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  s u b v e r s i v e   l i t e r a t u r e   f o r
  s u b v e r t e d   p e o p l e
                                          f e b r u a r y  1 7 t h , 2 0 0 2
                                                         e d i t o r - b m c

 -    -   -  - ----==={ I N S T A L L M E N T   1 9 0 }===---- -  -   -    -

                                                             w r i t e r s :

                                                           m e l a t o n i n


 -    -   -  - ----==={        F E A T U R E S        }===---- -  -   -    -



                               A Life in Birds
                                 by Melatonin



 -    -   -  - -- -------===========================------- -- -  -   -    -
                          e d i t o r ' s   n o t e
 -    -   -  - ---==={PLEASE DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING!}===--- -  -   -    -


  This week...

                                  
 -    -   -  - -- -------===========================------- -- -  -   -    -
                               A LIFE IN BIRDS                         
 -    -   -  - -- -------======{by Melatonin}=======------- -- -  -   -    - 

  It was lying under Landover bridge, wet and laughing, body streaming with
  pain, eyelids closed against the fine Monday sun, that Ira Nash finally
  realized the one inherent truth of his life: that his soul had been
  colored by birds, and that this most blessed of fates had all begun, as
  far as he could tell or remember, with a Christmas tree dragged in from
  the cold and a crystal pickle jar, stolen one evening from his mother's
  kitchen cabinet.

  He couldn't have been more than five or six years old at the time, he
  thought, seeing it all so clearly in his mind's eye.  Him, lying on the
  floor of their bungalow one cold December night, coloring and listening to
  the TV when the front door blew open with an icy whoosh and his father
  came thundering into the living room, cursing the snow from his boots, his
  body bent with the weight of the tied fir on his shoulder.

  The tree was set up within the hour.  Ira and his older brother, Jeremy,
  watched from the couch, tense with their parent's frustration but still
  happy, still smiling.

  The next day a bluebird emerged from its branches, wet, terrified,
  twitching like an epileptic as it flew wildly about the house.  Their
  mother, aproned and covered in flour, chased after it, shrieking and
  swatting the air with a broom, yelling a frenzy of directions over her
  shoulder as her two sons followed close behind, their little arms dancing,
  their little voices cheering the tiny intruder on.

  Eventually the bird was captured in a garbage bag and their mother, all
  sweaty and flustered from the chase, went to squash the hopping, squawking
  bulge with the heel of one of her pumps.  At the thought of such a horrid
  fate both children began to weep and scream in protest.  She then tried to
  suggest that they release the bird outside, where it could fly "back to
  its family," but one look at the layer of wintry frost covering the land
  and the children again began to weep, this time even louder than before.

  And so a makeshift cage was fashioned from an old pillowcase and a
  cardboard box, and the bluebird -- caught off-guard by the year's early
  snowfall -- became 'Navy Jones', early Christmas present and reluctant pet
  of the Nash family household.


  A week later it was dead.  At the time, Ira, still in the curious,
  hoarding stage of his life, decided that the bird must be horribly lonely
  and scared, sleeping in the kitchen at night, all by itself and -- in his
  mind -- defenseless against whatever wicked monsters lurked in the
  shadows.  So, sneaking out of bed late one Friday night, Ira braved death
  by bogeyman and went tiptoeing down to the kitchen, where he removed the
  pillowcase from the cage and, taking the bird into his hands, placed it in
  a large pickle jar -- procured, as mentioned, from his mother's stash of
  homemade jams.  Then he climbed back into bed and fell quickly asleep, the
  hard lump of glass stuffed under his pillow, the bird's muted coos a soft
  music to his ears.

  Jeremy woke him up for cartoons early the next morning and quickly raced
  downstairs.  Ira, before doing anything else, made sure to see how Navy --
  his buddy, his pal, his lifelong confidant -- had enjoyed the night's
  slumber.  But upon lifting his pillow and picking up the jar, he saw not
  the chirping, cheery-faced friend he'd put to bed, but rather a limp,
  boneless shell of a bird, drained of color and slumping against the
  glass.  Confused and horrified, Ira hid the jar from his brother and,
  sneaking out of the house before his parents had risen, buried the
  evidence (jar and all) in the corner of his mother's garden, beneath the
  raspberry bushes, a cramped and thorny space where no adult dared
  venture.

                                       * 

  When he was ten, Ira's mother was stricken with leukemia and the entire
  family was forced to watch as, day in and day out, she slowly wasted away
  on the living room couch, her body seeming to crumple inward, her bones
  shrinking to sticks.  After three months of deterioration she passed away,
  and Ira -- his child's body already taking on the thin, awkward shape of
  his adult self -- was stuffed into an uncomfortable black suit and
  dragged, pouting and weepy, to her funeral.

  A half hour into the procession he managed to escape his father's hand,
  and, under the pretext of overwhelming grief -- though in fact, he was not
  yet processing grief -- work his way to the back of the graveyard, where
  he watched the crowd of aunts and uncles, friends and acquaintances from
  the shadow of an old, gnarled oak tree.

  Within seconds Ira spotted the first eye, blinking in the back of his
  grandfather's jacket.  Straining his eyes, he leaned forward; both the
  coat and the eye were as black as night, making it difficult to
  distinguish between the two, but yes, yes, there was definitely something
  there.  He quickly began to scan the crowd -- anxious, frightened, on the
  verge of screaming yet without voice -- and there saw another eye, this
  time staring at him from the back of Mrs.  Henrietta's handbag.  And
  there -- there was another, in the seam of his father's pant leg, and
  another, flittering against his aunt's pillbox hat!  And another and
  another, all black on black, all blinking and shining in the sunlight.
  Ira quickly stood up and opened his mouth to scream, and with that there
  was a sudden dull explosion of feather and a hundred ravens took shape,
  bursting from the crowd in a fluttery storm of wing and beak.

  And no one -- not a single, living soul -- noticed a thing.

  Eyes wide and mouth agape, Ira watched as the ravens scattered in air,
  leaving nothing in their wake but blue sky and stray feathers, floating
  slowly to the ground.  Reaching out, he caught one of them between his
  trembling fingers and quickly slid it into his coat pocket without further
  examination.

  And not once, throughout that entire horrible weekend, did he ever check
  to see if the feather was really there.  He did not know and, more
  importantly, did not want to know.

                                       * 

  And so the birds were with Ira when, later that year, his father quit his
  job at the local bottling plant and moved the family south, to Minnesota,
  where an executive managerial position at a staples and paper clip firm
  was waiting for him.  The drive down was silent and uneventful, with
  Jeremy reading comics in the passenger seat and Ira stretched flat in the
  back, watching the clouds drift over the sunroof and wondering, idly, why
  the flock of geese honking overhead had yet to change its flight pattern
  since before they'd left their driveway.

                                       * 

  Upon his high school graduation, Ira received two gifts: the first, from
  his father, was an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, used and in a state of
  semi-disrepair, but which he loved all the same, and the second, from his
  grandmother, was a small Kodak camera, which he politely thanked her for
  and promptly tossed aside.  And there it sat, a useless, unused square of
  black plastic, growing dust in the corner of his bedroom until finally, on
  a fateful, foggy day in October, a crane came down from the sky and gave
  Ira's life a sense of direction.

  It was three in the afternoon and Ira, returning from another boring day
  at Minnesota State, came home to find the front door locked and his house
  keys waiting for him inside, on the foyer table.  Cursing under his
  breath, he dropped his backpack on the porch and quickly cut around the
  house.  And it was there, upon opening the backyard gate, that he first
  saw the crane.  It was perched on the stony edge of his father's pond,
  plucking fish from the water and quietly chewing them in its beak.  Ira,
  struck by the enormity of its size and the blinding whiteness of its
  feathers, silently edged his way to the patio door.  Inside the house, he
  watched the crane for another minute, awestruck and wishing he had some
  sort of device with which to capture such a rare and amazing sight.  Then
  he remembered his grandmother's gift.

  Outside again, Ira crouched down and, holding his breath, lined the crane
  up in his sights.  He snapped the picture.  The flash went off like a
  lighting bolt, cutting through the fog.  Ira recoiled, slightly dazed.  He
  lowered the camera and watched in disbelief as the bird casually turned to
  him, its beak still grinding away on the fish, its eyes calm and
  unblinking.  Had the flash really not frightened it away?  Ira raised the
  camera and snapped another picture, this time lower to the ground, with
  the wet grass serving as an unfocused foreground.  Again the flash went
  off and again the crane remained unruffled.

  Ira stood up and looked at the bird.  "Hey," he whispered, his voice weak.

  Disinterested, the crane turned away and dunked its head in the pond, its
  beak searching for another fish.  Ira took a step forward and raised his
  voice:

  "Hey, crane.  Look at me."

  Hearing him, the crane slowly removed its head from the water and turned
  to Ira, its face showing no sense of danger, no shade of fear.  Ira
  suddenly became infuriated.  He rushed at the bird, screaming and waving
  his arms in the air like a madman.  His words were slurred and
  incomprehensible in their speed, but they sounded something like:

  "HeybirdlookatmeI'mgonnakillyouwahwahwah!"

  And with that the crane took to the air.  Its wingspan was enormous and
  brilliantly white, but its flight was an awkward jumping action, first
  from the pond to the fence, then from the fence to the roof of his house,
  and finally from there into the air, where it soared away in silence and
  disappeared into the fog, the dull flap of its wings the only trace of its
  existence.


  The photos -- submitted, out of shame, under his brother's name -- took
  second place in a local amateur photography contest, netting Jeremy an
  unexpected check for $250 and setting Ira on a brand new career path.  He
  purchased his very own Fuji SC300 35mm camera, transferred from the
  college of engineering to the college of journalism, and sent out
  subscriptions to all of the major photography publications -- and all
  within the first two months of his victory, such was the degree of his
  passion.  And though the subject matter of his work was quite varied -- he
  shot everything from portraits to landscapes to expressionistic
  abstractions -- he had an uncanny knack for bird shots, and it was for
  this that he achieved his modest amount of fame.  Whereas most
  bird-watchers are forced to cower in bushes and trees, timid and silent,
  Ira was able to move freely through the bird kingdom, at one with their
  world.  In fact, the birds were as likely to come to him as he to they.
  Exploring the city for his next shot, birds would appear to Ira at all
  times of day, and in the most unexpected of places: a canary, asleep in
  the back of a bus; an eagle, perched on a statue of Theodore Roosevelt,
  its head bowed humbly, majestically; a nest of baby cardinals, resting
  atop a traffic light, cars whizzing beneath them.  The photos Ira took
  were so out of the ordinary, so perfectly surreal, that he was often
  accused of staging his depictions for the camera -- as though any human
  could somehow "order" a bird to pose for a photo shoot, as Ira had often
  had to argue.  It was then put forth, in a desperate attempt to explain
  these images, that the birds were either not real or stuffed, and that Ira
  was less an artist and more a fiendishly clever taxidermist.  But of
  course these charges were dismissed as well, once Ira produced his large
  collection of unused shots: the canary on the bus, waking up; the eagle on
  the statue, flying away; and so on and so forth.  Eventually the bird
  snaps became so simple for Ira to capture that he started throwing
  challenges at himself; for an entire year, for example, he shot only with
  a rusty old Polaroid camera that would create shaky, halo effects around
  any moving object, but here too the photos produced were better than
  expected: the faded, overexposed images of birds in flight had the look of
  little ghosts in a little ghost world, and the pictures were ultimately
  published as a five-page spread in American Photo.

  And so Ira's career continued -- eventful, pleasant, satisfying -- until
  finally, in the spring of his thirtieth year, the birds leapt from his
  work and again took a more active role in the shape of his life.

                                       * 

  It was a late Friday afternoon and Melody Starks was curled on her living
  room couch, plucking her eyebrows in a compact mirror and listening to the
  TV murmur in the background, when a little chimney swift fluttered through
  her apartment window and landed, quite nonchalantly, on the carpet floor,
  a pair of keys dangling from the corner of its beak.

  She threw the tweezers aside and quickly rose to her feet, her hands
  clutching her sweat pants in nervous anxiety.  "Um, um... shoo," she spit
  out, her voice barely raising to a whisper.

  The bird ignored her, its eyes staring blankly forward, its body unmoving,
  the keys jingling slightly in its jaw.  It had the appearance of a dead
  thing -- a fake, toy-like creature, lost in its own world, its dark
  feathers staining her carpet with soot.

  "Hey!  Hello up there!" a voice hollered from outside.  Melody quickly
  scurried over to her window and checked the street below.  It was Ira.  He
  was standing next to his parked car, gazing up at Melody's third-story
  balcony, a camera hanging from his neck.  "You haven't happened to see my
  keys, by any chance?" he asked her, a forced smile coming to his lips.

  "Why, were they stolen by a bird?"

  "Yeah, unfortunately," Ira admitted, dropping his shoulders in defeat.

  Melody suddenly grinned.  "And can you describe the bird for me, sir?  I
  mean, how do I know these are really your keys, and not somebody else's?
  What with so many birds turning to a life of crime these days, you have to
  be completely sure."

  Not just bright-eyed and brown-haired, Ira thought, but charming to boot.
  A quick pang of attraction made his stomach dip and he suddenly became
  aware of his long nose, his wire spectacles, the hole in the elbow of his
  sweater.

  "The bird I'm looking for is dark and dirty, with a beady-eyed
  malevolence," he answered, playing along.

  She let out a light, airy laugh and Ira felt his heart leap, his stomach
  dance.  "Okay," she offered, "they're up here.  Apartment 3C, Melody
  Stark.  You'll have to get them yourself."

  "No problem.  I'll be right up."


  By the time he reached her door, Ira -- sweaty, nervous, and talking much
  too fast -- had already overwhelmed himself with the awkward,
  self-conscious thoughts of a first date.  But Melody, finding his
  nervousness and lack of confidence oddly endearing, stuck with him through
  the lulls in conversation, the confused gestures, and even brushed his arm
  once or twice when Ira, having retrieved his keys, took the chimney swift
  softly in hand and politely made his exit from her apartment.

  "Well, I guess I'll be going then," he began, opening her door.

  "Okay, sure."

  "Get rid of this pesky little guy for you," he said, chuckling as he
  raised the bird slightly.

  "Okay."

  "Sorry he messed up your carpet like that."

  "It's okay.  I'm sure it'll come out."

  "Yeah, right, I guess nowadays with all the soaps and shampoos they have
  and whatnot, a little bit of soot from a bird wouldn't, uh, well... you
  know, with the soap and all... you can always just... uh..."

  Melody smiled, her eyes sparkling.

  "Well, okay then," Ira finally concluded, avoiding eye contact.

  "Bye."

  "Okay, bye."

  And with that her door was closed and Ira was left alone in the hall.  He
  stood there for a moment, dumbfounded, his eyes staring blankly at the
  wall before him, as if waiting for something to happen.  When nothing did,
  he turned and began to make his way down the hall, his mind already
  buzzing with a flurry of what-ifs and if-onlys.  But as he neared the
  stairwell the chimney swift began to squeak and strain against his palm,
  suddenly desperate to escape his grasp.  Ira tried clutching it in both
  hands and it let out a last, angry squeal and bit his thumb, drawing
  blood.  Ira dropped the bird and, grumbling quietly, watched as it made
  its way back down the hall in a series of short, stuttered hops.  Finally
  it stopped at Melody's door.

  Ira watched the little swift, amazed.  It gave him a brief,
  over-the-shoulder glance, then turned back to the door and began to scrape
  against its base with the point of its tiny beak.

  "Come on, stop it," Ira whispered, approaching the bird.  "You're going to
  make her mad.  You've already done enough damage.  Didn't you see her
  carpet?"

  He reached Melody's door and, kneeling down, took the swift in both hands,
  its head locked tightly between his thumbs.  Then he stood up and,
  standing face to face with Melody's door, suddenly found himself overcome
  with the urge to give it a knock and, uncharacteristic though it may be,
  casually ask her out for spaghetti and wine at Luschino's, his favorite
  Italian restaurant.

  And so he did, and that, as they say, was that.

                                       * 

  After a one-year courtship and a two-year engagement, Ira and Melody were
  married -- him at 33, her at 29.  The wedding was a small, simple affair,
  allowing them to spend more money on the honeymoon, which lasted four
  weeks and took them from the white beaches of Maui to the cobbled streets
  of Paris to the throbbing, over-lit night world of south Brazil.  And it
  was there, amongst the dirt roads and fast-talking street merchants, that
  Ira happened upon Speakeasy, the parrot that would eventually throw his
  life into a state of disrepair.  Of course, the whole thing was almost
  entirely Melody's idea: to buy the parrot, to take it home with them, to
  name it 'Speakeasy', to set its cage in the dining room corner, where it
  could overhear and regurgitate back whatever it pleased, to whomever it
  pleased, whenever it pleased.  All of this was her own doing, and all of
  it would come back to haunt her a decade later.

  It was a Monday afternoon and -- as these sort of things often begin --
  Ira, feeling a little bit queasy and having not a lot to do that day,
  decided to come home early from his job at the local paper, The Star
  Tribune.  But when he went to unlock his front door he found it not only
  unlocked, but slightly ajar as well.  Had Melody ducked out of work early
  herself?  Ira stepped inside the house and called her name, once, twice,
  three times.  There was no response.  He stepped inside the kitchen and
  there, on the counter, lying beside the phone, he saw her purse, flipped
  open and waiting for its owner to return.  Where could she have gone
  without this stupid thing? Ira thought, picking up the purse and looking
  it over.

  He turned to the phone and checked to see who'd called.  There was no one;
  the list was empty.  He furrowed his brow, confused and slightly worried,
  then gave a shrug and turned to the refrigerator, his thoughts already on
  the cold beer awaiting him inside.

  "Squawk!  Squawwwk!  Ted, Ted, squawk!"  It was Speakeasy, her raspy,
  chattering voice slightly muffled by the blanket slung over her cage.
  "Shouldn't call here, Ted.  Ted, Ted, shouldn't call here.  Squawwwk!"

  Ira turned around, listening.  Ted?  Did he know anyone named Ted?  He
  approached the cage and threw the blanket aside.  Speakeasy turned to him,
  her translucent markings shining crisp and bright in the sunlight.  "Ted
  who?  Who called here?  Is it something about the baby?" Ira quickly
  asked, feeling not the least bit ridiculous.

  "Ted, Ted, Ted, squawk!"

  "Ted, Ted, Ted who?  What's his last name?" Ira continued, agitated.

  "Squawk, Speaky want a cracker!  Cracker!  Squawwwk!"

  "I don't have any crackers, just tell me who called."

  "Cracker.  Cracker.  Cracker."

  "Jesus," Ira cussed, heading for the kitchen cabinet.  He grabbed the
  miniature crackers Melody kept on the shelf above the stove, but only
  crumbs and a thin, powdery mist came out when he turned the box upside
  down.  Desperate, he began to rifle through the rest of their snacks and,
  finding nothing suitable, finally settled on a bag of rice cakes, sitting
  at the back of the cabinet, untouched and most likely expired.  He
  returned to the parrot.

  "Come on, Speakeasy," Ira offered.  "Eat some of this."

  He broke off a hard piece of cake and slid it through the cage bars.  The
  parrot nudged it with her beak a few times, then slowly took it from his
  fingers and began to quietly work it in her mouth.

  "There ya go," he consoled.  "That's good, huh?  Now, tell me, who's this
  T--"

  The parrot let the chunk of cake fall from her mouth like a lump of wet
  Styrofoam, shook her head out it in disgust, then looked back up at Ira.

  "Squawwwk!  Cracker!  Speaky want a cracker!"

  "THERE'S NO GODDAMNED CRACKERS NOW QUIT ASKING FOR THEM FOR CHRIST'S
  SAKES!" Ira suddenly bellowed, clutching the cage in both hands and
  rattling it back and forth.

  "Paradise Motel, two o'clock, two o'clock, squawk, squawk, squawwwk!" the
  parrot blurted out all at once, its beak suddenly exploded with fear.

  "Paradise Motel?" Ira repeated, his face draining of color, his mouth
  going limp.  "What?  I don't...  I--" he stammered, slowly letting go of
  the cage and straightening up, his hands falling loose at his sides.  He
  stood there for a long time, staring at the wall, feeling the inevitable
  cogs of thought churn inside his skull.  Eventually he pulled himself
  together and looked down at the parrot, its feathers trembling slightly at
  his gaze.  "I'm sorry, little guy," Ira began, not knowing what to say.
  "Here, have some more of this."  And with that he slid the rest of the
  rice cake through the bars and rushed from the house, pausing only to
  swipe the telephone book from the foyer desk.


  When Ira arrived at the Paradise Motel -- a scuzzy, peeling little place
  with faded pink walls and a smoggy highway view -- he found a quiet spot
  to park and, cutting the engine to his car, leaned back in his seat and
  waited, his eyes locked on the inner ring of motel doors.  He studied each
  one, wondering which of them contained his wife and what this Ted might be
  doing to her on the inside.  His mind buzzed, a flurry of half-formed
  scenes and sweaty accusations.  He thought of his wife, five months with
  child and taking another man inside her.  He thought of her moans, of her
  body, of a stranger's fingerprints stamped up and down her back.  And the
  unidentified, vague figure of her lover -- this Ted character -- also
  began to take shape in the dark corners of his imagination; Ira envisioned
  him with a giant, sloped forehead and receding hairline, his tiny pastel
  golf shirts pulled taut around his enormous belly, beaded with the sweat
  of his grunting, grinding, pelvic convulsions.  Ted, the used car salesman
  in the ramshackle old sports car.  Ted, the hunchback janitor scraping
  orange peels from the floor.  Ted, the fast food manager licking grease
  off his fingers.  Ted, Mr. 2 O'Clock.  Mr. Paradise Motel.  Mr.
  Homewrecker Extraordinaire.

  And so it continued for another twenty minutes until, finally, a door at
  the base of the second-floor stairwell opened up and Melody stepped
  outside, adjusting a bra strap under her blouse and laughing.  Ira leaned
  forward in his seat, anxious.  He grabbed the old Polaroid camera from the
  passenger seat and, raising the viewfinder to his eyes, lined up the
  action and began taking snapshots of his wife's cheating smile, his
  forearm wrapped around the flash.  A few seconds later the shadowy figure
  of Ted emerged from the room behind her and, taking her waist in his thick
  fingers, turned her around and began kissing her in the open air, his
  palms cupping her hardened little belly, his perfect tanned skin and
  golden hair gleaming like a slap in the face.  Looks like a tennis
  instructor, Ira thought, clicking away.

  Melody, easing the hands off her stomach, broke the embrace and gave a
  worried look around.  Turning back, she quickly said her good-byes and
  scampered off to the front desk, presumably to return the key and square
  the bill.  Tennis Instructor Ted wasted no time -- he quickly hopped into
  his shiny convertible and sped off, disappearing around the corner like a
  criminal from the scene of a crime.

  Disgusted, Ira threw the camera aside and quickly gathered up the pile of
  Polaroids from his lap.  Outside, he scurried over to Melody's car --
  parked just a few feet from the motel room -- and hurriedly spread the
  photos out across her windshield.  When he finished, he took a step back
  and looked at the montage of infidelity with silent fury.  Then, deciding
  it somehow wasn't accusation enough, he took his keys from his pocket and
  crudely scraped the words 'Ted Fucks Melody' across the side of the
  vehicle.  Finally content with this, he ran back to his car and spun the
  engine to a start.

  Ira didn't wait around to see his wife's reaction, but when Melody
  returned to her vehicle and saw the crude act of vandalism and,
  especially, the collection of shaky, broken photographs, she realized
  she'd been caught red-handed.  And, hearing a pair of tires squeal wildly
  around a corner and a horn burst sharply in the distance, she knew, too,
  that such angry sounds could only belong to her husband.

  A wave of panic washed over her and her head grew dizzy, her sides
  cramping up.  Then, feeling a sort of dull implosion below her belly, she
  looked down, frantic, and watched the crotch of her slacks quietly grow
  dark.  It's my water, she thought, terrified.  But how can this be?  I'm
  only five months pregnant.  It's not even--  But before she could finish
  her thought her head was overcome with a pounding blackness and her body,
  pale and sweaty, slumped to the pavement in a dead faint.


  Weaving in and out of traffic, cars whizzing past him, Ira sped through
  the city streets, his white knuckles wrapped around the steering wheel,
  his teeth chewing curse words like candy.  He paid no attention to the
  shouting pedestrians, the endless honking of horns, which together formed
  a sort of bleating musical score all around him.  And whenever he neared a
  red light he would either run it at the last second or avoid it altogether
  through an adjacent parking lot or sudden right-hand turn.

  As he barreled down the road, face twisted in a scowl, sweat pouring off
  his forehead, he began to pick up on a burnt, smoky smell.  He looked
  around the car, saw nothing, and assumed it must be the engine,
  overheating with his rage.  This angered him even more and he punched the
  gas harder, pushing the speedometer past 60.  Then the smoke took on a
  stronger presence, filling the car with its odor and even clouding Ira's
  view of the road.  He gave another look around and this time saw that
  something was indeed on fire, and that this something was him.

  It was his right forearm -- thin wisps of smoke were wafting up from the
  pores of his combusting skin.  Grunting, Ira let go of the wheel with his
  left hand and hurriedly patted his arm down, desperate to damp out the
  fumes.  It was no good; the smoke was growing thicker, hotter, and with
  it, a horrible sense of terror began to overwhelm his entire body.

  Outside, Ira's car continued to hurtle forward, tires zigzagging inside
  the lane, eyes barely on the road.  Behind him, a horn let out a long,
  violent shriek and when he looked up he saw a minivan parked in front of
  him, idling quietly at a stoplight.  Ira swerved into the open lane and,
  eyes closed, felt his heart stop as he flew speeding through the crossing
  traffic pattern.

  "Jesus Christ!" he yelled, and his arm burst into flames.

  "OH JESUS CHRIST!  OH MY FUCK!  GOD!" Ira bellowed, flapping his right arm
  in the air, the flames licking at his face.  There was no pain, there was
  no anger; there was only fear and confusion.  Aiming for the brake, he
  accidently hit the gas pedal and the car shot up to 70, careening wildly
  down the open road like a bullet fired from a broken gun.  Within seconds
  he was on Landover bridge, pushing eighty and speeding down the wrong
  lane.

  Ira looked up at the last second and saw a green Honda coming at him, its
  tires skidding against the asphalt.  He pulled the steering wheel left as
  hard as he could, aiming for the guard rail, but it was no use; the car
  hit him anyway, smashing through his back end and spinning him around like
  a toy top.  Eyes blinded by smoke and body lodged in place by the spent
  airbag, Ira felt nothing but a sudden dip in his stomach and a confused
  loss of equilibrium when his car went toppling over the edge of the
  bridge, driver's side first.

  He hit the water with a deafening splash and the window next to him
  shattered, rupturing his left ear drum.  Water rushed in -- icy, cold, it
  extinguished his arm with a hiss and left a throbbing, charred thing in
  its place.  As he struggled to unlock his seat belt, Ira felt the entire
  car roll over with the weight of the water and he suddenly found himself
  sinking into the East Minnesota river upside down, his face completely
  submerged.

  With his left arm still free and in the open air, he managed to push the
  airbag out of the way and unhinge his seat belt lock.  It snapped loose
  with the release of pressure and, falling into the car roof, Ira was able
  to roll over and take in one last gasp of air before the cabin was
  completely swallowed.  Then he crawled out of the broken window and began
  to paddle his way to the surface, his eyes intent on the ripple of
  sunlight overhead.

  Except when he tried to swim he suddenly found that he had nothing to swim
  with.  Both his kneecaps had been dislocated in the accident and his right
  arm was an utterly useless piece of limp flesh, floating at his side.
  Desperate, Ira slashed and clawed at the water with his left arm, trying
  with all his might to fight the slow, natural sinking of his body.  But it
  was no use; he just kept drifting further and further down, the sun's hazy
  circle growing smaller and smaller before him.  Eventually his left arm
  became numb with exhaustion and he was forced to give up and watch in
  defeat as his world grew dark.  Strangely calm, Ira wondered if it was his
  depth or his lack of oxygen that was turning everything so unutterably
  black.  Probably a bit of both, he decided, and closed his eyes against
  the cold, his body weak, aching, and oh so terribly tired.

  Then he heard a tiny splash, distant and small inside his right ear.  Ira
  opened his eyes and listened.  Within seconds there was another tiny
  splash, and then another and another.  And then, all at once, there came
  hundreds of splashes, like a giant bucket of stones being tossed into a
  lake.  Ira squinted and leaned forward, straining his eyes against the
  darkness (he had lost his glasses in the fall), but there was nothing to
  be seen.  Then the splashes stopped and there was only a dull, rhythmic
  sloshing sound, slowly working its way toward him.  Ira listened intently,
  his body fighting the desire to pass out, to let go.  He shook his head
  back and forth in a frenzy of bubbles and tightened his hand into a fist.

  Then he saw it: a beak, pushing through the darkness.  He opened his eyes
  wide and within seconds a flurry of robins and sparrows, shaded red and
  brown, began to form around him, their little wings slicing water, their
  cheery, high-pitched chirps echoing in his ear.  Defenseless, immobile, he
  watched as the birds surrounded him and, in a net of claw and feather,
  took him in their beaks and against their bodies and began to carry him
  back to safety.  With his mind on the verge of unconsciousness, Ira
  watched in disbelief as, rising through the dark and the cold, the sun
  finally broke against the surface of the water and enveloped him like a
  warm, white song.

  And Ira -- humbled, humiliated -- closed his eyes and began to weep.


  When he awoke he was lying face down on an embankment of sand under
  Landover bridge.  He raised his head and, clutching at a skull that felt
  two sizes too small, gave a long, slow look around.  The birds were gone,
  but all around him their footprints remained: little three- and four-line
  slashes pressed in the sand, marking out a flurry of scurried movement and
  jerky flight.  Ira rolled onto his back and stared up at the white sky.
  Alive, insignificant, he felt he knew all there was to know, yet delighted
  in the fact that he knew nothing at all.  He was in enormous pain, yes --
  his arm was burnt, his legs were broken, his face and body were littered
  with the tiny, bleeding cuts of beak and claw -- but much more than that
  he was happy: happy to know life, happy to feel the sun's heat on his wet
  skin, happy for birds and love and second chances and yes, he was even
  happy to have his Melody.

  And with that everything was forgiven, and the laughter began to well in
  his throat.

                                       * 

  Three miles away and a few minutes later, in the maternity ward of Saint
  Mary's Hospital, Melody Nash awoke to a nurse's encouraging face smiling
  down at her, a frenzy of beeps and shouts she couldn't understand, and her
  own body in the process of giving birth, with or without its owner.

  "She's up!" the nurse yelled, turning to the doctor.

  "Tell her to push.  I can see it coming!" he yelled back, his eyes
  bursting with excitement.  "April, cancel the C!"

  "But it's, it's not the time.  I'm not--" Melody stammered, struggling for
  words and trying to rise.  "Five months.  It's only been five months."

  "We know.  It's okay.  Just push."

  "But I--"

  A sudden spasm shot through Melody's back and, grunting, she clenched her
  teeth and began to push, reluctant but without choice.  The baby was on
  its way; there was no turning back.

  "Push push push!" the doctor shouted.  "I think I see a head!"

  Pushing with all her might, Melody let out one final groan and released
  the child from her womb.  However, it was not a baby that slid into the
  doctor's waiting palms, but rather a smooth, perfectly formed bird's
  egg -- larger than most but still smaller than any child.  Wiping the
  purple fluids of the womb off its shell, the doctor exposed its freckled,
  light green surface.  He studied the egg for a moment, lost in thought as
  the staff of nurses and assistants slowly gathered round him.

  Together, they all looked up at Melody, their faces a sea of mass
  confusion.

  "What is it?" she asked, staring back at them, her eyes as lost as
  theirs.

  A long, uncomfortable silence passed.  Finally the doctor opened his mouth
  to speak and everyone in the room leaned forward to listen, the combined
  rustling of their clothes drowning out the sudden, fluttery sound of a
  flock of pigeons, joyously taking to flight from the window sill outside.


                                    The End

                                                                     
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