the birds
I have to drive a few blocks down before I see the convenience store to my right. I've done this more than once or twice, but I always forget where exactly it is. Past the mini-mall with the flower shop and through the underpass where the trains to NY roar through.
I grab a cup of tea - chai with a little honey - and a pack of smokes. Parliament lights, please. Not my usual brand, but they're sort of sentimental and it's not like I really smoke these days anyway. I used to smoke about half a pack a day; now I do about a pack a year. I ask the guy for matches but he doesn't have any, so I have to buy a lighter that I will doubtless lose in an absentminded moment within the next two point five days....
I jump back in my car and retrace my route for about a quarter mile before I have to make the right turn.
This is the ritual I don't tell anyone about, the one I go through every time I visit my brother.
--
I park the car and button up my jacket and put on a hat. Geezus, the sun's been up for an hour or two but it's freezing cold! My fingers are already numb by the time I am sitting by his side, lighting up two cigarettes. One for me and one for him.
And as these two stubs of burning turn into ash, I tell him about what's going on in my world. The annoyances of my job, how our mother just got diagnosed with osteoporosis the day before, how so-and-so broke up and so-and-so got
into grad school... And how annoyed I was with him, because my friend Lisa, she told me that she kept on seeing birds all over the place after her brother passed away. It was as if he was trying to tell her a message.
"I don't think I've gotten ANY signs from you at all, David," I say. "I mean, you know what a psychic dud your sister is. You could at least be *really* obvious about it, if you ARE trying to send me messages...."
A few moments later, as I wipe away my tears, I look up to see a flock of birds flying in my direction. They land in the field across the path and flutter about loudly. There must have been a hundred of them, no kidding.
--
"Haha, very funny," I tell him, as I put out the cigarettes and brush the grass from my pants.
My brother always did have a lame sense of humor... Just like me.
I grab a cup of tea - chai with a little honey - and a pack of smokes. Parliament lights, please. Not my usual brand, but they're sort of sentimental and it's not like I really smoke these days anyway. I used to smoke about half a pack a day; now I do about a pack a year. I ask the guy for matches but he doesn't have any, so I have to buy a lighter that I will doubtless lose in an absentminded moment within the next two point five days....
I jump back in my car and retrace my route for about a quarter mile before I have to make the right turn.
This is the ritual I don't tell anyone about, the one I go through every time I visit my brother.
--
I park the car and button up my jacket and put on a hat. Geezus, the sun's been up for an hour or two but it's freezing cold! My fingers are already numb by the time I am sitting by his side, lighting up two cigarettes. One for me and one for him.
And as these two stubs of burning turn into ash, I tell him about what's going on in my world. The annoyances of my job, how our mother just got diagnosed with osteoporosis the day before, how so-and-so broke up and so-and-so got
into grad school... And how annoyed I was with him, because my friend Lisa, she told me that she kept on seeing birds all over the place after her brother passed away. It was as if he was trying to tell her a message.
"I don't think I've gotten ANY signs from you at all, David," I say. "I mean, you know what a psychic dud your sister is. You could at least be *really* obvious about it, if you ARE trying to send me messages...."
A few moments later, as I wipe away my tears, I look up to see a flock of birds flying in my direction. They land in the field across the path and flutter about loudly. There must have been a hundred of them, no kidding.
--
"Haha, very funny," I tell him, as I put out the cigarettes and brush the grass from my pants.
My brother always did have a lame sense of humor... Just like me.