PLASTIC SOUVENIR

As I look down with a hand over his heart, I gaze into my once vibrant brother’s face as it draws pale. His bright, blue eyes fade into shades of gray. His strings and plastic body now contorted as I hold him in my arms.

A moment passes before it occurs to me what had transpired. Still holding his frozen corpse, I do not feel a thing.

Under the moonlight’s glow, a silent being takes its stand on our tilted, gray tree. An owl with its sharp talons and gray fur, gazes upon me piercing my soul like a dagger as it stood completely still.

“What do you want?”

I receive no response. With my brother’s body slumping over, I cannot help but stare right back into the owl, waiting for its next move. Its dark, keen eyes sweep the horizon. I can’t take its judgmental scan of me any longer, so I dig a small grave for my brother to get my mind off it. And as it were never there, it fades into the night without leaving a single trace.

I turn around, my back now facing a slowly wilting tree, and a building with large, golden doors rises from the ground. What sits before me is a library. Its doors open, and the novels on its bookshelves darken under the owl’s silhouette.

Just past the doors, the owl manifests once again. Its appearance mutates the library into an ugly shell of its former self. Its pillars now resemble gnarled fingers that reach out towards the ceiling. The lights came sparse with only a few flickering candles scattered across the tables, casting dancing shadows on the walls. In the silence, the owl hovers over to me. The books on the gritty, rusty shelf fold themselves to make a square large enough for the owl to fit itself into. The owl nudges a book to its left, beckoning me to take a look.

Before opening the crimson red book, I stop in my path. My hands and knees cramp as I struggle to turn the first page. I tried with all my might not to open it, but the strings on my back perk up with fright as I could feel the owl’s unruly scan. The pages of the book contain no text and only a single image. An image of my brother laying face up on the ground after I struck him. Suddenly, a memory plays in my mind.

“The stars are so beautiful when you stare at them like this. You can even see Little Dipper right there,” my brother said with a smirk on his face. His signature white hat with blue lining rests beside him as he continues laying on the ground.

“Really? That’s what you have to say? It’s been 30 days and Mom still isn’t back, yet you’re worried about stars?”

My words hung heavy in the air like a noose wrapped too tight on a tree. His new scar across his face stared back at me.

“Whatever. I’m going to bed,” I said as I leave him where he lays.

“Why are you showing me this? Is this amusing to you?”

To no surprise, the owl gives no response but rather flies to my right side. Rather than a square, the shelf the owl assigns for itself forms into a circle, presenting me with a book with a yellowish-orange cover. I open the book and immediately fall to my knees. The page contains the plastic pentagram my brother gave to me a few days before his death. And to my dismay, another memory plays.

“Hey, have you ever thought about what you were going to do after we move away from this place?” my brother said as he turned to face me on the edge of our tree branch.

“Of course not, why would I?”

“I don’t know, I thought you’d have something in mind. You’re always staring at clouds, so I assumed you’d at least know.”

He turned away to face the rising sun. His feet trembled a bit as he looked down beneath our tree of solitude. Reaching into his pocket, a small piece of wood

“I made you this. It took me a couple of days to make but I finally finished.”

It was a five-pointed star with a line through the middle of it. One side of the star was a dark purple while the other a medium blue.

“Thank you,” I said as I stored the star away.

“I haven’t thought about the future because there’s too many possibilities. I don’t know what to choose.”

“There’s no shame in starting from the beginning when things get too complicated. Nothing is permanent, you know.”

He paused for a long moment. He dangled his feet off the tree, showing the trademark ‘Toybot’ on the bottom of his rubber shoes. His eyes were sparkling in the morning sun as he stared off into the fading horizon.

“That’s stupid,” I said.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

We both laughed at our own absurdity.

Why would someone like him love a person like me? Who could ever love someone like that?

“You are all he had,” the owl states firmly with a slight smile on its face.

Its words slit the heavy silence of the library. The dancing shadows vanished, and the flickering candles bursts in flames engulfing the library. The shelves the size of towers came crashing down causing the dusty books to form a soot-covered landslide. The owl, however, did not waver.

I fell over by the tree exhausted and drained. Remarkably, in the muddy pool next to my brother’s grave lays a singular lotus flower surrounded by muck.

A peculiar book looking like those in the library was placed perfectly above me on a branch. Gracefully falling, the five star symbol given to me fell out of it. It’s light blue color reminiscent of the clear skies compelled me, but not like the other books I read. It felt familiar yet I couldn’t remember what it was. On the cover read, To My Brother, in luster silver. Overwhelmed, I reached to open its pages, but I could not. Deep in thought and book in hand, I drifted off to sleep next to the one thing I could say belonged to me with a smile on my face.

Christian Mosley is a writer studying literary techniques, character writing, and story development. He can be found reading manga and drawing in his free time.