons in her eyes
whispered
"Don't touch them."
"Why not?" I asked
"And why are you whispering?"
But I knew why
The danger was gone
It had migrated
to the bedroom down the hall
but the threat lingered in the air
The spell could not be broken
as long as the swan's broken body
lay upon the floor
"Don't touch them. They're jagged."
"You'll get cut and bleed."
"I'm already bleeding." I replied
"Besides, I have to pick up the pieces."
"It's what I do."
"They're doing it," she said, grimacing in disgust
I knew they were
I could hear the protests
of the rusty box springs
echoing up the hall
Besides, it was what they always did--afterwards
"We can leave," she said
and there was more hope in her voice
than I had heard in years
"We can leave tonight. They'll fall asleep
when they've finished and won't wake up
until tomorrow.
We could be too far away for them to find us
before they even realize
that we are gone."
"Why bother," I sighed
"We'd get to somewhere else and open our suitcases
and there they'd be
We can run our entire lives
but we'll always be carrying them with us."
"No,"
she whispered
"I can't."
"I'm already carrying too much."
She got down on her knees
to pick one of the shining fragments up
I knew why
The electricity lingered in the air
It glowed and pulsed within the pieces of the swan's
crystalline corpse
casting its deadly spell
Entranced
she lifted one of the fragile wings
and ran the jagged edge
which had been torn from the swan
along her fingertips
drawing blood
Then she took the wing firmly in her left hand
and with deadly determination
tore open
the wrist of her right
The blood came
and it was as if a red ribbon had magically appeared
around her wrist
It was nothing you could look at and fear
It was too beautiful
"You're doing it wrong," I told her
"They can bring you back
if you do it like that."
"This is the right way."
I found the other wing on the floor and picked it up
in my right hand
I held its jagged point to the tip of
the index finger on my left and then drew a red line
down my finger
down my palm
over my wrist
down my arm
I suppose that was overdoing things
but just this once I felt like being
extravagant
Then we helped each other
free the blood
from our other arms
If there was pain
we did not notice
We were experiencing the ecstasy
of escape
We laid down on the floor
our heads touching just below
the altar I had made from the pieces of the precious swan
I held her hand, and our blood ran together
"You were right," I whispered into her hair
"We can leave tonight
We'll fall asleep
and by tomorrow
we'll be too far away for them to find us
before they even realize
that we are gone."