For the Birds

Maybe I should not have come alone Henry thought as he crested the steep rockface. This section of the trail was the most dangerous with the price of a mistaken step being a fall of a few hundred feet. Practiced, with the luck of inherent talent, Henry assumed this “advanced” five-mile trail he found online would be nice change from the normal rock climbing he enjoyed.

After the year he had experienced, lockdowns and unemployment still shaking the faith he had in the universe as a whole, nature held a more sacred meaning in Henry’s mind. Being one with the rock, out in open space and gripping the stone like a gecko, there was no room for second guessing.

If you don’t trust yourself, then don’t climb, were his brother's words bouncing around in his head, spoken a lifetime ago and a happier place, while Henry stood on a narrow plateau a mile away from the mountain lake that was his destination. The thin air was beginning to affect him. The hangover was still affecting him. He sat on a tree shaded rock overlooking the valley below.

“Why did I say that?” he asked the void before him. He had closed his eyes. The memory of the previous night flashing back unabated when his brother had called him. When they had fought.

Things were rocky between them for a while, but a mix of the alcohol, stress from the week, and something his brother Alex had said finally caused the line holding them together to finally break.

“I don’t even remember what he said,” Henry spoke to the void. On the mountain, either hiking or perilously hanging from a fingertips width of rock, Henry would speak to no one in particular. If he was hiking or climbing with friends, they would sometime overhear a few of the words uttered. “What’d you say?” would be a common phrase retorted in those moments, though he would often shrug it off or dismiss it.

To him, he was just speaking for the birds to hear.

“I didn’t know!” he screamed loud enough for all the birds in the whole valley to hear. “I didn’t know,” he said again, becoming a small chant as he let his head fall into his hands. His whispers now seem to fill only the small valley within himself where his heart had been broken.

“What?” Henry heard. He was by himself, no other hikers on the mountain that day as the weather was supposed to turn. He heard this voice, asking a simple question, and looked around.

“What did you not know?” the voice asked again.

From above. The voice came from above, and Henry looked up into the tree, the only place the voice could have come from. There, in the dimming light of storm clouds moving into the valley, two eyes looked back down to him.

“What..?” Henry began to ask, as the questions in his own head overpowered his ability to comprehend who, or rather what, spoke above him.

“Quickly, there is a storm coming and you mustn’t stay here.” The two round eyes, yellow green eyes seemed to say to him. “What did you not know?”

Without understanding why, he seemed to accept this reality now, Henry composed himself enough to answer. “I didn’t know that I wouldn’t talk to my brother Alex again.”

The eyes slowly blinked slowly, one at a time. “Why do you say this?” The voice asked.

“Because he died this morning, and I’ll never be able to hell him I’m sorry.”

Saying it aloud, making it as real as the earth below his feet, burdened Henry instantly. His view of the eyes in the tree blurred, and he looked away.

“I can let Alex know for you,” the voice said. Henry’s breath caught in his throat, freezing his entire body. I never said his name.

“You’ve been speaking to us for a long time,” the voice attached to the eyes said. Henry looked up to them again, but this time could tell there was pain and understanding accompanying the voice. “You acknowledged us without ever realizing it, just like you’re finally voicing what is on your heart.”

Henry sat, bewildered by what he was hearing. Who have I been talking to? The storm finished engulfing the valley then, further darkening the tree and contrasting the eyes peering down.

“Leave now, and I will send your message to Alex,” the voice said again. “Leave so you can speak just for the birds on another day.” The eyes closed, leaving a darkness fully engulfing.

Henry stood in time to see lightening at the far end of the valley. Taking a step to begin his hike back down off the mountain, a commotion from behind stopped him. He turned in time to see a Great Horned Owl take flight from the lone tree he was sitting under not long ago.

He watched, knowing his words would find his brother, and that he would be back again to speak for the birds.