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Terracotta Shards

Broken pieces are hard to mend

By Gillian PeggPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 5 min read
Runner-Up in Return of the Night Owl Challenge
3
Terracotta Shards
Photo by Sophie Louisnard on Unsplash

“Have you ever wondered what it felt like?”

The question hangs in the air, ringing in my ears like reverberating metal. I blow out a puff of silver cigarette smoke, and it swirls away into the night sky.

“What what felt like?”

Annette swallows. “Pointing a rifle at another person and… When you were a nurse, at the front, did you ever wonder..." She trails off, her brows high.

I tap my cigarette on the balcony rail. It feels like ice to the touch. Spring is coming late this year.

“I try not to, honestly. Seems to me, too many minds are still stuck in moments like that. Reliving it, over and over.”

I take another drag, looking up past the eaves of Paris rooftops. I spot Orion's Belt, shimmering high above like a jeweled rope.

“I suppose that’s true.” Annette says. For some reason, it annoys me. The way she wonders. The way she doesn’t know.

My neck aches, and I let it curl back toward the tiled balcony floor. Terracotta pots are stacked near the rail, ready for planting when spring finally comes. But they’ve cracked over the cold winter, a few breaking apart entirely into an unsalvageable mosaic. I push some of the shards around with my foot.

I hold the ciggie out to Annette, and she takes it, pressing it to her lips.

From inside our flat, I can hear the wailing of a record on the gramophone. Annette likes it, but it always reminds me of crying.

“You girls still hanging about out there?” Comes a voice, mingling with the gramophone. And then a face appears at the window. Giulia, her nose rosy from standing over the pasta pot in the kitchen.

“Coming in, now.” I say. Annette puts out the ciggie on the cold metal railing, and we climb back through the window.

“Dinner's ready.” Giulia says, her voice wavering on the edge.

She dishes out our plates.

“What were you talking about outside?” Giulia asked, looking between us. I swallow my mouthful, gripping my hand under the table into a fist.

“War time.” Annette says.

Giulia’s mouth forms into an O, and then she nods, and that look she gets sometimes crosses her face. In the living room, the gramophone wails on and on.

I shoot Annette a look of my own. Could she not read the room at all?

“Can’t wait for Spring time.” I say, because it’s the first thing my mind grasps onto. “We could plant up the whole balcony. Basil, Rosemary, Oregano.”

“And don’t forget the vegetables!” Annette chimes in. “Tomatoes, zucchini, even potatoes.”

“It's a small balcony," I say, "but I reckon, if we can get the seeds soon, we can start them inside-”

“It won’t work.”

I can feel the smile on my face begin fading.

“What do you mean, Giulia?”

She puts her fork down, her cheeks growing angry red. Dangerous, this was dangerous territory.

“It won’t work.” She repeats. “We don’t get enough sun there. Not to mention, the pots all have to go in the bin. They're all cracked. More than half of them are in pieces.”

I take a sip of wine. “It was a harsh winter.” I say, my voice feeling like it’s coming from someone else.

Giulia clenches her jaw.

“You know who you should ask,” Annette begins, before I can stop her, “Your brother. He’s a gardener back in Italy, isn’t he?”

Dread pools in my stomach. In the living room, the gramophone has gotten stuck. One wailing note, over and over and over again.

I watch Giulia, heart sinking lower and lower into darkness. She stares at her plate for what seems like forever. Her eyes are black, cold as the winter chill.

Annette looks at me, confusion coloring her face. I shake my head, eyes hard. Finally, finally, she seems to understand.

Her eyes widen. Oh! Oh

Wildly, I search for something, anything else to talk about. But all I can think of is the broken shards of terracotta outside, laying like shrapnel on our balcony floor.

“Antonio is dead.”

Giulia’s voice is harsh and sad and angry. “Shot himself. Couldn’t handle….”

The gramophone echoes through the apartment, through my head. Wailing, wailing, wailing.

And then it is as if the table falls away, and I am back in that first aid tent, and my hands are shaking and the gun is slick with sweat and blood and there is a man before me, a boy, a stranger, who I could have kissed at school, who looks like any boy I know, who could have been Giulia's brother, and he has lost his mind, and he can’t see what's real for the pain inside him, and his knife slashes toward me, and there is a shot. And it rings in my eardrums, echoing and echoing and drawing out everything.

I stand from the table, reaching for the wine bottle.

And then I’m crawling through the window, on the balcony once more.

I light another cigarette, the burst of flame orange against the black night.

A deep breath out and the silver puff of smoke drifts up to the silver moon.

I rub at my face, ignoring the crunch of breaking terracotta underfoot. I take a swig from the wine bottle.

There’s another screaming sound, higher than the stuck gramophone. I look up. Sitting on the roof eave is a barn owl. A white ghost against the dark sky.

Another swig of wine. Another drag of ciggie. I watch the owl. It sits unmoving, as if it is made of cold stone.

But then, it lets out that spine tingling scream once more. I feel tears prick my eyes, and the wine bottle rattles in my shaking hands, until it drops and breaks against the tiles. Shards of glass and terracotta litter the floor.

Wreckage. Broken, jagged pieces.

I feel it building within before I know what I’m doing.

And when the owl screams again, this time I lean over the ice cold rail and scream with it. Broken and shattered, cold and raw.

Like the smoke from my cigarette, like the smoke from a fired gun, the sound drifts gently, slowly up toward the stars, lost among the unknowable dark.

Short Story
3

About the Creator

Gillian Pegg

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