Chapter Five
"Did you get any of that? Because I'm beyond confused," Lily grumbled with her arms crossed in front of her as they walked down the sidewalk to her sleek scarlet car. Another day of classes, stress, and frustration was behind them, and what would most certainly be a long night of homework waited ahead, consuming all premonitions of any sort of relaxation.
"Some of it, at least," Rosetta replied tiredly. Her head was spinning with their last course's new unit, and she was certain that she would explode at the next mention of velocity. "We can compare notes tomorrow at lunch."
"Deal," Lily agreed with a frown, "if I can even decipher mine. I was writing so fast, it mostly looks like scribbles," she admitted sheepishly.
"Oh, Ms. Spin! Ms. Spin?" Rosetta almost did not realize she was being called. She was so rarely called “Ms.” that the title only jolted with recognition in her brain after significant delay. She turned to see Kylie Westenbrooke teetering over in her general direction. Kylie was nice enough, albeit slightly strange; she was too timid to call anyone by their first names, so she referred to them all like one would refer to people of importance and stature. She stood at a meager height that could not have measured up to much more than four feet, but she had a streak of clumsiness in her pleasantly-plump frame that rivaled a Jenga tower's. She was always swaying one way or another and often slipped to the ground seemingly without cause. Her eyes were silver, the same color as a cloud harboring a storm within itself, and peered behind glasses with thick frames. As Kylie approached Rosetta and Lily, Rosetta would have had to have been blind to miss the enormous wire cage that she was clutching, which squeaked and groaned with every step the redhead took. It had two bowls in the plastic bottom and a few stick-like accessories fastened to the walls, almost like perches. "Sorry to bother you. I didn't mean to bother you. Well, I mean, technically, I did intend to interrupt your conversation, but I didn't mean to be a burden. Do you know what I mean?"
Rosetta blinked and hoped that her utter shock and lack of comprehension did not show on her face. "Yeah, I think so," she said dryly.
"Cool! Great. Awesome," Kylie babbled, her speech matching the pace of a galloping stallion. "Look, you've got to take her, okay? My landlord is going to kill me if I don't get rid of her by today, so I really appreciate it. You're a great friend, thank you!" She shoved the massive cage into Rosetta's arms, making a point to talk over every entirely reasonable protest that Rosetta was trying to say. "She's getting better. It's just her wing. It's not broken, just needs time to heal. Then you can get rid of her! Well, release her, that is. Please don't throw her away. Okay, see you!" With that, she turned and very nearly sprinted away, leaving Rosetta and Lily in the dust, mouths agape and facial expressions nothing short of baffled.
"Um?" was the most Lily seemed to be able to articulate.
"Kylie, wait! What are you talking about?" Rosetta tried to run after the tiny girl, but quickly found that doing so was impossible on two counts: the fact that she was wearing shoes with wedged heels, and the fact that there was now a ramshackle, somewhat-rusty cage in her arms. "Where did she go? Do you know where she lives? And why in the world would she want me to look after a cage?" Rosetta turned to Lily, feeling rather indignant about the whole thing.
"Actually," Lily grimaced, "I think it's the thing in the cage you should be more worried about."
Rosetta gasped when she glanced down and caught a flash of movement. A bundle of bright yellow feathers fluttered weakly at the bottom of the cage between the two bowls (one of which, incidentally, was empty, and the other was filled nearly to the brim with seeds like those one would find in a bird feeder), apparently unable to move much more. "Oh my. A bird?" she screeched in disbelief. "Kylie just gave me a bird?" Two beady black eyes appeared as the tiny creature lifted its head and gave a sickly cheep of confirmation. "This is…I can't…why in the world would she decide to give me, of all people, a bird?"
"You're more approachable than most people. Well, most of the time," Lily offered helpfully. Rosetta shot her an unimpressed look. "Not helping?"
"It was a rhetorical question," Rosetta deadpanned. "Anyway, what am I supposed to do now? I could just leave it here, I guess...I mean, it's not really my responsibility..." she trailed off, knowing full-well that she could not really carry out such an act. "But that wouldn't be very safe, would it? And it still gets so chilly at night..." She turned her eyes to Lily imploringly. "You can't take it, can you?"
"Sorry, Beanie, no can do," her friend said apologetically. "My apartment complex had some serious security crackdowns the other day. They kicked out a whole bunch of people for sneaking in animals. I'm not usually one for following rules, but, like Kylie said, nobody wants to be out on the streets. Park benches and old food from dumpsters aren't exactly the best thing for my complexion." She was joking, but Rosetta understood. Money was so tight for most students that ending up without shelter was a genuine worry for a lot of people.
"Well, my apartment has rules about pets, too!" Rosetta said, opting not to complain that the nickname "Beanie" had stuck for some reason, even though she had discarded the hat and stuffed it into her bag shortly after they had arrived at school. "Well, it just advises against dogs and cats...but still! It's such an inconvenience, and..." The bright bird, which seemed to carry sunshine in its wingspan, trilled unhappily, as if it could tell that it might be left alone. Rosetta cringed, feeling guilt tug at her heartstrings. "All right. I guess I'll try to sneak it into my place. If I get fined, I'm charging Kylie," she grumbled tersely.
"Good plan," Lily nodded. Rosetta noticed her glancing from the rusty wire bars of the cage to her car, taking only a few seconds to deduce the meaning behind the subtle cringe in her expression. "Do you, um, want a ride home?" Rosetta thought Lily tried to smile when she offered, but the enthusiasm was unconvincing.
Rosetta rolled her eyes. "Relax, I'm not going to toss some ratty old cage in the back of your car," she said. Lily breathed an audible sigh of relief. "I truly do appreciate the great sacrifice it was for you to offer, though," she teased.
"Oh, I'm glad you see the horrendously great sacrifices I'm willing to make for this relationship," Lily dramatically pressed the back of her hand against her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut, as if she were being overtaken by emotion. The sight was far beyond comical; it was as if Lily had become a mix of some Shakespearian character and a cartoon. After a few seconds more of ridiculous pandering and parading around Rosetta, she returned to her normal posture and giggled good-naturedly. "Really, though, are you sure? I mean, I'm cool with it as long as you help clean up whatever mess Featherbrain decides to make."
"That's okay," Rosetta declined. "I could use some time on my own. Walking helps me clear my head." Her thoughts seemed to twist upon the mere notion of meeting Luka tonight, bending into some twisted, mangled impression of coherency, torn straight down the middle between going and not going, daring and cowering, living for reality and living for a dream, and which one truly entailed living for herself, for that matter. "Thanks, though."
"No problem," Lily smiled. "Hey, give me a call if you need anything tonight, okay? If you end up ditching your dream dude—oh, shut up, I mean literally, the guy in your dreams or whatever it is," she explained when Rosetta's lips flew open to disagree, "I'm down for a movie marathon."
Rosetta smiled back and gave a slight nod of agreement. "I'll keep it in mind," she promised.
"Awesome! I'd better get going, or I'll be late for work. Take good care of Lil' McTweety down there!" She waved goodbye cheerfully, first to Rosetta, and then to Rosetta’s new resident chirper. The bird tweeted in response. Rosetta could not help but wonder what it must be like, to be so magical that it is possible to morph tragedy into hope, to give advice that can calm the most restless of hearts, and somehow to charm birds into bidding adieu.
"I'm not calling it that," Rosetta sassed. "See you, Lily."
"Later!" She tucked her vibrant black-and-red bang
s behind an ear and headed for her car.
Soon, Rosetta was standing by herself on the sidewalk that framed the intimidating college campus she trudged through nearly every day--well, by herself with the exception of the small bird cowering in the corner of its disproportionately-sized container. "What do you think, little bird?" she asked, mostly just to keep the silence from feeling eerie.
It was always strange to go from school to home, because the whole world felt like it shifted into another state of being, another mood, perhaps. The transition, though, was less than pleasant. All too often, peace and quiet was too quiet, at least for a while. Rosetta set her legs into motion and began the journey home.
"Should I meet him? Lily seems to think I should, since I could always just...you know...not fall in love with him," she said. Her voice took on a strange, Lily-like quality when she barked out the phrase. "I'm just not sure it's that simple. I mean, the time I spend in the astral plane used to feel so free. I didn't have to go anywhere in particular, and I didn't have to worry about anything. That's what set it apart from real life, you know?" Of course, the bird did not know anything of the sort, but it had clamped its beak shut in an apparent effort, at least to try and listen, so Rosetta continued. As she walked, she chose as many quiet streets as she could, mostly because she did not want people to see her talking to herself. "I thought I could keep my dreams...bottled up, I guess. All on a shelf in my head. But now it feels like they're spilling out, and I can't tell what's sensible anymore. I want to do the right thing, make the best choice, statistically speaking, and I used to think that that choice was simple."
The slight zephyr of wind seemed almost confused, so she elaborated. "I thought the right choice was always the safe one, emotionally, monetarily, you name it. I think..." The bird flapped its weak wings restlessly. "I think I made a mistake. I thought I could love my dreams—and my astral projections—with my whole heart and still tolerate reality in the way I did when I was half-alive. I'm not so sure statistics will always pave the path to happiness for me anymore."
It was the unglamorous truth: dreams could rarely be loved as well as not pursued. Perhaps that was the source of the dissatisfaction on the faces of the middle-aged messes going through the motions of structured life that they had come to loathe; giving up on all fantasy is the quickest remedy to accepting an average reality. And, perhaps even more tragically, they chose to give up when they had just reached the cusp of realizing their aspirations, directly after gaining the knowledge that such dreams simply are not possible without facts and figures and realism. The fangs of the real world were always poised and ready to strike, eager to inject venom into any dream-turned-reality and taint it with difficulty, strife, and even boredom in some cases. But a dream was no less a dream just because it had been realized. The only time a dream ceased to be a dream was when some poor soul gave up on it under the threat of failure's whip. Dreams were frightening. Dreams were uncertain. Dreams were as far from easy to pursue as one edge of the universe was from the other. But dreams were precious.
"I think," Rosetta said, setting her jaw and straightening her shoulders. "I'm going to see Luka."