Flash Fiction by Elin Järvinen
The magpie landed on her balcony, its feathers sharp black against white, and tilted its head.
It watched her. It watched her every day since her mother died. The silence between them felt heavy, like ash settling. But the world seemed sharper when the magpie visited – outlines more defined, shadows deeper, lights brighter. No more gray.
‘Watch out!’ Her brother dashed into her room, waving his arms to scare the bird away. He locked the door to her balcony. ‘How long was it there?’
‘Go away,’ she said. ‘This is my room.’
He furrowed his brow.
‘You’re looking more like grandmother every day,’ he said.
Growing up, her mother always said she had her grandmother’s eyes. But her grandmother had gotten dementia and had started whispering, endlessly.
‘If you listen to magpies,’ her brother said.
‘Yah yah, magpies carry the stories of the past, both sides, the black and the white, and that drives people mad, blah blah,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe you buy that family nonsense.’
‘Magpies visited grandmother,’ he said. ‘Even in the institution.’
‘She had dementia!’ she said.
He left. He closed the door softly, in slow motion.
The edges of the door sharpened. The dark wood contrasted with her white wall.
She turned around. The magpie sat in front of her window. She put her hand against the cold glass, closed her eyes and listened. Her brother on the stairs, the wind outside, rustling leaves, her heartbeat drumming in her chest, her grandmother whispering in her ear.
Text © Elin Järvinen
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And, she’d found comfort, as the magpie visited her regularly, to, bring back a reminder of, what’s been, lost…