The birds again.

Those damn birds.

They never left, tittering around and singing their disgustingly cheerful songs.

It makes her sick. All she wants to do is sit in her garden and enjoy her tea, but those damn birds can’t leave her alone.

She attempts to endure a few moments longer, though eventually she loses the invisible battle. They’re harmless, really! Everyone says so, says she’s being silly.

She knows better.

She knows those creatures will stop at nothing to rip and tear their way through life. Digging up the dirt, pulling out the worms and other, far more useful little things that should belong to her garden.

It is silly. Of course it is; they’re birds. Silly little birds going about their silly little lives, making their silly little nests and-

It makes her sick.

They won’t leave, won’t let her have one single moment of quiet and she is sick and tired of it. All she wants…

Ah.

That’s always been the problem, hasn’t it.

Want.

It doesn’t get her anywhere. It never has, and it never will. The idea of want… It’s just a useless, metaphysical concept that means nothing without speaking it into existence.

Need, on the other hand…

The birds. She wants them gone. She needs them to stay. Needs them to stay because everything else is maddening silence, every empty corner a wandering reminder of the sound she pushed away, the sound she broke with her own hands.

The piano will not recover. She will not purchase a new one. He won’t let her. Won’t leave her alone.

Just like those damn birds.

…

No. No, Not like the birds. The birds are annoying. The birds can be dealt with. But every second she is awake, every second she is asleep. Every damn moment of her existence is met with a haunting.

She wishes it were a physical one. She should not care one iota for someone long dead, by her own hand.

Her own…

The cup she holds drops suddenly.

It doesn’t break. She can’t let it, it’s contents are far too precious.

She takes her last sip. One young bird lands on the table, chirping cheerfully at her. Her regrets come with her as she falls out of her seat.

The birds never leave. Make themselves a home in her garden, a new life where there is none.

Those damn birds.