What You Play With - My project in Short Story Writing: Create Fiction from Personal Experience course

What You Play With

The aviary, that’s what grandpa calls it, is big enough for an adult to stand in. It’s four steps deep, grandfather steps. We tested that once together and if I really stretched, I could do four too. It’s as wide as the garden minus a small path to get to the back alley. Grandpa build it against the wall of the toolshed that holds a lot of junk in the darkness. I’m always on guard for spiders and their webs when I park my bicycle in there. Or when I get the watering can to feed the plants and flowers along the borders of the patch of grass I’m sitting in now. A big part of the garden goes to the birdcage and the shed together and on a sunny day, when grandma takes a lounge-chair out to sunbath, it is full. Today it is overcast.
I like sitting here, looking. There is peace in how the wooden slats are bolted to the brick wall of the toolshed. How the bolts are not exactly in line. The sparks of rust. How the fencing is nailed to the slats. The diagonal wires forming diamond shapes, the little knots where the wires meet and twirl around one another. The roof is a whitish plastic sheet with waves, like a sea of milk. It’s slightly tilted. I know that’s for the rain to roll off. The floor is covered with white sand that’s not white at all. Cristal-sand grandpa calls it. Above that beach are the birds, sitting on sticks with bark but no leaves. Like a deciduous forest in fall. I learned that word in school the other day. I like new words.
There are twenty-three birds. I love their flutter, hopping, and flapping. I love listening to the crackles, chirps, flutes, and bleeps. My eyes follow the green, the pink, the yellow, the orange, the white, wherever there’s movement. There is peace in knowing these birds, knowing their characters. Some are restful, others jumpy. There are two that like to pick fights. Some fight back, others just move to another branch. There’s arrogant ones and small ones, their colors less bright. Most of them are vain, cleaning themselves, organizing their feathers, spreading their wings. Some I can hardly hear, others are loud.

I asked my dad once: “How come grandpa freed people out of burning houses, but then puts birds in a cage?”
“That’s a smart question son. Ask your grandfather.”

In the grass in front of me, there are fluffy feathers, the shells of sunflower seeds, bird poo - yuck - and white dust. Are the birds making a mark, saying “we have influence there too”? I should try to be rebellious like that. When I don’t wipe the breadcrumbs of the table after lunch, I get a scolding. Or maybe they are trying to reach the one bird inside the house, flapping their wings ferociously, sending signals. They may have the impression that the cockatoo inside is freer. That he, being the biggest and most privileged, can do something for them. He even has been given a name: Coco. But Coco is always inside the house, yelling “Scratch your head. Scratch your head.” I often feel my hand moving up to my head when Coco squawks, like it’s an order: think twice! Sometimes he scratches his own head, his big claw reaching up, the yellow tuft on his head bobbing up and down. Maybe he’s wondering “How did I end up here, with a shackle around my ankle”. Grandma taught him that sentence. She spends the most time with him, feeding him from her hand.

A shadow falls over me. I didn’t hear grandpa walking up to me. He feels extra tall with me sitting. He can’t bend down easily or sit like me. His body is limiting him because of his rheumatics. But his tongue works and he loves telling stories about when he was a fireman. He can lash out too.
“What’s your favorite bird?” he asks.
“The eagle.”
“No, in there dummy. Which one do you like best?”
I look up at him. His face is dark and wrinkled, his nose strong. He is silently looking at the birds hopping around. Then he rustles my hair, nodding in encouragement.
“That one”, and I point at a bright green and orange bird.
“Ah, the dwarf parrot. It is yours.”
I look at him with big eyes. He waves at me to get up and I follow him to the cage. He lets me go first, creating an opening for me to slip through, keeping a keen eye at the birds. When he closes the door behind me, I startle. Then he opens the door again and glides in himself.
The birds go flying. I duck, then, noticing they seem happy to see us, stand straight. The smell of wet dog mixed with sawdust is stronger in here. When things calm down, grandpa walks to the perch with the small parrot. He scoops her up with such a gentleness I have never seen. I know these hands to be slapping the table, making the cutlery and the glasses tremble. Now he holds those hands out to me, fists that form a hollow space, cradling the bird. Her head is sticking out, my grandpa’s thumbs around its neck, but in a way that reminds me of the inner tube that keeps me afloat in the swimming pool. The bird looks around, at ease.
“Here”, he says, nodding gently, “you hold it.”
I carefully close my hands around my grandfather’s, then he slides his hands away and the bird sits in mine. It feels warm, ticklish. It is so light and fragile. My feathered friend. I will call her Bird. I hold my breath and tiptoe out of the cage, whispering “I’ll protect you”, while my grandfather holds the door, keeping a sharp eye on the other birds.

My dad and I put a cage in the front room next to the dinner table. There’s a big window there so Bird can look out and get some diversion from people walking by, from bikes, from dogs. Maybe even the neighbor across the street, who seems to be always sitting behind the window, half shielded by a curtain. If I can get Bird to talk, they can gossip together one day. The thought makes me smile. I give Bird water and sunflower seeds and I hang up a piece of cuttlebone so she can sharpen her beak. Then I call my friend Patrick: “You need to come over, I have something to show you!”

The following weeks Patrick comes over often. We sit on wooden stools looking at Bird, our elbows on our knees, our chins on our fists. Bird sits on her perch in the middle of the cage. Every so often she lifts a wing and puts her beak underneath.
“Why you think she’s scratching her armpit so often?” Patrick asks.
“Wingpit is her word I guess” I answer.
“Huh?” Patrick lifts his chin of his fists for a sec, then rests his head again as he chuckles. “You think she’s happy?”
“Dunno. She’s not allowed to fly anymore cause dad is done cleaning up her poo”. My dad’s eyebrows looked heavy when he said that. “But I do give her food, fresh water and a fresh newspaper.”
“She reads the news?”
“Almost”, I say, “couple of weeks and I think she can. I look at Bird, then at Patrick. “No dummy, for the bottom of her cage” and slap him on the back.
“What about the talking?” he asks, then turns to Bird and says “Pretty girl, pretty girl” loudly. Bird just scratches her wingpit.
“Pretty girl, pretty girl” I ad for good measure, hoping she responds to me before talking back to Patrick.

No matter how hard I try, I don’t get Bird to talk like Coco does. Maybe dwarf parrots don’t talk. Or maybe Bird just doesn’t talk, is it a personal thing. Maybe her father slapped her around with his wings for being too loud as a chick. I no longer say “Pretty girl” to her. Then I forget to add water to his little plastic through. One day my dad says: “I’m not gonna do that for you”, pointing at the solidified chunk of newspaper, bird poo and piss at the bottom of the cage. A couple of weeks later I call Patrick: “Would you love to have Bird?”

---

My dad walks into my room. I am packing a rucksack. I have just graduated from high-school and have been granted a scholarship to study abroad. In a couple of days I’ll be boarding an airplane for the first time and fly across the Atlantic.
“Do you remember Patrick?” he asks. After elementary school we went to different schools and I lost touch with him.
“I do. What about him?”
“I hear he’s in jail.”

I jump on my bike, off to the local jail.
“Hi” I say.
A faint smile appears on his face.
“What are you in here for?”
He just shakes his head, looking at his fists. I look at the bed he’s sitting on, the toilet in the corner, how everything is bolted to the floor. I look at the bars between us and shake my head at the thought of hanging up a piece of cuttlebone.
“You still have Bird?” I ask.
He jerks his head up. “You wanna talk about that fucking bird?” He clenches his jaws, then looks out the tiny window at whatever he sees there. I get up. He doesn’t turn his head.

I start biking home, then change my mind and bike to my grandparents’ place. I take the back alley, through the gate, then to the aviary. I open the door and hold it all the way open. The birds just sit there, on their perches, scratching their heads and wingpits. “Come” I whisper and make a waving move with my hand. They don’t budge. The door doesn’t stay open by itself, so I get the watering can from the shed and jam it underneath the door. “It’s up to you now” I say and jump on my bike.