Love is the Key.
By Amanda Hill.
The inheritance was an unexpected gift. I was not prepared for a house and garden. I ducked my head into the hood of my sandy jacket, pulled the sleeves down to cover my dirty nails and thought about wealth. I stared into a mirror, just checking I’m myself I told it. Same old me, still alive, still ugly, nothing to write home about.
The change of surroundings came as a culture shock, the impact as the beneficiary of my aunt’s estate was quite a jolt. I had been at ease, thank you very much, with my admittedly superficial relationship with the world. Bedsit land living had suited me, fitted my fate, tight and solitary. I had knocked on too many doors before finding my own, secured the discovery with a legion of locks, banking it safely like a debt settled.
This is your fortune and freedom, the lawyer had said, handing me the papers to sign.The pen had inked the paper, my signature familiar as my past, now marking my future. I stepped out of the solicitor’s office into the snare set by a relative I had never met. This was entrapment disguised as goodwill. It would be so much easier if I could trust honourable intentions, but I was suspicious of the stars that had conspired in a destiny landed in clover.
It was big, even the cupboard doors looked as if they might open into a room, one you could dance in. I opened every door, backed out again, threatened by the gigantic whole of it, but I continued to pry around the arena sized space. Outside was instantly calming, the garden was comforting. Everything waved in the wind. I waved back.
I narrowed in on the activity of a bird building a nest in the roof of the shed. The prowess involved in creating the den was hypnotic. I wished I could be as talented a homemaker, watching and learning from the artistry, simple as it was genius.The progression of the niche stabilised my increasingly wonky outlook; one askew with the weight of past mistakes. The lounge chair I had dragged to the kitchen sagged underneath my girth, but it provided all the support I needed. Parked within arms distance of the fridge and three steps from the kettle, it was a perfect hide.
There was more to seek. Spring arrived welcoming a wild party of eccentrics celebrating as loud as a heavy cloud in the grounds I could now call my own. Even the most incurious of souls could not possibly fail to notice the commotion. Splashes of colour headlined the borders of the lawn. Plants declared themselves fit with vigorous popping up of heads and a melodramatic flex of floral flamboyance. The backing track was just as exaggerated. The jangling countryside was way out of tune with my notion of peace and quiet. I lingered on the relentless nowness of it, the ensemble as rough and ready as the city punk. From amorous screeching to howling wind hitting against the trees, gaining momentum as it raced the river flow.Scurrying, churrs and purrs, clucks and coos and wails. It was a puffed- up rampant extravaganza.
Sleep was difficult to catch. Before, in my rented room above the shop, in the early hours of loneliness, the nightly urban serenade had hushed my busy head. Distant engines humming, the sound of a street fight puncturing an already broken silence, entering through the ill-fitting window frame, kicking back with the city band, inexplicably comforting. And here was a different rabble if I could turn down the volume low enough what would I hear? It sounded empty.
The Mother bird’s work was done. After weeks of nurturing and providing, the chicks, sated with worms, spiders and such, finally stretched their wings, and fledged. Their flight darkened my mood a shade, tinging it with envy and leaving me longing.The den in the roof of the hut, now untenanted, gaped on emptiness, a space between the rafters. I redirected my gaze up and watched as the babies parted company with their lair and hurled with grace into the air. Their sky dance was mesmerising, life just new soaring up, swooping down, tracing clouds, lungs full of song. It would not be long until they reeled around towards me, tailing and teasing me, imagine this, imagine this. I closed my eyes and thought about flying away.
Days after the young had gone, I heard a high-pitched chirruping from under the red wheelbarrow. Astray from the flock lay in the shadow and shelter of the rusty cart. The creature was hurt. Its eyes were closed and the fluffed-up feathers desperately trying to ascend air bound were efforts made in vain. I approached with caution, more from my own fear rather than any sensitivity for the bird’s. I did not care for the unpredictable movements the little feathered thing may have in store. It might flap. Did birds scratch in a panic? Could they bite? The closer I moved towards the bundle of distress, the more obvious it was that the youngster was firmly grounded. It had stopped trying, instead it looked floppy and subdued. Perhaps a cat had attacked it, or maybe it had collided with a car. I looked around,there were no obvious clues as to how the orphan had reached its injury. Catching up with any siblings long scattered would be impossible now. Despite my nervousness,I wrapped the noisy fellow in a damp tea towel and took it indoors. I created a make- shift nest using some grass and a couple of twigs tossed into a shoebox. As I lowered the squirming cargo into the cardboard, I was gutted by a punch of tenderness, a sudden burning discomfort like a bruise to my chest, swollen and pounding. I was uncertain,was my reaction one of pain or pleasure; I was sure that it did not matter. It was deep enough to vouch for my heart, which was something, at least.
I left some seeds from a cereal bar I had meant to have for breakfast and a saucer of water beside the box. The bird was breathing heavily, I worried it might hyperventilate, or even succumb to the stress of the situation, the trickery of being released and abandoned all at once. It looked up at her as if to say, you look as bemused as me. I watched as it lowered its head onto the softness of the material. It is going to be alright, I whispered,backing away and allowing the beastie some space. I closed the curtains, but left the door open, in case the bird recovered, for then its leaving would be there for the taking.
I had always been clumsy, especially with the precious things. There had been collateral damage, mostly breakages and a few cracked bones. It was not just heavy handedness,I was equally prone to putting my foot in my mouth, the worst wounds had been inflicted with words, carelessly uttered, abrupt and proclaimed without thought. Resentments remained, scarred for life on sensitive skin due to my zipless trap. The same mouth now tasting a sweet sample of happiness, cooked up by aiding something vulnerable and stirring the gushiness I thought I had lost. It was quite a responsibility, I might gorge on the thrilling burden of it, lending a hand. Butterfingers washed, tactfully deft I was, almost, worthy.
The bird perked up. During convalescence, it had taken up residence in an antique cage on top of the sideboard. It belonged to my deceased aunt, as had all that surrounded me.The cage was a pastel-coloured fragile kind of confine, ornamental and aesthetically pleasing, designed perhaps for holding a little trinket to look at. I could not understand why the bird was occupying the space, there had been no coaxing into such confinement, quite the opposite. I had opened windows and doors, theatrically pointed to all exits accompanying the gesture with songs of freedom. Born to be Wild! I hollered. The startled bird would fly round the living room, sometimes swooping into the kitchen where the door was wide open, but always returning to the pretty little pseudo cage. The behaviour was odd, I christened the creature Strangeways.
Perhaps the bird was in fear of becoming lost, hence the reluctance to leave? I could identify with that. I read that when birds lost their way ornithologists referred to them as vagrants. I had been homeless once, before the Council fixed me up in the bedsit. It had been an ugly time, losing track of people and places, finding the road to ruin down a slippery slope, it was grim at the end. Holding on.
I lost my keys on the second week, locked myself out of the unfamiliar house for two hours, eventually climbing into a ground floor window, grazing my knee in the process and landing awkwardly in the bathroom. After a long search, I found the keys had been in my back pocket all along. Birds didn’t have that worry, did they? Locked doors. They soared over the top of barriers, used their built-in compass to find their way home or abroad. I found myself reassuring the bird not to feel afraid, that it would navigate wisely in the wild. I imagined it would manoeuvre the task of finding a mate just as skilfully, and that the duration of their coupling would be void of the stains of humankind. I was as careless with love as I was with keys, my heart having been grazed more frequently than my knees. After my last mistake,a friend had told me that love was the key. The Key to what? I asked. The friend had laughed and said that one day I would know. The trouble was that there were too many keys, everything needed one. Computers,phones, the gas meter, online banking, shopping and everything else accounts. I would need a lot of love and keys,especially if I kept on loosing them.
When I was young it was all locked in my diary. Every secret safe and sound. It was a special ritual, retrieving the book from the back of the wardrobe, taking the key from a hidden box and opening the journal to add to the adventures. There was nothing shocking, but it was my classified information, it was my story. Now I had so many passwords and keys that I feel like a jailor just going about my daily business, the secrecy of the mundane and disappointment, revealing the ordinary, Surprise!
The truth was I knew very little, hadn’t known what sort of bird it was before searching online.Turned out it was a Starling and I thought it was beautiful. Its youthful grey fluffiness had transformed into glossy black plumage. Metallic star shaped speckles of blue, green and bronze blinked back in the light that filtered through the gloom in the room. The silky feathers shone, directing colour that contrasted with the drab garments that clothed me. I wondered what the bird thought of me,dull, most probably. I angled my greasy head, not fishing, just testing the water, like I always did. Most likely always would. The bird nudged back, let’s go, I thought it said.
I had had good reason not to leave, I was sentenced by shame and neglect, but I could not fathom the bird’s refusal to leave the house. According to all sources, it belonged in a flock, and that meant flying together, didn’t it? Charging and changing alongside hundreds of other wings. It was called a murmuration.
Listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees,send me off forever, but I ask you please, don’t’ fence me in.
Was I the bird?The little bird scratching towards the wheelbarrow, faking illness for comfort,for attention behind the pink pastel cage? Breaking away from the flock I didn’t fit into. I began to enjoy the pleasure of it I looked around and around again, no pressure from anyone, no hindering at all, just up, the way balloons were released, fast with only one possible way. Watch them rise, watch them. I reached into my pocket and threw the keys away. Free. My voice was smothered by the wind, below, the Starling was waiting. It caught the keys tightly clenched them into its beak and unlocked every single door Welcome back.In flew the flock, it was different convoy this time, they nudged their way into hallways and bedrooms and cupboards, they all found a place to be. And I was liberated into the God damn air,waving down, waving up, waving around, and around and around. It was a place that was Summer, and Winter, squeezing me together and making me spring.
End.
