enjoy this Kyle Hemmings writing in the free April 2011 cc&d PDF file chapbook Anime Junkie				You can also order this as a 2011 6" x 9" perfect-bound paperback ISBN# book! Click on the cover spread for the book Anime Junkie

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White Bird

Kyle Hemmings

    As a child, walking home from school in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo, Yami winked at the white bird that followed her home each day. She never told anyone, not even her best friend, Rin-Rin – who was in love with rain and the early Bob Dylan – that White Bird confided in her. Like how to glide in her sleep. Or how to navigate her personal dream wards, full of cityscapes, low and high risers. The adults complained that Yami never said very much or that she was too withdrawn, that someday her personal spiders would eat her. And it was true that after her first period, which coincided with a heavy storm, Yami often thought about suicide, even of hanging herself from the Harajuku Bridge. She believed she stayed alive because that White Bird stole all her weapons of self-destruction, took them to a nest too far north or south, depending on one’s definition of the weather.

    Then, close to twenty, Yami fell in love with a punk rocker named Akiho. To his friends, he was known as Soul Surfer. At night, Akiho remarked that after making love to Yami, he saw a white flash in her eyes. She said that it was just him looking too hard inside of her. He said that maybe it was him looking out from inside of her. She giggled, but knew White Bird had never left her.

    One day, several months after Yami and Akiho married, a tsunami swept over the village where they settled. People were found drifting miles out at sea, faces down. Cars and trucks were overturned. Buildings were demolished. The house where Yami and Akiho lived was destroyed.

    Years later, a house was rebuilt in the same spot where the two once lived. And on its roof, three white birds – mother, father, and baby – perched. They always spoke to each other about the girl who once lived below, who had really wished for a set of wings, but kept asking for a noose. One of the white birds explained she did all she could for this girl; after all, birds of a feather flock together. The other two chirped a hearty laugh. It’s not funny, not funny at all, said the mama bird. The three of them took off in a triangular pattern.

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