Four Things
From The Birdhouse
"Hello, friends!" he calls, stepping through the garden's door. He closes it carefully behind him just as a bee bonks his shoulder, en route to leave. Giggling, he rubs its head. "Sorry lil' buddy, I'm not letting you roam loose around the apartment."
As if it understood him, the bee flies away and nuzzles into a daisy with obvious disappointment. He sits himself on a bench nearby, a book and quill in hand.
"Today's the day... I'm plannin' out Hill Valley!" he announces to the bees, who continue to go about their business. "Gonna make a big ol' to-do list and everything, and draw a map, and maybe when I'm done there'll be enough time to fix the jukebox."
The jukebox in question is currently sitting in the diner below. For some reason, the mechanical arm refuses to budge, meaning it can't play any records unless Owl shoves it in himself. It's probably because he isn't that great at redstone. Even pistons are hard to wrap his head around sometimes.
He starts on the to-do list, scribbling down every little thing he can think of. Then he draws a map, plotting out exactly where each building will go. The layout comes easily to him— he can see the town square in his mind's eye, fully formed. All he needs to do is make it real.
The diner was the same, although there was a different feel to the image that he can't quite explain. He needs to finish Hill Valley— a fact on the same level as "the sky is blue." But with the diner... it was like he was being pulled towards it, guided by a warm and loving hand.
No, stop. He can't keep thinking about him, not when he has work to do. It's useless. No amount of thinking will make him remember any more.
He goes through the motions anyway.
"He liked yellow," he murmurs, quieter than the buzzing of the bees. "And he liked daisies, 'cause I gave him one." He twists his fingers together, brows furrowed in concentration. "And... And he..."
He squeezes his eyes shut. The bright colors of the garden are traded for the monotone black behind his eyelids. What was the third thing? There was a third thing. He wrote it in the poem, the bad, sad, stupid poem that's sitting on the bookshelf just a few feet away. It's there in the ink but not in his head.
He knew it yesterday, before he went to bed. He knew it this morning, when he woke up. But now he's forgotten.
A sob bubbles up in his chest and he stifles it. Maybe if he just focuses. Maybe if he wasn't so stupid. Maybe if—
"Yellow, and daisies," he whispers, voice wavering. "And..."
He doesn't open his eyes. He tries to imagine the person he's thinking of, tries to pull them from the same place he pulled the memories of Hill Valley. It's so easy to conjure a vision of the town and its cold unfeeling buildings, but this person that he knows he loves, that must be out there, somewhere, without him...
"I miss you," he sobs.
Nobody answers. Only the bees, wings humming as they fly from flower to flower.
He opens his eyes. The garden is normally a comforting sight, but all it brings him now is melancholy. His gaze drifts to the bookshelf. One more time. One more time, and then he'll get back to work.
"He liked yellow," he says, slow and careful. "And he liked daisies, 'cause I gave him one." It's on the tip of his tongue. "And..."
Something blooms in his mind. A memory, dark and unclear. The motion of a crowd. A single note of music. A shadow, alone, twisting and turning. Heat dancing on his cheeks, a smile twitching at his lips.
"And I feel in love with him at a dance," he breathes, and as he speaks it, it solidifies as truth in his heart. "Yellow, daisies, and a dance."
He repeats it, over and over, as he stumbles to the bookshelf and checks the poem.
"Yellow, daisies, and—" His lungs hitch as he reads the words on the page. "And his smile was really nice."
That's different than what he said. But now that he's seen the words, he does remember a smile, warm and soft and sweet as honey.
Four things. He remembers four things. This morning he remembered three, and now he remembers four.
He runs back to his plan and flips it over, frantically scrawling down everything he can grasp from the new memory. Tomorrow he might forget everything again. But today, he lets himself escape into the blurry reality of that night while he still can. He dances with a ghost he can't hold onto, matching its stuttering rhythm as his fingers skim its cold, wispy darkness.