Day 4.

I resigned myself to at least a short inquisition from this estrogen flooded crew, so I stuck my hands deep in my pockets and leaned against the banister. No one spoke for a second, and I tried to stifle the hope that they wouldn’t. Finally, Mom said,

“I’m just a little worried about you, honey. You’ve been very... lethargic and a little odd since you got back from school.”

Why did she have to choose this moment to talk about it? With all the girls clustered around?

But that’s how my mom was. She’s not a very private person, and almost obsessed with the well being of her children. She’s always been very protective. I remember when we were younger she was almost as carefree and energetic as Dad. As we got older and they had more kids, she became so focused on making sure we were safe and happy that it drained a lot from her.

I figured I had to say something now. Maybe if I chose my words well, I could ward off this whole discussion.

“I just need a little time to get back into things, you know?” I was pretty proud of that. Implied that this wasn’t permament, nothing was wrong, just a minor delay.

“It’s already been three months, Benjamin. If you stay in this pattern long enough it’ll just become a habit.”

That was Jess. She was three years older than me, and married to a guy who was currently overseas with the peace corps. They got married a six years ago, when Jess was in her fourth year of college. Jess loved school. She got some sort of history major, then went to graduate school to focus on some obsure culture that I can never remember. Six years of schooling, and she hasn’t done a thing with it. She lives at home right now while her husband is away.

And she’s always looking for an opportunity to utilize her psychology minor. She usually feels that that opportunity is me.

“You know your father and I don’t mind having you here for a while, but eventually you have to–”

“Mom, I know. Look, I really don’t want to talk about this right now.” Maybe this was a less well crafted response. With mothers, whenever you try to put up walls their “my baby is in trouble” sense flares up and they bring in their wrecking ball.

“If someone assaulted you–”

I couldn’t help but laugh just a little. She didn’t know which issue to tackle– my lack of drive, or the black eye and swollen lip.

Suddenly her face kind of froze, then she tilted her head slightly. “Where are your glasses?”

Somewhere buried beneath two feet of waving grass. “I misplaced them.”

“If you don’t talk about your problems, Benjamin, we can’t help you,” Jess put in, crossing her arms and giving me the sort of look that told me how much smarter she was than me.

“Maybe he doesn’t want your help,” Emilie said with a scowl at Jess. You tell her, Em, I knew I liked you for a reason.

I hope my glasses weren’t broken. I liked those glasses. Now they’re at some freaky churchyard.

I straightened up, took my hands out of my pockets. “Mom, you know that church at the end of the lane?”

That got a confused look. I kinda liked that. She took a second to answer, then hesitantly said, “Well... yes. Of course.”

“You know who owns it?”

“Benjamin, what does this have to do with–”

“Does anybody own it?”

She readjusted, straightened her shirt, crossed her legs the other way. “I don’t know. It’s been empty since I was a girl. I don’t know who actually owns the place.”

“So no one would probably be there.”

“No one has been there for years. Why?”

I got lost in thought for a second, failed to answer her. She gave me another prompt, still waiting for a response. I sort of nodded absentmindedly, like my uncle when you start talking about the internet.

“I’m gonna go to the library for a while,” I said. I turned away, but Mom said somewhat forcefully,

“Your father will be home soon and then we’re going to eat. You just wait to do that till tomorrow.”

“Well this was a lot more boring than it could have been,” Lea sighed, standing up and stretching.

I was sort of tempted to just go anyhow, decided that would make me the most ungrateful bastard ever.

Back upstairs I went.

Already the events of today were blurring into one soggy mass, with no distinctions of time or look to be found. I knew that I had to write it down before I forgot.

And like a masochist of some sort, I decided to go back tomorrow.


I turned 11 today. It was not a very good day. I did not get a party because Dad is still in the hospital. Edgar died today. Edgar is my bird. We went to see Dad and when we got back Edgar was at the bottom of his cage.

I want to bury him. And give him a funeral. Mom says okay. But then she went away.

He should be buried at the church at the end of my road. No one will go with me. I put Edgar in a shoebox and I’m going to bury him alone.




I woke up suddenly that night, holding on to a dream I had been having. It was one of those dreams where you incorporate a memory with your present, and then all manner of eclectic images and circumstances that had nothing to do with anything. I remember there was a walking house, a dead bird in a shoebox, and this girl Rosalie I used to know. She was always kind of weird. I think she worked at the library now.

I looked at my digital clock on the bedstand, which was just a mass of glowing red, owing to the fact that I didn’t have glasses on. I didn’t care enough to put them on. I figured it was probably three or so.

As I thought a little bit more about that dream, a few things became clearer. That shoebox with the bird... that had to have been Edgar. I hadn’t thought about it in a long time. I loved that bird. I don’t even know what kind it was. Maybe it was a finch or something.

I shook that memory out of my head, as it wasn’t one of the most pleasant days in my life. I was about to go back to sleep. I had just pulled the covers back over me.

Something slammed against my window. I cursed, loudly, and practically flew into a seated position. Flapping of wings, beating against the glass. A dim light of the moon cast rim lighting onto a darkish figure of what had to be a bird, freaking out at my window.

Suddenly it started cawing. Like some kind of raven. I fell out of bed, scrambling to the opposite end of the room, somehow managing to grab my glasses off the nightstand and shove them onto my face. The bird just kept banging against the glass, glassy eyes staring straight into me.

It flew away. I don’t know why, or where, but it was gone. Not another sound. Just gone.

I stood still for a very long time, eyes for nothing but that window. I kept imagining things I could see in that window. I could be staring into that window, and slowly realize that someone was staring right back. But that was ridiculous. I was in an upper story room. To see a face in my second story window would be impossible. It’d be...

It’d be flippin’ scary, is what it would be.

As you might have noticed, I am pretty good at scaring myself. I’m not one who really likes to be scared, but my brain works just in a manner that I can imagine all circumstances. Possible, impossible, likely and unlikely, they come to me like a fat guy to a buffet. And when I’m scared, I have two different reactions.

The first is a technique most commonly employed by deer. “If I don’t move, it can’t possibly see me. Don’t move now. Eye contact is okay, it won’t notice because it can’t see me. Oh crap. Oh crap it sees me. What do I do, what do I do? I know, just stay still. If I don’t move it can’t possibly see me...” This technique can also be employed by covering oneself in blankets and staying as still as possible.

The second reaction to fear I have is slightly different. Its the “run like hell” tactic. In this maneuver, you run like hell.

This is most often used at my house. Our garage and our house is a good one hundred feet apart. Now, living in the country, it gets very dark. It is also public knowledge that not only do we have wild animals who enjoy mauling the unprepared, but also savage monsters of unknown origins.

Sometimes, I would find it necessary to make a late night trip to the garage. Perhaps to retrieve an icecream treat from our deep freezer. My walk over would generally be fine. But at times, I would stand at the garage door, frozen goodies in hand, and realize the high chance of my being torn limb from limb on my walk back over. So I would gather up by nerve, look around carefully into the lifeless dark, and run. Not a little jog. A dead run. Sometimes I might try to walk slowly to start off with. But I would always break into that run, imagining the massive monster close behind me, streatching out its clawed arms just as I reached the door and slammed it shut.

Only Emilie has seen me at this. Running from an unseen monster. Three weeks ago...

But back to the bird at the window.

As you may have noticed, at this particular point in my life, I opted for the first strategy. It seemed to work pretty well, because nothing further happened for a few minutes.

So I finally got up the nerve to approach the window.