Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales: An Anthology(17)
Ben takes the head out into the living area and gently places it on the floor. He lies down beside it and runs his fingers through its feathers, careful to not touch the beak again. If he stares hard enough, long enough, he sees himself in miniature, curled up like a field mouse, reflected in the black pools of the bird’s eyes.
BP: A quick summary of the ending. Please stop me if I say anything that’s inaccurate or misleading. The children, led by the Crow and the Admiral, reappear out of the woods that Mr. H______ had forbidden them to go into, and you describe the Admiral’s fugue wonderfully: “his new self passing over his old self, as though he were an eclipse.” When asked—we don’t know who the speaker is, do we?—where Kittypants is, the Crow says Kittypants didn’t fly away and is still in the woods, waiting to be found and retrieved. Someone (again, the speaker not identified) giggles and says his wings are broken. The other children are eager to go to Kittypants and erupt into mocking chant and song. The dead bird that they had brought with them is forgotten. I love how it isn’t clear if the kids have finally donned their bird masks or if they’ve had them on the whole time. Or perhaps they have no masks on at all. Mr. H______ says they may leave him only after they’ve finished digging a hole big enough for the little one to fit inside and not ruffle any feathers. The reader is unsure if Mr. H______ is referring to the dead bird or, in retrospect, if it’s a sinister reference to Kittypants, the smallest of their party. The kids leave right away and it’s not clear if they have finished digging the hole or not. Perhaps they’re just going home, the funeral or celebration over, the game over. Mr. H______ goes into the woods after them and finds his gaggle in a clearing, the setting sun throwing everything into shadow, “a living bas relief.” They are leaping high into the air, arms spread out as wide as the world, and then crashing down into what is described from a distance as a pile of leaves no bigger than a curled-up, sleeping child. It’s a magnificent image, Mr. Wheatley, one that simultaneously brings to mind the joyous, chaotic, physical play of children and, at the same time, resembles a gathering of carrion birds picking apart a carcass in a frenzy. I have to ask, is the leaf pile just a leaf pile, or is Kittypants inside?
WW: I love that you saw the buzzard imagery in that scene, Benjamin. But, oh, I wouldn’t dream of ever answering your final question directly. But I’ll play along a little. Let me ask you this: Do you prefer that Kittypants be under the pile of leaves? If so, why?
Tucked inside the envelope he received from Mr. Wheatley is a typed set of instructions. Benjamin wears black socks, an oxford shirt, and dark pants that were once partners with a double-breasted jacket. He walks twenty-three blocks northwest. He enters the darkened antiques store through a back door, and from there he navigates past narrow shelving and various furniture and taxidermy staging to the stairwell that leads to the second-floor apartment. He does not call out or say anyone’s name. All in accordance with the instructions.
The front door to Mr. Wheatley’s apartment is closed. Ben places an ear against the door, listening for other people, for their sounds, as varied as they can be. He doesn’t hear anything. He cradles the bird head in his left arm and has it pressed gently against his side, the beak supported by his ribs. The head is wrapped tightly in a white sheet. The hooked beak tip threatens to rend the cloth.
Ben opens the door, steps inside the apartment, and closes the door gently behind him, and thus ends the brief set of instructions from the envelope. Benjamin removes the white cloth and holds the bird head in front of his chest like a shield.
There is no one in the living room. The curtains are drawn and three walls sconces peppered between the windows and their single bulbs give off a weak, almost sepia light. The doors to the other rooms are all closed. He walks to the circular dining room table, the one at which he sat with Mr. Wheatley only three days ago.
Ben is unsure of what he’s supposed to do next. His lips and throat are dry, and he’s afraid that he’ll throw up if he opens his mouth to speak. Finally, he calls out: “Hello, Mr. Wheatley? It’s Ben Piotrowsky.”
There’s no response or even a sense of movement from elsewhere inside the apartment.
“Our interview went live online already. I’m not sure if you’ve seen it yet, but I hope you like it. The response has been very positive so far.”
Ben shuffles into the center of the room, and it suddenly occurs to him that he could document everything he’s experienced (including what he will experience later this evening) and add it to the interview as a bizarre, playful afterword. It’s a brilliant idea and something that would only enhance his and Mr. Wheatley’s reputation within the weird fiction community. Yes, he would most certainly do this, and Ben imagines the online response as being more rabid than the reaction to the picture of the bird head. There will be argument and discussion as to whether the mysterious afterword is fictional or not, and if fictional, had it been written by William Wheatley himself. The interview with afterword will be a perfect extension or companion to “Something About Birds.” Perhaps Ben can even convince Mr. Wheatley to co-write the afterword with him. Or, instead, pitch this idea to Mr. Wheatley not as an afterword but as a wraparound story, or framing device, within the interview itself. Yes, not only could this be a new story, but the beginning of a new story cycle, and Ben will be a part of it.