Porcelain Angels

[4] A Solid Internal Armature

"I don't really wanna go home to mom," Kelly said quietly, getting her fathers immediate attention.

"And why is that?" he asked, trying not to sound too overjoyed at this statement.

"Because she wants to do stuff with me too, but it's all stuff she wants to do or thinks girls should be doing," Kelly said, "I like being with you cause you wanna know what I'm interested in and then do it with me."

Eric smiled, nodding. He had put in the effort to allow his daughter to be her own person, to not put any preconceived ideas of her identity on her without her fostering her own first. She appreciated that, even if she didn't often show it (as most teenagers don't). Eric didn't seem to care that her interests were morbid or grim, he was just happy she was happy being who she was, and felt comfortable enough around him to share with him those things. Besides, Eric himself wasn't exactly an average man. He certainly wasn't into the same things his daughter was - he never really understood where she got this dark sense of self from to be honest - but in his own right he was not what the typical everyday man would be like if encountered. He didn't care about sports, he didn't care about cars. He liked music. He liked going to museums. He enjoyed fashion. He was a well kept, and well educated, man who liked the sorts of things most men get judged for liking. But, like his daughter, the one thing they had truly in common was a disinterest in hiding themselves. He was who he was, no more, no less, and no shame.

"Well," Eric said, picking up some fries and eating them carefully, one by one as he continued, "maybe if you do something she wants, she'll do something you want. Give and take. I understand your reluctance, but a compromise can work wonders sometimes."

Kelly nodded, listening, but not responding. Her thoughts drifted back to the bird.

There was something so beautiful about doing something so delicate. It wouldn't be alive again when they were done with it, but it would be as close as one could get, in its current state of non existence, and that was strangely poetic to her. Perhaps it was because, whether due to her 'not like other girls' mentality that every edgy teenage girl goes through or her frustration at her parents divorce, she felt often stuck in a limbo state of life herself, and there was a comforting familiarity within taxidermy for that very reason. Not dead. Not alive. Just kind of here.

Just kind of waiting.

                                                                                                 ***

Kylie opened her eyes and stretched, yawning. She sat upright and looked around her bedroom. This was the best she'd slept in....years? Ever? Time was sort of meaningless for her, so it didn't really matter, what mattered was that she'd slept tremendously well. She looked to her side and saw Aurora still lying there, breathless as ever, and she smiled weakly. Was that all it really took? Like some kind of fucked up stuffed animal, just having something else in the bed with her? Someone by her side? That seemed too easy, honestly. Kylie got up and headed for the bathroom where she went through her morning routine. She showered, she brushed her teeth, put on a little bit of makeup and then came back into the bedroom and got dressed. She'd get breakfast on the way to the cemetary. As she was heading out of the bedroom door, she stopped and looked at Aurora one more time, smiling again. She'd be home soon enough.

Kylie stopped at a fast food restaurant on the walk to work and got some hashbrowns and coffee, eating breakfast as she walked. Something about the day felt...different. The air. The colors. Everything that surrounded her that once had felt empty now felt as if it were brimming with existence, as if she'd somehow never seen it before. It was as though life thusfar had been filtered through her eyes like a just out of tune TV station, and now suddenly she'd gotten cable. Everything popped, sounded so crisp and clear. Was this how other people saw the world on a day to day basis? It could get boring, she thought, after a while, but for the moment...for the moment its technocolor glory wasn't lost on her.