writing from
Scars Publications

Audio/Video chapbooks cc&d magazine Down in the Dirt magazine books

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the
108 page perfect-bound ISSN#/ISBN# issue/book

Flawed Cadaver
cc&d, v278
(the December 2017 issue)

Order this as a 6"x9" paperback book:
order ISBN# book


Flawed Cadaver

Order this writing
in the issue book
Language of
Untamed Spirit

the cc&d
Sept.-Dec.2017
collection book
Language of Untamed Spirit cc&d collectoin book get the 4 page
May-August 2017
cc&d magazine
issue collection
6" x 9" ISBN#
paperback book:

order ISBN# book

Bird Island
Chapter 8
The Reformer

Patrick Fealey

    The meat. Bird flies up when the sun is high to see if the screen is open. The humans live here who park cars behind Wawp’s house. It is the highest roof. Bird stands on the hot roof and looks through the window screen where the meat comes from. The humans here do not feed Bird.

    The round one is in there. It opens a can of fish and dumps it into a bowl. It sticks a spoon into a white glass and shakes it into the bowl. It bangs the bowl with the spoon. It reaches for bread at the top of the big white box. It puts bread into the shiny metal box and they go away. It sticks its finger into the bowl and then its mouth.

    The shiny metal box makes a noise: the bread. The round one goes over and grabs the bread. It spoons fish onto the bread. It covers the fish with bread and eats into it. It sits at the table. It eats. It does not see Bird. The fish is gone. It stands up with the spoon and makes the water.

    It takes the fish can to the pile where the meat is and drops it on top. The can rolls and falls. It is on the floor.

    “Shit.”

    It bends over. It pushes the can into the top of the pile. It walks out of the food room.

*


    Bird stands on the roof outside the window where there is meat.

    The round one walks into the food room. Its face wrinkles. “Fucking slobs.” It goes to the big white box and the light comes and it drinks from a paper box and puts it back into the white box and closes the door. It walks out, shaking its head.

*


    The screen. Bird watches the round one eat from a bowl at the table. Bird smells milk. Bird smells the meat pile. Sometimes it looks at the pile, leaning high against the wall. Bird comes to the house, but always the screen. “Shit,” the round one says, standing. It goes over to the pile and puts its face to it. “Unbelievable. We have maggots. Not under god in whom we do not believe, communism has failed because all men are not created equal. But I am not going to be the one to take out the goddamned garbage again.”
    It stands up. It throws the bowl into the water hole. It walks out.

*


    Fish. Apple. Meat. Beer.

    “They’re growing fat on our laziness,” the round one says.
    A female human walks into the kitchen. It is dressed in black and white.
    “Isn’t it disgusting?” it says. “Makes me want to vomit.”
    “Assholes.”
    It goes to the big white box and bends into it. The round one watches it. It stands and says, “I can’t believe no one has taken it out yet.”
    “Yeah. I know what you mean. I’m not taking it out because I do enough around this place. Vaccuum, bring in the mail. If you slobs want to live with maggots . . . “
    “At least it’s November. Pretty soon it’ll be too cold for flies.”

*


    In Bird’s tree Bird sits on Bird’s feet until the sun breaks the cold. The day is not the birds that were here yesterday.

    Bird can hear the sound coming from the house. The air through the screen is warm and dusty. Meat, worms, and worm shit. The screen blocks Bird.

    The round one walks into the food room. Its hair is wet and flat. It reaches for the bread on top of the big white box, goes to the table, takes two pieces of bread to the shiny box and makes them disappear. It looks at the pile against the wall. There is a shiny can on the floor. A box stands beside the pile. Small pale yellow worms cling to the shiny green bags. The round one comes to the window and raises its arms and grabs the glass window and pushes it up. It sees Bird sitting outside the screen. It stops. Bird is ready to fly. “Jesus Christ! Now we have vultures!”

    The round one is eating at the table. It is looking across at the wall above the pile. It is staring. It stiffens with its food in its hands. Something is moving on the wall. It is the worms. The worms are crawling up the wall. It stands up and goes to the worms.
    “Maggots! You’re cold! Go ‘til you hit the ceiling, you fuckers. This is appalling, absolutely the saddest fucking day.”

*


    The round one works on the pile. It makes sounds and words at it. It takes bags out of the food room and puts them into the back of a truck. Bird watches and waits. It comes back and leans over the pool on the floor with a stick and pushes until it is gone. It blows flowers from a can. It looks up at the worms running away. It’s neck bends. “You may be warm, maggots, but you have only each other for food.”

*


    A new smell and the flowers from the round one’s can, but no meat or fish or worms. The round one has taken the kill. The round one is in the food room with a white sheet. It is putting it over the big white food box. There are sheets on the floor with black. A human walks into the food room and says “Hi” to the round one. It looks at the big white box. The round one stands beside it.
    “Can I get in there?”
    “You know what happened with the garbage?” the round one says.
    “Yes.”
    “Well, there’s a new house rule that says there’s no more community garbage. From now on, keep it in your room.”
    “What kind of rule is that? What? How are we supposed to cook? Who says?”
    “The landlord,” the round one says.
    “You told him?”
    “There were thousands of maggots in this kitchen because the assholes who live here are too lazy to take out the trash.”
    “I don’t support it.”
    “You don’t have any choice. You’re one of the assholes.”
    “Our rooms? What are you, a fascist?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’d rather have maggots.”
    “As long as you keep them in your own room, you can call me Mussolini.”

*


    The round one is in the food room on a metal tree, scratching the wall high. The worms have no smell. The skins crumble and fall to the floor as dust without insides. It stops scratching and looks at the worms. It scratches slowly. Worm, stopping. Worm . . .
    A human comes into the food room.
    “Painting?”
    “Not yet.”
    “The place needs it.”
    “I’m scraping maggots off the wall.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “No. They went up the wall to escape the cold.”
    “That’s gross.”
    “I’m thinking about leaving some, at least one.”
    “Why?”
    “Because new tenants will never be able to understand why we have no community garbage. I am going to leave one maggot, as a matter of fact. I’ll paint around it. Leave it here, yellow and dried and stuck to the fucking wall, so when the next asshole communist complains and swears he’ll take out the garbage, I can show it to him: This is how bad things had gotten. This is what your promises are worth. It will be a maggot to end all maggots.”



Scars Publications


Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.




Problems with this page? Then deal with it...