A small bird, which he believes to be a European starling, flies just three feet above his head. It circles around and lands on a branch that seems as though it could snap off at any minute. The man sits on a park bench, it’s around noon, remembering what his mother told him, a disappointment and a failure is what he was. The bird moves again, branch still holding on, it pushes off of its feet and lands just next to the bench he's sitting on, pecking at small things on the ground. He thinks of his favorite things; the smell of coffee and freshly cut grass, mourning doves and cicadas in the early summer dawn, crickets on damp nights, and warm rain that he can wander through for hours.
The bird keeps pecking around and his focus becomes lost in it, he continues to think about his mother. He thinks about how far from perfect she is, how her strict rules and harsh disciplinary tactics caused him to be this way. It’s all her fault. She is a force, manipulating her way to get others to do what she wishes, inducing them to psychological surrender. He tries to think of some more things he can list as being his favorite. He cannot. He thinks how sad it must be, to not find joy in any place or time. When he imagines the smell of coffee brewing though, he sees his mother. There she is, early in the morning on the telephone, hair disheveled, wearing the same robe she’s worn for years. He becomes irritated thinking about the guck piled in the corners of her eyes and the little bits of yogurt building in the crevices of her mouth. The smell of coffee no longer brings him joy, he crosses it off his list.
The bird gives up on his cement pecking and flies over to a small patch of grass that has an empty coffee cup and a Nature Valley granola bar wrapper. He stares at the bird running along the sod, rustling through long, overgrown pieces of crabgrass. He thinks of his aunt. When his mother would snap and kick him out of the house he would drive to his aunt’s in Georgia. They would take photos and create new images from nothing, her collection of expensive film cameras intrigued what he thought to be his life’s passion. She would talk about all the places she’s been and he would tell her all the places he wishes to go. They would discuss new ideas, new props, new locations to photograph, and she always told him how brilliant he was. When his father left there was no thought in his mind, no new idea, no sense of creativity. When his mother yelled there was no sense of comfort, forgiveness, or love. Only feelings of shame.
Townspeople walk past him, left and right, headphones in, tote bags full of farmers market vegetables. They walk at high speeds like they have somewhere important to go, a purpose to be. Yet the bird continues jumping through the grass, not seeing the giants stomping their feet, unbothered by its threat. When his mother goes grocery shopping she gets little cups of yogurt, pomegranate juice, cans of tuna, and boxes
of saltine crackers. He thinks about his childhood, naive and sincere, days went by slowly, one school day felt like a week and he just couldn’t wait to get home. Now the days feel like an hour, and each one is the same, stuck in a loop. He notices the bird is gone, he's not sure for how long now, he thinks that it must be far enough away traveling to wherever he wishes looking down on the civilians, laughing at them. How easy it is for him to escape and how the humans have been cursed with the inability to fly, to soar, to be free. When the boy goes grocery shopping on days where his mother ‘doesn’t feel like it’ even though the fridge is bare, he’s very selective. He no longer buys green bananas, he buys brown-speckled ones and mushy avocados. He buys overripe pears and wilting basil, eggplants with bruises, and apricots that when you lightly press on the skin your finger slips to the pit. When his friend, Joe, who lives just diagonally across the street stops by, he gives him little trinkets; little clay animal sculptures, his favorite leather bracelet, and a small pocket watch his grandfather used to hang around his belt loop. John’s responses are always, “Cool” or “Dope, thanks man”.
The man sits on the bench a while longer, closes his eyes, and imagines what it could possibly be that he wants, that he needs. The air is sharp, his fingers red and too swollen to fully ball tight fists for warmth. His ears are cold and his toes numb. Why can’t he be a bird, he wonders. What he wants is to be a bird, to grow thick wings, to travel far and never return, to see it all just to be sure he never needed to see it all in the first place. That none of this is meant for him. He pulls a stale half-filled plastic sleeve of saltines out from his pocket. He breaks one in half, crushes up one half and throws it on the ground tempting the birds, and puts the other half on his tongue allowing the salt to dissolve. The birds do not come though. He sits long enough to see an army of ants marching around the crumbs, he has nowhere to go and no place to be. The birds cannot be played like a game, they are not tempted by his pathetic attempt at lure. He realizes he has no control over anyone or anything. No control over this life he never asked to live.
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