Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales: An Anthology(18)

Ben says, “This bird head is lovely, by the way. I mean that. I assume you made it. I’m no expert, but it appears to be masterful work. I’m sure there’s a fascinating story behind it that we could discuss further.” In the silence that follows, Ben adds, “Perhaps your friend Marnie brought it to my apartment. We talked the other night, of course.”

Ben’s spark of new-story-cycle inspiration and surety fades in the continued silence of the apartment. Has he arrived before everyone else, or is this some sort of game where the party does not begin until he chooses a door to open, and then—then what? Is this a hazing ritual? Is he to become part of their secret little group? Ben certainly hopes for the latter. Which door of the three will he open first?

Ben asks, “Am I to put the bird head on, Mr. Wheatley? Is that it?”

The very idea of being enclosed within the darkness of the bird head, his cheeks and lips and eyelids pressing against the whatever-it-is on the inside, is a horror. Yet he also wants nothing more than to put the bird head over his own, to have that great beak spill out before his eyes, a baton with which to conduct the will of others. He won’t put it on, not until he’s sure that is what he’s supposed to do.

“What am I supposed to do now, Mr. Wheatley?”

The door to Ben’s left opens, and four people—two men and two women—wearing bird masks walk out. They are naked, and their bodies are hairless. In the dim lighting their ages are near impossible to determine. There is a crow with feathers so black its beak appears to spring forth from nothingness, an owl with feathers the color of copper and yellow eyes large enough to swallow the room, a sleek falcon with a beak partially open in an avian grin, and the fourth bird head is a cross between a peacock and a parrot. Its garish blue, yellow, and green feathers loom high above its eyes like ancient, forbidding towers.

They walk toward Ben without speaking and without ceremony. The soles of their bare feet gently slap on the hardwood floor. The man in the brightest colored bird mask must be Mr. Wheatley (and/or Mr. H______) as there are liver spots, wrinkles, and other evidence of age on his skin, but the muscles beneath are surprisingly taut, defined.

Mr. Wheatley takes the bird head out of Ben’s hands and forces it over his head. Ben breathes rapidly, as though prepping for a dive into deep water, and the feathers flitter past his eyes, an all-encompassing darkness, and a warmth in the darkness, one that both suffocates and caresses, and then he can see, although not like he could see before. While the surrounding environment of the apartment dims, viewed through an ultraviolet, film-negative spectrum, the bird feathers become spectacular firework displays of colors; secret colors that he was blind to only a moment ago, colors beyond description. That Ben might never see those colors again is a sudden and great sadness. As beautiful as the bird heads are, their owners’ naked human bodies, with their jiggling and swaying body parts, are ugly, weak, flawed, ill-designed, and Ben can’t help but think of how he could snatch their tender bits in the vise of his beak.

The two men and two women quickly remove Ben’s clothes. The Crow says, “Kittypants is waiting to be found and retrieved. He didn’t fly away,” and they lead him across the living room and to the door from which they’d emerged. Ben is terrified that she’s talking about him. He is not sure who he is, who he is supposed to be.

Through the door is a bedroom with a king-size mattress claiming most of the space. There is no bedframe or box spring, only the mattress on the floor. The mattress has not been made up; there are no bedcovers. There is a pile of dried leaves in the middle. Ben watches the pile closely and he believes there is a contour of a shape, of something underneath.

Ben stands at the foot of the mattress while the others move to flank the opposite sides. The lighting is different in the bedroom. Everything is darker but somehow relayed in more detail. Their masks don’t look like masks. There are no clear lines of demarcation between head and body, between feather and skin. Is he in fact in the presence of gods? The feather colors have darkened as well, as though they aren’t feathers at all but the skin of chameleons. Ben’s relief at not being the character in the leaf pile is offset with the fear that he won’t ever be able to remove his own bird head.

The others whisper, titter, and twitch, as though they sense his weakness, or lack of commitment. The Crow asks, “Would you prefer talons or beak?” Her beak is mostly black, but a rough, scratchy brown shows through at the beak edges and its tip, as though the black coloring has been worn away from usage.

Ben says, “I would still prefer wings.”

Something moves on the bed. Something rustles.

The voice of Mr. Wheatley says, “You cannot choose wings.”





Great Blue Heron

JOYCE CAROL OATES



That cry! Hoarse, not-human, fading almost at once. But in an instant she has been wakened.

The cry came from the lake, she supposes. Waterfowl on the lake—loons, geese, mallards. Through the night in her uneasy sleep she hears their beautiful forlorn cries, that are usually muted like human voices heard at a distance. Sometimes there is an agitation on the water, what sounds like a frantic flapping of wings—she listens acutely hoping not to hear cries of distress.

Too early for her to wake. Too early to be conscious.

She has been exhausted lately, sleep is precious to her.

Her nightgown is unpleasantly damp from perspiration. The bedclothes are damp. She is breathing quickly, thinly. The cry from the lake has unnerved her—it did not sound human yet it is familiar to her.