Bird As Fish

The wind was bitterly cold as it blew in from the ocean. It had been coming in now for days and days, with not a speck of snow in the air. In the town, the wind swirled down the main street and up the road.

On the corner of the street, where it crossed with the highway, was a house that always stood empty. On occasion, it would show signs of possession, lights on, curtains moving, but there were never people to be seen. The lawn was full of gravel from off the side of the highway and a drainage ditch ran across the front. There was no garden but a large bare tree grew on the corner.

A girl in big, red pants followed by a boy in a neon yellow coat and another skinnier boy in a jester hat, came out of the door one day as if it were a perfectly normal thing. They crossed the lawn and the road and climbed down the hill to the river. Looking down on the mud flats, they threw rocks at the ice that formed over the bare tidal riverbed. The boys cried with delight at the explosions, which sounded like breaking glass. The girl just shivered and looked around, behind her, and down the road.

A few minutes drove them indoors once again and they disappeared from sight. A few days later, the girl left the house, walking alone down the road. Her cheeks were soon red from the sharp wind and the bottoms of her pants sagged as unmercifully as the legs were tight around her ankles. Her long, tangled hair whipped around with the wind and the broken elastic in her second hand coat sleeves caused them to hang way past her clenched fists.

Her grey eyes watched the sidewalks carefully, although she thought faraway thoughts. She looked misplaced somehow, walking down the sidewalk of this small town, like a magazine cutout glued onto a different background. She walked for a long while in silence, not greeting any of the townspeople who offered her a 'good morning' and indeed, looking on them with suspicion.

The midmorning passed on the wheels of the mountainous trucks bearing lumber, driving up the road to whatever lay around the corner of the highway as it climbed the hill.

The girl walked and walked until she neared the beach. She stopped before she reached the dunes, fingering the long, yellow grass, whipping wildly. She had almost a kind of trepidation, uneager to see the ocean, or maybe she wanted to postpone the moment when the eye catches the infinite body of water and the infinite sky, to savour that feeling you get when you finally see the ocean. Reluctantly, she stepped onto the grey weathered boardwalk and walked slowly over the rise of sand and grass. She stopped for a moment on the summit and caught how black the sky was, a storm rolling in no doubt. A few rays of sun pierced the coming tempest and fell down onto a faraway headland, beautiful but distant. She ran down to the shore and pressed her index finer into the sand and cold, salty water.

Her hands brought up a few rocks and shells, which she let dry in the chilly air and then put in her pockets, heading back to the boardwalk. Turning around when she had reached the top of the dunes, she breathed once, deeply, and turned toward the town, the wind causing her hair to cover her face.

Noon passed soon and the girl walked up the gravel driveway of her home. It was raining, cold and miserable.

Twilight came and for the third time, the girl left the house, her insatiable red pants still worn. She walked this time down the mainstreet towards the duty-free shop, bathed in the carbolic streetlights. The little drugstore was just down the street. She opened the door and spotted a rack of postcards and made for them immediately. Several were selected and bought with money from a ragged manila envelope of loose cash and coins.

The cashier wanted to know if she needed a pen to writed something on them. She replied, a little sadly that she did not for she had no one to send them to. A bell above the door heralded her exit and she headed back home.

The next morning, a car came and took them all away. And that was the end of that life. The house stands empty, like a seashell is empty of life and an empty postcard means nothing unless you can write on it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I took out the seashells today, fingering their chalky surfaces. The ones that had been a brilliant blue or milky white or deep black are now just grey. I set them up on my dresser, cold rocks and dying shells to remind myself of that day on the beach. Only I knew where they came from, one day in that other life.
It is like an existence of grains of sand, each life separated from the next, all encompassed in one beach, but I cannot call that one myself, when it is not myself. I think I would disbelieve it happended if not for the shells. I could have read it in a book for it is so far distant, but like the wind that blows in from the ocean, it is almost gone but never really leaves.

© 2003 All rights reserved MJ Jackson
This article may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of the author.