It happened again. The vulture came and perched on the sill.

But this time, unlike all the other times, it pecked on our windowpane. I unbolted the lid, lifted the frame, and offered some bread crumbs. It didn’t stir. I scattered the morsel on its feet, which it picked like fallen friends.

Aside from this long deserted corridor and abandonment lingering on my exhausted underwear, I wonder what I would have for breakfast.

I half expected that the stars would be reborn after its embers had disembarked. Like a dying flame on the grate, every night when you stir the coal and feed me with lies. In your flicker I have placed my heart, and let my flesh, my bones, my thoughts, be extinguished by its tongue. Only to be molded again, like months, like years, like centuries of false promises and interminable greed. All going on, forever.

And today, the sun had burnt itself into cinders. The ashes is everywhere. On our bedcover where we set the world aside and built an new one. On the wall which witnessed those infinite hours we had, those minutes when my bounty was as boundless as the sea, those seconds when you stared at me before you sleep. It lingers on the fabric of the clothes you last wore, before I heard the creaking steps of your departure, of which you were stationed in some distant place, of which you were told that your country was in grave danger, of which your patriotism is highly requested. Of which you complied. Of which you never returned.

You met another woman, I heard.

I hadn’t cleaned the room for ages. I desire to preserve your scent. Layers of sawdust are now resting on the looking glass, which had witnessed both our everlasting days and hideous crimes, which had shared my fear of you going, my anticipation of you coming back home, and my pain of learning that you were killed in the war, which the government had plotted in order to save the country’s dying economy.

You met another woman, I heard. And told her everything about me.

The vulture came everyday. I have known it for ages, had even fooled myself to befriended by it. The last time it perched on the sill was the last time I saw you, after you had received an order commanding you to join the military. Of which you cannot refuse. Of which, in this continent, we have no choice, but to abide.

And now, it’s here again. And had perched again.

The country requires the service of our eldest son, I heard.

The vulture told me.