INATA: (quietly) …hi, aves. i don’t know what i expected, when we dialed.

i mean, we know you don’t use this number anymore? i, i mean. um. that’s what the first inata told me, anyhow. (sighs) a lot has happened and i felt like i needed to tell someone, alright? i don’t know how close you two were, exactly, and if i used that number and, and you had me blocked i—um, i dunno what i would’ve done, actually. better off not knowin’. right? anyway.

i’m real sorry. i’m real—shit.

INATA: hey! it’s me again, aves. i’ve been thinkin’. i’ve been thinking. y’know. aw, fuck, i’m sloshed. bad impressions, huh? second time i come crawling back to you an’ i’m—i’m already indisposed.

it’s (pauses, taps finger on screen) 2:14 am, right now. damn. i swear it was barely midnight when i decided to call you. am i losin’ time? are you taking it from me? (laughs) not like that's a problem for me. i just have to be quiet ‘cause our mother’s trying to sleep. my mother. something like that. you know what i mean.

(weakly) fuck, but you don’t, do you?

uh. well. our grandparents are over, at the moment. they’ve taken mother’s room, so she and i are sleeping on the couch tonight. its quite a nice couch, so it’s not really a big deal. l-shaped, so one side has one cushion and the other has two. i’m on the shorter part but my legs are at a weird slant so i can use some of her space. and her blanket. (demonstrative rustle)

i dunno how they’d feel if they knew i’m not their daughter, actually. probably bad. inata let me have her name, which was (pause) probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. funny, right? inata wanted to disappear, but not to die, so i took her place. i think you might’ve wanted the opposite, huh? sorry. i’m real sorry. maybe i’m not. i don’t think you’re listening on the other end, anyhow. i’m not a very good daughter.

i got pretty damn good at narratin’ (pause) up—up there, y’know. spreadin’ stories. not much else to do. it just. i just wanted to sta—y. i wanted to be a girl for a little bit, okay? a normal human girl. shit.

wings an’ the animal experience aren’t exactly coxca—sopa—(inaudible)—co-pa-ce-tic but i wanted to live for a little. wear a—a dress, just once. fuck, inata always hated dresses but i bought a little sundress a bit ago and it’s (laughs) yellow, with orange and green flowers on it. it felt good to wear! really really really good. it billows in the wind and stuff, i thought only fuckin’—princesses had dresses that could do that. it was pretty and i felt pretty and—pretty alive. an’then i realized it was desecration of a corpse.

so.

i’ll be back soon, birdie.

INATA: (vaguely) sorry. back again. it’s been, uh, fifteen minutes. silly, huh?

i think i lied, earlier. i used to be a really, really shit narrator. never had the touch i needed for it. all my stories ended bad. and now i’m talking for (inhales) inata. the girl she used to be. the girl i am now.

i wonder if she’d want me to speak for her. maybe i just wasn’t a very good angel but she was desperate enough to need one. fuck, my back is killing me. the ac is off and it’s warm! it’s so warm, aves, you wouldn’t believe. the sheets and everythin’. our mother’s still asleep. i’ve been trying to take photos of the ceiling for a bit and i turned my flash on a couple times on accident and she hasn’t woken up, so i might be in the clear. (pauses) what was i talking about?

eh. (mutters) new topic. new subject. new new new. i’m great at this. um. inata’s been eighteen for a month and five days. her body, at least. i dunno how old i am. but she’s eighteen! a big adult. there’s a festival to be made of it. she’s gonna do great in college, with me.

…i dunno, aves, actually. i really don’t know. i feel like from a psych—psychological, um, standpoint, we weren’t supposed to live past eighteen. does that make sense? inata was always so scared, when i met her, but she just…isn’t. you know? it’s like she trained herself t’be. her body winces but she doesn’t flinch ‘cause she never had to. how unfair is that?

i used to think 18 was something that happened to other people, that i’d pass the mic off just before she got to college, but there’s no one who will speak for me. or her. i’ll have to keep moving forward. wincing at ghosts but never flinching backwards because she wasn’t trained into it. an aimless sack of shit, an airless waste of space. a one trick maverick.

i don’t want to die alone. my exposure photography won’t let me keep this room safe for longer than i can stay in it. it’s perfectly almost-dark. i am sweating like a pig. it is time for us to grow up, ain’t it. maturity will bring us nothing but tears and a new path forward and i’m afraid of both. i think people would come to my funeral and cry because when i came out the casket, hypoxic and alive, i’d be a miracle carnival, a farce and a shitstain. i don’t want to know who wouldn’t be in attendance.

inata used to hope that she would be abused by her parents, choked and slapped and thrown and bludgeoned, so people would think something was wrong with her. people would cup her bruised battered face and say oh, baby, i’m so, so sorry and tug her to a better place, spin her around fantasia-like and tug her onto the boardwalk on sun-cold windy days in search of flight. in search of severance. in search of better places in perpetuity.

there would have been a joy to it but she’s loved in this lifetime so we’ve found ourselves something worse. there are mile markers like headstones behind me and most of them are not my own.

i don’t know if i would want them to be. ha.

INATA: hi, yes, it’s me again. i’ve been thinking about when we were younger lately. when you and her were younger. you know what i mean.

you used to love birds, pretty sure that’s why you named yourself after them, actually.

but (pauses) do you remember, uh, all the nicknames i gave you? little whimbrel, little canary, little heron. little pelican, little giant vulture. all of them. (laughs) i don’t know whether i liked searching them up, just to surprise you, or your reaction more, and…i don’t really know whether i want to find out.

you were a great friend. you are, um, a great friend, i’m sure, to everyone you have ever known. (laughs) and you were, to me, and. i’m sorry that…it had to end like this, with her, spirited away in me, like a memorial in her place. but, you know, if you ever hear these, um, flip a coin? decide between leaving…me, behind and leaving her behind, or…maybe we can meet up sometime. y’know, like, at a café?

i think i’d like that. i think you might. i’d order, um, coffee for the both of us.

you’ve always liked your americanos. i could get you one of those. i’d get myself, well, (inaudible) probably just a black coffee, but i’ve been getting into cappucinos lately, and we could talk, and i mean, maybe i’d have to rely on her memories to really make the conversation work, but you’d have her back, and. i’d get to have you. would that be okay? could you promise?

i'm pretty good at being alive nowadays. you'd hardly notice the difference.