sjsprWriting

The rooftop was always pleasant in the fall.

Remnants of memories left behind, collecting over the ashen floors that ceased before a pair of mercurial railings. With every day that passed, the more memories that were orphaned: favorite toys, detached mouths singing lullabies, an old swing set or feet being tickled by the tide. They were all so lost, these moments without a home, disconnected from time. Their gentle, naive hums could be heard in drones throughout their cell; drowning, but never quite dead.

The rooftop was empty, forgotten; the solitude etched into the sleek marble columns that ruptured into serrated swords under a whimpering night. Beneath and far below the tower that would eclipse the most lucid of moons; that is where the end tended to begin. Lusting, slowly sinking into the gaping creases buried within the wry, sneering pavement; she felt her erratic hands sown to the patched seams of hungry pockets. The glints of golden reprieve radiating from the basins of eyes caught adrift under a tired hood, piercing the vast expanse of convoluted alleyways and morose corners. She, like so many others, would find their way to the rooftop. A dismantled, slightly burnt even, set of steps filled to the brim with a jagged darkness that cut the suffocated pupils of those who were broken enough to walk up them. This, however, was a kindness never to be given a second thought.

The floors were variegated in auburn and autumn. The air was filled with life, but not of her own. She would make her way to the harsh railings. Her hands, no longer without direction, letting go of their second skin and slipping into the folds of her jacket, drawing a warm hand that never left her. She reached to her pale cheek and lifted a kiss someone had stolen from her long, long ago. She smiled. She settled them on the ground below her, watching as they faded away.

They didn’t belong there, but nothing else did.

She allowed her hands to pour over the new warmth of the rails.

The fall was never pleasant from the rooftop.