The Great Cormorant

With my eyes closed, I listen to the roar, crash, and hiss of waves against the hem of an endless horizon. I hear the quick happy chirps of children and an occasional shout from their parents. I feel the sand whispering past me as I sit on an old bath towel beneath the shade of a molded umbrella that flaps and pops in the wind like the useless sail of a marooned ship.

My inexperience with salt life is evident, if not from my implements, then from my apparel. My pants are rolled up to my calf, and my long sleeves rest at half-mast. In my defense, I've just come from an inland courthouse, where I had just lost my job in exchange for a twenty thousand dollar severance.

Twenty thousand dollars. That's a small fortune for someone like me. Yet there's no assurance of more. Is my bank account half empty or half full?

Before the severance, I was a professional sketch artist. I had etched out a living from the camera-banned courthouses and police interrogation rooms. I'd capture the sterile stageplay of a prosecution or bring to life the blurred memory of a witness. I had been initially thrilled to take my talent and turn it to coin. Yet, now I know what most know; you can't peddle your passions without a tax on your soul.

So here I sit, on Battersea Beach, sifting through my thoughts like a child searching for unbroken shells. Do I invest my talents, or do I bury them? Do I keep the necktie or go back to the naive dreams of my youth? Do I clock in and out and draw what I'm told, what's safe, what I know will sell? Or do I have what it takes to defy hunger and risk eviction for the purity of my art? To draw daily from the well of spontaneity. To challenge the blank page and harness the endless possibilities of a sharpened pencil. To feel again the thrill of taking a breathing moment, capturing it, and making it immortal. That had always been the power of my art and the purpose of me and my little black book. I hope to find that again, at the edge of this world, with my eyes closed and ears open. Because for me, every pure sketch starts with a sound... the waves, the birds, the kids, the wind, the—

The birds.

I open my eyes and watch as they swoop and plunge into the rolling valley of a wave. They reemerge, glistening, with a small silver token in their beaks: a fish for lunch.

As I watch, one bird, in particular, stands out amongst the rest. It's small, stunted, discolored, and mangy if a bird can be called mangy. It reminds me of some delinquents I've sketched in court, with their combed unwashed hair, stained khakis, mismatched socks, and short borrowed tie.

The pencil, now in my hand, begins to tremble for the purity of the blank page. A sign that I've found my subject.

I watch as it dives again, smacking the water like a stone while the others slip in like a harpoon and reappear with the grace of an aqua phoenix. My bird, which I've unconsciously named Subpar, reappears fishless, sluggish, and weighted as if the water itself were tar.

It doesn't take long for the rest of the flock to carry off their lunches while Subpar, alone, continues to dive, staying under longer and reemerging slower.

I helplessly find myself rooting for the bird as one might root for the short kid on a basketball team or the fat kid playing kickball. I root for him like I wish my family rooted for me when I laid bare my impossible dream of becoming the next Rubens, Mazzoni, or Fazio. Sometimes you just want the meek to inherit the earth. Because if they can inherit, then so can you. And for the next minute, it looked like it might just happen.

I watch with delight as Subpar emerges from his latest dive with a fish, but not just any fish, a fish twice the bird's size. My pride quickens, but then quickly falters as Subpar's flying becomes erratic and disjointed.

"Come on, bird!" I said as I rose from the sand.

The struggle becomes a battle as the fish flails for water and the bird flaps for sand.

"You're almost there!"

I swear it hears me because it starts coming towards me. But then, in a last-ditch effort, the fish buckles, bends, and contorts with a sudden power that breaks the bird's already loosening grip. It slips free and somersaults towards the darker, hard wet sand.

Smack! The fish hits and immediately heaves and hoes like a rodeo bull. Subpar lands at its side and begins sneaking its beak between scales as a musketeer might a blade, jabbing and stabbing between the flips and flops.

But then I see it: the sea exhaling, the tide returning. The waves rushing, galloping, and tumbling towards feather and scale. The bird sees it too. It dispenses with the swordplay and grabs the fish as the crest begins to collapse. Subpar pushes off with its spindly legs and tired wings, but it's too late; the tumbling water embraces the fish and spits the bird back onto the shore.

Subpar shakes off the sea with a spasm of its feathers and scuttles away on its tiny feet. I can't help but follow. This bird has become my soap opera, my favorite team.

I trek along at a distance, but despite my caution, the bird becomes aware. It gives me quick furtive glances as if to ask, "Friend, foe, or food?" I slow my pace and allow myself to drift back further in its wake.

Following the waterline, Subpar advances and retreats with the tide, darting forward on the inhale and rushing back on the sigh. It holds its beak down, cocked, and ready, hunting for something that could be dropped by the waves or kicked up by the sand.

Then materializing from out of nowhere, the most well-endowed crab I've ever seen emerges from the surf. I freeze as Subpar pounces. With a flinch, the surprised crab raises its claws and circles the bird like a defensive boxer. Its spear-like legs are ever dancing, charging, and retreating while Subpar lumbers around like a drunk mummy, grabbing and jabbing, using his beak like a pair of chopsticks. But the crab is too quick, and his right claw connects. The soft globe of Subpar's eye is popped, and the bird launches itself back and away with a mighty push of its wings.

Fight turns to flight as the crab scuttles away, its legs blurred with the speeds of a roadrunner. It plunges side-long into an invisible hole and disappears from the menu.

Swatting at its eye with the bend of its wing, Subpar staggers about in a flurry of feathers. The sounds from his throat are filled with frustration and rage—a more human sound than I've ever heard from something with a beak.

Subpar finally gathers some composure, despite an oozing eye, and takes several fly-hops toward a line of rocks extending into the sea. A fisherman is posted at its furthest point with a limp line and rigid pole. My bird, paying him no mind, fly-hops two stones deep and abruptly takes pause.

If you've really watched a bird, you may notice that they're never really still. These creatures are continuously twitching, shifting, and cocking their heads like a drug addict three days clean. But at this moment, Subpar is frozen stiff as if stuffed and mounted to the stone. As I draw near, I see what he sees and mirror the pose.

A tidal pool tucked between the rocks is teaming with trapped fish. Literally boiling over within a fury of silver flashes.

Subpar, noticing my presence, cocks its head, and meets my eye. I can't help but smile at my new friend's good fortune. However, what happened next I'll doubt for the rest of my life because at that moment, I swear to God, the feathery tufts at the corners of its beak sliced upward... and Subpar smiled back.

I nod back once as if to say, "you did it," then shove my hands into my pockets, and step off the rocks, now assured that if this bird can make it in the world, then anyone can. What was that Bible verse about God taking care of the birds, so how much more will he take care of you? So surely my dreams are not for nothing. His pool of fish is no different than my twenty grand. It won't last forever, but it'll take me further down the line. I can always sell my work on the bridges or squares of a city. Maybe make a downpayment on a studio while I work part-time at an exhibit. Regardless, I suddenly felt twenty grand was enough. The future looked bright. Not easy. But bright.

A violent scream.

I look back and see Subpar's feathers flayed open at awkward angles and its neck stretched out at full length. Something is wrapping itself around the bird. My first thought is a snake—many snakes by the look of it.

"Hey!" I yell as I rush back towards the pool.

I feel the fisherman's eyes as I struggle across the dry sand.

"Hey!" I shout again as I crest the second stone, only to recoil at the sight of Subpar being constricted by the tentacles of a ghastly octopus. It's pulling my friend deeper and deeper into its gaping beaked mouth.

I'm disgusted. Repulsed. Hopeless. Subpar's doom is past the point of no return. The octopus, camouflaged, must have been waiting for just such an ambush.

"Ya don't see that ever day."

I glance back at the fisherman who now hovers over my shoulder.

"Oop. There she goes," he said, nodding back towards the pool.

As if smelling the squid bait on the fisherman's fingers, the octopus slithers towards the safety of the pool. With a final hoarse squawk, Subpar is dragged into the water and pulled below the thrashing fish.

I pick up one of Subpar's rogue feathers. One of the few beautiful long ones.

"A great cormorant," said the fisherman.

"Sorry?"

"A great cormorant. The bird. Guess he wasn't so great, though, was he?"

I stare back into the pool.

"Them octopuses, man. They'll get 'cha. That's about life though, ain't it?"

"Yeah," is all I can say as I turn and walk away.

I plop back down on my bath towel and look out towards the ocean, towards Africa or Europe or whatever place is out there beyond this horizon. I take a deep breath. I open my little black book and flip past the courtrooms and suspects to the first blank page. I shake out the stiffness in my wrist and begin to approach my imagination with the immortalization of the bird I had named Subpar, who was and is and always will be... a great cormorant.

I begin to feel the weight of purpose like I've never felt it before. Never have I witnessed the struggle of life so clearly than in my few minutes with the bird. I wrestle with the thoughts of what to sketch, but I can't shake the image of those stone-colored tentacles pulling me down.

Instead, I draw the fisherman alone on the rocks. I bet someone would buy it, unframed, for forty-five bucks.