My first short story. Please critique!
Feathers
He saw her from afar, perched up on the roof like a bird ready for flight. But she was looking down onto the surface of the roof, and fiddling with some objects which he could not make out. From the view he had, it looked as though she was arranging something into a particular pattern; her hands appeared to be adjusting something, and she would tilt her head slightly to observe her setup. She did this for a while, and an eager curiosity mixed with awe at her dainty figure, kept him engrossed in his spectatorship of the girl. There was something enchantingly surreal about the image, he thought. It was a drab, inner city neighbourhood and winter was not far off. The winds had become crisp and icy and rarely were people seen outside out of choice. The girl seemed gracefully unaware, calmly oblivious to the world around her. He smiled to himself ruefully and continued with the equations on his homework sheet. From time to time he would look up and his heart would leap with an inexplicable sense of relief at seeing her still there. Eventually, she disappeared. He guessed she had climbed back indoors through the window, and he wondered if he would ever see her there again. At night in bed, he found himself thinking about the colour of her hair. He hadn’t really been able to tell - light brown, or was it a dirty blonde? She had been too far away.
Adam Lasdun had a very skinny frame. Coupled with his lack of height, it gave him a rather weedy and undernourished look. He was conscious of the fact that his clothes hung off him ungraciously, and that his face lacked the solid build he so desired. However, he was not unconfident for a fifteen year-old boy; his speed and accuracy in sport had propelled his reputation to a status he had never quite envisioned, and won him a fair few admirers for whom he was grateful. He would work hard at his studies; he was not a straight A student as such, but his peers seemed impressed by his reasonably consistent grades and the ease and nonchalance with which he achieved them. His teachers too, all appeared to have a quiet and humble respect for him, and for these reasons his life at school was relatively drama-free. He enjoyed school; he enjoyed the safe and controlled environment it offered, the way his form tutor would smile at him upon his arrival every morning, and the way he would politely and dutifully smile back. He enjoyed the way the sound of the playground would change after the bell rang, from a loud and unrestrained myriad of voices to a softer and more purposeful buzz. He enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the corridors, the way the sounds bounced off the walls, and he enjoyed swinging his bag swiftly over his shoulder before going to his next lesson.
Adam had never been a cause of worry to anyone. So when his record suddenly became shrouded in absences, and the standard of his coursework dropped dramatically, surrounding concern was genuine. When his teachers confronted him about this unexpected change, they were met with bored shrugs and cold disrespect. They believed some underlying cause to be present and together agreed that it was not simply a case of ordinary illness, or ordinary variation in homework standards that was the explanation for all of this. They were hesitant in phoning home – the school rarely resorted to this unless it was absolutely necessary – and concluded that in time, Adam would come around and be back to his old self. Teenagers, after all, could be volatile – they knew that. Growing up was not easy, and who knew what personal struggles Adam could be dealing with at home? They knew nothing of his home life, and didn’t see it as productive to enquire. Some parents were touchy, were uncomfortable with the school dipping its nose into personal matters. Mrs McCarthy, Adam’s form tutor, had on many occasions wondered about Adam. He wasn’t exactly an unusual boy – ‘unusual’ wasn’t the right word, for he was perfectly lovely - but she noticed a difference about him from his peers, a difference that was both obvious and unnoticeable. She had been a teacher for more than seventeen years, and often joked with her husband that she had a sort of ‘sixth sense’ when it came to her students. In Adam, she had always seen a distant vacancy; there was a strange glaze to his eyes which made him look as though he was constantly thinking of something other than what was in front of him, as if he had once seen something so wonderful or terrible that his expression had forever been compromised. Although, she reminded herself, she was expecting in four months, and wondered if pregnancy hormones and a maternal instinct could be clouding her judgments.
*****
On the way home from school, Natalie wondered how many other boys and girls were walking home from school at that moment all over the world. She wondered whether they had their own keys, or who opened the door for them, and what they did when they got inside. She wondered if they did their homework straight away, or before dinner, or after dinner, or whether they even did it at all. Natalie mostly wouldn’t bother to do her homework. She didn’t enjoy having to sit through more of what she had already learnt at school, just to prove she had understood. Her brother Connor, who was three years older, would often do it for her. She would begrudgingly do whatever he asked of her for a few days after, and be glad to receive an A or a B when the piece of work was returned. She knew that at some point she should start doing her homework by herself, but she also worried for her brother, who seemed to enjoy helping her, despite the fact that he would ask for favours.
Her parents worked late, and Connor would usually go to a friend’s house after school so Natalie was often alone on weekdays. But she enjoyed her own company, and felt that she was better left by herself, free to think her own thoughts and do her own things without being disturbed. She found it difficult to make friends with the other girls at school. She was embarrassed to admit that she didn’t find herself interested in the same things as they were. She was thirteen, and her classmates would experiment with hairstyles and makeup, and Natalie more than anything hated the smell of these things – of hairspray and of nail varnish and of make-up remover. So, she was content to be alone, and didn’t mind not having anyone to talk to. She was surprised to find Connor there when she reached her house.
“Look what I got you,” he said with a grin on his face. Still in his uniform, he rummaged inside his pocket and pulled out a slightly squashed and dirty pigeon feather.
Natalie looked at the feather, and at him, and smiled.
“Take it then.”
“Thanks, Connor.”
Connor looked apologetic. “I know you’ve already got loads of these ones, but you can just add it to your collection. You know, in case you lose one or something.”
She had lots of them. It had been an obsession from a young age, and she had never grown out of it. She used to sit inside and stroke them lovingly, the softness tickling her long and delicate fingers. These were parts of birds that flew, and had flown above all the houses and roads that Natalie had seen. They were special, and they were beautiful. As she got older, her father would frown at this odd habit of hers, and suggest that she spend more time trying to make friends, or going shopping, as other girls her age did. This upset Natalie a great deal – her father didn’t understand. Connor understood though, and she was grateful to him. Connor always understood. She knew she should thank him properly for the feather later, but first she wanted to put it with the rest of her collection.
*****
He had grown reliant on her presence. He would get home, rush to his bedroom and wait for her to emerge from her window. Sometimes he would wait for hours, even skip dinner, to ensure he didn’t miss her. Often she didn’t come, and when this happened Adam would be cold and broody, much to the despair of his parents, who were unaware of his obsession. When she did come, Adam would gaze at her as if in a trance. He was surprised by how long he could go without blinking, and sometimes his head would hurt from straining his eyes. She was at least two or three streets away; he wished he knew what she was doing – he wished he knew her. He pondered finding a way to get her attention, or finding out exactly where she lived, but these thoughts came to a halt when he considered what he would say, or how he would introduce himself. He decided that he was resigned to simply watching her from his window, and that this would have to be enough.
*****
Natalie was on the roof again. She emptied her box of feathers and spread them out in front of her, marvelling at the variety she had acquired. She liked it out here. It was cold but she had on her favourite winter sweater and earmuffs, and she liked hearing the sound of the wind despite its bitter bite. She looked at her collection and wondered what looked best. She made patterns, alternating between colours and textures and sizes, admiring the beauty of each individual feather. She wondered about all the different types of birds. There must be thousands, she thought. And she thought about what it would feel like to have a feather from all the different types of birds in the world. She saddened at that thought; she knew that would never happen. How would she collect all these feathers? She knew that many birds were indigenous to certain parts of the world, and how would she ever get there? If only she too was a bird and could fly to wherever she desired, maybe she wouldn’t care about the feathers so much.
Tears trickled down her cheeks as she recalled what had happened the night before. Connor had confronted her for not thanking him properly. He was so thoughtful, and so kind, and she was too concerned with herself – and her stupid feather collection – to be able to take care of him properly. She shivered as a heavy gust of wind blew her hair from her face, and blew some of the feathers away, ruining her pretty arrangement. She looked down at the mess and felt a sudden disgust – for them, and for herself. It was as if the wind had ignited in her a sharp and fiery anger; she grabbed a fistful of the remaining feathers and with all the force she could muster, threw them ahead. Some fell away off the roof, others the wind blew back. She stood up and kicked them hard, and kicked the box, then closed her eyes and jumped off the edge of the roof.
*****
It could not have happened.
It could not have happened.
It could not have happened.
Adam was in horror. He wasn’t aware of the shriek that had escaped his mouth, or of the fact that he was prizing his window open, in a mad and irrational rush to save her – as if he could – even though he couldn’t, and he still couldn’t hear the scream that was coming from pit of his stomach, drowning out all other sounds, none of which he could hear – and he clambered onto his window - barely conscious of what he was doing - and stepped onto the roof, and leapt also, off the edge and into the air.
