Blackbird

                       

            Everyone in the house is sound asleep besides except for one person Jude Rivers sits on his lonely window sill, staring outside at the cold black sky.  The clock reads 1:49 A.M. Jude can’t fall asleep for the life of him. It had been that way since last year. He could never forget what happened on that devastating night. That night of February 20^th, silvery flakes drifted down, glittering in the bright light of the harvest moon, and the Blackbird came and took his best friend, Amelia Pope’s life

Jude never cried but always thought about the Blackbird that took her life. Now he stares out his window at night thinking about all the lives that had been taken by that same blackbird. It has a real name. Jude refuses to speak its real name.

 Jude leaves his window sill and opens the door quietly, making sure no one knows he is awake and thinking deep thoughts. Most of the time Jude’s thoughts get the best of him. He over thinks, he turns negative; he goes to a dark place. No one knows how much he thinks of the Blackbird.  He never knew how much Amelia was thinking about blackbird till she wrote a poem calling it that. That same night she was gone.  Jude always felt depressed, with both of his older brothers away in the army, his step sister molesting him when he was younger, and his step mom and dad always being away.

 No one would miss him, he thought, besides Amelia and a few others at school, and Amelia was gone forever.  Amelia wasn’t just his best friend. They loved each other. They had known each other since they were six.  No one really knew that they loved each other. Everyone just thought they were friends. Amelia knew how awful Jude’s life was. Jude knew Amelia’s mom and dad had left her with her aunt and uncle when she was young. Jude had always been the messed up on in the relationship, but he didn’t realize the meaning of Amelia’s poem until that night. Amelia had given him a copy and he read it all day. When he finally figured it all out, it was too late. Jude had lost his rock.

Jude walked to his bathroom and locked the door. His sad, colorless face stared back at him through the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot and tired. His teenage body shook from the cold floor. Jude knew what he was going to do. He was scared, but ready. “The blackbird is coming.” He looked in the mirror one last time, and smiled. He closed his eyes and felt tears rolling down his cheeks. He looked in a drawer for his mother’s sleeping pills. He opened the bottle and poured the rest into his hand. Jude slid down to the tiled floor and rested his head against the wall. He brought his hand to his mouth and swallowed the pills. He put his hand on his heart and took Amelia’s poem out of his pocket. Jude felt his steady heart beat turn into a slower one. He stared up at the ceiling and heard the Blackbird call for him.