Birdsong
I woke to the sound of birds singing.
“How odd,” I said out loud. My voice was thick and
raspy, not so much from sleep as from lack
of use. I sat up and leaned over so I
could see out the window. As soon as I
moved the curtain, I was blinded with a ray of sunlight. I leaned my forehead
against the pane and whispered,
“The sun is shining. Birds are singing. Is this still real
life?”
I drew a smiley face on the pane where my breath had
fogged it up. I had almost forgotten how
to draw a smiley face. If the sun could
shine and the birds could sing, then little Darika Umar, the girl who survived
the Silverwood Valley explosion, could walk again.
That is who I am. The sole survivor of the Silverwood Valley
explosion. Once upon a time I was the daughter
of the legendary warrior Isan Umar, and I was betrothed to his apprentice
warrior Willis. Willis and I used to go
deep into the Silverwood Forest above the valley and hunt animals. He liked to ride his horse, but I preferred
to run free. I liked feeling the ground
beneath my feet. I liked racing through the moss and climbing trees to shoot
arrows. I liked creeping, and wading, and kicking off my shoes. I liked running to the highest point to see
if the sun was shining somewhere else, for it almost never shone in the valley,
and pretending I could fly with the birds, imitating their birdsong. Best of all, at night by the bonfires in the
valley village, I loved dancing. Willis
and I were the envy of all the village for the way we told stories through our
dancing. Together.
All of this was gone now. Isan Umar was gone. Willis was gone. The Forest was gone. The village was
gone. In its place stood a vast empty
plain covered in debris and funeral pyres.
There was a single small block of a building, built by the rescue team
that came down from the mountains. They
searched the devastation and found a small girl, no more than fifteen, and
brought her there. They took care of
her. That is, they kept her fed, and
warm, and clean. Her room was no more
than four white walls and a cot that would never be comfortable no matter how
many quilts they brought her. That girl
was me, Darika Umar, the girl who once had hunted and danced. That girl was alive, when she should have
been dead. Everything else was
dead. Her family was dead. Her friends were dead. The animals were dead. The birds did not belong in the
Silverwood Valley anymore. They had all
been blown out of their home by an accidental
weapon.
“What does that mean, accidental weapon?” I asked one of the
men who brought me food once. He didn’t
answer me.
Today was the
one-hundred-and-seventieth day since the explosion. Today was the first day, in
one-hundred-and-seventy days, that a bird had sung outside my window. For one-hundred-and-seventy days before that,
my world had been silent. For
one-hundred-and-seventy days, I had been alone.
And for one-hundred-and-seventy days now, I had been without any feeling
in my legs.
“You will walk again!” one of the
ladies who fed and washed me told me, more than one-hundred-and-seventy times.
“How do you know?” I used to ask.
“Because we want you to walk for
us. Then one day you can help us fight.”
They made me practise. They would hold me while I tried to move my
legs. No amount of concentration or wishful thinking could make them budge. They told me they had a special mechanism
that would get me to walk, that it was coming in from a foreign land and would
take a long time to arrive. I knew they
wanted me to walk because they wanted me for some secret mission, but I did not
know what it was. They liked that I
could hunt and shoot arrows and thought I would be excellent at espionage. They would probably have been even more
impressed if they knew I had legendary warrior blood in me, but I had not told
them.
“Good morning little one!”
Her falsely-cheery voice broke my
reverie. I wiped out the doodles on the
window so she wouldn’t see. I was called
only “little one” by these people, for I had made a pact with them – I would
tell them who I was only when they told me who they were.
“There were birds singing,” I
said.
“She speaks! I brought you some
breakfast. Look, just the way you like
it.”
“Real birds. Really singing.”
“That’s wonderful! Here. Eat your
breakfast. Do you want help getting to the toilet?”
“I don’t think you understand
what I am saying,” I said. “There were birds singing outside my bedroom window.”
“Indeed, dear? They were bound to return someday.”
“You think so? Everything is so…
destroyed. Why would anything want to live here?”
My question sat heavily on the
air for a moment before she broke the pause by giving me my honey buns and bowl
of porridge.
“I think it’s a good omen,” I
said. “If birds can sing here again…”
She just smiled, and then
left. I stuffed a bun in my mouth and
lay back against the pillows. I heard
another birdsong then, and had a flashback of a time when my father, the great
Isan Umar, came home from a battle against the foreigners who had attacked the
people in the mountains above us. He had
scooped up seven-year-old me and said,
“They have their spouses’ and
children’s names tattooed on their upper arms, with the bird face of their clan. They are a terrible enemy, with weapons we
cannot fathom, mercilessly charging on our lands to create their own dystopian
empire. But every time I saw the names
on their arms, I was afraid to kill a single one. All I could think of was my little Darika
back home, and the birds singing in your mother’s garden.”
It was because of my father that
they had defeated that strange enemy; he had killed their leader, saving
thousands of people from enslavement. He
did not want to be publicly celebrated for this victory. He just wanted to spend time with his little
girl.
I wish he was with me now, I thought to myself. Most days, I numbed myself to the memories
because the emptiness of my current situation would lead me to despair if I
thought too hard about anything, but when you wake up to birds singing for the
first time in over one-hundred-and-seventy days, you cannot push a single
memory away.
The woman came in later to take
away my empty dishes and see if I needed anything.
“I brought you a book,” she
said. “But first, I am going to help you
walk to the toilet.”
“I don’t need help,” I said. “If birds can sing in this horrible place,
anything can happen. I know I will walk again.
And then, when I do, know what I will do?”
“What will you do?”
“I will leave this place. I will go far, far away, and never return.”
I swung my legs around, leaped
out of bed, and immediately crashed to the floor. After the first bit of pain in my tailbone
eased, I looked up at the woman with a sheepish smile and said,
“I’ll work on it.”
“I will help you,” she said, and
after no further success she had to carry me so I could relieve myself. When I was back in that bed I loathed so
much, I asked her, like I had thousands of times,
“Can you please tell me why you
are keeping me here, and if there are any people left in the mountains?”
“I cannot do that.”
“I hate it here.”
“I know.”
She left then. I sat for a while staring at the book she had
brought me. After a while I grew
frustrated and threw it across the room.
A bird chirped outside, bringing me a vehement desire to walk, and I
once again found myself crashing to the floor.
I tried dragging myself along the floor with my hands, but when I got to
the door, it was locked and I could find no way to open it. I had already tried
too many times on the window.
Hours later a man came in and
found me lying on the floor by the door.
His shock I knew was concern at seeing me in an unexpected place rather
than for my well-being, and this made me angry.
“Let me out of here,” I
said. “Bring me somewhere where
villagers like mine can take care of me.
I do not know who you people are.”
“We came from the other side of
the mountains to help you when the foreigners accidentally dropped an
experimental weapon on your side of the mountains,” he said. The same robotic, rehearsed lines I’d heard
so many times before. “Let me help you
get back into bed.”
“No.”
“No? What do you mean, no?”
He reached down to help me, and
my eye caught on the edge of a design on his upper arm. My stomach lurched as a realization too awful
for words dawned on me.
“What is that?” I asked. Birds
singing – had reminded me of Papa – which had reminded me of the battle – which
had reminded me –
I didn’t think twice. I snatched his arm and pushed the sleeve up
further. The design was of an angry
predatory bird, with the words Elsina
Diora written beside it.
Instinctively, the man whipped out a knife and held it to my
throat. A second later, though, he
retracted it.
“I apologize,” he said. “You wish to see my tattoo?”
From my pathetic half-paralyzed
position on the floor, I looked up at him with all the anger and hate I had in
me and said,
“My name is Darika Umar, and I am the daughter of Isan Umar the warrior.”
He gave me a grim smile and said,
“I know that.”
“You – you know that?” I spluttered.
“Impossible – I never –” My mind was racing as more realizations were
spilling into it. “You – you – you would
use me against my own people.”
He paused before softly saying, “Your
people are dead.”
“Anyone your people enslave for
your empire are my own people! You were going to use me for a ‘secret mission.’
You would get me to walk and then train me to fight and I would be your spy for
your own evil empire agenda.”
“You are mistaken,” he said. “There is no secret mission. Our work is done. Come, let’s get you back where you belong.”
He picked me up and carried me
back into my bed. I sank wearily back
into the pillows.
“This is not where I belong.”
He was silent.
“It wasn’t an accident,” I said
then. “The explosion. Wasn’t an
accident.” He shook his head. I shut my eyes and whispered,
“There need be no secrets between
us now, then. Please tell me.”
“There is no one left,” he said,
after a moment’s pause. “Except where we
may have built one or two ‘rescue homes’ like this one.”
A tear escaped from underneath my
closed eyelid before I could stop it. I
heard him start to walk out. I opened my
eyes and watched him walk away. Just
before he disappeared, he stopped and looked back.
“One more thing,” he said. “The explosion didn’t take away your
legs. We did that. You are never going to walk again.”
I felt something deep and painful
collapse inside me.
“Please,” I whispered. “Why don’t you just kill me?”
He just looked at me. There was no sympathy in his eyes. He stood there in his starched white clothes, willingly giving me answers and robbing me of hope in exchange.
“I belong with my people."
But he was already gone, leaving me bolted
inside an empty white room on a bed I would never be able to move from. I lay back against the pillows and wondered
vaguely what it would be like to live the rest of my life a prisoner.
I fell asleep shortly after to
the sound of a bird singing.
In the Waiting Room
Jerry looked around him with a
vague sense of confusion. He knew
something was wrong, but he couldn’t quite figure out what. The room he was sitting in was like a doctor’s
office… no, a business office… or, a courtroom.
He was alone – there were others, sitting in chairs, waiting. The dark wooden walls were completely bare,
except for the clock. And the paintings. After a moment Jerry noticed the little old
man behind the counter.
“Judy Rogers?” asked a crisp-looking
lady with an indistinguishable face and a black suit dress. She held a coffee thermos in one hand and a
Blackberry in the other, and her nails were red. A very old woman got up and walked with ease
towards the lady, who smiled and took a sip out of her Nestle Pure Life water
bottle and wrote something down on her clipboard before leading the old woman
out of the room.
Jerry looked back at the old man
behind the counter, who was writing something in a little black notebook. It was getting warm in the room, so he took
off his suit jacket. After a moment he
got up and approached the counter.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I think there’s been a mistake. I have an appointment.”
“Yes,” the man said, without once
looking up from what he was writing in his little blue notebook. “You must wait your turn.”
“No, I mean an appointment
elsewhere.”
The man looked up then, over his
glasses, and raised his thick grey eyebrows.
“Elsewhere? Where else could you
possibly have an appointment?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What is your name?”
“Jerry Oliver.”
The man turned to his computer and
began scrolling.
“Jerry, Jerry, Jerry…”
“Andrea Harrison?”
Jerry turned to look at the lady,
smiling in the hallway in her grey suit dress, back for another – customer? Patient? After she had disappeared down the hallway
with Andrea Harrison, Jerry turned back to the old man, who was still skimming
through the giant book, leaning forward on his wooden stool, scrutinizing the
lists of names in gold ink with a magnifying glass.
“Jeremy, Jeremiah, Jerome? What is your middle name, Jerry Oliver?”
“Rupert,” he said.
“Date of birth?”
“September 15, 1975.”
“David Hartley?” The lady was
back for another… victim.
“Where is she taking them?” he
asked the man.
“My goodness! You were right,”
the man cried. “There has indeed been a
mistake! A very grave mistake indeed.
Are you sure you’re Jerry Rupert Oliver?”
“Yes.”
“Your mother’s name is Caroline
Waggoner and your father is Rupert Riley Oliver?”
“…Yes?”
“Oh dear. Oh dear.” He spun in his swivel chair away
from the computer and opened a filing cabinet door. He began to flip through the folders, still
muttering “oh dears”. Jerry glanced at
his watch. It was 25:28. He glanced at the clock on the wall, briefly
wondering why his watch wasn’t in 12-hour time like it was supposed to be, but
the clock was blurry. He wondered what was
wrong with his glasses, and reaching up to touch them he realized with alarm
that he wasn’t wearing his glasses.
“What time is it?” he asked the
man.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” the man
replied.
“Please, excuse me sir, I think I’m
late for an appointment. Would you be
able to tell me how to get out of here?”
“Oh dear,” he said.
“Is something the matter?”
“Yes, indeed,” he said, turning
back to Jerry, “you are the matter.”
He turned back to perusing the files.
“Well, I –”
“Just hold on a moment, will ya?”
Jerry sighed, leaned against the
counter, and adjusted his glasses.
“There we are!” cried the
man. “Jerry Oliver. Yes, indeed.”
He brought the file over and
climbed back up onto his wooden stool.
“Look at you!” he said, holding
up a photo of Jerry when he was a baby.
“What the–”
“He he,” he chuckled. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist. Alright, it says here – born September 15,
1975. Baptized January bla bla bla, ..school…
more school… more school… wow, you did a lot of school!”
“Law school, but –”
“Uh-huh, married – kids – yes –
yes – ah, there we go. Died of mmshnmna,
on the mmth day of Shnmnner, two-thousand-shmnshbla.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, my apologies. They have to muffle it out so you don’t know.”
“I’m sorry?”
The man leaned forward and peered
into Jerry’s eyes.
“Mr. Oliver?” he said. “You were in the wrong place at the wrong
time. Where were you?”
“Where was I? When?”
“Before here.”
Where was he before here? Wait, there
was a before here?
“I don’t… remember.”
“Try to remember.”
Jerry closed his eyes. He was in… it was… he could almost see…
Jerry opened his eyes. A familiar beautiful face was leaning over
him, tears on her face.
“Jerry,” she whispered. “I thought for a moment you were dead!”
“No,” he said. “No, I’m… I’m here. …What happened?”
“You got hit by a car! How do you
feel? Are you okay?”
“Yes – I think so, I feel fine!”
Jerry sat up. His wife leaned over him anxiously. Jerry gave her a small smile.
“I feel fine,” he repeated. “Only–” he stopped, looking down, then looked
back up at her. “I think I forgot my suit
jacket in the waiting room.”
“What’s that?”
“Oh. Never mind,” he said. “It’s nothing. I think I was just in the
wrong place at the wrong time. Can we go
home now?”
“Yes,” she said with a smile. “Let’s go home, Jerry.”
The Grapes of Fate
Tree, tree, tree, sign, tree, tree, rock, car in the ditch, tree…
“Ma, are we there yet?”
“Al. Seriously.”
“I was just kiddin’.”
“Just relax.”
“I’m bored.”
“Maybe you’ll fall asleep.”
“I’m bored too!”
“We’re all bored! Bored as heck!”
“Aw cut it, Al. You too,
Rosie-Shar’n,” said Tom, looking out at the tree,
tree, sign, tree. It wasn’t so dark
out yet that he couldn’t still see all the tree,
trees.
Tom was destined for great
things. You could tell by how much
calmer he was than everyone else. And by
how Ma looked up to him so much. And by
the fact that he was the one who always got to drive. Right now, though, their 1993 Volkswagen
Eurovan was being driven by Pa, who was driving, Tom knew, because he wanted to
get his mind off Grandpa, who they had ditched back in Bethany. Grandparents just weren’t made for long road
trips, Tom guessed.
Tom wanted to take a break. Stop at a motel or something. The main reason
was, he had a butt-cramp. He hated those. He didn’t want to bother Ma or Pa though,
because they were stressed out and Al and Rosie-Sharon were being problematic
enough. The younger ones, thankfully,
were asleep right now. So was Casey,
whose book was likely too dry so he had nodded off hours ago.
Tom liked road trips, though,
normally. He preferred taking them
alone, because he was a solitary kind of guy.
Not really sociable like the rest of his family. He liked to take long walks too, and think
about how lucky he was to have been born in 1970 and not, say, 1920, when he
would have had to live during the Dust Bowl.
Tom had always thought life in the Dust Bowl must have been a real
bummer. Modern life in Oklahoma, now,
was just peachy. He didn’t have any
troubles whatsoever. And he knew, as
much as those who saw him knew, that he was destined for great things. He carried himself with importance, and acted
as though he knew all about what those great things were.
As they continued down the
Interstate, Tom got tired of trees and cars in ditches so he decided to snitch
Casey’s book and take a look at it.
Ah. This book. Tom knew this book. He liked this book. He liked to open it at random, and read the
nice things God told him in it, like “For surely I know the plans I have for
You, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a
future with hope.” Tom certainly knew he
had a future with hope. He had plenty of
hope. He cracked the book open at
random, and started reading:
“Still another angel, who had
charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who
had the sharp sickle, ‘Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes
from the earth's vine, because its grapes are ripe.’ The angel swung his sickle
on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of
God’s wrath.”
Tom smiled a half-smile. Sometimes even God had reasons to be
angry. But Tom knew God was good. God was love.
God was love, and Tom was bored.
“Ma.”
“Yeah, Tom.”
“Are we going to stop soon?”
“Why, Tom?”
“It’s late.”
“Not that late.”
“Pa might fall asleep at the wheel.
You know, it’s so dark and all.”
“Pa never falls asleep at the
wheel.”
“Al and Rosie are bored.”
“Al and Rosie are falling
asleep.”
“They shouldn’t have to fall
asleep in a car. They’ll get a
neck-ache.”
“They always sleep in the car.”
Tom sat back with a sigh. He looked at a couple more trees. He was sick of trees. He focused on the telephone poles instead. Telephone
pole telephone pole telephone pole.
Telephone pole. Oh look, another telephone pole. And another. Fancy
that.
“Ma.”
“Yeah Tom.”
“I got a butt-cramp.”
“What’s the matter?”
“From sitting. My butt hurts.”
“You wanna stop and stretch?”
“Can we… stop and sleep?”
“Maybe in a bit.”
“Okay.”
Telephone pole. Wire. Telephone pole. Get me out of here. This road is
too long. Rumble strip. Hey Pa, don’t go on the rumble strip. Hey, Pa’s falling
asleep at the wheel. I knew it!
“Ma, look. Pa’s eyes are closing.”
“Pa, wake up!”
“Mm?”
“You’re driving my children.
That’s a huge responsibility. You know, I don’t always let you take
responsibility with my children, but today I’ve let you drive them, and if they
never wake up, it’s your fault.”
“Mm, that’s my drama queen.”
Tom sighed, twice. Then he sighed. (Make that three times.) What was wrong with him? He couldn’t remember
ever being so restless in a car before.
He cracked open the Bible again. Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.
Okay cool. Telephone pole.
Tom’s eyes started to drift. Oh good. Maybe I’ll sleep. Then I get to
trade in my boredom for a sore neck, to add to my sore bum. I think that’s
worth it.
Tom fell asleep.
Tom was destined for great
things.
Tom was a great man.
God was love.
Pa was asleep at the wheel.
It wasn’t the rumble strip that
woke Tom up, it was the blare of a horn.
Tom opened his eyes, heard Rosie-Sharon scream, saw some bright lights
in a place he didn’t think they were supposed to be, and thought, God is with us. Hey watchit, we’re heading
straight for that… telephone pole.
Telephone poles had played an
important part in Tom’s life these past twenty minutes. They also played an important part in Tom’s
death.
Like a sickle on grape vines was
the telephone pole on the Volkswagen van.
Not a wrathful sickle though. Not the hand of hate, but the hand of
Fate. Tom… he was destined for great
things.
Greater things than you even
know.
Aedan the Spy
“You can’t escape!” they shouted,
running after him, waving their weapons.
But Aedan knew he could.
“That way! Block all the exits!
Stop him! Don’t let him get away!”
Aedan had precious information
from the rebels they wanted to know, but he had more important information from
them to bring to the rebels.
“Stop that man! He knows our plans!”
Aedan knew them, alright. And
soon, the rebels would know them too.
Aedan grabbed hold of the rope and began to climb, pulling the end of
the rope up with him.
“Your last success in this war
was when you captured Aedan the spy. Now
get used to the taste if failure as he–”
Aedan stopped. Way below him, fluttering to the ground, was
a small piece of paper.
“No,” he whispered. He held the rope tightly, but suddenly felt
very weak and tired. He was just one
man. He could not expect to be the hero
of the story. They had him; the rebels
would lose. The men swarmed in as he
dangled there, staring blankly down at that one piece of paper. Their leader grinned as he picked it up.
“No!” Aedan cried, gripping
tighter. Leave it, he told himself. Run now!
You still have time at least to warn them, tell them their plans, tell
them they now know their whereabouts, rather than dying here and leaving them
to find out on their own…
But Aedan could not move a
muscle. He had sworn on his life that he
would not lose that map.
GO! his mind screamed. But his eyes never moved from the map in the
enemy’s hands. He was so occupied with
watching the horrible sight below, and so stunned by the orders he was hearing,
orders to assemble troops and attack the rebels’ hideout immediately, that he
did not notice the arrow until it had already buried itself deep into his
flesh.
With a cry of pain and regret,
Aedan the spy fell to the cement below.
“Ah, our little hero,” said the
leader, but Aedan did not hear him. He
was listening in his mind to the cries of his people being attacked, taken
unaware, and slaughtered… and then – nothing.
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