God's Bird

Fiction by Jim Meirose, Spring & Summer 2013

*

Rough calloused hands gripped the birdcage and lifted it from the stand; a workman’s hands, which had spent time sheet rocking and carpentering; Kramer’s hands. The bird clung to its perch and the colors of the room swirled around it as the cage was lifted and taken to the door, and outside. Kramer crossed the threshold and the light poured down through the door and onto his sun burnt bald pate and onto the bird, which still clung to the perch washed in the colors swirling around it. But inside the cage was the same; all the same perches, toys and food and water, the newspaper cage liner, the cuttlebone; and as long as this remained stable, the bird could stand a little jostling and was happy. Sylvia, Kramer’s ex-wife, pulled up in her rust red sedan just as Kramer came onto the top step of the porch holding the cage. She got out and came up pointing toward Kramer, her pink nailed finger waving.

Oh no, you’re not taking Olivia—Olivia is mine, said Sylvia—you can have all the rest of your flea bitten crap but that bird is mine.

I bought her, snapped Kramer, coming down the creaking porch steps onto the pebbled concrete walk. She is mine and I’m taking her.

The midday light warmed the bird; she jumped from one perch to the other, stimulated. A mild breeze wrapped round her. She chirped loudly into the breeze. Her chirping made Kramer remember the hours he had spent whistling into Olivia’s cage, with Olivia edging closer and closer and finally leaping onto the side of the cage to nibble on Kramer’s hair, after he bowed his head to offer it to her; Olivia’s tiny beady eyes would move and watch him step back from the cage, and he would whistle again—and Olivia would leap from perch to perch in perfect joy. He could not give her up. He had to have her; this tiny feathered being with her pure perfect joyful mind. Small as it might be, it was still perfect; more perfect than Sylvia could ever be. As his Father had said after Kramer had brought Sylvia home for the first time; My God—she’s just a kid! Well, this was just a bird, but a special one, as Sylvia had once been special.

Get out of my way, barked Kramer at Sylvia, who blocked the walkway. He moved to go around her on the grass, but she blocked him again.

That bird is mine, she growled—that bird is mine take it back in the house.

Damn if I will! he snarled. She thought of their cat, long dead now, which would snarl and claw at you if you tried to stop it from doing something. Kramer was like that now; Kramer was snarling and clawing now. Sylvia was afraid; but she remembered standing in the pet supplies aisle in Stop and Shop going through the cuttlebones, looking for an unbroken one to bring home to Olivia. A cuttlebone was important for a bird to have, though Sylvia did not know the exact reason why. She had owned many birds and had friends who had birds and there was always a cuttlebone, but why she didn’t know. Like she had had Kramer as a husband and had friends who had husbands, but why she didn’t know; there must have been a time she thought she loved him but that was over now; this creature standing before her holding the bird cage was no longer the man she married. She looked him in the eye and lashed out again, as though he were something to be warded off and possibly, if a gun were available, shot.

I said it’s mine—so give it here, she said, pointing into his chest. This enraged Kramer.

Don’t point into my God damned chest, he said; and he didn’t want her pointing into his chest because his Father had said When they point into your chest, that’s bad; when an evil one points and yells, then they are to be truly feared. Back off, he thought; back off and go back into the house; but no; he could not give her this satisfaction. He felt a pain in his chest right then; he had these strange pains in his chest and side that he would get when he was agitated; his Father no doubt had been right. He barked at her.

Let me pass, and stop pointing into my chest like that—

I’ll point all I want—give me the bird—

She grabbed at the cage and they both had hold of it for a moment, like they were carrying it together either into or from the house. Seen at that moment, it would have seemed that either thing could be true—but she pulled away from him and he away from her. The bird in the cage flapped and leapt around at being jostled like this; the bird’s feelings were forgotten in this struggle; like a child the bird was, standing between two parents going at it cursing How dare you God damn it how dare you—and the child standing between struggles to be heard, screaming Stop stop stop—

Here let me have it—

No! Let me pass!

No—no it’s mine—

All at once the cage slipped from their hands and plunged to the sidewalk; it was the kind of birdcage that you bought and had to put together once you had it. The walls and roof and bottom all snapped together; it was a cheap birdcage and when it hit the sidewalk it went all to pieces, and the bird flapped around and struggled to get free of what was left of the cage and all at once flew away. They watched it disappear up in the distance and Kramer pointed into Sylvia’s chest this time and screamed at her.

Now look what you’ve done—Olivia is gone—

What do you mean, what I’ve done? You let go of the cage too—you clumsy oaf—

You rotten bitch.

Bastard.

And neither Kramer nor Sylvia owned the bird any more. It flew free, overjoyed at the great space all around it and the way its wings felt in full flight now, no longer caged. God owned the bird now. And Kramer and Sylvia had nothing. The collapsed birdcage lay between them, and both of them, each of them, in their own way, cried inside at the loss of the bird, each one trying hard not to let the other see their sorrow, the same way their feelings were always held off from each other. They faced each other coldly; though they stood near each other, both were completely alone locked inside themselves; each as caged as the bird had been.

*

Jim Meirose's short work has appeared in numerous literary magazines and journals, including The Fiddlehead, Alaska Quarterly Review, Witness, South Carolina review, and the Cortland review.  Two of his chapbooks have been published and his novel, "Claire", is available on Amazon.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/neil_ballantyne/5966562686/