A thick soup of rot lays in my stomach, the feeling starts every time I remember.
Each morning, at about 5am I’ve counted to number of magpies that land on my field. They peck and scurry. Sometimes I see dull reds around their beaks and talons, and they eat the seeds I offer in bird baths and feeders. Terry often comes over and helps me spread the seeds accordingly, he lugs over bags of them because he is stronger than me. The mornings are always cold and dewy, we breath into the bitter air and watch the steam leave our mouths.
Terry can make shapes when he does this, big Os swooping up. Sometimes we pick up sticks and pretend we are smoking.
He kisses me on the cheek, and I feel his wet lashes brush over my skin, flushing my face and making me feel warm. He always smells like mud. Fresh, damp mud. We scout the grass for worms and stretch out the juicy snacks for the magpies, they crowd to us and demolish them with violence spewing purple guts.
I wince, and Terry smiles. He tells me the more we do this, the more he can come over.
My fingernails always end up black and we wash our hands in the bird baths, splashing eachother and flicking moss off the sides. He stops, and presents his jumper. I wipe my hands on the scratchy wool and he breathes out heavily, moldy patches of it falling to the floor. It soaks up the water.
I then show him my red spotty T-shirt and he wipes his hands down my chest too. His hand prints staining. It makes me shiver and the cold water stings my cosy tummy. We go and walk to Terry’s adventure tree, and climb the rope to the branch, I swing with my foot in the loop and he watches above me, smiling. Sometimes I feel his saliva drip onto my face and scrunch my nose up, it’s smelly and green.
Swinging always makes me cough after a while and seeds land in the palm of my hand. They’re red and sticky and I feel the thick soup of rot in my stomach again.
We climb down, and he holds me in his lap, he tells me to close my eyes. I hear the magpies bony feet jumping closer, their wings fluttering making a siren noise and they swoop over. Terry hugs me tighter and opens up my jaw, the magpies climb in and nuzzle their way down my throat. I look at him and hot tears now caress my cheeks, he sighs and strokes my thighs.
I know now, our morning fun is over until tommorow. I’m left weeping in the grass and he clambers up the tree again. I can’t shout, or move, the magpies eat up my insides like they do every time. I hear the rope tighten and squelch and the loud thud that follows. His feet lightly brush my forehead as he dangles.
I don’t like this part.
Terry told me a long time ago that we had to keep feeding the birds, no matter how much it hurt so we could always play together. Sometimes I don’t like it when he touches me, but I was the one he made him die when mummy found out about us.
I calmly swallowed the seeds and waited for the magpies to eat me up, then I could comfort Terry. Before all this happened and the police found him, they told me I was safe now.
But Terry loves me. He helped me with my buckles when we first met, held my hand when the mud was too slippy. I killed him, I made him die, I made mummy find out. But, he forgave me.
Now we play every morning