I blame the man with the tartan thermos for my issues. Not all of them, of course, but the ones I’m thinking about right now. It’s easy to condemn him at this hour, especially since he’s not here and there’s no-one else around to blame, just this one bird calling dawn, echoing his words and embedding the seed even further.
See, he—Thermos Man—usually sits alone. From mid-morning to lunch on most weekdays he occupies the right side of a park bench visible from my bedroom window adjacent to the school gates, about fifty steps into the park.
He’s predictable in his manner, the way he smiles hello and nods good day to passers-by, watching birds, mostly with contentment, but with occasional traces of regret crossing his forehead.
I find regret easy to recognise, especially in an older person; it’s all to do with the direction of their wrinkles and the shape of their brows. It’s not impossible to recognise on a younger individual, the indicators are just more fleeting and less ingrained.
For the longest time I considered Thermos Man pleasant and non-threatening, comforting even, until one day—about eight months ago—when he took me by surprise insisting I join him in sampling some of his homemade iced tea. It’s not something I would usually do, accept an invitation like that, but since I had no other pressing engagements to tend to, on this day I accepted his offer.
“Shhh,” he hushed as I sat, silently. “Hear that?”
“Hear what? The cars?”
“No.”
I looked toward the schoolyard while he rifled through his brown cloth bag, presumably for another receptacle.
“The kids?”
“No love, the birds.”
“Oh.”
As he fills an exact replica of his thermos lid from his bag, he proceeds to tell me his theory which suggests the birds can tell when a person is in mourning, so they sing songs in this specific key, a decibel which travels directly to this certain part of the brain which expands into the stress of loss so it doesn’t feel so bad. I must admit, it sounded great at the time, prophetic even, something of a nice coping mechanism, but that was then and this is now and now I wish I could erase the correlation because I no longer hear any melody to their calls, all I hear are their specific conversation points.
The patterns began to emerge after a few days of attention and with a minor effort on my part, it all became quite obvious. I think they know that I know, the birds, and now they’re messing with me. They know I know at least half of what they’re on about, so now they dish it out one bead at a time as if something terrible might happen if they divulged all their secrets at once.
It goes something like this:
Monday mornings are slow, spacious and layered with instruction. The seasoned ones start with cautions about what to expect from sub-streetlight landings, warnings about phantom clouds that look like real clouds, and best practices on how to avoid high impact neck compression. These reminders go on repeat until a spritely one starts up like he’s allocating teams and districts, which is news that always riles the young ones who chime in overtop, restless with the stationary nature of the meetings.
I understand their impatience completely, but also acknowledge the necessity of clarifying the daily plan early, since the up-start of city racket will soon impede any chance of a long distance broadcast.
Flight paths are lazy on Mondays; movements have less to do with inspired missions and more to do with obligation.
Weekdays around three their calls sound deranged. The medley tells of trouble, probably because the kids have been set free and there’s lunacy in the way they run from the school gates.
Fridays and Saturdays around six the mood’s a bit lighter, though still manic, as they congregate atop the new season foliage to recount the day’s events all at once. This usually generates a static, but by this time I’ve got too much pool water in my ears to translate any details.
Sometimes, in the night hours, a wise crone will sing her song to me, baiting me to calibrate to her language. It’s just me and her and I can tell by her tone that she knows me, repeating the call like she does, but every time it feels like we’re getting somewhere, there’s a sudden outburst two streets over from an insomniac pair who’ve likely just witnessed a crime, so I lose my place and all progress is lost.
Being a Tuesday and pre-dawn not a lot is happening on the bird front. It’s not the hour to transmit secrets so they’re mostly relaxed, enjoying the last remnants of civilian unconsciousness. I might’ve been in a position to enjoy the moment too, had I not woken perched on the ten metre diving platform above the community pool with a teen lifeguard on opening duties below.
The situation is not ideal, but I’m close to home, and so far, undetected.
I roll to the edge and watch this kid, impressed by his work ethic at such an early hour. He’s methodical and accurate in his efforts, no movement superfluous. He hoses down sun-chairs, checks the meters, then drags the lane ropes out one stream at a time, fishing out wayward foliage, stray chip packets, and somehow he manages to cover the diving pool with a blue tarp, which really is a job better suited for two. Had the likelihood my intervention wouldn’t lead to my incrimination, I might’ve got down to help him.
With four sun-chairs left to upturn, his behaviour veers on the edge of suspicious. He’s at the halfway mark of the pool determining wind direction, when he turns suddenly and bolts toward the diving platfrom—toward me—stopping at this blue man-hole cover where he kneels, removes the cover and goes in shoulder deep to retrieve a jar. From the jar comes a small zip-lock bag and from that he extracts half a joint and a lighter.
Moments later a flume of smoke floats in the direction of the community gardens which is when the office door swings open and smacks into the brickwork.
Concrete dust sprinkles from the wall and this big, bald guy limps out. He’s got a sweat-stained singlet stretching over his beach-ball gut and his intense squint concentrates centrally like he’s been looking at something small and far away most days of his life.
In an effort to block out the rising sun, his left arm goes up like he’s hailing Hitler and the kid is stuck frozen with his arms stiff by his sides like he’s holding two invisible bags of cement.
Meanwhile, I’m stunted, emphatically hoping this old guy is temporarily blinded by the sun so the kid isn’t busted, and double hoping neither of them notice me on the diving platform watching all this unfold from prayer position.
With every step he takes, Limp-gut throws out another demand.
“It’s ten-to-six. Why ya just standin’ there?
Those other lane-ropes need to go out.
There’s shit in the third cubicle in the men’s.
And check those meters too.
Useless twerp.”
Like his ambitions for the kid, Limp-gut’s feet get ahead of him and he stumbles forward about a metre which infuriates him so much it looks like he might snap a tibia purely from rage tremors. He deems further exertion not worth the effort and when the door meets the brickwork again, I knew we were safe.
Seven samaritans later, when the kid is filling a bucket, I jump.
Neil continues adjusting his goggles.
The kid takes a bucket into the men’s.
No-one saw a thing.
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