Seagulls on the Wind

A distant seagull flapped its wings as the gentle sea breeze caught underneath it. Feathers ruffling amidst its wingspan as the cool air sent sparse feathers twirling into the sky. Serene blue waves bellowed and lurched towards the coarse sand that lay waiting on the shore. Blue forming into foamy white as the waves crashed sending the peaceful sound of the ocean into the boy’s ears. His eyes tracked the seagull as he watched the elegant creature suddenly plummet towards the ocean’s surface. The bird’s mouth now agape as it crashed its body into the waves gathering something in its beak. As the bird ascended the boy watched a fish convulse and fight for its life, caught and utterly trapped in the tight squeeze of the bird’s beak.

The boy placed his fishing rod down gently, watching the grains of sand form and curve around the length. He gracefully placed a hand next to the rod feeling the coarse and unevenness of the sand grip around his fingers. As he used his hand for balance, he let the rest of his body fall splashing into the beach. He sat for a moment letting the sun soak into his pours. He rested his eyelids, the brightness and harshness of the midday sun still attempting to pierce through causing his darkness to turn into a tinted orange behind them. As he gradually opened his eyes, he threw a hand up in front of his face, protecting and shielding himself from the rays of the beating sun.

“Look mother, even the birds can catch fishes.” The boy sighed.

His mother turned to face her son. Her hair was boundless, reaching down to the curve of her back just above her buttocks. It flowed in a very pastel brown that had been bleached from over exposure to the sun. Her face was soft and round. Her cheeks curving around her high placed cheekbones and meeting into her rounded jawline. Her eyes a deep blue, like they belonged to the sea in front of her. She stared at her son for a moment. He took much after her. His eyes a vivid blue with a rounded face to match. His jawline took his father though, it already had started to form more squarely, but still had the roundness of a boy. It was his birthday today and there was nothing he begged for from his mother more than to walk to the beach and fish. “Mother... mother! Can we please fish along the sea today? It’s the only thing I’ll ask for, you don’t even have to buy me any treats.” He tugged and tugged on her tattered pant leg.

She peered up to the sky seeing the seagull soaring through the wind with the now limp fish amidst its beak.

“The birds don’t fish along the shore son.” She smiled through her words.

“Then why are we?” He turned to look up to his mother pondering. Neither of them had caught anything in their time at the shore.

“The birds don’t need a boat silly boy.” She chuckled as she set a loving arm around the boy’s shoulder. She watched the individual strands of hair bounce and wave amongst each other, set atop her son’s head. She felt pure and whole as she held her boy in her arms. He had to do nothing, and he had all of her. “Come on, let’s go get you a treat.”

“Really?!” A smile shot across the boy’s face.

She reached her hand down toward the boy, offering him her support. They turned together away from the sounds and serene peace of the crashing sea. The fragrance of salt and fish collided together wrestling each other insides the pairs nostrils. The beach was riddled with small fishing tents and supply as the pair trudged their way through the sand. Men painted with dirt and grime shuffled amidst their belongings, sorting through daily catches and wares they would hope to sell to passersby or another fisherman. The irony they brought upon themselves was that the only market they had to sell to was each other and they all already had the gear they sought to sell, the mother thought. Only the fish brought them money, and even that had fallen wayside recently as the amount of catches was pointedly dropping in the past months.

As the beach came to a stop the buildings and man-made structures of the city of Paramere once again crowded the vision. A once lively town, filled with men dressed in black always caring a laborious stature with them as they strode down the streets, now was sparse with life. The town carried a grim nature. A feeling stuck over the air like a rotten stench. A feeling of solitude and pain. The pair sauntered down a main road. Tall thin buildings lined either side of the street. Red brick stood out as prominent as the dark dreary clouds above it. Accenting the buildings lie stained white stone. Sparse grey buildings filtered the red, stone lined with dark oaken wood. Infrequent men strolled the streets, dressed in night from head to toe. The dark cloth folding with their steps and the racket of their shoes ricocheting amongst the structures, filling the mother’s ears.

“Mother.” The boy prodded, grasping firmly onto his mother’s hand. “I think that man may have some sweets.” He gestured towards a man adorning a large top hat, nearly too big to sit atop his head, standing behind a makeshift carriage. The man’s face held a jaundice look, his lips curled slightly downward drooping as if the man was too exhausted to even lift his own appearance. The mother’s mind was lost, for a moment she did not respond to her son. Her eyes were clouded and unfocused as the ringing of men’s shoes on brick still filled her hearing.

“Oh, yes well let’s ask him at least then.” She forced a smile across her lips as she looked down towards her son. His fingers still grasping onto hers, the soft touch of his skin reassuring her. She reached both hands down and grasped the boy under the arms lifting him up upon her. His weight now against her chest as she crossed the street moving towards the man. As she got close, she could see more so the drained look that adorned the man’s face. Purple rings drooped below the man’s eyes and a pale complexion loomed across his skin. “Excuse me sir.” The mother asked, as she now stood in front of the wooden carriage. The man’s eyes looked up as he attempted to regather himself.

“Oh, oh...” The man began to hack, a nasty sound reverberating out of his throat. “Yes, how can I help?”

“We were just wondering if you happened to sell any sweets.” The mother gave a sweet smile. Her eyes, though, tracked and watched the man wearily.

“Ah, yes just a few...” The man hacked harder and louder between words. “Let me get them here.” The man reached down below disappearing for a moment, rummaging amidst his various goods. As his head came up from the wagon his face looked even more sickly and pale. Phlegm dislodged and relodged itself in the man’s throat as he coughed. He set a sparse number of different treats laid out on the top of his carriage. “Take...” He hacked, “A look and pick what you like.”

The mother hesitated to reach a hand out and show them to her son. As she slid her hand closer to the candies the man began to violently choke. A symphony of sounds of gurgling and coughing and wheezing filled the air as the man hurled over clutching his right arm to his chest. The mother quickly took steps back covering her sons mouth and nose with her hand. In a mere moment the man’s legs buckled beneath him as he twisted to the right. The entire weight of his body fell freely his head leading forward as he tumbled. His head made contact with his wooden carriage as he dropped shooting a sharp and loud thump into the air. Blood spattered amidst the candies and onto the table as a large cut gashed open on his forehead. His body ragdolled to the ground as the sound of the weight of his mass landed firmly.

“Oh my god!” The mother cried out, continuing to clamp her hand over her son. The son’s breaths and yelps came out muffled beneath his mother’s hand. She ran from the scene as fast as her legs could move under her. Her son bouncing by her chest and in her arms as she gripped him tight. Their house sat only a few blocks away now. The journey seemed infinite though, no amount of sprinting or speed could have gotten her to her house fast enough. As she reached feet away from the house, she uncovered her hand from the child’s mouth.

“Mother.” The son said soft and sorrowful. Tears filled up on the corners of his eyes as he attempted to hold them back.

“It’s okay baby, it’s okay.” The mother stated; her voice frantic. Her hand trembling as she fidgeted and fumbled with the brass doorknob leading to her home. Finally, she swung the door open hard and with deep fear. She stumbled inside setting her son down from her clutch, as she turned and swung the door closed again with as much force as she had opened it. She heard her son start to take fast footsteps behind and call out.

“Daddy!” He cried, the tears now swelling in the bottoms of his eyes as he forced himself to hold back from breaking out into a hysterical cry.

As the mother turned, she saw her husband coming out from a room near the back of the house. His sleeved white buttoned shirt partially undone near the neck. The sleeve on his right arm was rolled into a bunch revealing his forearm, the other hung lazily down his arm, unbuttoned at the cuff. She tended every part of his body basking in the relief that over flowed her at the sight of him. He was a short man, standing not more than a couple inches above his wife. His jaw triangular and thin and his cheekbones were prominent. Thick and wavy blonde hair was combed and oiled back on his head, parted to the right. His physique was somewhat smaller, but he carried himself with confidence and purpose.

He clasped his son into his body as he came bounding up to him. He looked him over for a second then said nothing, only clenching his son tight into his arms. The mother followed slowly behind her son watching her two loved boys embrace. It filled her with warmth and purpose. As she approached her husband opened his eyes and saw the distress that still clouded her face.

“Nora... What happened?” The husband questioned, his voice filled with anxiety and worry.

“Arthur...” Nora paused, her hands still shaking slightly.

Arthur knelt down next to his son, placing a soothing but firm hand on his shoulder. He gently and calmly nudged his son toward his bedroom, coaxing him to the place that he knew his son felt comforted and warm. Minutes later Arthur appeared, rubbing his hands together as he walked.

“I got him settled in, he’s asleep for now. He said you guys were trying to buy some candy from a man, he fell over, then you ran away.” Arthur spoke concernedly, continuing to rub his hands together as he looked into his wife’s eyes.

“Arthur, what’s happening to the city? Nobody roams the streets anymore and nearly half the people that do are sick and dying.”

“They say it’s some type of disease, apparently something new.”

“A plague?”

“Maybe, I think half the people are too sacred to roam in case they get sick and the other half are already sick. Not to mention this rumor of a beast lurking the city.”

“I never took you for a man to believe the drunken talk of fat old men in pubs.” Nora chuckled the slightest amount and a small smile perked her lips.

“I’m not saying I do believe it, but there are certainly drunken fat old men that do.” Arthur replied, smiling back at his wife.

The smile fading from both their lips as thoughts of uncertainty and disease returned to their heads. Nora felt the skin on her right palm with her fingers tracing the lines in her hands, fidgeting. They sat in silence for the next minutes. The expressions on both their faces saying more than words to each other ever could. Nora rose from her chair, using the arms as support to lift her body. She moved toward her husband looking down at his hands. She gently took his hands in hers feeling the warmth against her skin. Her eyes, moved up to his and she saw the concern and deep-rooted fear that laid in the back of them. She said nothing, only letting out long slow breaths from her mouth as she began to rub up his arms. She pulled him in tight embracing him into her, setting her head along his shoulder. Her lengthy hair waved and flowed against his body. He squeezed her tightly back and let out a long sigh. They stood, locked in each other’s embrace saying no words.

Then, a sound. A resounding vibration came burrowing its way through the floor they stood on. In the corner of the room a lamp vacillated atop a dark wooden table, its metal clanking against the wood. They jolted their heads from each other. Nora’s eyes fixated on the shaking lamp and Arthur’s eyes fixated immediately to the door. Both turned almost in unison and paced briskly to the door swinging it open and stepping outside. As Nora breeched outside her eyes fixated to the sky that was now dark and black as night. Rolling grey clouds filled the sky beneath the black as they seemed to move in an erratic pattern. Arthur peered at the top of the buildings lining the streets. Another jolting reverberation came through the stone they were standing upon and in accordance, distant screams were heard from the west side of the city. Screams that filled the Paramere air, chilling to the ear. Arthur’s head snapped that direction as he stepped towards the middle of the street. As his eyes wandered and darted, a black mass arose from a distance over the buildings. Arthur could make out nothing of what it was, only that the mass looked similar to hand, but not that of a person. The mass shot fear, paralyzing and real fear, down through the curvature of Arthur’s spine. Cold shot through him, as goose bumps terraformed their way down his body.

The mass seemed to lurch and stretch itself, as once it rose it came as assuredly crashing back again onto the earth as it disappeared behind the brick of the lofty buildings. A deafening, heart-wrenching sound pierced through the sky and heavens. Again, in unison with sounds of war, the sounds of death and peril, screams of pain, screams of loss stabbed through the chest of every man within earshot. The ground reacted violently beneath Arthur’s feet. The mass left only ash and rubble shooting out from the place where its hand once rose above the stature of the city.

Arthur’s eyes snapped back down to Nora in an instant. “Go, get back inside now.” Arthur ordered shakily, his voice trembling with the words.

“Love, what’s happening?” Nora questioned; her eyebrows slanted in worry.

Arthur began a fast jog as he darted beside her wrapping his left arm around her back pushing her through the door again. He closed the door behind them locking it as it clicked shut, knowing it would do nothing. Maybe it was so his head could have some false comfort or maybe it was just a reaction, he thought to himself. He darted to his son’s bedroom as Nora watched him disappear for a moment and come out a moment later their son following behind him as he clutched his son’s hand in his.

“The bathroom, it will be the safest.” Arthur ordered once again.

The family piled into the small bathroom together filling the tight space. Nora slumped against a wall as vibration continued to resonate throughout the house, clenching her son tight into her bosom. She placed her chin atop his head as she stroked his coarse hair. She pulled him tighter with her arm and closed her eyes. Nothing but lightlessness and the sounds of stones reverberating filled her entire world.

She knew not how much time had passed. Her eyes were still closed, but where the sounds of screams and buildings collapsing had filled her world before, now only silence filled the air. Silence and pain. A sharp stinging pain shot throughout her side as she squinted her eyes and struggled to move her body. A feeling like a thousand hands squeezing on the inside of her, wrestling with her innards. As her eyes blinked open, she looked down to her stomach. An acuminous shard of wood was gouged just below her right side of ribs. Blood seeped from the wound and down her side sending sparse droplets of blood to the floor as the blood flowed down her with the curve of her body. She let out harsh and loud grunts as she attempted to prop herself up with her arms. As she did so her eyes trailed to the right and saw the head of her son laid back against a board of wood. She twisted her body letting out a loud yell of pain as she turned to face her son. Her eyes all but wanted to shut but she could not stare away. A pile of stones had collapsed on top of his chest and legs, almost completely covering his body. Blood was pooled around him, his legs twisted in a grotesque fashion. His chest caved in from the weight of the stone. His eyes were shut and his face laced with pebble and dust turning his once tan, bronze skin into a grey ashen color. Blood seeped from his mouth running down the curve of his chin. Nora clutched the rocks next to him pulling her head up to his as she let out grunts of pain and agony.

“No... no, no, no... Edwin please. Please honey wake up, for mommy. I’m right here Edwin, please. I love you. Please.”

She let her head fall limp on his as tears streamed down her face, snot secreting from her nose. She closed her eyes, once again holding him in her arms. And again, her world was darkness.