Ezra is on the roof again. He likes to perch there for hours, still and silent while he pretends to be a gargoyle. His big sister said he’s not a gargoyle but a grotesque, and there’s a difference, actually. Ezra looked it up in the family dictionary. Grotesque is a synonym for deformed, misshapen. He grabbed Dot’s favorite sketchbook, threatening to tear it in half as he screamed, ‘I’m not grotesque, take it back, take it back!’
Dot’s name is actually Dorothy, but nobody ever calls her that. She likes to draw lying flat on the ground because it gives her perspective, a bit like Ezra and his perch overlooking their neighborhood. Strangers driving by smile and wave at the odd sight of him. Kids skate past their single-story whisper-coughing insults, while elderly neighbors on power walks frown when they spot him and phone his parents.
‘Whatever keeps him going,’ his mother says from inside the house and slams the receiver down on its base. Dot pokes her tongue at her brother from her sprawl across the warm flagstone drive. Although Ezra’s tongue brushes the back of his teeth and his hand twitches by his side, he forces himself to remain motionless. Gargoyles are hard and indifferent, everyone’s opinions sliding off their stone backs like rainwater.
After the whole gargoyle vs. grotesque quarrel (the difference, as it turns out, is a gargoyle’s additional function as a waterspout), Dot gave Ezra one of her sweatshirts as an apology gift. It’s a marled gray, the hem hugging his mid-thigh. He likes to tuck his drawn-up knees inside it when he’s crouching by the edge of the roof, near the protective rails his father installed. The sweatshirt’s hood is also deep enough that he can push it over his face and hide all the scars. The only traces of color are the dried paint stains on the sleeves. They break the illusion of stone, but Ezra doesn’t mind overmuch because the smell is waxy and comforting.
Dot’s brushstrokes used to be sure as anything, but her hands won’t stop shaking ever since Ezra ran through a glass door face first. He’s always been her favorite model because, unlike her school friends’ little brothers, he wasn’t afraid to wear Roman togas or Victorian gowns to help her practice her patterns and textures. Dot used to paint in vibrant color, but now, from her cul-de-sac art studio, she sketches Ezra in charcoal, a dark slash against the milky sky. She has thrown out all her red pigments and filled an entire monochrome sketchbook with him to forget. Her teacher loves the rooftop drawings–or hates them. Whatever haunting means. He offered to mail her portfolio to an art competition, but Dot said no. She didn’t want to let go of the drawings even for a little while. She’s saving them for when Ezra is ready. Her portraits, landscapes, and even still lives are mirrors of sorts, and her brother has been avoiding his reflection ever since the stitches dissolved and the bandages came off.
When the first raindrops hit Dot’s sketchbook page, muddying the gray, wobbly strokes, she races inside the house. Her mother is already heating up mushroom soup, so Dot helps her father gather stray blankets and pillows from around the living room. When Ezra comes inside dripping and shivering a little while later, they are ready. To wrap him in soft things, feed him until he is warm. Ezra lets it happen with only minor protests. Dot helps him out of his wet sweatshirt, and he smiles when he thinks she isn’t looking. Even gargoyles made of hard, unfeeling stone are allowed to crack a little, on occasion.
Avra Margariti is a queer Social Work undergrad from Greece. She enjoys storytelling in all its forms and writes about diverse identities and experiences. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Online, The Forge Literary, Daily Science Fiction, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Argot Magazine, and other venues. Avra won the 2019 Bacopa Literary Review prize for fiction. You can find Avra at @avramargariti.
