🥈𝕊𝕖𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕕 𝕡𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕖 in the Guilded Raven Awards hosted by @TheGuildedRaven
🥈𝕊𝕖𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕕 𝕡𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕖 in the Coalition Awards hosted by @CoalitionAwards
🥉𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕣𝕕 𝕡𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕖 in the Regal Awards, hosted by @YaDramaQueenbkp
"Pareidolia is when...
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We don't get to make ourselves; The detritus despondency of our mistakes, aspirations, and others do it instead.
***
They sit in a circle, me standing in the center. They watched me, their eyes hungry for the old disheveled can of food clutched in my hand. It was so little the one can of food not nearly enough for these seven half-malnourished, rapacious kids seated before me, but it was the last bit of food we possessed. It was fine; all we needed to do was silence the hunger inside for just one more night. Hunger was normal, something you learned to cope with, and it was ok. I reassured myself we'll be going shopping tomorrow while inwardly laughing at my use of the word shopping. I haven't been shopping for five years, at least not in the normal sense.
Slowly, I brought my self-down to the wooden floor. It creaked from the shifting of my weight. I tucked my legs underneath me and began opening the can with a thin knife. Some of the younger kids squirmed in anticipation.
With the can open, I began flattening the sharper pieces of metal on the side with a thin knife to prevent cuts. After that was done, I handed the now-opened can of food to the smallest kid in the group.
Klaus, a freckly, rambunctious, and sweet boy who had just turned five, eagerly held out his hands to receive the sustenance. After both of his little hands were around the can, he commenced bowing his head in prayer. Not in any way a trait picked up by me. I hadn't muttered a prayer in years. I'd stopped the proclivity of prayers; They didn't do anything, not for me, not for my family, and not for the people I killed.
After Klaus had finished his communion with God, he dipped a spoon into the soup-like stuff in the can. When enough of the stuff lay on the spoon, he proceeded to lift it attentively to his mouth. The spoon lingered in his mouth for five seconds before passing the can to the next kid. This took a few minutes as the seven other kids commenced the same actions as Klaus, minus the prayer. Finally, the almost depleted can of food made its way full circle to me. I scraped the inside of the can with my own spoon.
Puncturing a hole on the side of the can with my knife, I tie a string through it and hand it off to Frank, who connects the other end of the rope to a pipe extruding from the sealing. I don't remember when or really why we started this. Still, we did it every day before a supply trip, hanging food containers from the sealing, superstition in the form of crude decoration as if it had some outcome on our wellbeing. The empty plastic and glass containers were marks in the calendar of good fortune. In some way, it gave us hope, and hope was a soon dying dream.
With dinner all done, the two smaller kids hastened to prepare for bed, scampering off to the upstairs bathroom, which surprisingly still functioned. That was probably what shocked me the most when we moved here, not the fact that we had to clear out three cold bodies. No, it was the shock of running water.
