Baby Bird is my friend. Nobody else can see them, but they’ve been with me for so long. Always there, just at the corner of my vision most of the time, a grey smear against the world.
At first, I was afraid. Terrified, even. They were just stood there, in the corner of my room, skin pulled tight to the bone, limbs and digits oddly elongated, sunken blackened eyes. I remember the noise they were making; an odd, wheezing gasp like they didn’t have enough space in their slender body for their lungs to expand. I nearly screamed, but I recognised something in them, a certain humanity in those shining coal eyes. They didn’t want to hurt me.
They were just hungry. And alone. So alone…
I managed to coax them into the light, truly seeing them for the first time. The bones visible through the paper-thin skin, grey and withered as if with age, as if the muscles had been removed somehow. I also noticed they were naked – not that it mattered, they had no visible genitals – and had no teeth, the wheeze emanating from a black maw quivering a few inches below their eyes.
I learned how to feed them. I look after them. I nurture them.
They crawl out of the darkness, those long fingers reaching for me as they make that whining noise that tells me it’s time to eat. I sit at the end of my bed, watching and waiting as they crawl over. The hunger makes them weak, their bones – unnatural in their length – crackling against the floor. They struggled upwards, their knees scraping, a bony arm draping over my thigh as they lift themselves up. Their mouth, gaping open, emitting that sad, soft whine.
I look down and open my mouth. I never like doing this, but it’s what needs to happen. They have no teeth…
Baby Bird brings their face closer to mine, that maw opening wider, the skin of their face taught, the rough surface crackling. A trembling hand rises to my lips, the slender fingers brushing over them and into my mouth. They glide over my tongue, pushing deeper, past my uvula. I gag, a stream of saliva trailing from my chin as the fingers move into my throat.
It’s disgusting, but necessary.
I gag again, harder this time, feeling the bile rising within me. They curl their fingers, pressing against the muscles of my oesophagus, forcing me to gag and regurgitate, spewing partially digested food and bile into their waiting mouth. Tears run from my eyes. Baby Bird doesn’t swallow. They don’t need to. I hear the reverberations of my meal splashing inside them, screwing my eyes shut as another disgusting mouthful pours out of me. They quiver in pleasure, the black lidless eyes staring up into my own, into the very fibre of my being, distending their jaw to catch every droplet of bile, every morsel of regurgitated food.
After a final mouthful, mostly liquid, pours from my body into theirs, the fingers retreat from my throat. Their visage draws closer, a thick tongue emerging from the maw to lick my face clean, dipping between my lips to grab any potential sustenance stuck in my teeth. Once they are finished, Baby Bird shuffles back into the darkness, dissolving into the shadows where the walls meet, leaving me alone again. Gasping for breath, I stand – a wave of nausea nearly causing me to fall – and stumble to my bathroom. I guzzle water from the tap, gargling it, spitting mouthfuls down the plug before swallowing, ignoring the ache in my stomach. The pain is good. The pain is necessary. The pain means that I’m doing what’s right, that I’m taking care of them. It’s a sacrifice, looking after something as vulnerable as Baby Bird.
Having regained my breath and washed the bitter taste from my mouth, I wander back to my bedroom. I stand in front of the wardrobe, examining my body in the full-length mirror built into the door. I run my hand over my ribs, visible through the rapidly thinning flesh, observing the smooth curve of my hipbone, the iliac crest trying to break through the surface of my skin. A smile forms on my gaunt face, my eyes shadowed and glassy.
Every day, I look more and more like them.
They’re beautiful…
Valkyrie Yeong 