stories about birds, paper swans and the seeds of trees.
I take breaks from work frequently, a lot, many , plenty, to smoke cigarettes. especially when the weather is nice or near perfect. there is a small patch of lawn next to the driveway that is next to the building I work. this building that has a mysterious thermostat that insists on making the heat go on instead of the cool, I touch that thermostat as many times as I go to outside to smoke in a day, which may number as many as 8 times in 5 hours. while outside on these breaks sometimes incredible things happen.
we had a bird called a northern flicker, it is a woodpecker, I believe, and by "have" I mean it sat on the window sill outside the office I work in often-often-often. it would sit and sun itself and we all would discuss its habits. "hey, flicker is cleaning himself" Ron would say. I would rush over and watch, my face a nice 2 inches from flicker separated by glass, looking at this lovely little bird doing what it had to do. getting dust from it wings. puffing up its throat and making strange noises that I hoped meant he was fucking super excited about something and wanted others to know.
then one day I went out to smoke and found flicker dead in the driveway. not just dead but e-vis-er-ated. gutted, almost ritualistically. being forensically minded I pieced the scene together. birds fly into glass, when they hit the glass all the dust and dirt that collects on their wings makes an imprint on the smooth surface. you can see a smudged outline of where the poor thing made impact. I looked and found such a spot 2 stories up on the building. then, I believe and studies will prove, he was stunned and landed flat on the concrete drive way. some times after this he was struck by the tire of the cadillac owned by the man that arranges junkets to Reno and has more paper in his office then a kinkos.
I moved flicker to the window sill of the first floor with a stick. I am unsure why. the idea of him getting struck by another car bugged me.
days pass. I go out to smoke. a finch this time. a small tiny finch. at first I was sure he was dead but surprisingly he twitched a little. so I picked him up and his little claws dug into my fingers and his eyes opened in a hazy stare. after petting his head for a bit, adjusting his wings to a position I thought more conducive to flying, and certainly blowing smoke in his poor face, I placed him on the first floor window sill where flicker had decayed and then been dragged off by some local scavenger animal.
2 hours later, another cigarette break. the finch, GONE. flew away. thanking me for getting him out of the driveway before the junket-cadillac-man could crush his little bones.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote a book called "Of Love And Other Demons". at a particularly wonderful point in the book a women is sitting next to a tree. she begins to remember a man that lived in the asylum that had once stood next to that very spot she now sat. he used to make origami swans and throw them to her, they would float and glide down to her like feathers. at that moment, the sky begins to rain these origami swans over her by the thousands.
on cigarette break #236 last week, I stood by one of those trees with the seed pods that fall like helicopter blades from the sky and settle in the grass perfectly erect, seed down, tail up. the wind was gusting and a front was moving east in a purple line. as I stood there on the lawn, pulling drags from a hotboxed cigarette, this tree and those winds conspired to unloaded the whole lot of seeds on to me and the grass around. it was amazing. all these floating little tan wings drifting down around me. in moments the lawn was covered, I was covered. piles and piles. I thought of those swans and figured this was the best I could do as building next to us deals in real estate and not lunatics.
birds and seed pods and cigarettes and I did not even mention all the wasp's nests.
-jae.
we had a bird called a northern flicker, it is a woodpecker, I believe, and by "have" I mean it sat on the window sill outside the office I work in often-often-often. it would sit and sun itself and we all would discuss its habits. "hey, flicker is cleaning himself" Ron would say. I would rush over and watch, my face a nice 2 inches from flicker separated by glass, looking at this lovely little bird doing what it had to do. getting dust from it wings. puffing up its throat and making strange noises that I hoped meant he was fucking super excited about something and wanted others to know.
then one day I went out to smoke and found flicker dead in the driveway. not just dead but e-vis-er-ated. gutted, almost ritualistically. being forensically minded I pieced the scene together. birds fly into glass, when they hit the glass all the dust and dirt that collects on their wings makes an imprint on the smooth surface. you can see a smudged outline of where the poor thing made impact. I looked and found such a spot 2 stories up on the building. then, I believe and studies will prove, he was stunned and landed flat on the concrete drive way. some times after this he was struck by the tire of the cadillac owned by the man that arranges junkets to Reno and has more paper in his office then a kinkos.
I moved flicker to the window sill of the first floor with a stick. I am unsure why. the idea of him getting struck by another car bugged me.
days pass. I go out to smoke. a finch this time. a small tiny finch. at first I was sure he was dead but surprisingly he twitched a little. so I picked him up and his little claws dug into my fingers and his eyes opened in a hazy stare. after petting his head for a bit, adjusting his wings to a position I thought more conducive to flying, and certainly blowing smoke in his poor face, I placed him on the first floor window sill where flicker had decayed and then been dragged off by some local scavenger animal.
2 hours later, another cigarette break. the finch, GONE. flew away. thanking me for getting him out of the driveway before the junket-cadillac-man could crush his little bones.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote a book called "Of Love And Other Demons". at a particularly wonderful point in the book a women is sitting next to a tree. she begins to remember a man that lived in the asylum that had once stood next to that very spot she now sat. he used to make origami swans and throw them to her, they would float and glide down to her like feathers. at that moment, the sky begins to rain these origami swans over her by the thousands.
on cigarette break #236 last week, I stood by one of those trees with the seed pods that fall like helicopter blades from the sky and settle in the grass perfectly erect, seed down, tail up. the wind was gusting and a front was moving east in a purple line. as I stood there on the lawn, pulling drags from a hotboxed cigarette, this tree and those winds conspired to unloaded the whole lot of seeds on to me and the grass around. it was amazing. all these floating little tan wings drifting down around me. in moments the lawn was covered, I was covered. piles and piles. I thought of those swans and figured this was the best I could do as building next to us deals in real estate and not lunatics.
birds and seed pods and cigarettes and I did not even mention all the wasp's nests.
-jae.