u s e y o u r h a n d s

I’m still pursuing the end of my serial story. Unfortunately, my tum is all goofy. I hope this doesn’t affect my game.

They stood on either side of the dead crow. Its wings were stretched wide and ruffled gently in the breeze. Barry held a shovel and nudged the bird. It did not move. He moved to edge the bird onto the shovel, but Veronica stayed his arm. She knelt down for a closer look. On her hands and knees, she looked closely.

The beak was slightly open. She wondered if the bird had cawed on her lawn for minutes or hours before it died. While she had tried so hard to remove her mind from reality that morning, life was hurtling away from this crow. The two glassy eyes had begun to cloud. Veronica placed her face close to the bird’s eye, but she didn’t see her own reflection. Its wings were outstretched as if soaring or embracing.

Her curiosity turned Barry’s stomach. Birds had diseases, right? Could she catch something poking around the bird like that? She wasn’t a kid; her unabashed examination was ridiculous. He touched her shoulder and gave it a shake.

“Veronica, come on,” he said sternly, “Let me throw the fucking bird away.”

She was still in her reverie but found herself replying, “I want to keep it.”

He choked on frustration. Barry was tired of these moods, these airy depressions that required him to come down to her level and scoop her back up. He bounced the shovel up and down with his sneaker and chose not to reply to her nonsense.

Veronica extended her hand to touch the bird. The feathers felt far more delicate than she’d imagined. Maybe the bird had been on her lawn for days and she had overlooked this small death. Guilt brewed inside her. To atone, Veronica curled up on the ground next to the bird. A blade of grass poked her in the eye. Damp seeped through her clothes. She had no particular sadness that this animal had died, but a huge well of grief swelled within her. What had she missed? What else had gone by?

Barry had enough. He saw a tear leak out of Veronica’s eye and snapped. He shoveled up the bird and stomped to her trashcans. He threw open the lid, dumped the bird, and flipped it back down with too much force. Veronica blinked when Barry threw the shovel and it clattered against the cement. He stormed back toward her and jerked her up by her arm.

“Get inside, Veronica. You’re ridiculous,” he spat through clenched teeth. She trailed behind him into the house. She felt dazed and stupid. Barry was right; her behavior was ridiculous, but it came naturally.

This is the second installment of this week’s theme/writing experiement – the digital serial. Just add milk.

Barry knocked hard on her door. Veronica jumped and her knife made a jagged cut through a kiwi. The pounding continued, staccato and angry. She held the fruit in her palm and stared into the bright green center, a monster’s eye. It frightened her and Veronica tossed it down the garbage disposal. She steadied her knife and slid its blade just under a new kiwi’s fuzzy brown flesh. The skin fell off in a long fuzzy strip. Veronica could almost feel the fruit scream in her hand.

The front door opened, but not completely. Barry poked his head inside and bellowed, “Veronica? Are you here?”

Veronica stared at the vivid green of the fruit so intently that the color threatened to blind her. She looked away and saw Barry, confused and pissed off, standing in her hallway holding the Sunday paper. He put the plastic-wrapped paper on the counter.

“There’s a dead crow on your lawn. Did you know?”

A drop of kiwi juice landed on her foot. “No, I didn’t,” she said softly. Veronica finished peeling the fruit and sliced it thin. She tossed the brown-and-green spiral at Barry. He just caught the slippery thing and tore off bite-sized pieces.

“It’s gross that you eat the rind,” Veronica said as she stabbed one kiwi round with her knife and placed it on her tongue.

Barry shrugged as he chewed. “I don’t like to waste and it’s not bad. You can eat it.”

They stood separated by several feet, but the effect was not so much a stand-off between two warring camps, but more like two magnets placed too close together. Barry wiped his sticky hands on a dishtowel. Veronica continued eating the kiwi off the knife. In her head, the picture of the knife stuck through the roof of her mouth was so clear as to be distracting. The phantom taste of blood mixed with the sweet, seedy kiwi in her mouth.

“I wonder how the crow got there,” she mused.

Barry had not considered how the crow had come to be on Veronica’s lawn, but once he stopped to mentally answer her question, he found a bevy of possibilities. A housecat come courting. Poisoning from lawn fertilizer. A mid-air heart attack. It was the last one that made him shudder.

He wanted to touch her, mainly the soft skin of her inner arm. Barry took a step towards Veronica. She didn’t move. He extended a finger and swept down her arm. She looked into his eyes and turned out her arm. Barry closed his hand around her arm and pulled her toward him gently. They folded into each other as they found the places of each others’ bodies they loved most. Barry put his mouth close to Veronica’s ear and she lodged her chin on the nape of his neck. Barry remembered when Veronica would wrap a leg around his while they embraced like this. She must have looked like a flamingo.

“Veronica,” he whispered, “Let’s go take care of that dead bird.”

I was talking about Tales of the City yesterday and wondered why more papers don’t do serialized stories anymore. Well, UYH is no print effort, but this week, I’m going to flex my fiction chops for you, serial-style.

There’s a sore spot under Veronica’s tongue. She curled her tongue back to locate the spot to no avail. It’s under the tongue. Sublingual. Sometimes, she wakes up to these random, inexplicable abrasions in her mouth. When she can find one of these, she’ll tongue it until raw and painful. She does the same thing with hangnails and ingrown hairs.

She was still in bed, the covers drawn to her chin. Veronica ran her fingers through her hair and searched for the spot under her tongue as the day began outside. The upstairs neighbors thundered past her door with jangling keys. But this Saturday was devoid of obligation. Veronica woke up at six and felt optimistic about the day, but over the past hour, all of her positivity drained away. Veronica was a husk.

Images from last night floated back into her head. Barry picked the fight this time – she’s cluttery, he’s not – and they got into it for several hours. Veronica had been exhausted when she left and just wanted to fall asleep in her own bed. She drove fast, skiing across lanes to get around cars and probably drove for a mile before noticing the flashing lights in the rearview mirror. The officers shined the light in her eyes, but she hadn’t been drinking. Veronica was distracted and apologized to the officers. It was the last thing she needed during this shitty day.

Why did they choose to live their life fighting each other? Because of the post-fight honeymoon. Veronica and Barry would endure three hours of screaming for a few days of blissful sex, courtesies, and picnic love. The year had felt very long.

She thought about these things while in bed. Two of Veronica’s toes began to cramp uncomfortably. She let it go until she felt herself break out into a sweat and then forced them to uncross.

Her phone began to ring on the nightstand. It was only a languid reach away but Veronica chose to pick it up on the fifth ring just saving the caller from her voicemail.

“Hello,” she said in a colorless tone.

Barry cleared his throat to begin the speech she knew so well, she could recite it along with him. Veronica often thought of doing this, but had never dared.

“Hey, sweetie,” he began. She parroted him. “I’m so sorry – What the fuck are you doing?” He was understandably irritated.

“Why do you give me the same speech when we always fight about different things?” Veronica began. “Shouldn’t each topic have a different apology?”

The clock ticked a few seconds before Barry spoke again. “It’s the morning, Veronica. We’re done being angry now. So let me do the apology thing and then I’ll come get you for breakfast.”

Under the covers, her toes crossed again and she fell into the pain.