The starling-man

The starling-man's vices were his home. He hunched
over blackened bacon, eating from the grill pan
as that is the way it was done. He drank from saucepans covered in mould 
and slept upon cut plastic bags overflowing with jewellery and twigs. Mirrors with burnt edges covered
his four walls. The world stopped turning in his broken convent, all was black and all was gold.

She popped by when the sun was high and the streets crowded. Though starling-man did not know
it, with his closed drapes. She sold olive branches at two pennies each for a
charity house three doors down. The starling-man didn't like the idea of handing
over money. Though her pale, white, almost translucent skin showed sapphire veins
and she had eyes the colour of emeralds and her hair was platinum he found it hard to resist. She was another priceless entity.

Starling-man invited her in and she said her name was Dove. She cleaned the mirrors
and the floors and the drapes and kept the dank house sparkling. She buried his darkness
and his vices at the bottom of the garden beneath a newly planted olive tree. Starling-man
felt warmth from something precious at once. She stayed the summer with open drapes and expensive
curtain hooks. Dove flew in the winter, with not so much as a fair well, and starling-man fetched a spade. The olive tree cried as it broke at the root and burnt to a single twig.
 
He brought it inside and added it to his bed. The romance was dead.