Carrion

She saw a magpie on the way to the shore. Dead on the side of the road, its broken wings splayed at a garish, crooked angle. She imagined the crack of bone like the snap of lightning as it plummeted down to the ground.

Her eyes wandered to the tree.

Had it fallen from a nest called grace?

So, she took it home with her: this rotten, decayed thing. It was sticky, messy, feathers loose and fluttering away. She liked how the blood crusted under her nails, how it resembled dirt.

She stuffed it with life and put it up on the mantle.

It made up for what she lacked.

Fiona Haborak, with an appreciation for liminal spaces, finds peace from the city’s chaos in small-town diners and drifting through the woods. As a Connecticut native, Fiona received her BA in Sociology at Fairfield University in 2015. As a 2019 alumni from XE: Experimental Humanities & Social Engagement at NYU, her thesis explores how social media has impacted the cosplay community through a critical art installation. Fiona is a third-year doctoral student at the University of Texas at Dallas in Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication where her research focuses on women cosplayers on Instagram, influenced by her immersion in the cosplay community since 2011. Currently, she exists in Texas alongside her hamster, Milkdud.

Instagram: @infernalecosplay