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15
The Fence
But it had.
And as dark drew closer, wrapping the city in a cloak of muted
pinks and oranges, Carmen spoke. She talked of their parents, and
drew out the one photo they had left of them.
We were all so happy before pneumonia took you from us, she
reflected, almost paralyzed by grief. The words too painful to speak.
And as they stepped out across the road that held the home they
had treasured before, Carmen took her final breath, still looking at
the photo of their parents.
To Amora, it was simply brief images.
A dark shape plowing out of the darkness.
A sound of crunching metal.
A brief cry.
Bright lights.
And then she was kneeling on the road by the prone body of Carmen.
Her sister. Her other half. And the sound that came out of her mouth
was an animal one. A scream of primal grief. And then she did the
only thing she could.
She stood, and as she spoke, she made the greatest sacrifice.
‘Carmen shall be the one to live.’
And with that she dissolved into a burst of pure white feathers,
and as they floated slowly up into the sky, she was at peace at last.
On the ground Carmen gasped and rose again.
So now, on the other side of the fence, a girl tends to those
trapped there. She glides between them, offering a few words of
comfort, anything to keep them from attempting the same desperate
act as her sister.
And the children on the other side are still there, but with a touch
by her soft hand to their foreheads they do not relive sad memories,
but rather lie in an endless sleep of peaceful dreams.
As Carmen tends to the souls on the other side, she occasionally
glances to the sky and whispers her prayer for her sister’s soul, and
her own.
‘We are birds, we are free.’
‘
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