Scarlet

SCARLET

The old man stared at his handwriting.

Jasmine, my wife.

Was scrawled in the box of October 23. She had passed exactly one year ago. Last year it was a Saturday. He recalled. The day she asked me the unthinkable

He shook his head, tossing memories about. Her kissing him softly; he holding her; their first month in Belize, excited and giddy like children as they pointed out the different plants, animals, and birds.

Help me.

Her last plea, breaking his heart then, and now again. And again. And again.

Help me.

Her voice pounding in his ear drums. He closed his eyes, made hands into fists, and attempted to squash the memory. And yet, as he hit his skull, she visually filled his mind. Her mouth stretching wide and comically, like a baby bird begging for food. But she wasn’t asking for life.

He forced his eyes open, stood up, and left his hut. He pinched himself, slapped himself, all the while singing a lullaby.

‘Hush little baby don’t say a word, momma’s gonna buy you a mocking bird.’

The only line he remembered. But he believed if he sang long enough, he would eventually stop hearing her voice. He invented new lyrics as he walked for hours in the rainforest. When he could sing no more, he reminded himself for the hundredth time that she was dead. If he was strong enough to ignore her, she couldn’t haunt him. He also reminded himself he only did what she’d ask. She couldn’t be angry at him; unless she regretted it too.

He sat on the edge of a tree trunk, lost and crying into his hands.

“Hello?” A voice. It sounded familiar. He looked up to see a scarlet macaw staring at him, a few feet away. A beautiful, rare species, but still, just a bird. Another sleepless night causing delusion.

“Hello,” the bird said again, pacing back and forth as if excited.

The old man held his breath. The first months Jasmine and he had lived in Belize they thought sure they would see such a creature. The nearest glimpse they caught was bursts of color high up in the sky.

And yet this one was right next to him, talking to him. Slowly he stretched his hand out, palm up.

“I'm Scarlet. I heard you crying. What's wrong?” She asked, unmoving.

“It’s the anniversary of my wife’s death,” he took off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose and wiped his eyes.

I am a fool, he thought, staring at her. And yet she….

“Can you understand me?” He ventured, too curious to care about the absurdity.

“Yes,” she said, “all creatures understand each other if they allow it.”

“So, I am allowing this?”

“Yes. Sometimes grief does funny things. Do you want to talk about your wife?”

“To you?”

Scarlet swiveled her head looking around, and then flew up to sit next to him.

“I don’t see anyone else here.”

He hung his head against his chest, closed his eyes and spoke.

“We were nurses, in the emergency rooms, working 14-hour shifts four days a week. We had the same rotation so got to know each other. I knew she was the one. Thankfully, she felt the same. We married and stayed at the same hospital for 20 more years. We worked, slept, made love, and worked some more, barely having time for much else.

Neither of us wanted children so we were okay with our isolated life, until we turned 50. We were exhausted, and nothing to show for it except countless stories of tragedy. We wanted something different.

We started playing Mega Millions, using the same numbers week after week for years. And then we won the jackpot. We were billionaires. We had no one to take care of and nothing to left lose. Both our parents had passed. I had no siblings and Jasmine’s sister hated me. She had quit speaking to Jasmine when we got married. Jasmine and I were each other’s best friends who could suddenly could do anything we wanted.”

“So, you moved here?” Scarlet asked. The old man jumped, looked at the bird, and laughed. He waited for her to fly off, or start squawking. But she stayed, staring at him.

“What happened?” She asked, slowly, as if truly concerned. He closed his eyes and continued.

“She starting getting migraines. She would need to be in complete darkness for a day, or two. When she could stand daylight, she was too nauseous to eat. Then she had a seizure. I took her to the hospital, worried but convinced it couldn’t be serious. She was healthy. After several tests followed by a CT scan, the doctor told us she had a brain tumor. It was massive, making it too dangerous to remove.

They estimated she had a month.

During that time her pain got so bad her doctor doubled her morphine. But soon she asked me to stop. The pain was unbearable but the not knowing who she was, she said, was worse. She wanted to die….”

The old man stared straight ahead of him with dead eyes. Scarlet jumped to his shoulder, and rubbed her face against his stubble. He cleared his throat several times before being able to speak and even then, it came out as a hoarse whisper.

“She asked me to assist her in suicide. And I did. And I swear she reminds me of this every day.”

“Maybe she is thanking you.”

“My wife would have liked you,” he said, watching her fly around him. “You are intoxicating. But why are you talking to an old fool instead of being with your flock?”

“Flock? There are barely any of us left. Besides, I like to be alone. I too lost my family, to poachers.”

He stared at her, a million questions hanging in stillness, but something in her eyes asked him not to pry.

She started talking about the sun, the flowers, and how beautiful it was to watch the sky change with color, as the few of her kind soared above them to their respective homes. He smiled inside because she stayed with him.

Shortly after dusk he walked back to his hut, knowing she was with him. He turned to watch her fly off before he entered his home, realizing for the first time, in a long time, he felt..... Well he didn't know what but it was something. He sat in his rocking chair, smiling.

And he drifted off into a deep dream, every cell in his body pulsating with excitement. He was flying, high in the sky. He became lucid. He wasn’t bird but he didn’t think he was man either, and yet when he tried to look, he woke up.

Several nights he flew, for a short time, before waking up. When he came too, his body was so energized, he believed maybe he could fly if he wanted too. Just like I and Scarlet can speak to each other. My dreams must be telling me something, he decided.

“Will you teach me how to fly?” He asked Scarlet at the end of a long day. They were sitting on his front porch. She had finished eating and was cleaning her beak, rubbing it side to side against the wooden bench. She paused, looking up at him.

“If you teach me how to walk,” she said, lifting her voice as if laughing.

“I’m serious.”

“I can’t teach you how to fly.”

“You can do anything. You are magical. I see it in the vibrant red of your head, your breast so golden it’s as if the sun kissed you herself, and your wings, the deepest blue of the ocean mixed with the color of grass. When I see you flying, I often mistake you for a rainbow.”

“I may be magical but transform another I cannot.”

“I don’t want you to change me, just show me how to fly. My dreams tell me I can,” the old man explained.

“Impossible. You are too heavy and unbalanced. Flight is not meant for humans.”

“Meant? What is meant? Was my wife meant to die? Was your family meant to be captured?”

“It must be for it is. Just as you and I were destined to meet.”

“So you could teach me how to fly!” The old man cried, standing up. He flapped his arms, staring at them, as if they would turn into wings.

Scarlet flew off his shoulder into the nearest tree.

“You are stubborn, just like my wife.” He shouted at her, shoving his hands in his pockets. And yet he asked her again and again, like a kid begging for ice-cream.

“You are a fool.” And with that she flew off.

“Don’t come back!”

He threw the remaining pieces of broccoli after her and went inside. It was late and yet he wouldn’t be able to sleep. He was angry and he couldn’t get the resentment he felt towards Scarlet to leave. Or the images of his dead wife to stop tormenting him. Screaming at him, both of them, a bird call and a shrill. Fool. Fool. Fool.

He poured himself a whiskey and settled in his rocking chair.

“She probably isn’t magical. She obviously couldn’t teach her own offspring how to fly, otherwise they wouldn’t have been captured. Stupid bird,” he said out loud, kicking his feet against the hardwood floor.

He then laughed, filling in her story. He imagined her gathering food for her family because her mate was badly injured. In fact, he was near death so he didn’t hear the men come in.

The old man pictured the hatchlings squawking as two men clad in camouflage entered the labyrinth of tall grass, trees, and bamboo. One man stuffed the hatchlings in a bag. The other picked up the male bird by the neck.

“This one’s dead.”

The man tossed the bird aside. Within minutes only their scent was left to linger.

Of which Scarlet picked up immediately as she entered her home.

“Wake Up!” She yelled, dropping the food she had collected and flying to her mate’s body.

But he didn’t move. She threw her body at him, again and again, cawing.

“Get up! Show me where they went! Fly! Fly!”

She cried until her throat was dry and parched, her body, deflated. The hatchlings were gone, her mate was dead, she was alone.

Finally, she dragged her mate out to a small patch of dirt, doing her best to cover him up from scavengers’ eyes.

She searched for her hatchlings, daily, and the old man realized that was how the two of them had met. He also knew he wasn’t making the story up. Whether she told him in a dream or she was sitting next to him, awake, he was an ass for not remembering until now.

And yet the viscous thoughts spiraling in his mind were louder.

Don’t I mean anything to her? I give her whatever she asks for, food, water, a place to hide from predators when needed. She shouldn’t deny me my one wish that only she can grant. I’ll show her who the fool is.

For the old man had come to believe if he could fly, he could find his wife. He had not processed his grief and so it played tricks on him, trying to get out anyway it could. This night it was anger and it focused on how to teach Scarlet a lesson.

He drank more, and by morning he was no longer angry because he had a plan. He drove to town, going straight to Jake’s office. A man he had hired when Jasmine discovered sewer cockroaches were living in their drains.

“Hi Jake,” the old man said as he entered the building.

“Why hello. It's good to see you. What can I do for you?”

The old man stared at the poster advertising ‘humanely removes pests’ before continuing.

“I need you to capture a bird for me. She knocks the fruit off the trees before ripe and pulls up my flowers, killing them at the root.”

Idiot, birds don’t pull up flowers, he chided himself silently.

But Jake looked up at him with sympathy.

“Just one?”

“I believe so.”

“Huh, okay.”

“Great. And….”

“Yes?” Jake asked, looking up from his calendar.

“I need you to capture her and give her to me.”

"That'll cost extra," Jake said, and they agreed on the details.

Three days later Jake was at the old man’s hut with a sack and a pellet gun. The old man took Jake a few hundred yards from his back porch to hide in a grove of bamboo.

“Does she always come at this time?” Jake asked.

“I have been enticing her with broccoli. I read that is Mac,” he cleared his throat angry at his slip, “birds love vegetables.”

The hunter nodded without looking at the old man, who sighed in relief.

He left the hunter in place, went through his house and settled on the front porch. He hadn’t seen Scarlet since the day she called him a fool so he had invited her over, by way of messenger. As he waited, he closed his eyes, realizing he was tired. He drifted off in dream.

“Wake up old man.”

He jolted up, but relaxed once he saw Scarlet.

“I’ve missed you,” he said.

“Is that your way of saying sorry?”

“Yes,” he lied.

“I still can’t teach you how to fly.”

For a moment a rush of sadness mounted in his chest, as if he the grief of losing his wife was demanding to come out in its true form. Yet the fear of true despair had become so strong he instinctively swallowed it, and instead focused on what he believed he could control.

“Come,” he said standing, “the papaya tree has blossomed.”

Scarlet followed him through the overgrowth to the back of the house.

“Papaya! I love papaya.” She said and then she started singing a silly song, “fruit, fruit, fly to fruit.” And he laughed. She was just a bird after all. He had been foolish to think she was magical. Yes, fly, fly with all of your strength.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Scarlet beat her wings moving backwards.

Pop. Pop.

A pellet hit her breast, her wings fluttered so fast a rainbow parted, broke, and fell to the ground. The hunter gasped, placing his pellet gun on the ground and walking towards her.

“This is a Scarlet Macaw.”

As he picked her up, a spot of blood dripped down a blue tipped wing onto his finger.

“What's it to you?” The old man snorted.

“This breed is endangered. It is illegal to harm them, let alone capture them.”

“You're the one who hurt her. Hand her over or I won’t pay.”

“Your money is as foolish as you are.”

The hunter walked backwards, holding Scarlet against his chest.

That’s the last time someone calls me a fool. The old man thought, picking up the discarded gun.

“Give her to me or I shoot,” he said, pointing the gun at Jake.

Jake met the old man’s eyes while unsheathing a knife from his boot. Stepping towards the old man, he lowered Scarlet onto the ground out of harm’s way.

The old man held strong as Jake moved towards him.

And then a deep cry of fury mixed with beating wings rose beside them as magic, filling the air in a golden sphere of light. Both men held their breath as the energy rose, growing, and becoming the rarest creature known to humankind.

“Jaslet? Scarmine?” The old man fumbled.

For she had a bird head and a breast, with wings flapping the air. And yet her form was human from the solar plexus down to the toes. Two species as one, de-clothed yet not naked, yet more alive than any rainbow ever seen.

The hunter dropped his knife and fled.

“What have you done?” the creature asked the old man, looking at her hybrid body. The voice was Jasmine's and he realized it always had been.

“You came back to me,” he whispered.

“Yes, clearly a mistake.”

“Why? How?”

“When I died, I had a choice. I could come back as a different species, or I had to leave earth entirely, to a place for humans only.”

“No animals?”

“No.”

“What about forests? Trees? The jungle?”

“None of that.”

“Why?”

“When I asked the same thing, I was shown men engaged in war, bringing famine and devastation to their kind and the natural world. Next, I was shown humans killing animals for sport, or money, or a twisted means of control. Lastly, I was shown animals that are extinct: the white rhinoceros of the North, the golden lemur, the river dolphin. Too many to name, or to witness. I couldn’t deny the suffering so many humans have caused.

And yet I wanted to be with you.”

“So, you came back as a Scarlet Macaw, our favorite bird. I thought you were haunting me because you regretted committing suicide. And I had helped. But you still love me and we can be together.”

“You are a fool. Does it not occur to you that we might be in pain?”

He stared at her, uncomprehending.

“Like I told you, humans aren’t meant to fly," she looked down at her body, "nor are birds meant to have legs.”

She attempted to lift one but it was too heavy. The gesture came across as an upside-down shrug.

“I’m sorry. What about your family?” He asked, changing the subject embarrassed she was in pain again.

“That wasn’t my family. I was a witness, watching in horror from afar. I hadn’t gotten the hang of my wings yet and when I attempted to follow the men, I fell to the ground instead.”

“You used that story to get close to me.”

“And look what it got me. A jealous husband who hired Jake to capture me. What were you going to do?”

“I just wanted freedom. I thought flight would give me that. I got angry when Scarlet told me I couldn’t. And then she called me a fool. I didn’t know it was you. I am stupid. I didn’t want to harm you, only to teach you a lesson.”

“By making me extinct? You were only thinking of yourself. You are like the men of power we used to get angry at. Why we left the country. You are a greedy fool.”

“Jasmine, please, I am sorry. I wasn't going to hurt you....I didn’t know.”

“Yet you convinced yourself I could teach you how to fly. You probably still think that. I can't live with that.”

“What are you saying?”

“I am leaving you old man, for good.”

“But you are half human. Where will you go?”

He stopped speaking for she was turning around in circles, wings spread wide. She turned faster and faster, spinning into a dust of primary colors. She consumed the sky becoming a burst of brilliant sun that erupted, causing the old man to shield his eyes. Moments later he peeked through his fingers but there was nothing to see. No wife, no bird, just man alone with his gun.