Listen to the Birds

I’m six and I’m running through the meadow with my mom. We are playing. I trip and fall and my mother bends down to tickle me. I giggle and plead for mercy. She stops and lays back in the tall grass. I shuffle my body over so my head is next to hers. We look up, trace the white clouds in the blue sky with our fingertips.

“Listen to the birds. They sing of secrets,” she tells me. “The birds know things we don’t. They see things coming before we do.

Change is coming.”

The sky turns red

and the birds get louder and their songs turn bitter and they screech like

foreign creatures

until they don’t make any noise at all.

My mom turns to me, wide-eyed.

“I am sorry,” she says.

And then

she is gone.

I stand up,

I yell,

call out for her, scream into the air, spitting with anger.

My heart is beating faster, faster, faster, until-

I am awake.

I sit up, working through the dream, adjusting to waking life. It takes a few minutes to fully process the sounds of the outside world. The incessant hum of helicopters looking for the infected. The roar of Promise trucks driving into town with supplies. The high-pitched moans coming from the meadow that could just as easily be from a cow or a human. I can’t tell which, and it sends a chill up my spine. I remind myself that it doesn’t matter- I don’t walk that way.

I check my heartbeat. 95. I can feel my body wanting to fight. Wanting to run out into the yard and scream. Wanting to take all the pain of the world away and stop the clatter and the smoke and bring back the birds.

They saw it coming. We didn’t.

I search my neck, find the locket with my hand and rub my thumb back and forth other the back of the heart, where the gold plating rubbed off years ago. My heart rate is still too high.

I pull the blanket away from my body, cross my legs, close my eyes, and do my breathing exercises. In slowly- count to ten- out slowly- count to ten. Ten times. I check my heart rate. 78. Not base rate, but acceptable.

The trucks outside get louder.

Closer.

Shit. It’s Thursday. Have to go.

I pull myself out of bed. Force myself to dress in market clothes. I would prefer to dress in house clothes and stay in. After a nightmare I like to be alone. But I’m out of bread and milk and eggs so unless I want to wait another week, I have to do brave the crowd.

An apple and a handful of nuts and I am out the door with my satchel and a little more energy to face the world. Though no one should have to face this world. I remember being a kid and riding bikes around with my parents, with other kids, in the summer. I loved summer. Couldn’t wait for it to come. Now it’s always summer and I have no bike. A drop of sweat runs down my face. I taste salt and it reminds me of French fries. I’d give my locket for one more fry…

As soon as I think it, I know it’s not true. I would not give my locket for anything less than a miracle. When my mother gave it to me, she said, “I want to make sure that no matter what happens, you always have a piece of me.” That was ten years ago. The last time I saw her was three years later.

I was 15 when they took her. I watched, helpless, as she stood outside in our yard and screamed into the air, red faced and spitting.

A year before, when the Wars ended, and things quieted down, my mom had noticed something she didn’t like. The birds were no longer singing. In fact, the birds were nowhere to be seen. My mother always loved to lie in the grass and listen to them. It brought her peace. She said she trusted the bird because they always tried to warn us. We just didn’t listen.

“Listen to the birds,” she always told me. Now there were no birds to listen to and instead, I was listening to her yell:

“ARE YOU HAPPY?! YOU’VE KILLED THEM ALL!”

The drifters watched but none of them bothered to tell the authorities because the helicopters were already there. Men in black slid down their ropes and cuffed and tagged mom so quickly- big bright red tag with big black letters “INFECTED.” She didn’t have a chance.

I was alone, then. No one left to take care of me. At least I had the house. A small, stand-alone house near the outside of town on a very small piece of land. All of a sudden, it was mine to manage.

I used to be mad at her for giving in so easily. For letting the Emotion overtake her and leaving me all alone. As I got older, I felt sad more than anything else. I miss my mom. I miss the birds.

***

The market is crowded as always. The trucks are parked in the same spots as always. The men in black stand on guard as usual. But I can’t help feeling that something is different today. There is a commotion by the bread truck. Not the normal bustle, but something wrong.

It’s hard to see over the crowd. I ask one of the others what’s happening.

“They caught a Lost Cause trying to steal a loaf of bread.”

“A Lost Cause? Are you sure it’s not just a drifter?

“No. Drifters know better. Plus, look at him. No shoes.”

He’s right. Drifters have no home, but they have things. In the eyes of the Authorities, they’ve done nothing wrong, so they are provided basics- food, water, clothing, some type of “shelter.”

Lost Causes have nothing. These are the people that the Authorities given up on; left to fend for themselves in the wild. They are not infected, but they didn’t play by the rules. LC’s are confined to areas outside of cities and towns. Here, they live beyond the meadows.

I’ve never seen a Lost Cause. Only been told they are defiant, violent, filthy monsters. That their cries sound like animals. That they don’t know how to exist in normal society.

I look at the man in front of me and I can’t help thinking he could be my father. Same height, same shaggy brown hair, same look of despair on his face. He doesn’t look like a monster. He looks like a dad. His cries sound like a dad’s. I feel the urge to yell. To run at the guard and hit him. To scream at him to leave this man alone. I feel tears in my eyes.

I scare myself.

Before anyone can notice, I look away.

Shit. Get it together. Breathe.

It’s not like we can’t cry. We’re allowed to feel things. We are human. But we can’t let the Emotion take over. That’s what happened ten years ago. It started in the cities and spread out into the towns. People were infected with Intense Emotions, especially Anger. People turned on each other. Tore the world apart. They would have destroyed everything, if the Authorities didn’t intervene, so they say. They got things under control and promised a better life for everyone. We had the make a promise, too- To not give into the Emotion. If we do, they take us to the Centers to fix us. Once we are fixed, we can return to life.

No one ever returns to life.

I must get it under control.

I look back towards the man and see that he is being taken to a smaller truck. The guard puts him in the backseat and off they go. LC’s are not allowed to breach the community. If they do, they are punished.

I wonder what exactly punished means.

It’s time to line up for bread but I’m nauseous. I want to leave. I want to run. To fly away. But I can’t.

I put my bread in my satchel and I turn to walk home.

***

I decide to take the long way back, along the thin sickly-looking trees that line the outer edge of town, like I always do when I need a distraction. I need to stop thinking. I need to stop feeling.

There are lots of things to look at along this path, and sometimes even things to pick up; examine. I keep a look out for anything out of the ordinary. Just a small token that somebody was here. In the past I’ve found small toys, rocks worn smooth by somebody’s hand, pieces of metal or wood that look like they were once a part of something bigger. I like collecting these things because it makes me feel connected to other people. Otherwise, the loneliness would consume me. And I can’t let that happen.

I hear something, behind one of the mostly brown bushes. This is not drifter territory. And even if it was, drifters have no reason to hide from me.

I move slowly forward, around, to where I can see through the leaves. Mixed with the greens and browns there are two small eyes.

It moves. I move.

“It’s ok,” I say. “You can come out.” Then, there she is. Just standing there. She’s about seven or eight with long brown shaggy hair and she’s covered in dirt and rags stitched together into a dress shape. She has no shoes.

She’s looking at me fiercely. She may be small and young, but there is a fire in her. She could be me.

“Hi,” I say. “Where do you come from?” She just stares at me for a second, then points over there, behind my left shoulder. “The meadow? Is that where your parents are?”

Just then, it strikes me. The man who tried to steal the bread. The man who looked like he could be a father.

“Was that your dad?” I ask. “The one they took away?” She nods. “Was he trying to get food for you?”

She shakes her head. She ducks back behind the bush and before I can say anything she’s back, holding something. A piece of cloth. Brown, worn. Bulky.

There is something under the cloth.

“What is it?” I hold my breath. Ten seconds. She lifts up the cloth.

A bird.

“Where did you… I thought they were all…” I can’t get my words out and my brain is wild and my heartrate is probably over 100 but it doesn’t matter right now. I am not calm. I will not be calm.

“Can I see?” I reach out my hand, but she steps back.

I hold out the bread. She points at my neck.

At the locket.

I shake my head.

“No, I’m sorry. I can’t…” The bird moves. Makes a small noise. It’s not a song. It’s not even a note. But it’s enough.

I give her the locket. And the bread.

She hands me the bird. She turns to leave.

“Wait.” I say. “Thank you.”

She nods. Then speaks.

“Spread the word. The birds are back.”

Then she is gone.

***

At home I wrap the bird in an old towel that was my mothers.

I hold it all night and feed it small seeds. I fall asleep holding it. That night I have a peaceful, dreamless sleep. The first time since the Wars.

I wake up to the sounds of squeaking. A few choppy notes strung together. A small song.

I cry. Hard. I let myself sob and soon the crying turns into laughing and I am laughing so loud my heart is beating fast. I don’t care. I don’t look at my heartrate. I don’t do my breathing exercises. I just let it go.

Change is coming.