One x One 𝗽𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘀

[akeno]

between—ciki

pastries and phone calls

akeno & demonology

 

[demonology]

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name

Nirvana Wilson Gish-Sato

nickname

Birdie, NWA (not actually, but technically)

age

TBD

date of birth

October 3rd

place of birth

Goldendale, Washington

pronouns

she/her

Role

The Puny, Mentall Ill Human

Occupation

McDonald’s Employee (Coming to you from the drive thru!)

zodiac

libra

Sexuality

homosexual

Family Members

Poppy Sato (mother) and Winston Gish (father)

University Major

tbd

Username

madcow-disease-queen

visage

height

5’5’’

body

slender, boyish almost

hair

Raven colored with a slight curl.

eyes

Deep brown

skin

Olive-toned with a speckling of moles.

body mods

Gauges that are usually decorated with dangly earrings, an industrial piercing in her left ear, a septum

face claim

Rina Fukushi

personality type - INFJ

Positive traits

Insightful
Introspective
Loyal like a rescue dog
Sweet (though only after someone is kind to her)
Thoughtful
Comedic

Negative traits

Sarcastic
Suffocated by memories
Drifting
Stubborn as a mule
Neurotic
Laid-back to the point of inactivity/indecisiveness

introverted


observant


feeling

indecisive


Level-headed


Well-meaning

Raised with her parents’ inhibitions left Birdie with the mark of hippiedom: she’s easily movable, constantly changing her favor. She’s never been one to be held-down by conventional attachments, including material belongings or casual friends. However, her personal views can be said to be the exact opposite. Verbose, verbal maniac, coming up for air only when necessary (or when she finds the silent stares too much to handle). Wavering to the other side of the spectrum, she’s known to sit in silence, constantly battling for the upper-hand in situations where she feels that’s required. Still, she knows the time and places for such dominance battles, and she’s willing to “go for just about anything” when it comes to spending time with people.

likes

prank calling people, Scream, The Breeders, the stomach-drop when she presses on the gas too quickly, solitude, commercial jingles, Daria, moshing, an American Spirit or a bong hit, three a.m (AKA the witching hour), doing tarot readings, exploration, making origami crafts for others

dislikes

inadequacy (her own and others), milk chocolate, when her parents act like her friends, crowds (ironically.), numbskulls, beards (though, perhaps, men would be more accurate), side-eye glances that are not her own, ruined atmospheres, perspiring heat, potted plants dying, being laughed at when she’s being serious

hobbies

drowning out with her headphones, smoking, reading a book that would be a red flag if a man was reading it, doodling her ‘lil guys’, making ‘big thinks’, prophesying the end of times, making fanzines, doing all of the above in the backseat of her white, 2000 Jeep Cherokee.

skills

drawing, street smarts (sorta), hair-dying and -cutting, hiking, ranting

quirks

putting an ungodly amount of hairclips in her hair only to take them out at the slightest inconvenience, pulling at loose threads until they’re gone (even if it rips the clothing in the process), always fiddling with a silver dollar coin, jangling her friendship bracelets

fears

the police (though, primarily because she drives like Jesse Owens runs except far less graceful), what comes after death, becoming an old fart who cares only about the stock market and the line in his khakis, never having enough tea, never amounting to much of anything (except, it is hard to do something when one doesn’t have a goal in mind)

little more

history

the beginning.

⠀⠀ Up until she turned seventeen, Nirvana loved her life. Rather, she adored it, constantly holding it on a pedestal that, until then, she held far above her head, a constant umbrella. Even the beginning before her beginning is a fairytale. Her mother, Poppy Sato, is a Japanese second-generation immigrant who ended up being sucked into the Grateful Dead and the protest effort at just seventeen. Enter Winston Gish, a small-time musician at just eighteen, trying to make it on the folk trail. Except, his lyrics were always considered a bit too dark, a bit too loud. Welcome to the Summer Glen Festival, Winston Gish! In the crowd, Poppy stood, smitten with the harrowing reality his cadence depicted. From there, they were fast friends. From then, they slowly fell in love. And finally, they became husband and wife.

⠀⠀ Twenty years after the Arwen-Aragorn-esq wedding, Nirvana was brought to Earth. Prior to her existence, Poppy and Winston lived in the woods of Goldendale, missing the memo that the 80s had arrived, and the 90s were fast approaching. However, they quickly caught on, attending a fateful concert on a night when they, finally, traveled to the city. The Bird was a local haunt, hidden in the earth of Seattle’s buckling buildings. In attendance was Poppy, Winston, and The Fartz. An ironic name, given how they single-handedly set off the next phase, the 2nd evolution, of Birdie’s parents. They were sucked into the vortex of punk, ready to sell their soul for the next anti-capitalist movement.

⠀⠀The next decade or so was characterized by this discovery. Her parents threw away the long, patch-work, quilt-like cottons (rather, they preserved them as hand-me-downs for the child they hoped to have, one day) for the coldness of spike, leather, and the needles of numerous tattoos. For a brief moment, they thought themselves to be destined for a life without a little punkling to raise as their own, until Poppy, out of the blue, showed up as being pregnant. It came as a surprise during a doctor visit, where her blood was taken to determine the cause for her recent hunger. Well, surprise! It was Birdie.

⠀⠀The shock was well-celebrated, and Nirvana was welcomed to the world with open arms from both her parents and their various friends. Her infancy was filled with walks in the woods, fantasies of fairies living in flowers, and the tales of J.R.R. Tolkein. When Birdie was only three or four, she was uprooted from the glen of Goldendale and transplanted to the concrete gardens of Seattle, where the scene was still leaking life out (though, much to the chagrin of her parents, it, too, was dying). Despite this, Birdie’s youth allowed her to settle in comfortably, and it wasn’t until the semi-alienation of her own youth that she managed to feel ashamed about this lifestyle.

⠀⠀ However, before this, there was the sunshine of her childhood. The stuff that Birdie believes makes her person, the patchwork fabrics of her soul. On the weekends, her parents escaped to the local, underground clubs while Birdie was baby-sat by the punk fledglings that hung around her house because her parents are “just so cool, but you know that right?” Without Paola, her favorite babysitter, she would never have learned about STDs, tampons, and sexuality. Not that her parents didn’t care- they just assumed she must have already known (at this point, they were nearing forty and were semi-out-of-the-loop about how the real, square world worked). Paola was her closest friend until she left for the University of Berkeley (to which her parents told Paola to “raise hell and get thrown off-campus” as they had done when they joined their fellow hippies eons ago). From there, Birdie was strangely alone. There were always hooligans around her house, but they were in a mix of thirty year olds to oldtimers. It was never the same. However, this wasn’t where the pedestal fell.

the end.

⠀⠀ Then, she found her closest friend: Santo Lopez, the rambunctious Pinky to her Brain and another descendent of the DIY kingdom. Knowing each other since Birdie’s family joined the Seattle scene, the two found they had a lot more in common than their parents’ choice in subcultures. Together, they managed freshman year together, armored in battle jackets and crust pants. Later, it’d be ripped jeans and low-top Chucks. Rather, if you’re Nirvana, too-big, bulging sweaters made for grandpas. Of course, music was their proudest accessory, even as most alt scenes began to diminish or turn younger. Her parents and Birdie, usually with Santo in tow, talked the hits constantly, debating who was better than who. With high school dawning, it was a common joke amongst the family that pretty soon Birdie would be the one telling Poppy and Winston what’s ‘hip.’ Birdie always laughed this off, not fully understanding the truth value to such a statement.

⠀⠀Usher in sophomore year, and Jac enters. A flashback to her sweet-grass years of homemade granola, Nirvana took Jacqueline’s heart, wrapped her fingers around it, and squeezed. It was Jac’s, loud and clear, and from there, they were a couple, with Santo as the third wheel (though, he often made a car out of the tricycle). Soon followed their desire to troll local haunts, sneak into bars past nine p.m., and support their local bands on social media (including, later, Santo and Birdie in Mister Sister, a short-lived band). Her soul laid upon the blankets of clouds, and she felt at peace. While loneliness always krept in, eventually, Nirvana was making something of herself, her life. She was being what her parents had always been, something she’d only mimicked but never fully understood: she was beautifully independent even amongst a crowd of people she hand-picked.

⠀⠀ Let the curtain rise on junior year! It passed by peacefully, with Jac participating in the spring musical and Birdie agreeing to attend Prom. Graduation was coming up for Jacqueline, and she planned to decorate her cap in white lilies. A Summer Queen, Birdie would’ve yelled after she crossed the stage. Except, spring was far off, and for now, wintery gray painted the sky. Pop up the background sets, along with the homemade props, and stare upon the final moment of Birdie’s faux everlasting happiness. This is where it ends, with Jac yelling at her after a show (Mister Sister performed terribly, and it was their last performance ever), with her walking away, with her telling Birdie she’s choking her, with her climbing into the icy steel of her Chevy truck that always leaked oil and killed the environment. Snatched from her, Jacqueline faded from the duo of B and J (an immature joke cosigned by Santo), making just a B. She was stripped, close to being just Nirvana, the person who was born, the one without much of anything to her except the illusion of infantile personality. However, the story doesn’t end here.

⠀⠀ We find ourselves upon Act III. Months have passed, and Jac’s Chevy still sits in the driveway. The front end is crunched, a bit of car-sized foil. Santo brings a Rice Krispy Treat everyday, slipping it across the lunch table, as Birdie sits, borderline comatose. The same crack of the plastic tabletop, the jagged curves, become home to her. The gesture never goes unnoticed by her, and she offers Santo a momentary smile. Fading fast, though, it’s back to the crack. Sometimes, she stabs her finger into it, imagining it as the recalled airbag or a shard of glass.

⠀⠀ It was a week after Jac broke up with Birdie. Santo had taken to playing sides, appeasing like Switzerland, meaning he was mostly on Birdie’s side. He thought that Jac would change her mind, that the fight would blow over, but Birdie wasn’t as quickly assured. The depth of the arrow into her heart proved fatal, and she never knew Jacqueline to not mean what she said. She failed to see her wrongdoings, though time has taught her well. There was no space for Jac to be Jac outside of Birdie’s Jac. At the time, however, the logic was a fuzzy one-way mirror. Though, Jac was going to explain. The week wore her away, and discussion needed to be had. Rather, the alcohol told her that was the truth, and Santo confirmed on the phone that she should come over, unknowing about the nature of her state. Next to him, Birdie sat, salivating for the hope that she could win her back, win back Birdie’s heart in the form of Jacqueline. In fact, the fates had declared it was well-within the realms of this reality for Jac to become Birdie’s once more.

⠀⠀ Though, a different stretch of time was chosen, and the opposite happened. Jacqueline became no more, ebbing out of the world just as she had dripped in: slowly, then with a sudden pour of the falltime-almost-snowy rain, metaphorical and literal. The news resounded through the neighborhood, with the first call being from Jac’s mom to Birdie’s mom to Santo to Birdie. Then, the world settled into a permanent thunder-rolled cloudy day. The same day repeated, over and over until it became clear the Parthenon of Birdie’s dreamy life had fallen, discarded in an ether of stoney dust. With the death of this falsity, food turned gray, days became sluggish, and even Santo failed to make a dent in the despair. Nothing was real, except the pain of what was, and that made her all the more ornery. This was the rest of junior year, which passed in a daydream that was too bland for Birdie’s liking.

⠀⠀ By some grace, she made it to senior year, missing a few key credits but ignored in the light of what happened only a handful of months prior. Poppy and Winston, still stuck in their fantasy land of DIY patches and spiked hair, didn’t fully notice, rather they didn’t understand, what was happening to their daughter. It wasn’t until she stopped attending high school, always stuck with her nose in her phone or with earbuds in her ears, that they took stock of their once happy child. Yes, Jac’s death hit everyone hard, but she was unable to light the fire again. She wouldn’t even talk, open up the oxygen needed for a flame. Her life was a puzzle missing a piece, and in the process of trying to find said portion, she lost others. Rather, she destroyed a few. The impulsivity is what forced Poppy and Winston back to earth, back to being Mom and Dad. Their daughter needed them, not Birdie. In an attempt to fix it, they took her to the movies, to a few concerts, paid for Santo to take her out, bought her Jeep for her (a long-loved dream car), and even let her come and go as she pleased.

⠀⠀ It wasn’t that they wanted to throw money at the problem, but neither of them had parents who talked of therapists and psychiatric medications. It was frowned upon, rather, and they let this bias frame their tending to their child. However, that didn’t last long, as knowing people almost twenty years younger than their senior allowed them to learn of resources unheard of. Poppy was suspicious at first, and Winston scoffed. Then, they brought it up to Birdie, who sat in silence for a few minutes before saying to the floor, “I’ll try anything.”

the rebirth.

⠀⠀ Hopped up on a small cocktail of antidepressants (i.e. Zoloft), Birdie was able to create a baseline of sorts. Santo still worried, and Poppy and Winston looked on in shallow concern, quickly distracted by anything other than the hopelessness that filled their daughter. She got away with more than most high school students, including the commonplace glassware and the stolen gas money for late night drives. Plus, the Internet provided a sort of comfort. YouTube, Instagram, etcetera. She could avoid others while still chatting with them, even meet knew people. Birdie encroached into a shell, quietly passing by the year with her classes and job at McDonald’s. At work like online, her brain could turn off, ask people how can I help you, and fix her visor. Nights were spent with Santo, who remained at home for his brothers, and whatever hooligans they could get to tag along. The life of a degenerate, as painful as said knowledge was, made life bearable for Birdie, and she was content to the sarcasm-veiled illusion that she was doing better. In a way, she was. Shift the perspective horizontally and now she wasn’t. It depended on the day, and that was how she lived: by the day.

⠀⠀ Even stagnation has its limits, and soon Birdie was escalating from a normal level of impulsivity to the red, slamming on the gas in her Land Cruiser until it was screaming at her, begging for an end. Santo had stared at her, shocked by the behavior. She shrugged, apologized, and took him home. Their nightly drive abandoned, she went home. It was at three a.m when she met [yc]. From there, evenings were spent texting [yc] in the back of her Jeep or hidden under the covers at home.

⠀⠀ When Birdie told her parents that she was going to university, their jaws dropped. When they saw her semester report-card, they hung it on the refrigerator. When she told Santo about her new friend, he gave her the biggest, longest hug she'd ever received. It seemed that Birdie was putting her life back together, one puzzle piece at a time.

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© weldherwings.