Cemetery boy

It’s a short walk-- barely five minutes. As I walk up my street my neighbour drops one of her potted plants that she’s casually inspecting. I look up in surprise at Mrs. Roscoe, she's in her fifty’s and I don’t believe I’d ever seen here drop anything. That, however, was not the most disturbing thing about it...what was weird was the fact that she was looking at me. Her face full of surprise—as if I’d flashed her or something.

I smile brightly and point to myself before calling out, “Sorry Roscoe—you can’t tap this!”

She blinked suddenly, as if coming back to reality...what was with her? Out of curiosity I look at my reflection in the mirror of a nearby car...did I have sex hair or something?

I made an attractive choking noise when I saw myself...well, I did have sex hair, but that’s not thing the thing that made me choke. My face. It was stretched and...oh yeah, smiling. I was smiling. It felt so...weird and almost unnatural for me to see it pasted on my face. I quickly turned it into a grouchy frown before walking up to my house. I stop when I see Brendon outside my house. Wearing that black trench coat that he wears all the time with contrasting coloured clothes. He doesn’t see me at first, which gives me a moment to admire him as he brings the cigarette to his lips. I smile when I see him....screw frowning when there was someone like him to look at.

“Smoking kills you.” I say as I’m walking towards him...the first thing he ever said to me, I think, my smile growing.

He doesn’t smile as I walk up to him, his skin looks gray like he's sick. He flicks the cigarette to the ground and turns to me. He doesn’t speak, just looks at me in a way that makes me want to disappear.

“Hi,” I say apprehensively.

He looks at me as though he can see where I’ve been for the past few hours. I shrug off his gaze nervously, it wasn’t as if I cheated on him or anything, he didn’t have rights as to what I did. Even so, as all of these thoughts ran through my mind, I felt guilt...it made no sense, but I could feel his disappointment, and it made me want to dig a hole and then jump into it.

“Brendon,” I began quietly, I tried raking my brains for some sort of excuse, but then he interrupted me.

“You don’t know what I am do you?” The question was left hanging in the air.

“Well you haven’t exactly told me” I reply in a biting tone.

“When you were a boy you had a pet bird.” I stared at him in confusion. It was true, but why was he telling me this and more importantly: how did he know?

“Yes," I said slowly, "It died when I was ten.”

He smiled sadly. What was he going to do, tell me his found my long lost bird?
As if he was doing some sort of magic trick he pulled his hand under his trench coat and revealed a blue bird. It flew straight to his hand, a distant memory spun round in my head.

“I don’t underst-“

My words were caught in my mouth when it began to sing. It was the saddest thing I have ever heard, it was like ice. So cold, like I’d never feel warmth again. My bird, I recognized, that I'd fed and raised...that had died one morning, I never found out why. Everything I ever loved died.

Brendon’s lips turned into a sad smile when the bird flew so near him he could almost touch it. Eventually he raised his hand to the bird. It wings stopped moving and he caught it mid air and put it back in its trench coat

“You’re death.” I finally manage to say.

As if talking about a job description he clarified, “I take the dead where ever they need to go and in return I have immortality.” I let out a shaky breath.

“Edward Cullen,” I manage to say in a normal voice, “Doesn’t seem like such a prick now.”