The blue ones were the most exquisite and saddest dawns. It is as if God soaked the clouds in watercolor and carefully stretched them across the sky, drying the tears of the birds. Maple walked gracefully between the wet train tracks, his whiskers were splashed with tender dew drops, and his legs had finally kissed the mud of the forest. He was happy to get home from the cold; he jumped through the window, planning to land gracefully in the night-drift, but his movement was not certain and he then stumbled upon various objects on the table.
Helen felt her heart reconnect to her body and woke up drowning out a shuddering scream. confused and surprised by the din. She was soon reassured to discover the cause of her shock. He greeted her with a muffled meow and she responded with an intrigued chuckle, panting with fright.
-You are the noisiest mute cat on the planet- she sighed as she stretched her body.
As she was embraced by the breeze of the early hours she felt a pleasant shudder. The way every pore of her skin was altered, and her spine carried waves of heat as she watched with her eyes the dawn of her most precious colour, gave her a feeling that this would be a lucky day. He turned his gaze slightly to the right to extend his panorama. But she soon froze, sweat drops poured down her brow, and her breathing took a back seat. Her jaw tensed and she said goodbye to the crescent formed by her teeth a few seconds before. Her heartbeat stopped at that pair of dark, almond-shaped eyes, inexpressive, almost empty.
-No way...- she whispered trying to hide her happiness at the sight of a deer in her backyard sharing with her the same sense of bewilderment and shrinkage.
But the watercolour of the sky snapped its fingers in front of Helen and spilled a quick reaction on the crown of her head, melting the ice that covered her bones.
Soon she jumped up and ran barefoot across the carpet of her small room to reach her hunting tool. She was forced to capture it. She smiled at the shelf and just after she had unloaded her weight on her tiptoes, she reached for it with nervous fingers and took it with devotion. It was heavy. At fifteen she managed to raise enough money to buy it. She had managed to sell drawings of comic book characters and Saturday morning cartoons to her schoolmates. One dollar without color, two dollars with crayon technique, four dollars with watercolor.
A real businesswoman, she thought proudly.
She had to hurry. Deer are impatient creatures. She knelt and unloaded her elbows into the window frame while her right index finger touched the trigger and her left hand held the device securely. She closed her left eye automatically, giving the right one the honor of focusing on the target through tactics. Helen compressed her lips into a single line, swallowed dry and fired.
She got a wonderful picture.
Soon after, the deer went on its way, disappearing into the fog. Satisfied by her feat, the young lady improvised a little dance while taking one last look at her work of art.
- Mr. Maple, how handsome you look today - she began to fantasize about looking at her cat in a flirtatious way as you returned your camera to the shelf - May I have this piece of celebration for the feat I just performed?
Maple meowed without a sound, possibly refusing. But before he could escape he was wrapped in the arms of his mistress and played the most curious waltz in a fairy tale. The morning was already very clear by then and the birds' greetings had lost their shyness.
A noise from the kitchen interrupted the dance of the princess and her cat.
She stopped, withering away on her cruel return to real life. He had returned after disappearing all night, once again. And she had to clean up the mess, once more.
-Stay here- she whispered to the little cat, who put up no resistance as he lay in bed. It was as if he could feel the tension in the air.
Helen made her way to the kitchen, praying in fear. She walked down the hall and turned on the light. As in a play, the spotlight illuminated the figure of the antagonist. There it was; sitting on the tile, staring out at the porch. A ragged cap cradled his eyes in a semi-darkness. Next to him, the corpse of a Captain Morgan bottle rolled aimlessly. He approached carefully and knelt down in front of his father. Her stomach turned. She reeked of rum. There were traces of vomit in the man's beard, and a fine thread of blood was flowing from his left arm. The elastic band still clung to his forearm.
- Come... - Helen held out her hand.
- Dakota, damn it... leave me alone... - He hissed in rejection.
The last negative that the girl's memory could store about her mother, were the scarred wrists of an inexperienced and disheveled Native American woman packing her bags and running away after a bitter kiss goodbye and a cat as a gift of compensation a couple of years ago.
- Um... - William's sharp golden eyes greeted those of his daughter - You look just like her -His voice felt like steam, it belonged to a sleeping dragon consumed by misery.
- Don't call me that, you're making me feel senile- he warned her painfully with an exhausted laugh. It was hard for a man so young to still be the bearer of that title. He had just turned thirty and he was carrying on his shoulders the exhausting responsibility of making sure Helen ate all three times a day. His neck, dotted with irremovable scribbles, held a lost blond head in a state of hopeless addiction.
- I'm sorry, William... I... just let me walk you to your room- she pleaded in a voiceover.
- The couch is more comfortable, baby- he replied, not resisting the force that drew him to hold on to his heavy boots.
The girl helped him to lie down on the furniture and set about untying his shoes.
- You're a good girl- the man gave her a faint smile as he pulled a dying daisy out of his pocket. ---Can I ask you something, Pocahontas?- He tucked the sad flower behind her ear, shaking Helen's very short hair. The Gothic ink on his knuckles screamed the word Karma in capital letters.
- Whatever- she replied without hesitation. She tried to hide her nervousness.
- Please don't ever marry a man like me.
Hours later after finishing school, Helen took the short cut from the forest to capture mementos with her fascinating little time machine. Even the daisy's lifeless body rested close to her walnut "mane"... a color of genetic courtesy from her aboriginal blood. Her old sneakers battered the crisp leaves of autumn, the murmur of the squeaking was an excellent accompaniment to Helen's humming voice.
-Belinda was mine 'til the time- She rescued a pineapple from the ground and examined it with curiosity - that.. that I found her- She blew on it vehemently and shook the dirt off its surface with her fingertips before sheltering it in her backpack.
-Holdin' Jim... and lovin' him - at that moment she could already visualize the trailer they lived in - Then Sue came along...
The interior of his home was illuminated by a flash of light.
Helen turned to stone and was abruptly silenced. A couple of yoctoseconds later, a deafening noise drove away the birds sleeping on the hood of William's abandoned car. Then, a silent iron breath.
That sound never belonged to a camera. It wasn't a lucky day.