Non-Story

In my elsewhere does it also rain blood?

Is this my freedom or my confinement?

This is not a story, not really, just the writer’s attempt to make sense of the three dead birds she’s seen this past week, amongst other signs (or trivialities). I’ve Googled it, of course. What does it mean to see dead birds everywhere?

The first bird was a chick, shrivelled up on the sunny pavement by the bus station; the second squished in the middle of the road, guts like minced meat; and the third splattered across a zebra crossing.

This gullible writer, yours truly, has also been seeing 11:11 everywhere, including in her inbox (I have 1111 unread emails – lucky me).

Frequency bias, a wise reader would say. But our writer—hello, hi! — isn’t nearly as wise. And what does one do when they interpret everything as a sign?

I recently returned from Madrid where I bought two books: Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart and Fowles’ The Collector. Both of which contain the word ‘beatnik’ (pages 8 and 19 respectively). I Googled that, too.

You’ve probably skimmed over the word before, a wise reader would say. But our writer—did someone call me? —isn’t nearly as wise.

I’ve been wondering what it means – why was my first and second exposure to the word in the only two books I bought that very same day? Shall I start saying daddy-o? Shall I wear a turtleneck and a beret? Shall I hurl paint at a canvas and call it art? Shall I moan about the world or the disillusionment that’s eating me alive from the inside out?

Maybe, just maybe, it means I ought to buy the Beatnik handbook, or so it’s been called: Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. I was in a very small bookstore here in Murcia the other day—a stationery store, really—and saw it atop one of those metal rack whatchamacallits, the ones that rotate. Its bright yellow cover followed me like a sunflower turning its head towards the sun, or one of those leering portraits whose eyes stalk you (cue the ghost sounds!). I didn’t buy it, though. Should I have? Should I? And should I really be reading all this cool cat, juicehead slang in my second language? Well, it’s currently siesta time and the bookstore’s closed.

*

Make that five. Five dead birds. I saw the fourth in the park, the fifth on a sidewalk. It’s starting to seem commonplace, really. Perhaps it’s seasonal? Do birds migrate in May? Was the sky sprayed with poison? Did the clouds slurp up puddles of waste? This is not a story, not really, just the writer’s attempt to make sense of the five dead birds she’s seen this past week.

I bought Kerouac’s On The Road.

Only I didn’t, not really.

There it was, the yellow paperback on the metal whatchamacallit, the yellow paperback in the shop assistant’s hands, the yellow paperback slipped into a paper bag – the brown lunch kind. Gracia’, ha’ta lue’o. The creak of the door, the tinker of a bell.

When I got home and emptied the lunch bag, ravenous and ready to devour beatnik culture, I found Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart. I turned it over in my hands. My own copy, scruffy and dog-eared. I’d like to say my heart pounded out my chest; I mean, only that would do it justice. But it didn’t.

Instead, I read it again, read my notes, the lines I’d highlighted, the paragraphs I’d crossed out in lead. Superfluous! Awful! Lazy! If you need an example of entropy, this is the novel for you! Does my facetiousness bleed through the page? glare through the screen? Sputnik Sweetheart really descended into cow dung—can you see the bottle flies? their bulging microphone eyes? their iridescent green? —but we’ll use it as the fertiliser for this non-story.

I bought Kerouac’s On The Road.

Again.

Only I didn’t, not really.

There it was, the yellow paperback on the metal whatchamacallit, the yellow paperback in the shop assistant’s hands, the yellow paperback yada, yada, yada, yada. The creak of the door, the tinker of a bell.

When I got home and emptied the lunch bag, yada, yada, yada, yada, I found Fowles’ The Collector. I read that again, too.

Déjà vu doesn’t yell but whispers. It’s certainty, uncertainty, certainty. Denial, acceptance, denial. Doubt. A truckload of it. This, coupled with the cognitive dissonance, is why I didn’t hurl the books across the room or rip out my own hair with the impossibility of it all.

Déjà vu is a spell.

Déjà vu is a pendulum.

Déjà vu is the closest I’ve come to explaining the mist of cognitive dissonance.

*

Six. It was on my doorstep. If the reader must know, I live in a block of flats (the bloody thing was inside!). This is not a story, not really, just the writer’s attempt to survive.

The déjà vu had me questioning if I’ve been repeating past patterns. Is there a cycle that must be broken? A lesson yet to be learned? I’ve given up on buying On The Road for I only ever find Murakami or Fowles in that brown lunch bag. Once, I refused the bag and the goddamn thing metamorphosed in my hands. Gone. My little sunflower, gone again.

What both stubborn novels have in common, despite their weed-like persistence, is the concept of two worlds: a here and an elsewhere. Murakami’s in the fantastical sense. Fowles’ in the sense of confinement and freedom. Is this the message? Have I got the hint? Two worlds, not beatnik?

This gullible writer studies the signs like dusting for prints.

What are my two worlds? Where is my here and where is my elsewhere? And in this latter do I see six dead birds in a week? Do numbers still taunt me? Is there anythin—

Seven.

Have you ever seen a bird collide with a ceiling fan?

In my elsewhere does it also rain blood?

Is this my freedom or my confinement?