Birds

Ralph Harwinton was a lonely man. Depressed, unemployed, and otherwise miserable, he walked along the trail path through a thick forest of deciduous trees, swatting gnats, mosquitoes, and other annoying critters that just wanted him for his blood, away from his face. To an outside observer, he resembled a madman.

He looked up at the birches, oaks, maples, and ash, the latter having been devastated by that nasty emerald ash borer during the past few years, their bare limbs reaching the sky but providing no cover. The sunlight streamed down through the canopy, streaking between leaf and limb like the gods were reaching down from heaven. He watched as a chickadee flitted from one branch to another and heard the distinctive call of a blue jay. Ralph felt a bug on his neck and slapped it, ending its life, but not before doing damage to him and seeing blood on his hand as he pulled it away. Dammit, he thought, but really what was he expecting, not putting on any insect repellent before he started on this journey?

He took his backpack off and placed it on the ground. Unzipping one of the compartments, he took tissues from a pack he always carried. He felt the blood start to drip down from his small wound, cursing the insect that did it. As he wiped the blood from his neck, he saw the gun in the same compartment, which he had haphazardly placed there before he left for his hike.

Ralph always carried the gun with him, unloaded, thinking it provided a level of safety for him. But really, what good was an unloaded gun? He carried the ammunition in a separate compartment. Again, what good was a gun and ammunition that were separated? Still, it was the illusion of safety that made him feel good.

Bleeding stanched at last, he was stuffing the tissues in his front pants pocket when his fingers felt the keys in his pocket. He pulled them out, dropping the tissues on the forest floor as he did. A sudden breeze blew them towards a fast-flowing stream and he watched the current take them over small rocks and through smaller eddies as it floated down to points unknown. He hated polluting but took solace in the fact that the tissue was paper and would decompose soon enough.

His thoughts turned back to the keys. Why had Marie left? He thought things were good between them; they hardly ever argued, and the sex was great, if infrequent. She got up that morning, after one of those infrequent nights, and pulled her clothes on. She said those dreaded words, “We have to talk,” with a look of seriousness on her face that he never saw before.

Groggy, he wiped the sleep from his eyes and nodded. His mouth felt dry, and he was sure his breath wasn’t good. “I can’t do this anymore, Ralph. I need to grow, to spread my wings, experience life to the fullest.” He didn’t understand what she meant, and the two scotches he had last night were taking their toll. “Goodbye, Ralph,” she said, turning and closing the bedroom door behind her. He was getting out of bed when he heard the apartment door close, and her steps down the staircase echoed. She had all the qualities he wanted in a woman: intelligent, attractive, and funny. Bewildered, he rose and wandered over to the window, pulling the curtains aside, covering himself,  not wanting his nakedness to scare anyone who might be looking up. He saw her stride to her car and heard the two beeps as she pressed the unlock button on the key fob. He watched her open the door and saw her speed away.

Ralph pushed those thoughts away and returned to the present. Shaking his head in disgust, he zipped up his bag and placed it on his shoulder again. Continuing his walk down the trail, he passed a couple headed in the opposite direction. Young, perhaps in their early twenties, Ralph saw the love in their eyes (or was it lust? You never can tell at that age?) They held hands, and the girl laughed at something her partner said, her eyes beaming at her lover. His mind wandered back to the events of the morning, ruminating over them in his head. He needed to sit but was afraid of another biting creature, ticks. His father had had Lyme disease and suffered the worst of its effects for most of his life.

Further down the trail was a clearing in the trees, and he saw a bench. As he got closer, he saw several benches, all overlooking a small lake. Sitting on the one closest to the water, he set his knapsack beside him and took out his phone. He checked his messages, Facebook, and Instagram, and there was nothing from her. He checked his Facebook friend list and saw her About information no longer said In a relationship. He frowned and refreshed the page. Now, her profile had the Add Friend button. She must have just removed me, he thought. Opening Instagram, he noticed she wasn’t following him anymore. App after app, the same thing; he wondered why she wanted to erase him from her life.

He closed his phone and thought about his life. Where was it going? Nowhere, it seemed. He lost his job in the last round of layoffs at his company and lost his girlfriend. His prospects were dim in both areas. Before they met, he couldn’t remember the last time he was happy.

He reached into a different compartment and took out the camera that he was never without. A Nikon D3400, the DSLR camera was the best he had ever owned. He was a photography buff, never excellent and never horrible. Some of his photographs appeared in local shows; he even took first place once. Susan, his girlfriend from high school, introduced him to the hobby and bought him a Canon camera for graduation. Susan was a much better shutterbug than he ever was. She was a professional now, earning her keep as a high-end fashion photographer, taking pictures of movie stars, musicians, and the occasional politician. Her photographs were on the covers of many magazines and websites. He hadn’t thought of her in years. Loneliness makes you do that.

He looked out on the lake. Anseriformes abounded with ducks, geese, and swans sharing the water as if it were some bird playground. The swans, sophisticated with their white plumage and elegantly curved necks, swam in pairs, avoiding other avians as if they had the plague (or bird flu!). Geese dipped their heads in the water, eating the aquatic plants with aplomb. Those not in the water strutted on the turf with a confident air, bending down to pluck blades of grass from the ground, except one, who sat on the ground, neck tucked in, sleeping and ignorant of the activity around it. The occasional duck swam with glee in the lake, avoiding the other birds with a speed one wouldn’t think of in a duck.

He saw an opportunity in the scene before him. He took out his Nikon and removed the lens cap. Focusing on a pair of swans, he watched as each performed an elaborate mating ritual, dipping their heads below the water at an ever-quickening pace, eventually ending with their necks entwined. Snapping as fast as his camera would allow, he was amazed at this intricate and complicated dance.

Their ceremony over, he pointed his camera to a duck staring right at him. Ralph thought if this camera were his gun, that would be one dead duck. He laughed to himself at that thought and snapped. Again. Again.

The scene, ever-changing and magnificent, unfolded before him. Before he could snap another photo, Ralph saw a bold goose pluck its head into the open compartment of his backpack and pull out a bag of snacks Ralph had forgotten was there. He turned and snapped, hoping he got the goose with the small bag of popcorn in its mouth.

He felt alive now, forgetting his troubles for a little while at least. He kept snapping, keen, and in the zone. He turned his attention to the distance, where a high cliff wall formed the other shoreline. Cliff swallows, rarely seen, swooped in and out of their mud nests, seeking the mosquitoes and other insects that comprised the primary part of their diet.

Ralph snapped and clicked, making slight adjustments to his camera here and there, hoping to catch the perfect shot: F-Stop, aperture, exposure - camera terms Ralph never fully understood but did his best to master.

He had no idea how many shots he took. He saw a red-winged blackbird fly out from the reeds to his left, but it was too quick. He stopped to admire the vista before him, the lake's mirror-like surface broken only by the waterfowl, the sun lightly reflecting off it, blinding him for a short time. The reeds to the left, the open area to his right, the cliff face on the far side of the lake, opposite him, behind him, the forest from which he entered this beautiful location.

Ralph looked at the pictures on his camera, noting with disappointment the consecutive blurry or poorly composed photos. Shot after shot, each one was blurry and more out of focus than the next; each was off-center or tilted, which not even the best Photoshop expert could repair. He even sucked at the thing he loved the most, he thought. He started to cry and remembered the real reason he came here.

He put his camera down next to him, reached into his bag, and retrieved the gun he brought. He ran his finger along the barrel, looking at the shininess of the steel. He told himself he needed the weapon for protection, but protection from what? He needed protection from it if he was being honest.

Putting the gun barrel against his temple, he contemplated pulling the trigger. Why not? No job, no lover, no prospects, not even able to take a good picture. Nothing that Susan taught him, nothing that anyone with any knowledge of photography taught him ever stuck. He held the gun there for a minute, trying to decide if his life was worth it. Worth what, he wondered, and that was the big problem, wasn’t it?

He put the gun by his side onto the bench, on the opposite side of his camera. He looked out onto the lake and noticed that most of the birds had swum or flown away. Even the geese were gone.

Shutting his eyes to shield them from the sun’s reflection, Ralph contemplated his life. He wasn’t sure how long they were closed, but when he opened them again, he saw a gun pointed at him. Shocked, Ralph tried to grasp the situation. Holding the gun was a young girl, not more than seven or eight, her light brown hair in braids, holding it like she would a cap gun.

“Bang!” she said in a quiet tone so eerie that the child seemed psychopathic. “Bang!” she said again. 

Ralph, trying to remain calm and forgetting again that the firearm was not loaded, said to the girl, “Can you please hand that to me?”

“No!” was her quick and adamant response. She twirled around and, with each one, shouted, “Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Ralph wondered where her parents were. Maybe she was an apparition, one of those creatures sent by an unknown god to protect the innocent. How would that feel to an avowed atheist like him?

Her twirling ending, she came to a full stop in front of him. “I’ll only give you the gun if you give me something,” she stated, with a bargaining manner that belied her age.

Seeing his disadvantage, he asked her, “And what that might be?”

She stood there, feet planted firmly on the ground, unaware of the goose shit that she was standing in, and thought about her response. “Show me what’s on the camera,” she demanded.

“Oh, they’re not very good,” he replied. “Not very good at all.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she retorted. “If you want this,” she said, again pointing the gun at him, “then you’ll show me anyway! Deal’s a deal!”

“We haven’t made a deal yet,” he said, smiling at her precociousness.

“Who’s holding the gun, hmm?”

“Point taken,” he replied, lifting the camera from the bench. “First, the gun, though.”

Seeing that Ralph agreed to the deal, she handed the gun to him, but not without reluctance. He took the gun from her and placed it in the small of his back, far away from her reach.

“Are you going to show me, or are you going to be like the other adults and make deals and then break them?”

He leaned over and showed her the photos on his camera, flipping through them quickly.

“Slow down,” she demanded, and he obeyed.

“See? They all suck,” he said, not believing what was going on here as he continued to flip, albeit slower than he had before.

“You’re right. They do suck!” the girl said, giggling.

He continued to flip through when she shouted, “Stop!” Again, he obeyed.

“Look at this one!” she said with excitement.

“This one is all blurry.”

“Not that one. The one before, silly.”

He moved one picture back and saw what she saw, in all its beautiful glory, perfect in composition, perfect in focus, perfect in every way. Against the cliff, the swallows dove from their high nests, a red-winged blackbird slightly to their left, with two swans with the necks intertwined and a slight reflection of the sun rounding it out. “Wow!” was all Ralph could muster.

“Why do you have a gun?”

As he was about to answer, he heard the desperate calls of two worried parents: “Anna! Anna!”

Ralph put his finger to his lip, “Shhh!”. Ralph smiled, and Anna smiled back at her co-conspirator. Ralph put his finger to his lip, “Shhh!”. Ralph smiled, and Anna smiled back at her co-conspirator. He made sure the gun was hidden.

“Here!” she shouted as her parents came into view. “I’m over here!” They ran to her, and her father picked her up. “This nice man was helping me!”

“Thank you!” they said in unison as the mother reprimanded her daughter.

Ralph heard Anna say to her mother as they walked away, “You should see the beautiful pictures he takes! They have birds and water and the sun and…” her voice got farther and farther away.

Ralph took the gun out from behind his back when he was sure they were gone. He looked at it, the sun glinting off the steel. He took a few steps towards the lake edge and, with a strong throw, tossed it into the water.

“Ralph Harwinton,” he said to himself. “Things are going to be all right!” 

© 2024 Stephen A. Massa All Rights Reserved