. ⊹ ₊ ݁ jasmine flowers ꒱ srp

Instructions

For a moon, Starling had only eaten and drank enough for her to stay awake. She didn’t really move much all day, except to grab a small scrap of food from the buffet when nobody was there. Her twolegs had come in the room, and seizing the moment she had left to the very bottom of the boat, the closest to the water. How funny that she could escape now, when it was useless, and she had fought so hard to leave when everything was burning? It didn’t matter. The boat was hollow, just like her. Due to some miracle, perhaps, she had found a cup of water, still half-full lying around. The plant she had picked, a living reminder of what she had lost, was beginning to wither. All that she had to cling on to, all that was left. Desperate, she kept it in the water, and noticed it miraculously began to straighten up, the smallest bit. A week has passed since then. The flower still grows. The boat is stopping, slowing. The feeling is utterly alien to Starling. She has grown used to the push and pull of waves of the boat. She has been used to pressing her ear against the floorboards and hearing the ocean. Now there is the hollow noise of boat against dock. The excitement of other cats is tangible. It hangs in the air like smoke. Starling wants to press into the floorboards to escape it, to curl up, to sleep forever. She knows that the boat will be moving again soon. And if she ever wants to bury the flower, she will need to do it now. The wanderer waits for a few more moments, hearing the noise die down. There hasn’t been silence for a long time. It tastes sweet, like flowers and fresh air. Silence is a song in itself. It carries the most beautiful kind of music, one only the thoughtful can hear. The overlooked. The broken. The most broken cats can hear the most beautiful songs. Starling picks up the jasmine. She holds it reverently. She holds it like it is a star that has fallen from the sky. She holds it like it is an extension of the most fragile part of her. She holds it like it is a piece of her heart. Sticking to the left path, pelt blending in with the shadows, she leaves the boat, blinded by the sunlight, eyes narrowing, seeing a landscape with a large twoleg structure and many rowdy creatures, cats and twolegs, running around. She continues onwards. No, this is too populated, this isn’t a good place. The past needs to be buried where it can be \respected\, not trampled on. Eyes hollow, ears drooping, she pads into a small cluster of trees, relishing the feeling of shadows on her fur, and leaves whistling above her. The trunks of trees are a welcome ally. The comfort they bring is solace. Starling rubs against them. These trees are old. They are the mothers of saplings that have pushed their heads up beside them. Reaching for the sky, for the sun, for the stars. The trees broke out into a field, one that overlooked a drop onto the crashing ocean. In the far distance, remnants of the volcano’s eruption remained in the sky, but it was blues by distance. Yes, this was the place. Head down, heart heavy, she is about to place it down. And then there is a rustle in the bushes behind her.