Dew Drops

It was the feathers falling that made him sick to his stomach.

He could handle the blood splattered on the sidewalk. The bird carried away in the owl's claws. But he couldn't handle the feathers slowly tumbling through the yellow sodium light pouring out of the street lamps.

It reminded him of Dewey.

Dewey who was good and kind and too naive for his own good.

Rowan shifted on the back stoop of the little house, taking the pressure off his elbows with a sigh. There were dents in the muscles of his thighs from how long he had been leaning on his legs and his head ached from the pressure his palms exerted on his neck.

Dark blue eyes gazed down at the grey jeans.

There were still drops of blood on them.

Dewey's blood.

He scratched a nail across it but none came off. It was old now and embedded in the fabric. Nothing a good wash and some oxi clean couldn't fix. Rowan swallowed thickly around a sudden dry spot in his throat. He didn't want to fix it.

The feathers continued to fall.

One by one, they settled to the concrete patio, stuck there by the slowly gathering water of night. Rowan stared out over the massacre, the bird's blood gone grey beneath the sodium lamps.

Everything did.

There was no color here. It was washed yellow and the yellow didn't make any of the colors stand out. It wrung the contrast out and left only grey. Dewey had hated it.

Rowan abandoned his stoop. Crossed the battleground. Settled on his knees in the wet grass.

"Dewey..." he whispered, running long fingers through the wet grass.

The massive white bowl of a moonflower brushed against his elbow. Rowan touched its petals with his fingertips. They had planted it at midnight, high on edibles. Tears fell to the petals, joining the dew.

"Dewey."

There was no good reason Rowan survived being hit in the crosswalk when Dewey didn't. And there was no good reason why the flowers chose now to bloom. No good reason why the owl ate the bird.

There was no good reason for any of it.

It just was.