In Early Spring

It sits outside your window again, perched on one of the branches of the tree next to your bedroom. Its black outline stands out starkly against the bright sun of the early morning. You know it's heavy, despite the branch seeming unbothered by its presence. You don't necessarily mind it being there, but you know it will colour your day. Today it's quiet. All its mouths remain shut, but it watches you. It watches you in a way that makes it impossible to ignore. You lock eyes with it and it begins rotating its head, maintaining eye-contact all the way. It's unsettling. You feel the urge to mimic the motion, but decide not to. You doubt you could if you wanted. Like most days, it does little to pay attention to it, so you begin your day.

It follows you on your morning commute. You never see it move, but it's always there, on a streetlight, or branch, or windowsill. In your experience, most people don't see it. Some people notice it, though nobody seems to look at it. You pass a wall of advertisements. Posters for concerts, upcoming and newly past, flyers of markets, papers offering amateur teachers, cars, looking for dogs and cats and used trampolines, brightly coloured smears that would have showed people framing products, displaying hypotheticals that could ever only remain hypotheticals. You feel its weight on your shoulder for a moment, before you find it standing next you. The particles it sheds drift to the floor below it and covers it in a thin, but impenetrable sheen of black. You brush over your shoulder. Your fingers come away black. You never know how long it takes for it to come off, but you already know, this time will take at least the day. It makes you hand heavier. Handshakes become a sluggish affair. At that speed you find it hard to ignore how unnecessary the things are we do with our hands a lot of the time. The thing bumps into you a few times on the remainder of the commute. It likes to touch things, but you avoid touching it, or things it touched. It's hard for you to ignore the particles that stick to you. On the train it sits next to you, staring at you, like so many other times. Today it's smaller than you. Still, if somebody wants the seat, it will happily move closer. Usually you move before it gets too close. Sometimes the particles rub off on other people. Sometimes they even notice. Everybody reacts a little differently when they do. A lot of them are confused. Or maybe a little surprised. They try to rub it off on their clothes or a tissue. You know it's difficult to clean off and hope they can do so quickly.

It watches you work. You're not sure whether it understands what you do. You try to do the things first that don't have too many of those particles stuck to it. Those things come easier to you. You don't have to think too much about what it is, what the writing, partially obscured by soot, was meant to say. You keep it in the corner of your eye as you work. Sometimes, when you don't watch it, it grows. You don't need it to grow. It inches closer sometimes. Maybe it's curious. During lunch you can see it sitting on the rafters. It's got friends, sitting in the rafters, each one attached to somebody. You, like a lot of them, push your food on the plate around. The particles have mixed with it and turned the food gray. It tastes ashen. It makes finishing the food a chore. Sugar makes it better sometimes, but its absence makes everything feel ashen instead. On some days it's worth it. It lands next to you and presses itself into your arm. You don't want to pull attention to yourself, so you let it. At least for now. You often find yourself thinking you'll do something about it. Some time. In the future. Now's really not a good time. But you will. Definitely.

You've tried to touch it before, of course. The same way it touches you sometimes. It's soft and warm in a way that makes you feel entirely ambiguous about it. Like a dog that doesn't belong to you. In some ways it's just right. Not too warm as to be uncomfortable, but warm enough to miss on some of the colder days. In some ways it's exactly wrong. It lets you sink in, too slowly to not let you think about what comes next, but too fast not to come away from it unchanged. In truth, you can't really tell whether it likes you, or whether it just happens to always be there. Especially when you're looking for it. It's an expert at meeting your gaze with its large, mysterious eyes. In the evenings, when the remainder of the day has slowed down and the seconds are beginning to drag, you can sometimes hear it speak. It opens some of its mouths and in almost perfect unison, it speaks your name. You can tell that it's your name even when it speaks in odd voices. The honking of cars, rustling of leaves or maybe even the occasional bump of an acorn striking the ground. It all echoes to form the sound of your name. Maybe this is how pets feel when somebody calls them by their name. The instinct of a lot of pets is to come and see what's so important. You understand that this is probably different. It's mouths with the thousand different voices is probably your least favorite part about it. Even more so than the particles that coat your tongue sometimes and make speaking slow and cumbersome until you barely recognize yourself by your words anymore.

It's late in the evening now. You step back through your door, trailing the black particles behind you. They swirl up the doorframe and into the corners of the rooms, where they sit, waiting for you to look for them. The thing has climbed on your shoulder and you can hear it breathe under the layers and layers ashen feathers and fur. It's calm. You can tell. Its weight keeps you fixed in your chair just the tiniest bit longer every time you try to leave it. On days like these, there's little point to keep away the particles. Sometimes, if you ignore them long enough, you can always convince yourself they're not there long enough for them to clean themself up. Right until you think about them again. Then the thing shakes itself and covers everything in this light, fluffy cloud of black soot. It's still just as calm as it is now when it does that. You sit with it, wordlessly for a long while. Even though it doesn't ever do anything else to show you, in moments like these, if you meet its gaze long enough, you get the impression that it understands. Then you break eye contact and continue with dinner. It tastes like ash.