Building Castles in the Sky

"Yes, the world is broken," a voice descended from the attic, disgusting and fragile, "but you and I will survive."
I was bending at the waist. The trash was strewn across the floor. I pushed aside a pile of junk mail to kneel on the hardwood. I spotted a mass of delicate feathers beneath the dining room table. The house was actively crumbling around me, like so many other things in my life, at a pace so slow it was imperceptible. At least, until I held my breath and truly watched the process. I passed the hole in the living room wall as I fetched a clear plastic box and its lid. I scooped the white feathered object inside. Upon further inspection, I made out the shape of a baby owl, somewhat distorted by rigor mortis. The owl’s eyes were hidden in the ruffled fluff of its face.
“By 2050, the polar ice caps will be totally depleted,” the voice from the attic was saying, “Maybe sooner.”
I was still examining the deceased owlet several minutes later, when someone knocked at the door. Suddenly, I remembered that I had been planning to kill myself yesterday. I had never gotten around to it. Why does that always seem to be the chore that gets put on the back burner? I answered the door. It was a three-foot-tall pile of violet slime with a semi-human face. I groaned quietly. My mother is in the hospital, dying, I thought, I have so many better things to do than talk to my ex-boyfriend right now.
“What do you want, Charlie?” I spat. “I’m busy right now.”
A greasy purple tendril stroked my face. “Baby, I want you. I want you back in my life. I’m so sorry.” In my mind, I saw a skillet hit a cinderblock wall beside my head, chipping the stone.
“I don’t want to talk to you. Please, just leave me alone.”
“We can work this out,” Charlie was saying, his voice thick with fake pleading, “I can make it up to you.” I began to close the door in his face-ish area. I wondered, not for the first time, how I had failed to notice the ugliness of this man for so long. Not physically, I’ve loved worse-looking men. Charlie was spiritually ugly in so many ways. A pair of rusty scissors were being waved threateningly at me in my mind. In reality, Charlie’s shiny boot was blocking the door from closing. “Don’t do this,” he whispered, “I love you.” He pulled a phone from a fold of goo near his waist. Three taps and the phone was loudly playing what had once been 'our song'.
I closed my eyes. Behind their lids, I was in a cheap hotel room in Asheville, NC. Charlie was slimy drunk. He was attacking me with a champagne bottle. The champagne had been intended as a gift for Greg and Laura, our friends who were getting married that weekend. My wrist began to hurt, distantly. Some part of my brain tried to escape the memory, to find a happy moment to dwell on. That was no longer as easy as it had once been.
I opened my eyes, and it seemed that my ears opened at the same time. Bill Withers was telling me, "To make those rainbows in my mind, when I think of you sometime,
and I wanna spend some time with you, just the two of us…"
"Charlie, stop it. I'm not in the mood. Please, just leave." I fought to keep anger out of my voice. He reacted as if I'd slapped him. He broke into a gush of tears and screamed.
"No! Baby! Please, no! Let me in!" He sank into a shapeless puddle, his glistening muck muffling the sound of the phone, still playing its song. I shook my head and tried to push his puddle back out onto the porch with the door. He pushed back and wailed, "Biiitch! Let. Me. In!"
This was when I started to get really irritated. I set down the box containing the expired barn owlet. I kneeled down and rested my hand softly on his greasy tentacle. "Shut up, Charlie. Shut up right this instant," I whispered placidly, "or else I will call the fucking police on you. You're disturbing the peace. This is where I live now, and I don't want my neighbors pissed off at me." I shoved his appendage out the door and slammed it shut.
I sighed heavily and slumped face first against the door, reaching up to lock it. Charlie was pounding with a splattery fist on the outside, shouting obscenities. I jumped. From behind me, I had heard Bill Withers' smooth voice start up again, clear as crystal, "I hear the crystal raindrops fall on the window down the hall, and it becomes the morning dew, and darling when the morning comes…" For a moment, I had the crazy thought that Charlie had gotten inside, maybe oozed through the big hole in the wall of the living room. This was not the case.
What had once been our song was now belting out of the dead owl's box, as if the box were a quality subwoofer. The baby owl's eyes were still hidden, but its beak waggled feebly with every word.
It was actually a really good song, I thought, and Charlie could not have it. I refused to think about him every time I heard it. For the rest of my life, I would think about this owl instead. I propped the box up on the dining table and grabbed a broom from the closet. It was time to get to work on the mess in here. When my Mom got home from the hospital, the place was really going to look nice. The owl made it through a whole album of classic hits before the attic voice sounded again.
"There is no reason to worry. There is only worry to reason," the voice boomed, sounding strong and pleased with itself.