Here is my latest story in my ongoing challenge to myself to write and publish a short story a week for a year. It’ll be free here until I write the next one.
Find all of my stories, as well as my novels and poetry collections at most ebook stores.
Before the Birds
Mario Milosevic
Published by Green Snake Publishing
Copyright (c) 2012 by Mario Milosevic
Cover photo copyright (c) 2012 by Kim Antieau
LIKE MOST PEOPLE his age, Tom, a more or less normal twelve-year-old, lived with his parents. Their house occupied a modest lot in a neighborhood in a small town in western Washington state. The trees grew thick around the house, and the ocean, not more than half a mile distant, carried cool breezes laden with the odor of fish and brine into his world. Rain fell periodically, and the sun shone regularly.
When Tom wasn’t at school, he and his dog Bruin liked to roam around the neighborhood, not doing much of anything, just taking in the hurly-burly of the world. His parents approved of his free-range habits.
Tom was enmeshed in a complex socioeconomic arrangement with his parents. They provided him with clothing, shelter, and food, not to mention luxury amenities such as entertainment devices and other amusements, as well as intangibles in the form of privacy, comfort, love, and a sense of safety. These were not inconsiderable commodities and his parents were fully aware of their largesse toward their son. In return for all these goodies, Tom did not have to provide any services of his own. He was, however, required to think about the value of his life. His parents urged him, constantly, to assess every decision he made in life with a view to understanding that decision in terms of its future effect on his value as a human being.
Some of these considerations eluded Tom. He was, after all, only twelve. He asked his parents what they meant by “value.”
In answer, his parents said they would consider his question and get back to him. A few days later, on his twelfth birthday, they sat Tom down and told him he would have to make good on his debt to them at some point in the future. His mother presented him with an itemized bill. Tom flipped through the pages with a growing sense of doom. The bill contained a lot of items. It was several dozen pages long and printed in small single-spaced type.
His mother said they purposely did not include pre-natal doctor visits, though she and Tom’s father had debated this point for a time. They decided that since they saved money by not having Tom’s mother imbibe alcohol during Tom’s gestation, they would call it a wash and leave that out of the total. However, the doctor’s charges for delivering Tom were not exempt. Those were the first item on the bill. Next came charges for diapers, formula, and so on. All the food that Tom ate during his childhood. All the clothes he wore. The medicine he was required to take. The immunization shots, visits to the emergency room (in which Tom was responsible only for the insurance deductible, not the entire bill), and even the cost of his share of family vacations. Tom also saw charges for braces, sneakers, and a skateboard that he had used for a while then left to molder in the garage. Then there were the toys. Lots of toys. Oh, and Tom shouldn’t forget his room. He had his own room from the time he was brought home at age two days. His parents based that charge on the square footage of the room’s floor as a percentage of the house’s total, and multiplied it against the mortgage and added that to the bill.
“Do all kids get a bill like this?” asked Tom.
His mother and father smiled at him. “Not that we’re aware of,” said his father.
“I’m pretty sure we’re an exception in that regard,” said his mother.
That was more or less what Tom suspected. He had never heard of any of his friends getting a document like this.
“We don’t expect you to pay it all off when you turn eighteen,” said his mother. “But we will expect you to make regular payments at that time. We aren’t predatory, of course. Interest will begin accumulating only at that time, not before.”
“What’s ‘interest?’” asked Tom.
“You’ll find out over the next six years,” said his father. “We’ll explain all about financial arrangements and so on. You’ll be very well-equipped to handle this when the time comes.”
Tom wasn’t sure that was true, but that didn’t bother him much. Six years was a long time. In his mind it was so far away that it stretched out to infinity. He envisioned endless days spent wandering with Bruin. In his young mind, endless was not merely a way of speaking but actual reality.
His mother cleared her throat and handed him a card.
“What’s this?” said Tom.
“It’s a smaller version of the bill,” said his father.
“It only highlights the amounts of major categories and lists the current grand total,” said his mother. “We’ll be issuing a new one every month and would like you to carry it with you as a way of reminding yourself of your debt.”
Tom took the card and put it in his back pocket.
“We want you to know,” said his mother, “that we’re doing this out of love. Our love for you is unconditional, but our support of you is not. It is dependent on the general health and welfare of us. Without us, you wouldn’t be alive, healthy, and strong. Do you understand?”
Tom wasn’t sure he did, but he nodded.
Tom’s father put up his hand, palm flat toward Tom. Tom slapped it smartly, but it didn’t feel good, like it usually did. It felt like he and his father were suddenly distant from one another.
That night Tom dreamed about a crow. It rose on the air and its wings beat rhythmically. Tom heard the feathers, even in his dream, stroke the air, and the sound of it rustled out of the sky and snaked down his spine. It woke him from the dream before he could see where the bird was flying to. The morning, all arrayed around him with the preternatural glow of reality, seemed curiously indistinct and dull to him.
At breakfast the dream still floated through his brain.
Tom’s father believed Tom should eat a good balanced breakfast and he put a plate of scrambled eggs with bacon, toast, fruit, and butter in front of Tom. Tom mentally estimated how much the meal cost, recalling from the bill he had seen last night that bacon was not cheap.
“Can I have some oatmeal instead?” asked Tom.
“We’ve already made you a good nutritious breakfast,” said his mother. “Do you want us to throw it away?”
“I don’t want to pay for it,” said Tom.
“It’s going on your bill whether you eat it or not.”
Tom pushed the plate to the edge of the table and let it teeter there, just on the verge of falling off. Tom’s father saw this and sighed.
“You aren’t yet learning the value of commodities,” he said.
“I know this is part of my debt,” said Tom. “So that means I can do what I want with it.”
His parents looked at each other.
“That’s not exactly the lesson we are trying to teach you, son,” said his father.
“I dreamed about a bird,” said Tom.
“Nice,” said his father. “Changing the subject.”
“Are you going to charge me for the dream?” asked Tom.
“That’s not our doing,” said his mother. “The dream is free. Just like the air.”
“I really liked the bird,” said Tom. “In the dream.”
“Birds signify your awakening maturity,” said Tom’s father. “You’re becoming a man. Eventually you will assert your place in the world and begin to draw the fruits of economic activity into your sphere.”
“That’s right,” said his mother. “You will marry and father children. By that time, you will have started to make good on your debt to us.”
The concept of debt frustrated Tom. He didn’t think it was fair for him to have to pay anything to his parents. Tom pressed the edge of the plate so it teetered up and down, pivoting on the edge of the table. Grease from the bacon strips streamed in rivulets across the plate, threatening to tilt the delicate balance even further.
Bruin sensed the imminent fall of the plate and wandered over to the table and sat and stared up at the bottom of the plate. He drooled and his tail beat the floor with thumps that reminded Tom of the wings of the bird in his dream.
“I don’t want Bruin eating from your plate,” said Tom’s mother.
“Neither do I,” said his father.
“Scoot,” said Tom. He pushed Bruin away with his foot. Bruin whined a little but shuffled out of the kitchen.
“Are you going to eat your breakfast?” asked Tom’s father.
“I don’t think so,” said Tom.
“Well then,” said his mother, “get yourself outside.”
Tom rose from the table. The plate with his uneaten meal slipped off the edge and fell to the floor. The plate broke and the food scattered across the kitchen tiles.
“I’ll clean that up when I get home,” said Tom.
“See that you do,” said his mother. “And the cost of the plate’s replacement is going on your bill.”
“No problem,” said Tom. He went into the living room where Bruin waited for him. Bruin was a standard domesticated dog of no particular breed. He was meant to be a companion to Tom and a part of the domestic circle of Tom’s family and house. Tom’s mother was especially insistent that a young man have a dog as a companion because she said it would teach the young man how to get along with living things and become a more responsible person. Tom had noted that a third of the cost of the upkeep of Bruin, including food, grooming, shots, and flea protection, had been put on his bill. He felt like he had gotten a break there, since the dog was mostly his and he should probably have been on the hook for at least three-quarters of his maintenance.
Bruin followed Tom out the back door. They stepped over mown grass and went around the house to the dirt alley that ran along the backyards in this neighborhood and curved around some scraggly trees that hung their branches over the tracks left by cars. Bruin bolted from Tom and ran around a curve in the alley. Tom followed at a slower pace. When he came around the corner he saw an indistinct mass of black in Bruin’s jaws. As he got closer he recognized the mass as a dead crow.
Bruin was prone to eating things he shouldn’t, then coming back to the house and throwing up. His parents most emphatically disapproved of this behavior. Tom wasn’t too crazy about it either.
Bruin looked up at Tom as he approached and dropped the bird from his mouth and took a couple of steps back. He did not exactly cower, but he did display a certain awareness that he probably should not be doing what he was doing. He sported a smear of red on his nose and some disgusting glop on his jaw.
The belly of the crow had been ripped open and the insides scooped out and spread around like it was marmalade. The feet drooped in the air like tiny misshapen clothes hangers and the head lay flat on the ground with the beak pointed away, as though guiding Tom’s eye to something he should be looking at in the distance.
Here was an animated thing that no longer moved. In death it displayed its inner workings, as though saying to the world: This is how I operate. This is how I came to be. The beauty of my flight, my feathers, my color, my form, is all nothing more than the workings of soft gears housed inside me and clumped together into a miraculous illusion.
If Tom had let the moment play out completely, he would probably have shed a tear or two, but he was not yet equipped to understand that such a thing would be cathartic to him. Instead, he turned to Bruin. The dog’s tail wagged very slowly, but when he saw Tom’s eyes, his tail came to a complete stop.
“You’re not going to throw up,” said Tom.
Bruin tilted his head. He took a step forward. A small step.
Tom noted bits of bloody feathers lodged in the side of Bruin’s mouth. He sighed and reached up to a branch hanging over him and pulled some leaves from the tree. He bent down and motioned Bruin over. Bruin took hesitant steps toward Tom, who then used the leaves to clean the blood and bird muck and feathers from Bruin’s face. Bruin scrunched up his face during this operation and tried to pull away from Tom’s hands but Tom said “Sit!” very sharply and Bruin promptly lowered his hind end while Tom continued his cleansing operation.
When he finished, Tom tossed the leaves aside with disgust. He released Bruin who stepped back again and stared at Tom lopsidedly.
“You shouldn’t be eating dead birds,” said Tom.
Bruin barked at him, once.
“No more,” said Tom. “I’m going to bury this bird and I don’t want you digging it up. Okay?”
The question seemed to soften Bruin’s attitude. The dog’s tail began to wag, slowly, but with a definite purpose, like he was keeping time to a piece of music.
“Then I’m going to give you a bill for the clean up,” said Tom with a laugh. He walked off the dusty road and onto the property of one of the homeowners whose yard bordered the alley. Tom didn’t know the people in this house, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to be there long. He stopped at the edge of the lawn and looked around. A tool shed stood at the far corner. Tom went to it and opened the door. It squeaked on its hinges and Tom peered inside a darkened and slightly dusty space. He let his eyes adjust to the gloom and scanned the walls until his gaze came to a corner where he saw a shovel. He went inside, grabbed the shovel by the handle, and walked out of the shed with it.
At that moment he encountered a man holding a shotgun aimed directly at him.
“What the—” said the man.
Tom dropped the shovel to the floor of the shed and instinctively put up his hand. The shovel’s blade clattered against the concrete. From around the corner of the shed, Tom heard Bruin bark several times.
The man began lowering his firearm, but before he could finish Bruin came into Tom’s field of view and, tail lowered, throat growling, and teeth bared, sprang up from the ground. Bruin seemed to be going for the man’s midsection.
The man with the gun instinctively put his own hands up and in so doing inadvertently discharged his weapon. A cloud of smoke and lead shot appeared at the end of the barrel.
Tom’s hand remained up in the air. His experience of duration immediately slowed way down. He sensed the noise of the blast long before hearing it, a kind of pressure in the air. Tom saw that the shot was heading directly for him. He wasn’t exactly sure where the shot would strike, but he estimated somewhere between his nose and his heart. He elected to step aside and began shifting his weight in ultra slow motion. He observed the shot moving closer to to him by the nanosecond. It would not take long for it to get far too close for comfort. Events were transpiring in a balletic orchestration of cause and effect. A couple of nanoseconds later Tom realized he was not quite equipped to effect a movement from the path of the shot in a reasonable amount of time. As he considered his circumstances, some of the shot emerged from the cloud of smoke like tips of a plant’s stem poking up through soil.
Tom knew the man who had fired the shotgun was going to be in enormous trouble and he sensed, with the finely tuned awareness of fair play common to people Tom’s age, that the trouble would not be justified. The man did not purposely shoot at Tom. It was an accident. Alas, the accidental nature of the discharge was not going to be easy for the man to prove if Tom expired.
Tom was also acutely aware of Bruin’s circumstances. The dog was going to be insane with confusion and panic when Tom acquired his wounds. Tom had also a vague notion that his parents were going to be upset, perhaps irretrievably so. For one thing, he would not be able to pay his debt to them. All that money and support they poured into Tom’s upkeep would be lost, completely wasted. He wondered if this is what his father meant when he said Tom should consider the value of his life and his life decisions.
A few nanoseconds later Tom began to see the ultimate intersection of the shot and his body. The hungry emanations from the shotgun were to satisfy themselves on the target of his throat. A little off center, but not enough to matter. As best he could determine, the cloud of lead was poised to tear off at least three-quarters of the width of his neck, taking out his wind pipe and throat at that point and severing important arteries. Did any of this prevent him from trying to get out of the way?
It did not.
He continued his efforts in that direction, despite his certainty that they would be futile. As he did so, he considered the fact that futility seemed to be the way of the world for humans, including himself. His mind darted to images of his parents. Their faces flashed before him with insistence and clarity, as though a projection off-stage had stained the air with them. The man who pulled the trigger, albeit accidentally, seemed in the throes of a full scale fit. His face was contorted to an almost unrecognizable shape, like a doomed man, which seemed curious, since it was Tom who was going to be shot in a very short time.
Tom even had time to consider the fact that he had time to consider his situation. He turned the thought over in his mind as he watched Bruin, still in midair, begin a very slow descent to the ground. Bruin’s instincts for protection and fighting, meant to offer comfort and security to Tom, only resulted in the exact opposite. But Tom, even knowing that his dog was a complete screw up, held no animosity, or, indeed, any ill-feeling of any kind toward the animal. Tom’s family took the risk when they brought the dog into their home.
Here’s the one thing, though, that Tom’s twelve-year-old brain kept returning to: the bill. Tom had a lot of questions about that bill now that he was in all likelihood going to default on his debt. He wanted to please his parents. He wanted to pay off his debt. This fact surprised him.
A despair of unrelenting intensity gripped his heart. His body wanted to live, that was clear.
Tom began to think about the possibility that he might actually survive this incident. After all, the man with the gun was right there, available to aid Tom. He could spring forward the instant Tom was hit and begin administering first aid. The sound of the shot would have prompted someone in the neighborhood to call emergency services, which would soon be on their way to the scene. If they got there soon enough, before Tom’s blood could evacuate his body, then there was a chance they could transport him to a hospital where he might be treated and survive. Tom hardly dared to believe in this scenario, since he had grown considerably in maturity since the volley began its trajectory and had acquired more than a modicum of cynicism, the hallmark of being a grown-up. This one fact, in itself, dashed some of the hope that he had built up, which, paradoxically, he saw as a good sign. After all, it was not becoming of an adult to look at the world in an unrealistic manner. That stance was reserved for fools, addicts, and the mentally unstable. And children. Tom was none of these, except, perhaps the last. But he was not an ordinary child.
Tom had the abbreviated bill from his parents in his back pocket. He wanted to have the time to reach around and read it. That thought ran through his consciousness with maddening insistence. Surely the bill was unimportant now?
But something did distract his attention from the events of the moment. Off in the distance, above some treetops across the street and situated over the man’s head, Tom saw a flock of crows circling in the air. Their black points against the sky seemed to echo the flock of shot still relentlessly plying the air on its way to a rendezvous with Tom’s neck. The crows emitted a great and joyful chorus of calls.
And here Tom’s fortunes seemed to pivot. He suddenly saw, with a startling clarity, that in fact the cloud of shot coming from the firearm was not going to intersect him. At least not most of it. Oh, perhaps a stray pellet or two might hit him, but it would not be enough to kill him.
As soon as this new knowledge penetrated his understanding, the world began to speed up again. The shot increased in speed considerably. It whizzed by his head with a rapidity he thought he might never witness again. Five sharp stings stabbed at his neck and lower jaw. An explosion of sound erupted behind him as the shot shredded the metal wall of the shed behind him. The man, still with an expression of anguish, dropped his gun. Bruin fell to the ground and immediately seized the pant leg of the man in his teeth and tried to wreck it with twisting motions of his jaw.
Tom himself fell to the ground. He lay on his back on the grass in front of the shed. The sky had blood streaks running through it. The clouds looked foaming red, as though they had been dipped in blood. Tom refused to accept these emotion-stained images as real. It was his brain working overtime. His hand instinctively came up and touched the blood that had begun to flow from his five pinpoint wounds.
The man came over on his hands and knees. “Are you all right?” he said. “Oh god, did I kill you? Are you all right?”
Bruin, still intent on destroying the man’s wardrobe, had not removed his jaw’s grip from his pants. His growling filled the air and drowned out the sound of the crows.
“I’m okay,” said Tom. “Will you call my parents?”
The man looked surprised, as though Tom’s survival filled him with incredulity. It was as though he thought Tom should be dead or dying.
“Bruin!” said Tom. “Come here.”
Bruin released the man’s pant leg and walked over to Tom and began licking Tom’s wounds.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” said the man. He fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone and called 911 and asked for an ambulance to come to his house. Tom wondered how much the ambulance was going to charge. He assumed his parents were going to pay. But then the charge would be added to his ongoing bill.
The thought of the bill revived his flagging energy. He put his hand down to his pants pocket and pulled out the card with the amount of his debt to his parents.
“I’m so sorry,” said the man. “I didn’t mean to shoot you. I thought you were a burglar.”
Tom wanted to get up, but his legs felt like they were too weak. He put his hand on Bruin’s back. The fur felt comforting.
“See what you did?” he said to Bruin.
Bruin thumped his tail on the ground.
“The paramedics should be here soon,” said the man. “What else can I do?”
“You could pay my bill,” said Tom.
The man looked puzzled. Tom held the card up for the man to see. The man, took the card and looked it over.
“What is this?” he said.
“My parents say I borrowed the money from them to maintain my life. I have to pay it back.”
Tom let that fact sink in. The man looked both puzzled and afraid.
“But this is crazy,” he said. “No one makes their kid pay for their own upbringing.”
“My parents are not traditional nurturers,” said Tom.
The man put his hand on his chin and rubbed the stubble there. “I would say not,” he said.
“Anyway,” said Tom. “You almost killed me. If I had died, you’d be in big trouble. Maybe in prison for life. Maybe executed. The point is, I lived. So by living, I saved you a lot of grief. Maybe saved your life. The least you can do is pay for mine. ”
The man shook his head. “This total is out of my income range,” he said.
“You don’t have to pay it all now,” said Tom. “Just make monthly payments. Also, there will be six more years added to it.”
The man shook his head. “Now that’s not fair. I should only be liable for your expenses up to now, not at some point in the future. That’s a basic tenet of law. You can’t be held responsible for future events out of your control.”
Tom gritted his teeth. He had a superior bargaining position and he knew it. The problem was to keep his brain focused enough to move that potential to reality.
“I would like to point out,” said Tom, “that anytime you save a life, you save the potential years, not just the accumulated years.”
The man pulled the card closer to his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said.
“I could get a lawyer,” said Tom, even though he had no idea how to do such a thing.
The wail of an ambulance siren rose up in the distance. It rankled Tom’s brain, as though a bell’s striker had taken up residence there.
“We could probably sue you into complete bankruptcy,” said Tom. “You’re getting off easy just paying this bill.”
The man nodded. “Okay,” he said, “you’re right. I’ll do it.”
The trails of blood from the five pinpricks on Tom’s face had begun to irritate Tom. It was as though insects were crawling over his skin and Tom did not like that. Not one bit.
“I was just going to borrow your shovel,” said Tom.
“I had a break-in last week,” said the man. “I didn’t know you were a neighbor kid. I was scared.”
The man looked like he was going to cry.
The ambulance skidded to a halt and paramedics emerged from the vehicle and attended to Tom. They put him on a stretcher and moved him to the ambulance and took him to a hospital where doctors removed the shot from his neck and dressed his wounds and he soon returned to the house of his parents. He lived there for several more years. He felt good knowing the cost of his upkeep was going to be someone else’s burden.
Tom eventually left home, went to college, and made sure the man who shot him kept up with the payments on Tom’s debt. Bruin died. Tom buried him. A few years later Tom graduated and embarked on a trip around the world. He had only his clothes and his passport and depended on the bounty of the world to support him. It did, for the most part. He fell in love with a young woman he met in Italy, and they got married and returned to the small town in Washington state where he grew up. Tom took a job with the county planning department while his wife opened an art gallery. They had several children and eventually grandchildren. Tom never game them a bill for raising them. Tom’s parents died. The man who shot Tom, all those years ago, stopped making payments on Tom’s debt at that point.
Tom went to visit him one day with the intention of thanking him for keeping his bargain. He went the back way, taking the same route he had taken that awful day so many years ago. He saw the shed, still with the holes in it. He saw the yard, still impeccably maintained. And he saw a boy, his head almost severed from his neck, in exactly the same place that Tom had lain after being shot. Beside the boy: a man with his head in his hands, weeping. His chest shook. On the other side of the wounded boy: a dog, whimpering.
A bolt of recognition unnerved Tom. He began to tremble. The trembling had a sound to it, the sound of an ambulance siren, and it was receding. Getting thinner and quieter until the wail of it disappeared completely.
“What’s going on?” asked Tom, not knowing who he was asking.
Crows wheeled above him, circling the sky.
“Where are my parents?” asked Tom. “They should have heard the shot. The gun. They should have heard it and come out. Where are they?”
“What do you want your parents for?” asked a voice. Not the man’s, which is what Tom expected, but another voice. A voice from inside Tom. His own voice.
He looked up at the sky again. The blood. There was so much blood. If pooled around his head, shoulders, and neck. The grass under him felt cool and smooth. The crows, etched against the blue seemed to grow bigger. Tom tried to lift his hand up to the sky, but he could not. He would never touch anything again and the birds grew bigger and bigger until they merged and the blackness gradually filled his vision and obliterated everything.
—————–
