My Little Birds

I don't know why the little birds came to me. I don't know what sort of confused, angry, teenage-like higher power would send such a thing to my doorstep. I am beyond asking such questions. Questions such as that are for people who cannot handle the twists, turns, and vagaries of life. I used to be one of them, a man of thoughts and questions. Now I am a man of goals and actions. I have one goal that supersedes all others: I am going to kill those damn birds.

I woke up that Thursday morning with a queasy stomach and the ghost of a headache. It had to be the scotch whiskey. I didn't really like it all that much, but my boss liked it... a lot. So, when he asked to come over for drinks to discuss the project he wanted me to lead, what could I say? I went to the place I normally bought our wine and asked for a good scotch.

I got the lead on the job, and my boss gave me the day off to "let my creative juices ruminate." He could be like that. If he liked you, he liked you. God help you if you got on his bad side, though. He could be a class-A son of a bitch when he wanted. So, because my boss liked me I was home by myself on a Thursday morning with a low-grade hangover. My wife had left for work, so our cat, Bob, and I had the house to ourselves.

My wife and I tended to speak in terms of we and us when it came to experiences that affected both of us. For instance, I called her last night when she worked late and told her "we" got the promotion. I was excited to tell her because she worked so much the past couple months. Late nights and early mornings were the norm. Sometimes it felt like just me and Bob lived here.

My wife and I were close--so close that people sometimes made fun of us. I guess it could be a tad unhealthy the way we pluralized everything, but it helped us to stay connected. It started when we found out she was pregnant 3 years ago. "We're pregnant," we would say to each other with bliss. We tried for years: fertility clinics, herbal remedies, nothing seemed too far-fetched. Then a treatment took, and my loving wife looked at me and said, "I'm not pregnant. We are."

Two months later we had a miscarriage. The we thing stuck. If she felt ill we had the flu. When I got my new job, we made it into a big ad firm. When she graduated college with her degree in architecture, we graduated, and so on.

That's why it felt so strange to wake up in bed with a three-quarters empty bottle of scotch on my nightstand. Bob followed me out of the bedroom, and meowed for his breakfast. "Why didn't your mom feed you before she left for work, buddy?" I asked. Bob wound between my ankles and purred in answer. "Okay, okay. Let me get the paper and I'll make us some breakfast." My stomach performed a backwards summersault at the thought of food. I needed to get something in me though, maybe coffee and toast.

I shuffled to the front door and glanced at the clock. "Man, 9:30 in the morning? No wonder you're hungry." I chuckled to myself. Drinking and sleeping late: it reminded me of my college days.

Bob continued to wind through my ankles and beg for food. I nearly took a tumble. Between Bob and the scotch last night, my balance felt out of whack. I opened the front door after I tightened my robe around me. No need to shock the neighbors. The sun shined brightly, but the cement stairs were damp and the air smelled of rain. Droplets of water pooled on the plastic cover of the newspaper.

As I reached down to pick it up a small bird landed next to it. I pulled back, surprised. The birds in the neighborhood were certainly accustomed to people, but I didn't think they would be this bold. Thinking it might be sick, I leaned down to get a closer look.

It looked sparrowish in color and size, but it wasn't a sparrow. It looked like someone's imperfect memory of a sparrow. 'Maybe some sort of cousin to a sparrow?' I wondered. When it turned its head, I gasped. It had a tiny, unlit cigarette in its beak. It turned its head again, and I laughed. It was only a small, white tuft of feathers that gave the illusion of a cigarette.

Bob continued to wind his way through my ankles, and didn't give the little bird a second glance. He remained too focused on his breakfast to be distracted. I watched the bird for a moment. It hopped happily around the paper with an occasional spastic flutter of wings. It chirped several times, which sounded more like an abbreviated twitter than an actual chirp, and then stopped and stared at me. Its eyes held an intelligence far too superior for such a small animal. They held a knowledgeable glint in them that made me shiver.

I grabbed my paper, shook off the droplets, and backed inside. The little bird looked like it wanted to follow me, so I shut the door quickly. I smiled to myself. What a strange bird. I shuffled into the kitchen and shook the paper out of its plastic sleeve. The blinking light on the phone caught my eye: a message.

I puttered around the kitchen, filled the coffee pot, and set out breakfast for Bob. "You know Bob, there was a juicy bird not two feet away from you, and you ignored it. You're losing your edge. Getting soft, old man." I said and scratched his back. He purred and settled into his breakfast. I made myself a cup of coffee, and decided I should listen to the message on the phone. It might be the boss wanted me to come in after all.

The machine beeped and an unfamiliar female voice, stiff with professional caring, announced herself as the appointment nurse for the oncology department. "I'm just calling to confirm a follow-up visit for Monday. Please call this office..." The office number faded into a vague ringing sound that filled my head. Oncology. Dear god in heaven above, my wife had cancer. The big "C."

The answering machine beeped and I sat down heavily at the kitchen counter. The stool threatened to slip from beneath me, but I managed to grab the counter before I fell over. I set my coffee cup down so I wouldn't spill it. How could my wife have cancer?

A rap at the kitchen window drew my attention. The small bird stood there and tapped his sharp little beak against the glass. He twisted his head so he could stare at me with one ebony eye. Once again, I could see that little tuft of feathers that looked like a miniature, unlit cigarette. It seemed like that stupid bird smiled at me. How could it smile? I felt tears burn at the backs of my eyes and the little bird jumped up and down and tapped at the glass. The little bastard mocked my grief.

My headache worsened. It felt like a band of metal had encompassed my skull and squeezed. I knew what would help: a bit of the hair off the dog that bit me. I poured out half of the coffee in my mug and replaced it with what was left of the bottle of scotch in the bedroom. When I walked back into the kitchen, the little sparrow-like bird stood at the window. It hopped up and down again, this time it made that odd twittery chirp.

I felt an irrational surge of anger. That stupid bird. It seemed so happy to witness my misery. The little bastard. I opened the window to swat at it and scare it away. Hell, if it didn't move I would grab the damned thing with my bare hands and crush the life out of it.

The little bird fluttered through the open window into the house. That I did not expect. It acted like it belonged in the house; like it had lived indoors all of its life. I thought 'Good, Bob will eat you. I'll let him, too. I'll even let him eat you in the house and I'll smile when I hear the crunch of your bones.'

Bob, who busied himself cleaning the breakfast off his paws and face, paid no attention to the small, feathered intruder. In fact, Bob turned with his tail held high and walked out of the kitchen. Shocked, I watched as the little bird fluttered to the kitchen table. It landed next to a cream colored envelope that sat next to a rose the color of raw meat. The rose had seen better days, and in fact looked dry and dusty. My name was scrawled across the front of the envelope in my wife's writing.

When we were first married, we would leave notes and flowers for one another. The color of the flowers became symbolic. White for a love note, yellow for romance, blue for thinking of you. Red signaled the end of a disagreement; a declaration of peace. These could only be roses. The others could be any kind of flowers, but red had to be roses with their thorns sheared off. When I asked my beautiful wife why red roses without thorns? She said, "The red shows the heart-ache, and the thorns removed shows the fight is over."

I stood frozen for a full minute. I wracked my brain as I tried to remember what we had fought about. She had been gone at work so much lately it seemed we didn't have time to fight. Or was it that she had declared peace with the cancer? Had she given up? Did she not want to fight it? Were we not going to fight it?

I felt the fear grip me like a vise. It compressed my lungs and drove the air from them. It squeezed the blood from my heart and left me light-headed. I brought my coffee cup to my lips and drained it in three large gulps. The coffee mellowed the scotch in my throat, but it blossomed like a fireball in my stomach. I gasped and dragged in a ragged breath as the booze steadied my nerves.

Nine steps and I stood at the table. The envelope was like the ones we used to send out invitations for our wedding. My wife, always a romantic, kept a box of them for special occasions. With a hand that shook, I picked up the envelope and pulled out the heavy, vellum paper inside. "I'm sorry. I will always love you no matter what. Stay strong."

The little bird danced, twittered, and hopped around in a semi-frantic state and then darted out the open window. I needed to find my wife. Where would she go, though? Her mother and father were both dead, and her only sister lived in Indiana. Where would she go? I sat down and cried for what felt like hours but was only minutes by the clock.

I needed to think. That damned headache started to creep back again. It had gone away, for a little while at least, when I drank. I didn't want to look like a lush when I found my beloved wife, but I needed to get rid of the damned headache so I could think. Just another sip or two to loosen the band that encircled my head.

The bottle of scotch had two fingers left in it. I didn't bother with a glass. I upended it and drained the rest. A slow burn down my throat into my gut, and I felt better. The cobwebs of grief cleared, and the pain went away.

"Kate's house."

The sound of my voice made me jump. It sounded clogged and phlegmy from tears. I coughed and spat in the garbage. Kate was my wife's closest friend. Of course she would go to her. The two were as close as sisters. I dialed my wife's phone. It rang until it went to voicemail, just like I thought it would. "Honey, I understand what you're going through. What we're going through. I won't let you do this alone though. Sweetheart, I know you're at Kate's house. I'm coming to get you to bring you home. We'll do this together. I promise."

I hung up and a fit of crying caught me by surprise. I lurched to the sink, my intent to get a drink of water, and dropped my phone into a pan in the sink. Rage, blinding in its intensity, overwhelmed me and I swept the cups, dishes, and bowls from the kitchen counter to the floor with a guttural roar. The anger seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. Never in my life had I been so consumed with such emotion. I hated everyone and everything. If Bob happened to be in the room, I would have torn him apart. If my lovely wife, my rock, my best friend, was in the same house as me at that point, I would have snapped her arms like twigs and strangled the very life from her body.

I picked up the toaster and smashed it onto the counter until it was pieces and my hands were sore. I grabbed the food processor from the counter and swung it by the wall cord onto the floor like it an ancient weapon of mayhem. All the while a mad keening of grief and rage bellowed from my mouth. It sounded nothing like my voice. The alien sound frightened me. Still the anger was there; the rage fogged my thoughts.

Until the little bird flitted onto the windowsill again.

The white-hot anger drained out of me like water out of a spigot. Just as fast as I felt it, it disappeared. The cold, utter despair of the damned replaced it. What happened to me? What was wrong with me? Never in my life had I lost my temper like that. I always considered myself mild mannered.

I ignored the mess and I rushed to the bedroom where I could get dressed. I had to get out of the house. I had to find my wife, so she could help me understand all of this. Together we could fix all of this.

I glimpsed the reflection of myself in the full-length mirror hung on the closet door. The poor slob that stared back at me wasn't how I remembered myself. My brown hair looked disheveled from sleep and stuck up in tufts at odd angles. My clothes hung off of me like I had lost too much weight, my face was covered in two days' worth of beard, and my skin had the pallor of spoiled cream. My eyes disturbed me the most. Normally a lighter shade of brown than my hair, they were dark, almost black, and so bloodshot it looked like I would cry tears of blood. A sheen of madness sparkled in them.

The mirror reflected the window over my left shoulder. I detected movement in it and swallowed the scream in my throat. Two birds fluttered on the windowsill. I knew if I investigated, they would look alike. They would both have tiny unlit cigarettes dangling from their beaks. I could hear them talk to each other with their odd, twittering chirp. They enjoyed this. Those little birds, MY LITTLE BIRDS, enjoyed my agony.

A white-hot pain drove me to my knees. I cried out in agony and tried to hold my aching head together with my hands. If I didn't, it would split and my little birds would fly out. A rushing sound filled my ears, as if I stood in a wind tunnel, and drowned out everything except the birds. I heard them. God help me, I heard them.

The pain in my head subsided, and then disappeared. I breathed hard as I got up on one knee and looked out the window behind me. A third little bird joined the other two. I had to get out of the house. My wife would help me. With her by my side, we could figure this out. We could do anything together.

I sprinted down the hallway, through the kitchen and out the door into the attached garage. Just like I thought, her car was gone. Of course it was, she was over at Kate's. She would have driven over there, maybe taken some clothes to stay for a few days. It explained why her closet seemed so empty.

Behind me, I heard that strange twittery chirp. It sounded like it came from inside the house. How the hell did one of them get in the house? The window in the kitchen. I left it open. At my feet, Bob oiled his way into the garage. He wasn't allowed in here, but I didn't have time to grab him and put him back in the house.

I heard the strange chirp again. This time it sounded closer. I looked up and saw one of the birds as it flew towards me from inside the house. I screamed and slammed the door, terrified. I had to get out of there, now.

I fumbled and slapped at the button to raise the garage door. I opened the passenger side of my car because I didn't want to leave myself exposed as I ran around. I slid in, slammed the door, and scrambled across the seat into the driver side. I jammed the keys into the ignition as the garage door opened just enough for me to get the car out. I raced the engine, slammed the car into reverse, and shot backwards.

Several things happened when I did this. First, I noticed one of the little birds in my car. It sat on the headrest of the rear seat. Then the headache came back with a shocking intensity. The pain left me blinded in my left eye. Finally, as I jammed the accelerator to the floor, I clipped the corner of the garage and felt a small bump beneath a wheel.

When I clipped the garage, the force slewed the car to the side. It was just enough to turn me so the car shot off the edge of the driveway and slammed into the hundred-year-old oak tree that straddled the property line. I slammed into it trunk first. When I stopped, the front of the car pointed in the general direction of the house.

The headache subsided. I could hear the engine as it screamed and I moved my foot from the gas. With a hand that shook, I shut the engine off. There was a dull ache in my forehead and I touched it gingerly with my right hand. My fingers came away slick with blood. I looked at my reflection in the rearview mirror, thankful I didn't see a little bird, and saw a bloody welt on my forehead. The steering wheel was dented where my head hit.

I sat there, stunned, and listened to the turn signal blink. Something tugged at the back of my mind; like I had forgotten something important. I tried to think, but my concentration evaporated when I saw Bob in front of the garage. He lay on his side with his bubblegum colored tongue stuck out of his mouth. The middle of his body was crushed where the wheel had gone over him--Bob, our faithful, loving cat.

That sense I needed to remember something came back stronger than ever. Tears blurred my vision and I blinked them away. When I cleared my eyes and looked at Bob's body again, he was surrounded by my little birds. They danced around Bob in a celebration that mocked my grief.

I could sense the rage I first felt in the kitchen return. I gripped the bent steering wheel and decided I had to kill those damned birds. The keys jangled discordantly as my fingertips brushed against them. I could get the car started, put it into gear, and have the bulk of those feathered bastards smashed against my grill before they could escape.

I was just about to turn the key, my eyes locked on my little birds, when the car door opened with a scream of bent metal. Our neighbor looked in at me. He looked flushed from exertion. Beads of sweat stood out on his face. "Jesus, buddy! Are you okay?"

I looked at him, confused as to why he would be here. "Oh my god, man." He said as he waved a hand in front of his face. "You smell like a bar. C'mon, let's get you over to my place. The last thing you need right now is for the cops to come over here and get involved. You've got enough on your plate without those bastards harassing you."

"I know." I said as he helped me out of the car. I felt nauseous and weak, but I couldn't take my eyes off those damn birds. "Once I talk to my wife we'll be better."

"Oh Christ," he moaned. "C'mon, let's get you to my place. We can take care of the car in a little while. Oh man, you hit your cat, too."

An idea formed out of the smoke that clouded my mind as he helped me across the lawn. "Say, you hunt, don't you?"

A short time later, I stood in our neighbor's backyard. I had a shotgun clamped firmly in my hands and I felt much better. The neighbor had a bottle of Canadian whiskey he let me have. Just enough to steady myself, I assured him. My memory felt spotty since the crash. I probably suffered from a concussion. You weren't supposed to drink with a head injury, but it helped to clear things nicely.

Blood had splattered all over the front of my shirt. I knew head wounds bled a great deal, but this just looked bad. I smirked to myself. I stood in a backyard with a shotgun in my hands and a blood stained shirt on. I had to be quite the sight to behold.

I worked the action on the shotgun and inserted another shell into the magazine tube. I shot targets and hunted birds in my younger years. This felt right. I was finally going to get rid of those annoying, little, bastards.

A six-foot privacy fence separated our yards. I opened the side gate and marched over to my property. It didn't surprise me to see two of my little birds hopping daintily next to the drain spout. 'Might as well start with these two.' I thought to myself and bared my teeth. I brought the shotgun up and leveled it. I put the small, brass sight bead directly on one of the birds. I pulled the trigger; the blast deafened me.

It kicked more than I remembered, but I still smiled. The smile morphed into a snarl as I realized I'd missed. The bottom six inches of the rainspout was a wrecked twist with a gaping hole in it. The two birds flew around the corner without any apparent wounds to hinder them. I missed them. Good thing I had stuffed my pockets full of shells.

The smell of the gunshot hung heavy in the damp air as I ejected the empty shell and stuffed another in the magazine. I felt laughter bubble inside my chest. I just knew I had these little bastards, and I marched after them with a grin so big I could feel it stretch my face taut.

I rounded the corner of my house and stopped. A small tree, filled with hundreds of my little birds, stood in the corner of my yard. Their twittery chirps filled the air as I stood, awestruck. Then the laughter hit me. It didn't burble or even guffaw; it came out in a torrent. I laughed so hard and so long that my throat felt raw and my chest ached. My laughter didn't disturb the birds one bit. Good, I didn't want to miss a single one this time.

I brought the shotgun up, pointed it at the tree, closed my eyes, and unleashed all five shots as fast as I could work the action. My ears rang, and my shoulder hurt. I opened my eyes and screamed. I had missed every goddamn bird. How could I miss those little birds in ones, twos, and threes?

The pain in my head grew worse as I racked a shell into the chamber. I closed my eyes, dropped to my knees, and vomited onto the grass. I convulsively jerked the trigger and blasted a hole in the side of the house. Oh god, my wife would be upset. When I explained everything, she would understand though. She always understood.

From far off I heard the whine of sirens.

When I opened my eyes, the pain receded from my head. A forgotten memory nagged me again. I looked back towards the tree so I could have a second try at killing my little birds and jerked to a halt.

There was no tree.

There was no tree, no stump, no place where the tree could have been. Then I realized there never was a tree. We talked about planting a tree when the baby was born, but we had the miscarriage. Where were the birds then?

It was like a floodgate opened. The realizations hit me like hail in a summer storm. They drove me to my knees. I dropped the shotgun in front of me and wailed with all my might. I clasped my hands over my ears to block out the sounds of the approaching sirens, then tore chunks of hair from my head when I could still hear them.

Memories flooded me. Real memories. I was on a medical leave of absence from work. My former boss had stopped at my house to see how I felt. He worried about me, because I was the one who had cancer, not my wife. Brain cancer.

The rose came from the last fight we had two weeks before. It was the last fight we had because she died the same morning she wrote the note and left the flower, killed in an accident at the construction site she worked at.

Dear god, I killed our neighbor. Our friend. The memory felt vague. He tried to stop me from taking his gun and I shot him. I told him about the little birds, and he offered me a drink to calm me down. When he came back in the room he found me with his shotgun. He tried to take it from me and it went off...

Did that mean the birds weren't real?

I rose to my feet, bent down and grabbed the shotgun, and walked to the front of the house. I needed help. The pain in my head started again as the tires squealed and announced the arrival of the police. I could see their lights reflected off the fence that separated my property from the neighbor's. A slew of my little birds jumped and hopped next to the cement of the driveway. I grinned. Good, they were real. The police could help me deal with these little bastards. One of the birds turned his head so it looked like a miniature cigarette was stuck in its beak.

I turned the comer with the shotgun clutched in my hands. "Shoot it! Shoot the son of a bitch! Kill it!! I can't seem to hit them. You try. Please." I screamed at the trio of officers as they pulled their weapons and moved behind vehicles.

"Down!"

"Drop the gun!!"

"Drop the weapon!"

I looked up, bemused. Why wouldn't they help me? The pain increased in my head and I hissed. "Shoot the goddamn bird! I can't hurt them, but maybe you can..." I trailed off as I looked at them. They continued to scream at me to drop my weapon, but I ignored them. My wife stood just behind them, surrounded by dozens of my little birds. They swirled around her and twittered their strange chirps. I knew if they landed on her, they would hurt her, and then take her away from me again. Just like the accident had...

"For god's sake!! Help her!! My little birds will take her away!!" I screamed. I had to save my wife. I didn't the first time, I would now. When no one moved, I brought the shotgun up.

An elderly woman tsk'd quietly. News vans parked just ahead of her and her friend blocked the route they walked daily. "They're just like vultures. They smell blood and they arrive in flocks. Did you hear what happened?"

Her younger friend's gray hair bobbed as she nodded in agreement. "The poor man. My daughter's co-worker lives next door. She told my daughter he was the one who lost his wife in that strange accident. Then, come to find out he's got the cancer."

The older woman tsk'd again as if to say 'What is this world coming to?' She glanced furtively up and down the street to make sure none of the crowd of onlookers stood close enough to hear her. "My grandson, who is friends with the neighbor's son on the other side of the one he killed, said the man was yelling about birds, and making some strange whistling sound before the police killed him. There were no birds, though. He was seeing things. I remember on the Dr. Andrew show, they said people with brain tumors can experience mood swings, see things, and act strange."

The younger woman nodded in agreement. "I heard the same thing from somewhere. Still, birds?"

The older woman gasped and stopped. Her hand went over her heart and she laughed. When her younger friend quirked an eyebrow at her, the older woman shook her head. "I must be seeing things, too. I could have sworn I just saw a sparrow with a tiny cigarette in its beak. How strange..."

THE END

Bio: Mr. Altenhofen is a member of the Stillwater Writer's Collective. He currently lives in a gated community in Bayport, Minnesota.

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