Birds

The flutter of twenty or so birds disturbed the silence of Garborette road that Sunday morning. From afar it would have seemed to a random passer-by that they had simply flown away in terror from an invisible, harmless entity: a common routine that birds unfailingly seem to follow; but no, today there had been a genuine reason for their fear.

A few seconds earlier I had forcefully opened the front door and stepped out of the warm interior of his house. A stream of vapour escaped my mouth as I vented out my frustration at my circumstance and the outbreak of pigeons flurrying away around me. Slamming the door swiftly behind me, the door frame and surrounding flowerpots shuddered briefly. I pinched the bridge of my nose in annoyance and briskly walked to the brick wall running alongside the house. It was an old wall, one that had been constructed long before I was born, but in that moment my mind paid no attention to its fragility as I leaned heavily against it.

In the cold early morning air, the hairs along my back and arms stood to attention, causing me to shuffle deeper into the spring jacket I had hastily put on as I’d exited the door. I muttered briefly to myself as to how stupid I was to have forgotten to wear something more appropriate. Time stood at a standstill as I leaned there and suffered, with only the weak structure of the wall there to support me. The feeling of isolation overwhelmed me. The fact that I knew that whatever happened, wall aside, I was alone.

Gradually I noticed the patter of drops repeatedly hitting the porch’s roof, feel the wetness of moisture on my skin and I knew it was time to leave. Using my leg to gain enough momentum to push myself off the wall, I clumsily started shuffling down the path which led to my driveway. ‘I’ve got to get out of here’ I thought as I roughly rubbed off the raindrops trailing down my face which had blended in with the tears already present.

The steady sound of crunching leaves beneath my lumbering feet posed as a distraction to the thoughts churning through my mind and the torrent of emotions flooding my body. Upon reaching the car, I rummaged through my pocket for my keys, grappling through several prematurely abandoned packets of gum. After several frustrating moments, I finally managed to fish the keys out, opened the door to my Toyota Yaris and trapped myself inside.

The palpable silence within the car forced all redundant thoughts out of my head and made me see clearly for the first time since it had happened. It was just too fresh, too painful for me to believe. Like one of those stories you hear in passing that sounds so ludicrous and unrealistic in comparison to your mundane life that it never occurs to you that it could actually happen to you. Glancing down at the water spattered black book gripped firmly in my hand, I couldn’t believe that he was gone. Everything I’d ever known, all the happiness, the traditions, the possibilities have all but vanished from existence. All that remains are the memories infused within these pages. ‘There is nothing left for me here.’ I breathed in deeply through my nose and leant my head back against the headrest of the driver’s seat.

As if playing a broken record, my mind revolved around our final moments: the words exchanged, those that weren’t and above all, the bitter conviction I had that he never cared.

Mere moments passed before my silence was broken by noises coming from across the street. Glancing over I could see the elderly woman, whose house was across from his, walking her grandson and their dog home after their regular trip to the park. The 8-year-old boy was struggling to stop their miniature toy poodle from entering an extremely large puddle which would unequivocally engulf the dog entirely in mud and the poor boy up to his knees. With nothing to grab onto to avoid the inevitable, the boy entered the puddle with a look of utmost horror on his face. After momentarily looking down at his mud-soaked self, he glared at the perpetrator of his current predicament. The culprit gazed up at her owner lovingly, tongue lolling to the side as she emitted a joyful ruff sound. Both grandmother and grandchild shared a quick look and erupted into laughter. It became increasingly difficult to watch the happy scene transpire before me as these people were clearly so content and oblivious to my pain that I somehow felt more alone than before. I cringed, forcing my gaze away from them and thought back to what had just occurred in the house.

My breath started to come in quick gasps and my shoulders heaved as sobs wracked my body from the endless possibilities that had, in that brutal instant, been taken away from me. I shut my eyes to get rid of the dizziness I felt but primarily to shut the world out. As my laboured breathing gradually ceased into a mere whisper, I placed my father’s black paperback into the glove compartment and firmed my resolve that it was time.

Turning on the ignition, I pushed the old car into gear and drove off down the rocky but straight road to my future.

***

“One thousand, one hundred and ninety-one”, I muttered. Lick, stamp. “One thousand, one hundred and ninety-two.” Lick, stamp. “One... One thousand, one hundred and ninety-three”. Fumble with paper. Lick, stamp.

The monotonous counting of boxes going out for delivery on a Friday evening never ceased to demoralise me. Every few minutes my eyes would, at their own accord, surreptitiously glance over at the clock further deepening my despair as each time the hour hand seemed to have distanced itself further from closing time. With time itself mocking me, I decided to call the manager with a hasty excuse and clock out early. It was a simple decision to make as she wouldn’t care; it was a Friday evening after all.

Within ten minutes I was out the door. Not once glancing back, I performed my daily routine of swearing to myself that my feet would never set foot here again and then instantly reprimand myself. ‘College will only be a pipe dream if I don’t stick with it. Only two years, four measly months and 6 depressing days to go before I’ll be on the high road!’ My attempt at humour only made my self-pity intensify.

Trudging along to the car didn’t take long as I had parked close to the building’s entrance to hasten my escape and, after a couple minutes of frustration, the car groaned into life and started its drive home. My loyal Toyota Yaris had seen better days and needed to have parts replaced, or to be replaced entirely if I was being brutally honest with myself, but with my father’s death six months ago, money had been tight and luxuries had to be sacrificed.

The drive home didn’t take long. In light traffic, ten minutes and 58 seconds to be precise; I’d counted. The short commute home had been the main reason that I had applied for this job. That, and the fact that the limited credentials I had prevented me from going for a more substantial and interesting position. I had wanted to go earn a degree but, after my father’s hefty medical bills, my savings had been bled dry. The irony of having sacrificed all my hard-earned income for an estranged father who no sooner left the world than the last dollar left my bank account. There appeared to be no seemingly easy way for me to leave the penniless ditch I’d been thrown into.

Upon turning off the ignition, I found myself once again questioning whether my dreams of becoming something bigger were worth it.

‘Dad never thought I could pull it off’.

Almost unwillingly my gaze landed on the glove compartment, untouched since the day I placed my father’s diary in there. Besides being a huge disappoint to him, I never really knew him. From a young age I’d realised that if I wanted to learn anything about my father, I would have had to force it out of him or, as the circumstance had it, read his personal diary. My father had come into my life and left it an enigma, only leaving behind a diary as a balm to soothe the wounds being parentless had seared into me.

A surge of fury crashed over me and my hands on the steering wheel began to shake. ‘Why did he resent me so much? Why did he believe I wasn’t capable of amounting to anything?’ My self-control had surpassed its tipping point and I needed to know what excuses my father came up with in his damned book.

Ripping the glove compartment open, I snatched the wretched journal out of its burrow and glared at it with burning eyes. Time stood at a standstill. Whether it was a minute or an hour that I sat there in my broken car, in my shattered life staring bitterly at the biproduct of my future’s demise, I did not know; but it was long enough that the journal had blurred into an indefinable form. The only thing apparent was a black splodge with a white strip sticking out of it. ‘Wait, what?’

My mind reverted to the present moment and I flipped open the notebook to find a cheque for $20,000 with my father’s last words to me inscribed on the back: “Dreams don’t just show up at our doorstep, go get yours kiddo.”

My body was frozen, my mind couldn’t compute the logic-shattering words carefully written in my father’s neat calligraphy. I simultaneously felt broken and whole; lost and found. The only thing certain was my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I let out a strangled shout of loss, bewilderment, but mostly importantly, hope, unknowingly startling a black bird out of its nest into the frightening but expectant world.