Avian Apartments

The other day, when my mother picked me up from work, she had two cages with her and a cat carrier. In the smaller cage, which was about the size of an icebox, were two parakeets. In the cat carrier was a much larger parrot.
My mother was so excited to have them; we were bird-sitting for some family who were going away for a week on vacation. She would whisper to the birds as the car's engine started, she would cooingly reassure them after every small bump in the road that "Everyone hang on. Hang on." My mother'd always had a special place for birds, despite the fact that they often annoyed her to extreme frustration.
So today after I got home, I noticed that the largest bird, named Petunia, was clinking against the door of her cage. Now, I don't particularly like birds (parrots especially) but I figured, why not? So I opened the door, to which she immediately climbed out and stretched her wings.
She then began to fly to and from different places in the apartment, much to the chagrin of my step-father Brian. As Petunia flew from room to room, finding different things of interest and different perches to explore, he got quite frustrated. At one point, Petunia landed on an extra keyboard he'd had lying around and, curiously, she began to bite at the plastic keys. He then tried to 'shoo" her off, wanting nothing to do with her.
It was then that I realized how completely inappropriate it was for this house to be housing these birds. Not because we were unable, but more-so unwilling. Birds aren't meant to be caged, nor do they particularly like to be (in my experience). When they have a world to explore, they prefer to explore it. But Brian and my mother don't like that. They don't trust that a parrot, one of the smarter species in our animal kingdom, knows how to handle itself while inside of a house.
They just want an interesting ornament to look at and play with; but only when they want to play with it. Otherwise, they justify keeping the birds locked in their cages by saying "they like their home". I'm sure they do, but so do people; however, we let people choose when to come and go on their own volition. And people are stuck to just one plane - the ground. A bird can soar high above the world, taller than any giraffe and further than any ship can sail. It strikes me as cruel to expect a bird to do as you tell it to but cage it when it fails to obey: come when called, perch only where I deem acceptable, don't put that in your mouth.
I may not like birds, but they're alive dammit. If you expect to care for something like that, you have to let it do as it wants. Only then will it start to consider making you happy and stop biting your fingers.

Inspiration Station

I discovered Creepypasta a few months ago and fell in love with the horror microfiction. I've always been a fan of things being short and sweet, which most of the stories on that website are. Although most of the stories were collected years ago off of 4chan's /x/ board, it's now powered by user-submitted content.
A lot of it is very amateur, but will most things creatively driven there are plenty of diamonds in the rough. Below is a list of some of the ones I've found that particularly sent chills down my spine:

Narcissa’s Window

                  The most beautiful creature I’d ever seen never closed her curtains in her room next door. We’d only moved in a week before, but it was hard not to notice a girl like her. I don’t think she’d ever seen me, but that just made her that much more alluring.

She was young and thin, skin as fair as winter’s first fall, and she had beautiful crimson hair with a small white daffodil lovingly tucked over her ear. I would see her dance almost every night, her hair setting fire to the air with each dip and twirl. I was instantly captivated, entranced by every movement. Some nights she danced, others she sat at her desk running fingers through her hair, sometimes she talked on her cell phone long into the night. It wasn’t until the end of that first month when I saw her kill that first lucky kid.

It was some girl from school, a ditzy spaz whose enthusiastic introduction to the “cool” drugs around campus had her bounce between all the wrong groups. A perfect victim. She always did things so perfectly.

It was the first night I’d seen her turn her light out so early. I might not have known what she had done if her knife hadn’t caught the moonlight, like a silver tracer, a crescent moon carving through the dark that soon began to glisten a brilliant, scarlet red. There were no screams, there was no sound. It must have only been a few seconds, but it felt like I‘d been watching for hours. Exquisite.

When she finally turned the light back on, the ditz was obviously gone from sight. But her face, her beautiful face, was lovingly blushed with a splash of bright red blood. She had the cutest grin on her face, her eyes seductive and wild. She had crossed the deepest line, committed the gravest sin. God, how gorgeous. Her crimson hair fell so gracefully across her face, like a fallen angel.

The next few kids came and went just the same: a drunken football player, a reclusive theater kid, an experimental Goth girl - all of them playing their parts for her entrancing performance. She invited them into her room, like an old friend about to catch up on the newest gossip. Then I’d see it, the moment I always waited for. Her hand would reach just out of sight as a smirk crept between her lips.  She’d always turn the lights out just before the kill. Sometimes I’d catch the silken gleam off her blade, other times the crimson wisp of her hair as she glided across the room. Then, when she turned the lights back on, the look on her gorgeous face - I could feel her ecstasy.

A year had gone by like this, a new show almost once every month. One day, I decided I couldn’t take it any more. I had to meet her. Maybe, if I was really lucky, I could be the one to inspire that dance, to have her attentions on me and me alone.

I bought some really nice clothes, obsessing for days over how I should look, how I could present myself to my goddess. I even decided to bleach my hair blonde, hoping I could get it to shine as vibrantly as hers. I eventually had to order some things online which would take a week to arrive. But that was okay; I could wait just a little longer. I needed it to be perfect. I wanted her to finally see me, just as I had seen her.

But then, that next morning came with terrible, terrible news.

My parents told me they wanted to move away again. An alarming number of teenagers had gone missing over the last few months, and they were concerned for my safety.  The whole reason we’d moved there in the first place was for my well being, after all.

I was speechless, devastated. They were going to tear me away from my angel. After all of this time waiting and watching, falling so deeply in love, I was going to be taken away? I objected, but when they asked why I would want to stay, what could I tell them? I didn’t have any friends here, or at least not anymore. And if I told them about my angel next door, I know they’d send for someone to take her away. I’d never be able to see her again. I couldn’t do that to her, locking away something so beautiful in an iron cage. Holding back tears, I accepted my parent’s wish and walked to my room. She didn't have her light on that night.

They sent me away that night, said it was safer out of town while they looked for a new place to live. I had to stay with half-related grandparents that lived three towns over. I couldn’t help crying at night, staring at the blank walls of my new room. There were no windows here. I got so anxious not being across from my angel. If only I could have seen her dance just one last time.

We’d had to move around a lot, ever since I got let out of McLean’s. My parents hated moving me out of my old rooms. It was just hard. I would get really anxious without having my mirror. I don’t know why, the doctor said it kept me from relapsing and lashing out at my family. When I got out of the ward, the doctor recommended I keep it up on the wall, like a window.

I thought it was weird at first, but I would eventually forget it was even there - I’d just get so distracted. We’ve always seemed to move in next door the most beautiful creatures I’ve ever seen. This one was a blonde, with a beautiful white narcissus lovingly tucked over her ear.
______________________________________________________________________________________________

So It Goes

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
― Ray Bradbury

I decided to make this blog so I may collect things. So I may collect stories, may they be my own stories or those that have inspired me. So I may collect ideas that creep beyond their own boundaries, to be yelled across the room to leave people slack jawed and speechless. So I may endeavor to plant the seeds of inspiration that they may grow strong and tall to bear the sweetest and sourest of fruit. It is my hope that I can reach up and pluck these fruit and feast on their glow, then leave the tree so that others may do the same.

Here’s a toast, to the beginning of something I hope to be extraordinary. Cheers