Peccadillo

Peccadillo: (noun) A small sin or fault.

She was prancing around in her PJ’s, her earphones intact and her body gliding through the vicinity. She danced gracefully through the room, eyeing my direction once in a while. But she didn’t seem to mind my presence there. She seemed happy, which was a really good alternative over the tear streamed face she possessed the day before. She almost fell as she twirled and hit her toe in the bed post. But instead of wrenching in pain, she collapsed onto her bed in a fit of hysterics, cradling her pinky toe at the same time. It greatly puzzled me but I still watched intently at her humming to the music blasting through the ear pods.

For some reason, her presence didn’t threaten me like the others. She made sure to leave water outside every morning and she’d never harmed me, occasionally feeding me and smiling whenever she saw me. How could I not love her? To see her cry breaks my heart and her smile is the highlight of my day, any day of any week. That day was turning out to be a good one.

She’d gotten up again and she seemed to perform for me, her hair gently swaying in the wind. And even though her eyes were closed, her pirouettes were to perfection, seemingly aware yet not bothered by the clutter around her.

And then it happened.

I’d seen him once or twice around the neighborhood. But most people kept away from him. How could I have not noticed him walking through the front door and up the stairs? How could I have not warned her? But she was still unaware of his presence as he locked the door behind him. He gently walked over and drew the curtains all the way in. I could feel his eyes burning with the kind of lust I’d seen in dogs and werewolves when they saw me. But when she finally noticed him, all she could do was scream.

A heart curdling screech escaped her mouth and a sock being stuffed into them was the last thing I saw as the curtains completely blocked my view. My limbs stood frozen and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get her scream out of my head.

My incessant cries for help didn’t work. Most people stared back at me with disgust and frustration instead. I waited until I saw the robust solid shadow leaving the room. I could see the man leaving her home, his hands stained with blood and his shirt buttoned one hole wrong. His dishevelled hair and trembling hands scared me and I changed my gaze, trying to see through the gaps of the white cloth curtains.

After a while, the breeze blew in, gently sweeping the curtains with it. My eyes fell on a crumpled and harmed flower, whimpering and gasping as she shivered due to the intruding cold gush hitting her bare self. With one eye red and one eye blue, her whole body was a host of various colours and patterns, each one resembling scars that would never fade away.

Way past my curfew as it was, I still stayed around. Partly because my limbs refused to work and wholly because my eyes could never unsee the atrocities I’d been a witness to. She still laid there, her eyes unblinked and her chest moving so slightly that it almost seemed like he’d killed her. But the meandering stream of tears that kept wetting her white pillowcase made it evident that he’d still left a little fire kindled in her.

What could I do to calm her down? To assure her that everything would be fine? That she was going to be ok? What was going to happen tomorrow? But questions remained unanswered as the black veiled soldiers hosted the barricades, completely snatching her away for the night. I had to leave homewards but couldn’t sleep a wink, my mind still bleeding from the bruises on her body. Sooner than ever before, I left with the rising sun and made my way back to her abode.

The unearthly blue that her face had absorbed from a night of hanging from the ceiling made me lose all footing. One foot of rope around her neck garlanded her lifeless body and hung it from the rusty overhead fan.

I made sure never to go that way again.

It took them three days to uncover her body. And from afar, I watched a host of people mourning the loss of a cheerful white flower, trampled and killed by one man and his lust. But the worst thing I could never have even fathomed? The innocence and grief that he’d managed to portray, masking his guilt and the ugliest of truths while visiting her coffin. Her scream played back in my mind as he wiped a solitary tear from his cheek.

To be born a human girl must have been the peccadillo she got punished for.

-The raven who peered through her window.