“Spaceships and Ink”

The curious girl considered her options.

In front of her sat two choices, and each one puzzled her more than the next. To her left lay a handful of tiny, white spaceships. She gazed at them with wide, captivated eyes. With the urgency of an anxious child, she plucked a few small spaceships from the desk and examined them from all angles. They radiated a strange sensation within her. The feeling of a dangerous pull in the wrong direction. She placed the spaceships in her palm, expecting miniature aliens to stride out one-by-one to greet her with waving three-fingered hands.

The girl waited until her disappointment swelled to a roar then shriveled to a whimper.

Empty spaceships without aliens to commiserate with made no sense to the girl. She focused her thoughts, hoping to conjure up something of mild amusement. Still, nothing emerged from the suspicious spaceships.

There was only one possible conclusion. The girl lifted a large book—one that rivaled the size and heft of a cement block—and plunged the heavy pages onto the wooden desk. She crushed half of the spaceships into a fine, chalky powder. It scattered across the desk like sawdust. She grimaced at the useless powder as her pupils glazed over. The girl expected something much more dramatic, but no such luck appeared.

With this, she moved onto the slender bottle to her right as her legs shook with an exhaustive current of energy. Rich black ink coated the glass in its deep pigment. Once again, an intense curiosity crowded her insides like a cage of trapped birds. She poured a small amount of the liquid onto the desk. It hummed with temptation. The girl’s eyes lingered as the silky, smooth fluid rolled around like a sprawling spill of midnight. The kind of midnight with no stars in sight.

Daring and impulsive, she pressed her hands into the slippery pool of ink. Streams of slick droplets ran down her arms, arresting her attention. She decorated the desk in smudges and smears like an amateur painting. And once her skin was fully slathered in ink, her body shuddered with a world-worn weariness. Another dead end. She wiped her grimy hands off on her blue cloth dress, not caring about the inky stains for another second.

With the air so stagnant and repulsive, she craved a distraction to satiate her boredom. But all she had were a handful of tiny spaceships and a half-empty bottle of ink.

All at once, an irresistible idea sprung into her head. She just had to choose which one was first—the curious girl considered her options.

In one swift move, she snatched up the handful of spaceships and popped them into her mouth. She almost expected them to taste sweet like hard candy. Instead, they tasted bitter and left a sour aftertaste. It was how she imagined ash would taste like. Ash-flavored candy.

She crushed one in between her back molars. Even worse, she thought. The aliens needed a better diet.

The remnants spread like gritty sand in her mouth as the other spaceships dissolved their outer coating like tarnished metal eroded from years of bad weather. But rather than spitting them out, she braced herself for impact and swallowed them all in one grating gulp. Down the hatch, harsh and swift. The dilapidated spaceships shot down her throat at warp speed. She coughed and retched a few times, but she had successfully downed the fleet.

Down, down, down.

A haze of euphoria wielded its grip upon her. Everything seemed so simple when shrouded inside of its dreamy, purple sheath. There was no need for worry, boredom, decisions, or unease. The very core of herself—wherever that was—stood still and exhaled the built-up pressure encased within her cells. She hesitated to think about anything, but the clutches of her restless mind begged her to wonder:

What if I ate the aliens? Why were they hiding from me?

I really want a snack.

No I don’t, nevermind.

Why did I ruin my dress with ink?

Because you didn’t care.

Oh, that’s right.

Don’t think, don’t think, don’t you dare think.

Okay, okay, I won’t!

Calm down.

I am calm!

Frantic thoughts rattled around her brain like marbles being shaken in a jar, and her heart threatened to lurch out of her chest. It thumped with a voracious rhythm, vibrating throughout her entire body. The girl could only sit and wait for the unchained animal behind her ribcage to accept defeat. The bliss of the moment disintegrated into maniacally laughing cinders.

She knew there must be an antidote to this self-induced hell. As rushes of blood pounded against the inside of her eardrums, the girl supposed the only logical course of action was to take the bottle of ink and polish that off as well. Maybe that would send her system into reverse.

She poured the velvety contents into her mouth and winced at the acrid taste of the ink. Unlike the spaceships, she expected the flavor to be disgusting and unsavory, which it was. Nevertheless, she drank it all, desperate for the remedy to the quickened drumbeat of her heart and the odd sweating of her palms.  

At first, nothing happened.

She imagined the beads of sweat on her forehead transforming into jet-black droplets as her veins burned into blackness. Each minute was a see-saw of hope and agony until her breathing slowed, and the shaking of her hands ceased. A faint grin spread across her face.

Finally, the white caps of the ocean had settled into calm ripples where the girl could bathe soundly. A different type of bliss embraced her like a mother holding her newborn. Sleep begged her eyes to close. She felt safe and still as the visions of her mind took over.

The girl floated down a river surrounded by willow trees and flocks of confused woodland animals. The flowing water skirted past the outlines of her frame as she admired the clear sky above. Every so often, a potentially maddening thought flew past her head. But instead of holding onto the disintegrating thought, she let these ideas float past her and disappear into smoke. As the gentle current carried her downstream, the girl closed her eyes and let the river lead her to nowhere. It was a pleasant, all-consuming feeling of nonexistence while still being glad that she existed. The noise in her head grew silent. She wanted it to last forever.

But an abrupt buzzing noise fractured the stillness, and a swift flume of air brushed past her face. In such surprise, the girl shrieked as her darting pupils swung left to right like pendulums. The impossibly fast creature whisked past her twice more until she realized what it was―a hummingbird.

Palm-sized and iridescent, the hummingbird hovered a few feet above the girl’s line of sight. Its wings pulsed even faster than the blood in her veins. And as the hummingbird settled in front of her, she could’ve sworn that it seemed familiar—like it knew her somehow.

She sat down on the riverbank in her soaked dress. The hummingbird followed suit and flew around her head in circles, bothering her with its intense, pervasive drone.

“Stop it!” she said while swatting the air.

“Isn’t it nice to be a child again?” a small, knowing voice asked.

The girl craned her neck from side to side in search of the unknown voice. “Who’s there? I’m trying to relax. Leave me alone!”

“Oh, I know. You just love to relax, don’t you?”

“I don’t have time for foolish games at the moment. Come back later.”

“How oblivious can you possibly be? You always want to see things, but the trouble is, you never truly look. Or maybe you just don’t want to.”

The hummingbird came to a stop, no longer taunting her with its sudden movements. Instead its bolting eyes stared at her like a statue immortalized in stone. The girl matched the voice with the mysterious entity. It was the hummingbird. And quite an annoying one at that.

“I appreciate the strange banter, but as I mentioned before, I really don’t have time right now, so screw off,” said the girl.

“Now…what type of person says bitter things like that?”

“One who wants to be left alone.”

“No, you really don’t,” said the hummingbird. It chuckled at her ignorance.

“Is that why you’re here? To keep me company?” she scoffed.

“Who would want to keep you company? You get bored much too easily, never truly satisfied with anything. Nothing is ever enough for someone like you.”

“That’s not the question I asked.”

“No, but it's the answer you needed to hear.”

A wave of agitation and embarrassment washed over her.

“You’re wrong. There’s nothing wrong with me. I am satisfied.” She crossed her arms tight against her chest, huffed and unwilling.

The hummingbird looked at her with an acute expression of disgust and heartbreak.

“Of course you are,” said the bird. At that moment, the silence which existed between them could have filled the entire river. “Remember—you can try to escape existence, just don’t let it escape you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said the girl. Her gaze sunk into the motion of the water.

“Does any of it? Does this?” The bird’s neck craned to and fro.

The girl held back a reservoir of tears pushing against her eyelids. This was a feeling she absolutely loathed. She wished to encase it within amber, so it could never experience the light of day or even the calmness of night. The girl envisioned a lively, jewel-toned hummingbird caught between steel-cage bars and the wide, open sky.

The girl came to her senses. She lifted her aching head and felt the stiffness in her spine.

As the girl separated herself from the magnetic quality of the desk, there was an intense desire for a fresh supply of spaceships and ink, but she was much too exhausted and grim to move. Trapped in that claustrophobic cage, once again.

The hummingbird’s words rattled in an uneasy cycle. Her heart surged and hands trembled. She began to mutter, clipping her speech at every turn. It was an invasive habit that she couldn’t restrain once it got started. These prickling thoughts merged with her skin, and she wanted desperately to crawl out of it. The girl fought to escape from this permanent straitjacket but to no avail. Squirming, scratching, biting, there was no way out.

Was it possible to not have a heart? she wondered.

Of course, there were people who metaphorically didn’t have hearts: those who commit heinous crimes, those who lie to the public for their own selfish agendas, and those who spit on the sidewalk just as you pass by them. All awful in their own right.

However, it wasn’t physically possible to not have a heart. If she continued like this, the girl might find out the consequences. But it was hard for her to change and even harder to want to change at all. That’s what she so clearly craved. The girl hungered for a lot of things, but this ran deep. Practically cavernous. Straight to the core and fractured between the ribs. Down to the bone. Lodged in the marrow. Fusing with her nerve ends until every action she performed was electrified in its image. The want to change. To transform. To evolve.

Or maybe, the need.

The room offered no sign of solace, but giving up now would be a tell-tale sign of resignation, and the girl was far too stubborn for her own good. To her, distraction was currency. Too precious to spend, yet too attractive to save. She had exhausted all of her resources in one quick moment. The storm of thoughts in her brain convulsed in a manic frenzy. Finally, the lure of the hummingbird’s logic was too truthful to ignore. There was only one conclusion to this madness.

“Come back!” she said, desperate and afraid. “Please!” The girl pounded on the desk with tightly clenched fists. Perhaps the hummingbird could forgive her rudeness, her boredom, and her outright dismissive attitude.

“Okay, okay. Stop yelling. What do you want?” The hummingbird emerged through the window in front of her.

A thinly strained whisper of a sentence ignited in the air. “I need your help.”

“Yeah, no shit. You’re the irrational one here!”

The small bird annoyed her with its arrogance, but she had to admit, everything the hummingbird said was true. An impatient anger rose within her chest. “Alright, then. Help me.”

The hummingbird rolled its pebble-like eyes. “Why should I? What do you actually want me to do? I’m not magic, you know.”

“But you can talk. Regular hummingbirds can’t talk!”

“Maybe not to people, but to each other, yes.”

“Look,” the girl declared. “I don’t care if you’re magic or not. Just fix me!”

The bird offered a soft, sustained sigh. “You still can’t see it.”

“Can’t see what? What do you want me to do?”

The hummingbird craned its head around, peering from side to side. The equivalent to rubbing its chin in deep consideration. A mischievous grin settled behind its pointed beak.

“Choose,” it said.

“What does that even mean? Stop playing.”

“Playing? I’m not the one resorting to childishness here. One last chance, since this has become more tedious than it was tolerable.”

The girl stared straight into the soft glimmer of its wicked eyes. “Choose what?”

The hummingbird nodded towards the desk. She looked down to find a fresh, dangerous supply of spaceships and ink in all their tantalizing glory.

“Tempting, isn’t it?” said the hummingbird. “Take them or leave them. If you choose correctly, I’ll fix any problem that vulgar heart of yours desires.”

She knew what was right. That wasn’t the problem. The girl had always recognized the difference between right and wrong. She knew it was wrong to choose the spaceships and ink. She knew it was wrong to ignore herself. She knew it was wrong to wade in denial and distraction. The real problem, the gnat in her ear, the stain on her shirt, came from choice. But choice always led to change, and decisions were meant for adults with steady incomes. The ambivalence of the hummingbird’s offer tugged at her sanity from the loud cackle of opposing ends.

“So what’s it going to be?” It knew she couldn’t resist.

The girl’s frustration boiled over the seams of her brain. Her thoughts were like layers of sediment, building upon one another until she was buried miles beneath. If only there was a special drill that could bore a hole through the hardened rock, letting the girl reveal the fallibile depths below. But there was no such tool, and time was running out.

“Go on,” whispered the bird.

The girl lifted the slender bottle of ink. She paused. Examining its pitch-black liquid, she saw it for what it was. She pursed her lips around its edge and poured.

Down…

Down…

Down the ink went.

Onto the floor—where it belonged.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” yelled the hummingbird.

The girl’s hardwired defiance rose from the pit of her stomach. She clutched the spaceships and threw them onto the floor with the ink. Her rubber-soled shoes crushed them into a fine powder. A disgusting gray puddle of demolished spaceships and ink laid at her feet.

Blinking through tears of relief, she ran her fingertips through the mess she created. Once coveted and all-consuming, the unworthy concoction was put to rest beneath her. The girl smiled from ear-to-ear and laughed. Both of which she hadn’t done in what seemed like an eternity. She had never felt so whole.

“Good choice,” the hummingbird said all too calmly.

The girl looked up at the creature in bewilderment. “What? You’re the bastard who got me into this mess!”

“No. I’m the one who got you out of it.”

The girl lunged at the hummingbird, but it was faster than her and swerved out of the way just in time. She landed on the ground with a hollow thump.

“That must’ve hurt,” it mocked.

Again, she jumped up at the bird, hoping to entrap it in her hands. The more she tried, the higher the hummingbird flew until it was far out of reach. Hovering overhead, the bird looked down at her as she slouched to the ground in pathetic defeat. It saw her from way up above and realized her suffering. The hummingbird’s expression fell from derisive and snide to something else. Something oddly empathetic and compassionate. Not of guilt or pity but of true understanding.

The girl felt the fluttering of wings over her shoulder.

“What now?” she asked, weak and despondent.

“It’s going to be alright,” said the hummingbird. “Just you wait.”

Just as the hummingbird’s words collided into her ears, a sharp pain jabbed into the center of her brain. Tiny electric shocks snapped up her spine. Her eyes begged to thrust out of their sockets. It was a pain which sent her body into a full shock. As each invisible stab dug deeper into her flesh, she curled up into a ball, crumbling beneath herself. She howled out in agony.

Crack, crunch, crack, crunch, the sound of her bones made. Shifting and splintering as her skeleton morphed smaller and smaller. Her body crumpled up like a paper ball and from around her eyes a mask of delicate feathers sprouted. A brutal pain danced around her shoulder blades as her skin gave way to fragile wings in kaleidoscopic colors. Her lips stretched outward and hardened into a pinched beak. A transformation so disturbing even the hummingbird winced. The girl had experienced ache and pain before but nothing ever like this.

At first, it seemed to be a grotesque mutation of sorts. A cunning take on torture for her guilt and selfishness, she guessed. But before she could place any more blame, the pain ceased. She felt waves of relief. The girl lay feeble and muted against the familiar ground. The floor was a cold home.

After a second to catch her ailing breath, she finally saw what she had become.

But she didn’t cry out for the loss of her former self. She just sat there. It even surprised her that she wasn’t more fussed with the entire situation. Was it shock? Was it confusion or even further mental collapse? That would be a feat.

No. It wasn’t any of those things.

She never thought she could do it.

The brutality of change. It hurt like hell, but she never caved. Never fully succumbed to the pain of her transformation. Giving up is easy when one stops caring, and the girl was determined never to care. But she did. Too much that it hurt to think about. Despite it all, there was always something tethering her to life. Although she had changed, the girl felt more like herself than she ever did before. Just with wings and feathers.

“Well—that took longer than expected,” the hummingbird said.

The girl had no words. No witty repartee or sarcastic response whatsoever. Just a small, gaping beak.

“You’re welcome.” And the hummingbird left it at that.

The strange creature flew through the window and into a clear night sky. She watched the hummingbird coast into the horizon until it became a speck and then nothing. Knowing it would never return, she used her own wings to fly straight into the hope within the darkness. She hadn’t known such freedom in years, only the staleness of a dim, shaded room. Now, she had wings to fly her to places which were worlds apart. The boundless sky wrapped her in its warm, familiar embrace. Life cradled her once again.

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