Letters to Mother

She seemed to be wincing. Wincing at the apology that Stan provided. An apology ever so sincere. What was wrong? What was he doing wrong that was making her wince? Was it the apology itself? Stan didn't really know why, since an apology was never wrong. He hardly ever apologized, but the girl probably didn't know that. She didn't really know him much anyway, as he didn't know her well. He didn't even know her name. All he knew was that she was easily startled by weird habits that he had.

The condescending almost-tones in her voice were easily picked up by his ears, though he tended to ignore those. However, he was sort of hurt by it, it didn't show though. All that showed was his curiosity and willingness to be friendly enough to make a friend. "Fair enough, I always have to be careful when dying my hair. It'll get split ends and horrid amounts of frays and kinks if I don't. Usually it takes special shampoos and conditioners before and after the fact in order to restore the hair and keep it at its natural sheen and texture".

Something seemed to nudge from within his sleeveless shirt. A beak? A small, white homing pigeon peeked out from one of the holes which Stan's arms came out of the shirt from. Where the sleeves would be. It seemed to move under the fabric, and another bulge started forming a bit lower down near his stomach. The bulge moved down and a raven dropped from under the shirt. Stan had these creatures magically bonded to him when he needed to carry them, but somehow the birds managed to break the seal. Though, to be fair, it wasn't strong in the first place.

"Rama! Jyoti! What are you doing? Can't let anyone see you, remember?!" Pets other than owls, cats, rats and toads weren't allowed. However, this didn't stop him from trying. From wanting his best pals here. His best animal pals, that is.

Naomi nodded as he began talking about his hair and the torture she knew that he was most certainly putting it through. Her mind sifted through various escape plots. The actual escape was easy. But passing it off as her not be totally weird for turning on her heel and just running off was the problem. That would simply be socially unacceptable. She just nodded. "Yeah, you... you should watch out for that."

She had to be careful how she spoke around him, she could not be rude, because if it got around the school that she could not handle one oddball... There were birds coming out of her clothes. Naomi liked birds but not that much... She stared at them and tried not to imagine them against his bare skin... Awkward. She said in a slow voice, "You have birds..."

((Muse is failing me))

(Mine too)

"Both of them I rescued from certain death. Jyoti was found near a power line. She'll never be able to fly ever again, and she can't swallow too well. I have to keep her under close watch when she eats. Rama was shot by a careless person. He'll also never survive on his own because he flies crookedly. I help any and every feathered friend I can find, that's why I have so many of them at home. Though Rama and Jyoti have especially captured my heart. They're so much like me". Stan seemed to be stuck in a reverie, until he shook it off. Saking something like that off wasn't as simple for most people as it was for him. Jyoti flapped her wings in a futile attempt to fly, but she couldn't get off the ground. Rama pecked at the smaller bird in impatience.

Naomi listened to the strange boy's little speech on the birds, only half paying attention to his words because she could still not get over the fact that they had wriggled out of his clothing. It seemed that there were a lot of things about this particular boy that she seemed incapable of getting over...

She realized that he had stopped talking and she forced her eyes to flick back up to his face, reluctantly acknowledging his existence. She nodded dumbly, her eyes coming back onto the birds, both of whom were pretty... but had wriggled out of his clothes! She forced herself to say in a slow, polite voice, "They're lovely."

"Why thank you, ma'am", Stan said in his politest voice. He turned down his music until it was a dull melody in the background of the conversation only present on his end. "I need to come up with a new way to hide Rama and Jyoti. The bonding technique for familiars doesn't work for some reason, or I haven't mastered it somehow. I could've sworn though that I did. I practiced so many times, until my head started hurting, and it's not working. It's not working one bit". He frowned at the thought.

He wanted to change the subject quickly, because the subject of the birds made him cry a little. "So...uhh....never caught your name. I'm Stanley Kumar, but you may call me Stan". He hoped that she wouldn't ask him anything that would reveal the identity of his father. He was a bad liar, a really bad liar. He could be read like a large print book that glowed in the dark.

She nodded as he continued on the subject of his beautiful, yet very, very awkward birds (awkward only to her, she was sure). She really did not know what was expected of her right then and she thought the best thing would be to stay silent and nod away, letting him carry the conversation.

He introduced himself and she felt her feet touch back onto solid, familiar ground as they entered the realm of the tangible. A name. She knew what to do about that, she knew where to go from here. "Nice to meet you Stanley." She always called people by their full name. "I'm Naomi." Never a last name...

"Nice to meet you, Naomi!" Stan said excitedly. The nice thing about new people was the fact that they hadn't seen all of his tricks before. Unfortunately, he may not get to show her more, as there was going to be a little accident. Stan's aunt sent the letter back much quicker than he imagined. So much so that she gave the bird a little too much to eat before takeoff. She'd not measured the food properly and just gave it an eye-balled estimate. SPLAT! Right on his head. The bird felt the need to void itself on Stan's thickly dyed head. He growled a little in his throat.

"Eeeugh....Gonna need a shower after this!" He shuddered, he had a want to keep himself looking nice and clean looking, just so people would think him sexy. That is, if they weren't prudes. He didn't much care if a person was prudish or not, only if they were kind.

Naomi tried to say something, because she saw it happen almost as if in slow motion. The bird began to take off around the room and as soon it was directly above Stan, she saw it... She saw what was about to happen and the excrement floating downwards towards the top of Stan's head. Her eyes grew wide, her lip curled, but nothing came out of her mouth.

It hit his head and she flinched. This was too much; the gross green dye in his hair, the loud noises that hurt her ears, and now bird excrement all over his head, in his hair. No, Naomi had to leave before someone stumbled in on her actually tolerating this terrible, awkward situation. She had to escape. "I... I have to go. Nice meeting you Stanley." And she hurried out the door.