August Ennui

By Roman Bech

A soft rustling of leaves immediately follows the loud pop of escaping air as about four or five birds take flight in a mad panic from their roosting posts. Blue, red and yellow wings of primary colors flap furiously against a backdrop of cirrus clouds and tall mountains. Their combined effort in fleeing makes a noise almost identical to that of the zipping B.B., which had sliced its way through their dense foliage homestead two seconds earlier. Alex and Eric’s squinting eyes trace their erratic flight path upwards, until the sun makes it nearly impossible to continue any further. Sweat runs in a meandering trail from Eric’s hairline, pauses for a moment at his Neanderthal brow ridge and then drops straight into his deep-set eyes. "Motherfucker!" he winces in salty agony, kicking up clouds of dirt and burying his shaven head into dirty fingernailed hands. Bushes rustle and leaves dance; mocking squawks fill the air. Eric raises a tortured face to the cirrus sky and fires off a few rounds, revealing cavitied molars as he shouts uselessly into his surroundings.

"You feelin’ alright man?" Alex asks, genuine concern evidently written in the creases on his face. He watches Eric sulk and come close to tears, hunched over; he sucks back snot and saliva, showing inflamed eyes and an inhuman scowl. Alex turns politely away, crunch of dirt under pivoting shoes and eyes rotating orbitally in their respective sockets; he takes in the exaggerated peaks and valleys of mountains in the distance. Except for the occasional wisp of water vapor in an expanse of monochrome, the sky is blue and uniform and almost unbearably boring as far as the eye can see. He chews the inside of his cheek, shuffles feet, and inspects his shirt for grime. Eric still doesn’t respond; Alex turns to face him. Alex’s scrutinizing gaze looks Eric up and down but can’t find any indication that he had been crying. He stands there, ten paces from Alex, feet brought smartly together. The B.B. gun dangles precariously from the limp index finger of his right hand.

"Your turn." Eric says with intended drama. He cracks a smile desperately in need of braces, stalagmite teeth jut and crowd in the cramped quarters of his mouth. With a Doc Holiday flourish he brings the sun glinted carbon black weapon to chest level. He holds it stiff-armed straight out in front, barrel facing chin, butt end facing out. But Alex doesn’t see any arm; all he sees is an eerie midnight gun handle suspended in midair as if by marionette strings, just waiting for him to accept. A car honks rudely at someone from way down below. They crane their necks to look. Some type A personality fuck driving a car that’s way too good for him. Alex swivels back. The last vestiges of wicked smile retreat from Eric’s glistening face.

"I told you before, I don’t care if you want to do this, just don’t expect me to," Alex reasons. Alex whips around, turning his body along with his head. He wrenches his spine this way and that. No birds enter the periphery of his visual field, a swell of relief washes through stomach and into extremities. Though he can hear families of them singing complex interwoven melodies from surrounding bushes. The telltale signs of impatience start to surface and slink across Eric’s countenance.

"Don’t be a pussy!" Eric raises his voice in exasperation. He somehow manages to get another inch out of a fully extended arm; shoving the gun still closer to a reluctant Alex. Alex’s sheepish hand reaches out. The handle’s finish of tiny pointy metal diamonds stamps red and white indentations on his clammy palm. The wind picks up some, Eucalyptus branches sway noisily, littering the soil below with oblong leaflets that writhe and twist until they find a suitable home among their brethren. A lone bird of spotted brown and black alights on a branch of the cherry blossom tree at the far end of the yard. Gravity’s appetite for the gun Alex is holding intensifies along with the wind, at the moment he thinks it feels heavy enough to be the real thing in his pasty fingers. His stomach turns. Glancing furtively at Eric, and exerting much effort, he raises the gun to eye level, both hands trembling severely. Had he been looking through a power scope just then, he would have seen a magnified bird head framed by two thin hairs of a shaky cross, eliciting sympathy by way of playful chirps and tilting of its ruffled neck. But with this gun at this distance, the bird looks like nothing more than a muddy blob, an outgrowth of the branch on which it perches. Eric’s breathing gets heavier and more annoying the longer Alex waits. He steadies three blurry rectangles that make up the sight in front one opened eye—his left one. Photons bounce and scatter off brown feathers, penetrate corneal shield and flit energetically onto an awaiting retina. Alex screws up his face in disbelief. The bird resembles a bat, hanging upside down roughly 30 feet in front of his opened eye. What the bloody he…Electric impulses spark and jolt along fibrous channels of optic nerve, branching out into synaptic pathways. They flood and drown the occipital lobe, polarity alternates; gray matter clunks along mechanically, a mouse runs on its wheel. The bird is now a bird again, standing right side up, singing a song; making its presence known to the world. That’s better. Sensing the trigger’s metallic bite against his index finger; Alex applies incremental pressure, one infinitesimal muscular contraction at a time. Eric’s hot breath tickles the nape of Alex’s neck as it condenses and trickles down to his shirt collar, where it vanishes into 100% cotton.

Compressed gas gushes out of the barrel’s tiny opening. Echoes ricochet off the fence’s wooden planks in the smallish confines of the yard, not bothering to chew first; greedily swallowing Alex and Eric whole. As the slowly echoes die down, angry squawks from all around the yard’s perimeter rise up to fill in the resounding silence. A shapeless clump of speckled brown and black dradles counterclockwise off its perch, and plummets gracelessly to the ground. "Nice shot," Eric’s excitement cuts forcefully through Alex’s queasiness. Two pairs of sneakered feet and tight laces trot towards the cherry blossom tree. No longer a blob, the struggling bird twitches and flaps frantically with its one operative wing; making fruitless circles in its efforts to fly away. A bare patch of lawn frames its broken body. Lying on its side, a single shiny black eye stares up at Alex, muffled chirps depart from its fragile beak. Wind chimes throw hollow tones into the air. Sweat runs down and itches. The two boys turn inwardly to look at each other. "You’ve got to put it out of its misery," Eric says, using an inflection that Alex can’t distinguish as sarcastic or serious. The same gastrointestinal sting from before radiates outwardly from his interior.

"Me!? I didn’t even want to shoot the thing in the first place." He pleads, using his own eyes to delve into Eric’s flat brown ones, but they are the eyes of a cow. There is nothing in them, nothing at all.

"Give it here then." Eric relents, snapping his fingers impetuously and ripping the weapon from Alex’s uncertain grasp. Eric’s grubby fingers wrap themselves tightly around the handle. His knuckles turn white and his fingernails purple. "This is how it’s done," he half whispers unwaveringly, his voice as sure as his grip. He lowers the gun towards the spent bird from up above, holding it down and sideways. Something about the gun’s awkward position in his hand reminds Alex of a street hoodlum. The bushes and trees go quiet; rustling fades then stops altogether. Eric’s upper lip curls back in a talented Matt Damon smile to reveal jagged teeth. Alex can see slimy indications of tongue glimmering through clenched spaces. The sun above is shining bright, intense, yellow. Illuminated by a grimace, Eric’s face turns ugly(er). "Give me a count!" he demands.

The thunderous power of rapidly expanding carbon dioxide blasts outward from the gun’s epicenter. Everything goes quiet. Miniature bones give and crack. One final copper insult lodges itself into the dying bird’s proud breast. It stops fluttering instantly. Two speechless boys stand there in all encompassing motionlessness; even the wind chimes have ceased to dance. Alex’s head hangs heavy off the end of his neck. His downcast eyes observe a change in the deceased bird’s shiny black orb, which looks to Alex like one big pupil.

It’s the day after, and Eric doesn’t come over. The kitchen clock acts as a metronome for Alex’s shifting mandible. He operates his teeth and tongue unconsciously and purely methodically. Amylase goes to work, taste buds light up, but he derives no pleasure from it. The food tastes bland. It has no discernable texture, like oatmeal. His eyes swivel downward by several degrees. Imagine that?? It is oatmeal. A joyless smile stretches his mouth and gains momentary control over his face for one…two…three ticks; he can’t help it. The slightly whitish glared clock face shows it’s ten in the morning and the June gloom outside is already beginning to break up and reveal patches of blue. Alex wonders if the sky is going to be just the same as yesterday. He concentrates on the back and forth and lateral movements of his jaw and the churning of gastric juices. Chew, grind, gulp, digest, assimilate. An unrecognizable sound splits from the backyard and snatches his attention away from the tick, tick, ticking of second hand quartz movement. It’s a rustling of sorts, very faint, almost nonexistent. An irrational wave of fear rises and subsides in Alex; motion picture scenes from Hitchcock play themselves out cinematically behind tightly shut lids. Warily, he pulls the sliding glass door halfway open. He raises a slippered foot over its dusty aluminum track. The air is dewy, invigorating. The hush of traffic wells up from below. An occasional cretin performs a peel out for an easily impressed girlfriend. Stepping off a redwood deck that’s seen better days, he scans the yard thoroughly, but spies nothing quite so paranormal as what he’d imagined. At the yard’s northernmost edge, the neighborhood cat, a pillowy ball of white and orange stripes crouches amidst starving grass. Its vertebrae stand plainly visible atop a fiendishly arched back. Alex habitually scratches his crotch. The cat wields a curious paw at a dirty, feathered carcass, molesting the balsa wood body as if it were no more than a tangled ball of brown and black yarn. A light breeze blows and Eucalyptus leaves drizzle down. The mangy fur ball prods and pokes, wholly absorbed in its task of showing utter disrespect for the dead. Alex feels a clot of oatmeal slowly making its way down his constricted throat.

"Why don’t you get the fuck out of here!?" Alex surprises himself with the level of emotion in his voice, wondering at the same time why he bothers to use words; or profanity for that matter on a cat. A shocked and whiskered feline face shoots up, propels its sleek head and tufted parabolic ears in quick darting spurts. Its body stiffens and freezes briefly; nose to the wind. Then resumes its play, exhibiting newfound interest. An inexplicable flash of hatred boils from deep down up to Alex’s face. His temperature rises, heartbeat escalates, mercury elevates. He stops scratching his groin. This new sensation, even more compelling than the equally spontaneous fear he’d felt minutes earlier pounds at near migraine intensity against his temples. A war cry escapes his lungs. His foot whistles through a low-density molecular lattice of mostly nitrogen and oxygen. One big toe finds its mark between the startled cat’s 5^th and 6^th vulnerably exposed ribs. His toenail drills into the space between bones with the moral nonchalance of punting a football (and the fence but a goalpost). An irate and hurt growl emanates from the cat’s larynx and finds reverberation against Alex’s eardrum. The cat soars gracefully through one cubic meter of air after the other, as if it had merely jumped several parcels away from its prize. It touches down in one of the few spots where the grass is still relatively green, making about as big a thud as one can expect from a cat. Loose dirt billows around its padded feet. The wiry tomcat’s almost feminine eyes glower at Alex, the sunlight hitting them just so. The expression on its face and the droop of its whiskers both display the unquestionably feline trait of valuing complacency over vindictiveness. A stretch of ice plant slopes just to the right of the cat. Tiny purple flowers and yellow stamens. It pauses there momentarily in ankle high grass to lick its wounds, a rough pink tongue smoothing down matted fur. The tongue circulates to lick chops. Then, without so much as casting its haunted irises back, it bounds hurriedly over a splintery fence. Its tail surges to straight up. Its crusty asshole plainly visible as it sinks over the wooden slatted vista.

The day after that, Alex surveys every quadrangle of his backyard for potential feline riffraff. Neither the cat from yesterday nor anything else lies in sight. He walks evenly through an ongoing battle between grass and weeds over to the far end of the yard. He probes his index finger around on bent knees, fingering this way and that, parting Eucalyptus debris. A putrid odor tendrils up and into nasal passages. It worms its way past cilia and humid air. The mutilated corpse’s cavernous sockets stare back at him, ants crawl in and out. Insects of every lineage have all come to partake of this grand smorgasbord. They pulsate and swim in a disgusting second skin that covers nearly every grid of the birds decaying body. Alex tilts his head back and closes his eyes. The smell disperses slightly. The air feels heavy against his bare arms and neck. The ground softens and muddies around planted knees. Barely noticeable weightless drops fall on shut eyelids. He opens his eyes again, a symphony of clouds undulate and ripple across the carefully orchestrated sky. A new feeling swells and stretches in his chest. A totally foreign emotion wraps itself around Alex’s midsection and hugs him tightly. He springs up and makes a beeline for the stucco shed attached to the north side of his house. He pulls forcefully on a thin elastic cord, a bare bulb flickers on and casts sickly yellow. Alex deliberates momentarily, then wraps moist fingers around a white and rust colored paint chipped garden shovel. The starlet cord shimmies and shows off under the green-yellow limelight. Sprinkles fall and adhere to his dew drop hair. He hunches down at the far end of the yard, and scoops up the deceased, along with some residual soil and insects. Stepping across the deck, his free hand parts the sliding glass door. He walks to the kitchen, dropping bits of dirt along the way. The rain’s strength oscillates on the roof. A steady stream of lukewarm faucet water cascades around the bird’s lifeless body. Darkly colored impurities wash down the drain. They swirl in a muddy funnel, empty gurgling noises spill out from around lime deposits, where blades spin from down below. Cooking tongs in hand, he lifts the freshly cleaned bird up to the light of the kitchen window. Except for the absence of its eyes, it still looks somewhat animated. The sebaceous shine of a teenager’s forehead reflects off its oily feathers. Alex squarely places a clear glass jar on top of the sink’s plastic rack and carefully drops in the dripping bird headfirst. He turns the lid securely and repeatedly until his hand and wrist throb, so as to prevent an olfactory assault in the days to come. Sprinkles tap lightly against the windowpane. Alex takes both dishwater hands, and grips the jars rounded top. His fingers and thumbs make a circle around the lid as he lowers the jar neatly among flowerpots and trinkets set here and there on the kitchen windowsill overlooking the backyard.

Clouds zoom and dissipate from one horizon to the other in fast motion, as they do in some modern movie trying to portray the passage of time. Calendar pages tear and fly off the wall, then flutter haphazardly to the ground. The remainder of summer goes by all too fast. Once school starts up again Alex’s days go by like clockwork. Tick, tock, cruel, clock. Larger and larger chunks of feather and flesh fall to the jarred bird’s feet. They shrink smaller and smaller as clouds streak by, and finally disappear altogether. Until all that remains is a chalky skeleton, the glint of copper showing just inside its accosted ribcage. One winter morning while eating a bowl of cereal Alex glances up at the kitchen window. He crunches flakes and stares through the jar’s transparency into the yard beyond. There, at the far end of the yard stands the cherry blossom tree, its pink blossoms now varied shades of maroon, dried and crisp and fallen to the Earth; just begging to be trampled on.