[[All right, you can thank my currently malfunctioning heater for this one.]]
…If I hadn’t dropped…If I had come a moment….If I had already…
The Repairman couldn’t look at the bluish body in front of him. He threw the half-completed heater kit to the ground. It shattered from the impact. The Repairman shook with anger, with disbelief, with sadness, and in the cold.
Icicles formed on the inkblot’s arm as he pulled Songbird’s blanket over her head. It seemed like the right thing to do.
Building a makeshift cabin took too long. Getting the mattress and blanket out took too long. Getting the shivering and stumbling Ziz in (while wrapping her in the blanket) took too long. The time it took to order and assemble the heater was simply time he never had.
The blizzard raged, just outside of the doorway. There was no door.
Not that a door would have mattered at this point, really. The Repairman did tend to come after the fact. In this case, he wished he hadn’t.
He sloped against the wall next the bed, looking at her with remorse. He began to hum. He wasn’t sure why, or what he was humming, but it felt appropriate.
He would never know it was a Ziz song of mourning.
Siblings-a-Fixin' 