wingborne | and when i think of all the songs we used to play;

I’m not sick, England said, with his back turned to the doorway. I’m just not feeling well today. Give me a moment.

Are you sure? America asked. He placed down the pea-green soup on the table and he touched the pale neck with his two calloused fingers. The grotesque eyebrows stood out, pronounced, on the white skin. Twisted angular hands with thin blue veins grabbed at the crumpled blankets, allowing England to slowly crumple into the bed.

I’m sure, England said. Leave me alone, England said.

You weren’t well yesterday, either, America said, and the sick smell floated in the room, like a dying flower that smelled too sweet. Little red and white and blue pills of all brands and all kinds blossomed in orange bottles, and they promised health and wealth. America imagined England in the mornings swallowing a random handful. His Adam’s apple would bob up and down as the pills tumbled into his stomach and seeded themselves into the lining of his stomach to sprout into thick trees that mangled his insides.

Go away, England said, and his atrophied limbs curled inside his heavy blankets where he hid from the world.

You have to eat. America stroked the messy hair and felt the sharp bones of the skull protrude on the skin, leaving ugly bruises. He sat down and took the spoon to feed him, but England snatched the spoon with his curved and scarred hands.

I can feed myself, he said, but his hands trembled violently and the soup tumbled to the floor. The shards stood out like the cleaned ribcage of a dead bird, standing like tiny white tombstones against the spreading pool of green. England gave an outraged cry that sounded inhuman. He flung the spoon across the room and buried himself in the bed. The spoon hit the painting of a dead man across the room and chipped their gilded frame.

America called to him quietly, but England no longer moved. His tolerating mood had passed and now he wanted to be left alone, surrounded by the mountain of blankets. He didn’t stir, not even when America stooped and cleaned the mess as best as he could, not even when America threw the shards away in the trash, not even when America shook him lightly.

I’m going now. But England still hid himself in the blankets, so America moved slowly out of the room, and closed the door behind him.