Daily Drabbles – May 30th

Today’s prompt is a photo and title from The Daily Spur (it’s also from Unsplash, the same place I get all my blog photos, so it’s the same photo I’ve used here).

Light Waves

Each feather was special. Unique, like a snowflake – but at the same time guarded with total consistency, with all the rigor and careful planning of packing clothes into a suitcase (if every shirt contained an ounce of C4 in each sleeve, and the shoes were laced with dynamite, that is).

They had been carefully arranged, fanned out across the coffee table like magazines in a hospital waiting room. Maya threw her eyes over them, poking interest at each like a russian roulette: any that were defective or ‘too normal’ or ‘not normal enough’ went straight into the fireplace.

Above the flames, though, the best of the best were framed on the mantelpiece. She would soak them in deep, lusciously-coloured patterns and dyes, then dry them between sheets of tissue paper, between the pages of her dad’s Encyclopedia Britannica, Volumes L through W. A to F were ruined back when she was still in her ‘let’s experiment with permanent markers’ phase regarding leaves and petals, and he’d hidden the rest when she’d invested in silver paint. Not that she blamed him, of course.

And today was the day to take out the latest specimen: one foot-long, brilliant-white feather taken from an owl at the animal sanctuary. They were grooming all the animals, and a few feathers and fur were shed: Maya volunteered there, and there were some prints of hers up in the reception area, so they held them for her, knowing they’d be useful.

The mantel had one empty space left now, between a luminescent green tail feather, and a muddy orangey-brown blob (invested with enormous sentimental value, naturally) from when she was learning the colour wheel at primary. There was nothing of any shade of blue there at all, not even in the wallpaper (which seemed to contain every other colour, for the record), and the feathers on the table were spread out in such a symmetrical pattern, it was hard to resist.

It was also the first time she hadn’t changed something’s colour before framing it: anything else would make them seem too dark, blur the details that had drawn her to them in the first place…light, that’s what they needed.

Light little feather, arranged like waves in a sea of colour. Standing out like sapphire beacons, beckoning to the muddy waters below.