Feathers

Angels fly over our heads, and we remain intentionally unaware and ignorant. Every trip they make, they leave a gift in harmony – a flock of white, elusive and sweet yet innocent feathers, drifting in a soft samba, playfully manipulating the gentle light of dawn. They leave a message in shadows, a reminder of what we naturally fear – an image of a withered moonglow. They smile.

School is not as interesting as the walk back home – trails littered with yellowed leaves, mixed in an unusually perfect palette of colours – red, brown, orange, and the shades in between. Being a child, I’ve always wondered how nature creates this perfect imagery, yet at the same time wonder how humans can learn to be fascinated by something as mundane as a heap of dead leaves largely raked on the sides of the catwalk. I wonder which side is right.

I remember when Mama used to walk me down this road. She’d always wear a long dress of sorts – she always loved sepia and gold trims. She’d point to a scurrying squirrel with an acorn in its hands, panicked by our intrusion in the quintessential painting that we just happened to have walked into. Her hands would tremor, but would still try to grip tightly. She was not a woman that would admit to needing help – she was always protective of me. It always feel like she was fighting against her own forces – her own body – when she went by every day.

I learned how to cook when I was 8.

Mama wasn’t always like this. I remember days her vibrant, angry voice would storm in our little apartment – you could feel the resonance of her voice in your heart, such that you’d think she wanted to irradiate your viscera in one go. It was like this every day when Papa came home late at night, smelling like sweat, cigars and a mix of women’s perfume and musk. I never understood why it had to be this way.

But one sunny day in May, i remember walking across Bayview after her appointment in haunting silence. There were pounds of anchors chained to our throat and a cold spell on Mama’s face. I could have sworn she was just a few shades away from her pearl jacket she got back home from Jamaica. I didn’t know what to make of this when she told me to “shut up and hold my hand – we’re going home”. I missed my karate lessons that day, but didn’t dare to ask
Mama why.

Just a few more steps and I’ve met with a figure – brown like my Mama’s flawless skin, with flowers on its margin and with a rose hitched on top. It couldn’t speak back to me, but I could feel an embrace every time – a proverbial, stern hand in mine, free of tremors, but still cold.

Listless and tired as I may be, this is my dopamine rush. My sanctuary, and my reward. My last remnant of who I was, who I trusted and my true home.

A feather brushed against my cheeks ruffled with unkempt facial hair and riddled with acne. Delicate, flawless, and likely tainted with DDT, like the corn fields we lived in when I was just a few years old, or so Mama told me.

It’s been 6 years since I last saw Mama, but Life freed herself many more years before. Here is the only place I can return.