The Birds of My Land
Carl Fenti
Black ate all view. It was the night of no moon, no life, no
hope. I sat on a crag and tried to stare through the void. All I
could see were memories. I had sat here the day before watching a
little blue bird with a broken wing flutter around. In the dying gold
sunset it had hopped about and tried to lift its wing and soar away.
But the broken wing had only stuck in a bloody blue mess to its
breast. In its effort it had bumped its bloody wing into my foot and
fallen to the ground. Giving up it had rested beside my feet. The
blue body scrunched downward to sit on dusty feet and one foot lifted
in between the dusty feathers. Its head tucked down into its breast,
one eye closed and the other stayed open to watch for danger. It
puffed up its feathers and chest and rested. I looked at the bird and
then lifted my head up into a chill wind that swept over the hilltop
and blew my hair back from my face. Without moving my head I glanced
downward and watched the wind ruffle the little bird's feathers. Its
eyes cringed and opened. It lifted its head for a second, sat up and
changed legs, then rested back down, tucked its head in, and closed
one eye again. The wind whistled through the broken crags that lay
like destroyed walls at my back. A reddish glow from the sinking sun
lit the iron-red dust that covered the jagged hilltop with a sharp
fire.
I got up and walked across to the willow tree on the other side of
the hilltop and rested my hand on a forked branch. Wasted iron-red
land sloped downward in gullies of dust to the black river that lay
at the bottom. The wind snapped the dead, drooping, shaggy leaves of
the tree into my open eyes and a stinging fogged my vision and
penetrated my mind. I jabbed my fingers into my eyes and rubbed them.
But they only grew swollen and dusty, and tears streaked down my
cheeks. I looked at the red mark on my shoe through a blurry haze.
Blood violated my shoe. Blood. My stomach contracted and turned as I
looked down. I kicked red dirt over it with my other foot to rub away
the stain, and I lowered my head to inspect my shoe, and teardrops
splattered the dust on the ground.
I looked back toward the bird that rested by the crag I had been
sitting on. In its sleep it appeared to be oblivious to everything. I
looked up again at the majestic orange-red death of the sunset and
sat down at the base of the tree. I huddled against my legs and
rested my head on my knees and looked at the wasted land and
remembered the farm we used to have. I sank deep into intoxicating
memories of my grandfather and Sqwuartz, my pet pig. We had had such
a good, easy life. Nothing good remained in this land anymore. A
distressed squawk from behind me tore my head back toward the bird. A
vulture had landed unheard on the crag above the bird and had started
lashing out at it with its beak. As the little blue bird had started
hopping away, the vulture let out a deep squawk and jumped after the
bird. The little bird had screeched shrilly in terror and had tried
to fly away. It fluttered one wing and jumped about and ran around in
tilted circles but couldn't get off the ground. The vulture raised
its wings, squawked again, and waddled after the bird. It grasped the
little bird in its beak, raised it up, and smashed the life out of it
as it screeched one last time. Even the vultures had become maligned
and ravenous enough to kill. I watched as the little bird's wings and
head snapped off and dropped. The vulture let the body drop and then
picked at it with its sharp beak until only bones and bloody feathers
were left. It poked at the little horny feet and the red little head
also. Then as it looked up, it saw me and squawked.
The stupid bird attacked me then. I watched it approach with pity
in my heart. Then grabbing the blade from its sheath at my waist, I
skewered the ugly bird through its stomach. It screeched, and I
watched the bird die on my blade. The poor vulture was emaciated. It
probably hadn't eaten anything but little birds for weeks. Only
insects and little creatures had survived the land. I stood up and
threw the vulture down the hillside and wiped my blade clean in the
dirt. Then I slowly walked over to the remains of the little blue
bird and kicked them off the hilltop and kicked some dirt over the
blood. I looked up and watched the sun pass completely over the
horizon and went back to the crag and sat down.
In disgust I remembered all of this as I jabbed my fingers into
eyes that still stung because of the willow and watched diseased red
spots dance in front of me. It was still pitch black and I could see
nothing.
Copyright 1987 by Carl Fenti. Unauthorized duplication,
posting, or publication is strictly prohibited.
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