here's a short story i wrote for school (well, kinda short
) it's mostly true, so if you steal it you will be lying!
The Eye of the Storm
I pace my grandmothers house on soft and silent feet like those of her many cats. Its Wednesday, five days into my familys vacation here in Maine. Im feeling
odd. Some strange emptiness that pierces me right to my core. Is it hunger? Thirst? I munch on some crackers and down a glass of milk, hoping. No such luck. It is just before noon and everyone is out sailing, but I am too restless to sit quietly in a boat. I wonder if I just need to move around; get some exercise.
I do some jumping jacks then seek out one of the cats to play with. I find a thin black and white one lurking beneath the table. She prissily turns up her pink snub nose at the tough rope mouse I dangle in front of her. I wonder if my grandmother has a radio. I search for ten minutes through the cluttered, one-story house, finally locate one right in the kitchen where I started out, turn it up loud and dance for a bit.
The exertion helps, but there is still a huge yawning gap right in my heart. What is it? Some
need to be around people or something? No, if that were it, I would have gone sailing. I dont know.
There is one other possibility; one I dont want to consider. Every vacation I worry about the animals Ive left at home- the cat, Leah and the rabbit, Blackberry and the chickens, Raven, June, Tiny, Stormpuff, and the others. So much can happen in week. What if the pet-sitter forgot to feed them? What if a predator got into the chicken coop? I could call a neighbor to go check on them (though Im not sure I want to know), but
Im being paranoid. It is so easy to let your mind wander in unwanted directions in a silent, empty house.
I peek under the table and behind the curtains, searching for the unconcerned, comforting presence of the cat. She must be hiding again.
I plod back to the kitchen and walk outside. The dirt driveway, while littered with no shortage of pine needles, is empty of our mud-spattered mini-van, my grandmothers old moss-green jeep. The squat brown house stares forlornly at me with dark, vacant glass eyes. The late-august sky is robins egg blue with a smattering of fleecy clouds that look like wisps of sheeps wool caught in a barbed-wire fence.
The ominous black silhouette of a hawk circles overhead, even as the pines far below come alive with oblivious, twittering song-birds. I shout and the birds scatter, depriving the raptor of a would-be easy meal. I hastily dart inside before I can feel bad for the hawk.
Settling myself on the couch, I flip on the television and channel surf, unable to concentrate with the odd numbness that dogs me. Another hour and everyone returns home. As we bake a lemon meringue pie and eat our pizza, I seem to forget the feeling. But the peculiar, void sensation is there, always there, thud thud thudding like heartbeat just beyond the reaches of my conscious mind; a sinister creature in the night that lies in wait in the gloom outside a ring of firelight, always just out of sight, waiting for a single wandering thought to drift into the murk to attack.
I stay up as late as Im allowed, trying desperately and not succeeding at keeping the hollow place in my chest at bay, but eventually my mother announces Time for bed, Alexandrea. Im exhausted.
As I tumble into bed, images barrage me and all the reasons I am worried about my flock come flooding into my mind like a tidal wave. And I dream
She is stepping off the bus. It is late spring; almost the end of the school year. She talks contentedly with her friend as they walk. Making their farewells, she continues on. Reaching her yard she passes her mother, working in her flower garden. They exchange a few pleasant words. She is blearily happy, the brilliant summer sun high overhead, a whispering breeze waltzing all around. The trees murmur to each other, waking after their winter hibernation.
She drops her heavy backpack, a burden she bears like chains that bind her to her school. She shrugs off her thin but unneeded jacket and kicks off her shoes. The artificial green arcs through the air. She runs to the barn, light and quick on her bare feet. She reaches the chicken coop and peers into the nesting box, searching for eggs. A black hen is there, sitting like a broody. But she isnt moving. Isnt even breathing. Her head is twisted back unnaturally, as if her neck is broken. Her ebony feathers glisten in sleek summer radiance, as beautiful and healthy as in life. Only its not.
a single boom of thunder grumbles moodily, shaking me into consciousness; a luminous electric glow slashes the sky, lighting the world in cold unnatural gray. Rain comes in torrents. Then, as quickly as the storm came, it ends, vanishing like a puff of smoke, leaving the forest damp and fresh. I fall into a fitful sleep.
* * *
The anomalous hollowness pursues me for the final three days of the vacation. The pet-sitter hasnt called. Surly she would if something were wrong? I resist the urge to contact her, instead choosing to grapple with the negated place inside my soul. Of course everything is fine, right? Right.
As at last we pack the car, my heart is in turmoil. As much as I dont want to know what has happened at home, I feel I must find out before I burst.
On the way home we stop for lunch, but I feel too sick to eat. Everyone tucks into their meal while I battle my churning stomach in its enthusiastic attempts to expel my meager breakfast. My mother looks at me with concern.
Are you sure youre feeling okay? she asks me. I nod, afraid to open my mouth for fear of what might come out-visible or not. I can tell from the look in her eyes she doesnt believe me, though. Frowning, she lifts a stray strand of brownish-blonde hair back from my face and feels my forehead with her wrist, checking for signs of fever. I push her hand away.
Mom, Im fine, I promise, I manage to choke out. She leaves me alone after that.
The car ride is long and harsh, the terrible ache in my heart strengthening and clawing its way all through me until I feel riddled with holes like a dead or dying tree. We finally arrive home after the four hour trip from Belfast, Maine to Hollis, New Hampshire. I force open the door and leap out onto the ground, climbing over several bags in the process. I dont bother unpacking my stuff before running to the barn.
As I near the large red and white-trimmed building, I notice that an enormous dead tree, a hickory I think though its so covered in vines its hard to tell, has fallen-a foot from the garden and no more than six inches from the outside pen of the chicken coop. Talk about luck. The tree must have fallen down in the storm, I think. I scan the scene, thinking that perhaps there is something obvious missing from it. Not that it matters. I wonder if this is why I have that weird feeling. But no, I remember it started before the storm. I run around to the other side of the barn and hoist the heavy, garage-type door, sliding it high up on its rusted protesting tracks. I dart inside and check each coop: June and Darkflights, the mean roosters, the other roosters, the main coop. Everything is peaceful. I step into the main coop, pick up my favorite chicken, Tiny and give her a hug. Her neck stretches around mine as if hugging me back. Her beak clacks contentedly in my ear. Raven, the flocks lead rooster peers up, head tipped to the side, and churrs softly in recognition. The other roosters then the hens take up the call. The barn is soon filled with the most comforting and wonderful sounds in the world: the whistles and soft buck-buck-bucking of contented chickens. I press my face into Tinys downy feathers in immense relief. Everything is fine.
I place the white dappled hen back on the ground and step into the main part of the barn. I see my younger sister has followed me in and is standing in the barn watching me. Whats that smell? she asks probably not for the first time. I inhale deeply. A rank, bitter scent coats my lungs, making the odd feeling that has lingered in my chest throb harshly. Its a smell I recognize.
Death.
The chickens killed a mouse,
Of course thats not what happened. Probably June did, then she kicked hay over it,
Who am I kidding? Ha. I wouldnt put it past her,
Im only trying to convince myself. The chickens just killed a mouse, By now I am looking wildly around, searching, searching for that mouse, a small mangled body I will bury and forget. But no, its not a mouse. I know its not. Im not convincing anybody.
Right. Forward. Behind. Left. There. I look. I dont want to look but I do. The window. The bright, bright, cheerful light. Blocking the light, shadowy as death, is death itself. A claw, stiff in death clutching at the sky
failing. Its held up by nothing, a black embodiment of a nightmare. I know without looking-and I try not to look too hard-the feathers on her feet I know well. They are small and blue-gray and rounded at the tips. Her legs are slate colored and her body is round and plump, her comb has taken on the shape of a Z, she is the daughter of Mallard and Wobble who is gone. Her sister Bumble died a year and a month ago. Her name is Stormpuff - Storm for short.
My sister hasnt seen yet. She still peers beneath clumps of hay, searching vainly for that mouse. My breath comes in gasps and I begin to hyperventilate. My body is reacting but my mind and spirit seem strangely at peace. Now I know why I had that weird feeling for so long.
The next few hours are a blur. My sister sobs, my mother gasps, and me, I keep up a steady choking throughout. Lying in bed tonight I can remember only certain details of the day. The pet sitter tells me Storm died on Wednesday so she placed her in an empty cardboard box rather than burying her without us. She decided not to call, though she did leave a note, as not to ruin our vacation. Im not sure if Im glad for that or not. If she had told me, I would have wanted to go home early. If she had I could have saved myself all those days of feeling sick and terrible and broken. I feel my heart split in two between selfishness and selflessness. We all thought it had been the heat that killed her, or perhaps a disease in her crop she never quite recovered from, but well never know for sure.
My little brother was unsympathetic, as always, and my sister wanted another hen. I was numb. The dead tree, turns out, fell directly on an unused chicken coop my sister had bought with her birthday and Christmas money combined. Well repair it someday.
My little sister wanted to see Storm. Shed been dead to long, I knew that. If she saw her now, it would sully her image of Stormpuff forever just as I am hounded by the picture of Bumble as she lay in her final resting place, neck bent unnaturally, eyes glazed and half shut
I wished to protect her. She didnt protest too much when I said no.
We buried Storm in a big wooden box Id used as a treasure chest as a small child and laid her beside her sister. The spot is shaded by blackberry bushes, and their sweet perfume can make one forget their hardships and welcome serenity. This is where sunlight mottles the shadows of the pines and the hurt of the world cannot reach.
We sat in patch of plump wild strawberries and lay Stormpuff in her coffin. I tried to close the cover, but something had caught and it wouldnt shut. Her toe, rigid in death, poked out. This is an image that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Not wishing to touch her directly, I groped for a small, sturdy twig, found one, curled her toe back in its most natural position. Shuttering and shaking furiously I closed the lid, catching one last glance of Storms blue-gray feathers before sealing her in darkness forever.
I lie in bed thinking of these things, relieved when the blackness of sleep finally enfolds me. I dream.
Sunlight falls in waves. The maple tree, thick with broad vermillion leaves hangs heavily in peaceful slumber. The lights of the twin sun and moon mingle; plunge down like insubstantial rain to dapple its shadow. Two shapes, one black like a ravens wing, the other the shade of dusk blend in a sea of soft darkness. The sky is pale with winter. Droplets of spring dew weigh down sunset flowers the color of Stormpuffs eyes. A few dry crimson leaves become tangled in the longl summer grass below.
One of the two shapes lying beneath the spreading boughs stands to shake out her feathers. They are the blue-gray color of a storm cloud, but not so dark. No, these are softer, lighter. The hen looks at her daughter, still dust bathing luxuriously. They communicate silently. The small black pullet gets to her loosely feathered feet and stares into the distance. Something is coming. Something that glides on noisy wings, something deep blue; something whole and well. Storm lands beside her mother and sister. Her orange eyes meet her mothers burgundy ones. And then, as if it had been any other day, Storms legs collapse and she lies on her side, closes her eyes and extends a wing to soak up the warm, brilliant sunlight that streams endlessly from the cloudless sky. Wobble and Bumble lie beside her and their feathers meld into blue night.
A single boom of thunder rings out and lightning illuminates the world once again in unnatural day, bolting me awake. The clouds, so white and fleecy before, seem to weep alongside me, the great tears soaking the soft ground of a new-dug grave at the edge of the woods.
