**TRIGGER WARNING: Implied abuse and physical abuse**
“…pse… Eclipse… ECLIPSE!” I turned to the owner of the voice with a jerk as I realised I was being called. I cooed in response to the woman I was now facing. Her hair was tied up on the back of her head to keep it out of her way, but it was the end of the day and strands of hair were escaping their bun and falling in her face. Her eyes radiated annoyance, but not the full blown anger of the others who shared her job.
“Sing,” she stated to me, a command to be taken seriously but not yet a threat.
I turned my head away, losing interest in her now that she knew I had heard her.
“Eclipse… You can’t do this every time. You know this’ll only hurt you so why do you still insist on doing things the hard way?”
There was no need for me to turn back to her or respond in any way, and I was already used to this spiel from her, so I continued to ignore her. All of the sudden, a sharp pain ripped across my back.
“Eclipse… We aren’t doing this shit today, I’m tired. Sing,” she said as if she was justifying herself and her actions. She was going to do it anyways, whether it was before she talked to me or after, so I didn’t feel her justifications were necessary or productive in any form. It would be redundant to say that I continued to ignore her, and considering it was a rarity that I wasn’t ignoring their commands, it would be safe at this point to assume that I didn’t respond unless I specifically point out that I did respond. Another wave of fiery pain spread along my back, and I hunched over wrapping my arms around my torso.
“Please just sing. Or at least say you will sing tomorrow. I just want to go home…” she begged, pretending in her mind that I was the one in the wrong for refusing to bend to their wills. In my mind, they had already taken everything from me. They had no way left to convince me to sing other than positive and negative reinforcement, and positive reinforcement had not brought me around to seeing their side of things. It couldn’t.
Another lash met my back. And another. She was careful, though. Despite it being against my will, I was in fact a performer, so my so called trainers were under strict orders not to do any real damage, just inflict pain. They hadn’t broken me yet during any of our “training sessions,” but tomorrow certainly wouldn’t be the first time I would sing in front of an audience’s eyes. They would’ve never resorted to persistent damage without an audience, but once a show was on they wouldn’t risk displeasing the audience’s expectations. I was already a freak to be marveled at, but apparently that wasn’t enough. I had to sing too. After all, performances aren’t interesting if the performer has nothing to perform.
The room had no window, but I could still tell it was getting late due to the stream of people leaving the building. The woman gave me one final frown before sighing and putting away her whip.
“It’s been an hour. I’m giving up. Come here and spread your wings,” she demanded. This request of hers didn’t make a difference to me so I willingly obliged, uncurling my arms from around my body, standing up, approaching her, and turning around with my wings opened to their full length. She immediately got to work running her gloved fingers through and along my feathers.
“You know, I might seem like one of the bad guys to you, but I’m not so bad. I bet none of your other trainers bring you snacks, do they?” she said, I assumed with a grin on her face. I snapped my wings down and stepped away, turning back to face her. She was reaching into a pocket on her jacket, and pulled out a bag of something.
“It might not be what you’re used to, you spoiled little boy, but I bet you’ll like it anyways.”
I wasn’t sure yet what was in the bag so I reached for it. She pulled it back towards her with a tsk.
“After I finish. You made me wait, so I’m going to make you wait too.”
I stared at her with little emotion, but ultimately decided to spread my wings for her again. When she finished analyzing my feathers and wings, she gave my collar a jolting tug to make sure it was still firmly attached, and stepped back to observe.
“You still seem like maybe your strength isn’t recovered, but you’re in good shape otherwise. Here, as promised.”
She pulled the bag back out of her jacket pocket and tossed it at me. I snatched it out of the air. The bag was mostly empty, but in the bottom there was an assortment of treats I would never have seen otherwise, potato chip crumbs, shreds of cotton candy, half a hot-dog. She left the room swiftly as I was distracted with the bag, and waved goodbye through the bars.
“Goodnight, Eclipse, sleep well. Try to regain that strength.”
I flapped a wing generally in her direction, which seemed to mean much different things between her interpretation and mine. I was saying go away, but she seemed to think I was waving back. Once she was gone, the lights went out in the room and the hallways outside of the room. Minutes after that, when I was confident no one would be coming near, I opened the bag and carefully poured the half hot-dog into my mouth. It was clearly halved because it had been half-eaten and then dropped on the ground, but to me all of the human food was as good as poison, so it didn’t matter. As far as I could tell, providing snacks was the only use that woman provided me, and the other trainers provided nothing. Yes, the one use the woman provided me was snacks. Human snacks that kept me striving towards my goal. To end my life before the humans ended it for me. I used the food like others of my kind had done for years after the humans captured us. We were called poisonbirds for a reason, after all. We thrived on that which humans considered poison but grew weak after eating foods that humans liked. Apparently little trainer woman hadn’t gotten that memo, and I wasn’t about to tell her. It didn’t take long for me to empty the bag and collapse on the plain white bed, tossing the emptied bag to the side of the room across from the bed. And then, smugly, I sang myself to sleep.
Comments (0)
See all