Chicken; Egg
See a city street!
See a yellow summer evening, oh see. See it in a city. A lovely, perfect heat: unless you are a man in a black wool suit, watching the flickering rectangle in your hand, as your shiny black shoes clip-clip against the concrete as sharp and quick as hooves.
See the man! He sweats in the heat, brooding of clients and contracts. Striding, striding, watching as words flicker in his hand.
See him look up.
Hear the sharp clip-clip of his shoes go silent.
Across the yellow evening he sees a woman, a strange woman (strange to him!). Strange, her dark blue dress, the darkest blue of a near-night sky. Strange the white patterns swirling across the skirt!
(But are the patterns strange, or are they so familiar? Think, sweating man!)
See her! Bright white hair stands out around her head. Daubs of color streak her face like shooting stars, white and midnight blue. Her feet are bare and dirty. Around the woman flow the city’s evening walkers, like river-water around a rock. Yet no one seems to see her but the man.
She does not see him. Up and down the street she looks, and bites her lip, as if she has lost her way. (A TRICK!)
Ah now, now! See what the man sees! See what the woman holds, in both hands, pressed tight against her belly, but showing just a little, just a little: just to be sure he sees.
It is an egg! A golden egg. A glittering golden egg, swirled with patterns of tiny jewels, sapphire and diamond, like the patterns on her skirt (oh think, sweating man! you know those patterns!).
Oh the man sees the egg! He sees it and sees it. His eyes blink twice, three times, four. The man is rich, or almost rich. But an egg like that, that is the riches of the moon and sun.
Now! The woman looks upon him, startled, her eyes shocked wide. (A TRICK! A clever trick!) One hand lifts her midnight-blue skirts; she turns.
She runs.
The man gives chase! (She meant him to!) His phone goes skipping across the cement, his abandoned briefcase offers paper to the winds. The man swings into an alley; sees blue skirts flip around a corner; follows.
He follows and follows! When he cannot see her, he listens for the swish of skirts. He chases her down narrow streets and broad ones, dodging cars and hot dog stands, calling Wait, wait, I only want to see the egg.
At first, he calls. But soon, he stops. Does he stop because he is out of breath? Does he stop because she does not respond? Or—oh worst thought of all the worst—does he stop calling because to see it is no longer all he wants?
Still: see how the woman leads him, as the sky darkens the city, how she waits when he tires, how she flies when he nears. To the alien edges of the city she leads him, over unfamiliar pavements in decaying districts, running lightly on her dirty bare feet.
Through narrower alleys, past wooden-board lean-tos, past rusting automobiles. . . .
The woman stops! She stops, she stands still, in a lightless, deserted street. Beside her sits a low box made of wires and rotten boards. They have arrived!
The man and the woman stand, panting. The sky is dark as the woman’s skirt.
And now it is darker!
And now, oh lovely now, in the dark sky, the tiny lights begin, so delicate at first! The beginning of a symphony, the whisper of lovely strings. The tiny lights come: one, two, three, six, eleven, more and more, winking like the jewels on the golden egg, and to my ear—I mean, to the woman’s ear—each jewel-light blinks on with a soft, pure voice, until the constellations are great choirs of harmony and counterpoint!
Are they stars, those tiny lights? Or are they bright fish, swimming in and out of constellations, singing their star-fish song?
Watching the tiny, swimming lights, the man’s face is open as a bell. He says, The sky, but the sky—is this what it always is?
With joy, such joy, the woman kneels! (Does he see, as her skirt billows out, that her dress is a pattern of milky galaxies and stars? He does, he must!) She kneels by the rough box and pulls a board aside. Inside, in the dark, the man can just see—what? What do you think? What do you guess?
The most wonderful thing: a chicken! Inside the box is a white chicken with a red comb, rather dirty, like the woman’s dirty feet, and seated on a dirty straw nest.
The woman slips her egg beneath the chicken. Then, with great care, she lifts them all—nest, chicken, egg—and stands. She smiles now, at last the woman smiles at him! At last she can give him the glorious gift she has led him here to find!
I say—I mean, she says—oh, well, it is me—did you guess it was me? I am the woman! It has been me all along, telling this story!
I say: My dear, my dear boy, I have a gift for you, a glorious gift, all you’ve ever asked for and all your dearest heart desires.
With full heart, I offer him the chicken.
But oh, the worst happens!
For somehow, during the long and merry chase (it was merry! I thought it was merry), something has happened.
He began the chase with, Let me see it, let me see your egg. As I wished him to feel! So that he would follow me here!
But somehow, in the course of the chase that feeling became, My egg. It is my egg. Give me my egg.
So when I hand him the chicken, joyfully—oh the beautiful, dirty, clucking, odd-smelling chicken—he strikes it! He pushes it away! It falls, the chicken, it flaps wildly to the cement, squawking—and it hurries away.
Oh lost, the chicken lost!
And oh no, oh worst of all, oh ruin—the man seizes the egg in his hand!
NO! I cry, oh no, oh no! as I feel myself yanked into the night sky, as if pulled by a string from the stars: No! I cry, oh no, he didn’t mean it!
But it is too late. And for him, my cries fade fast. For him, soon, I am only another tiny silver fish in the dark, constellated sky.
From the sky, I watch through tears, as he looks at the egg, at that little golden planetarium and its jewel-constellations.
I watch through tears as the egg splinters in his hand—as it must! As all such eggs must splinter when grasped by human hand!
The golden egg shivers to dust at his feet. All that is left in his hand is what was once inside the egg: a tiny white chicken, curled in a ball, wet with egg juice.
Inside the egg, it was alive and growing. Now it is quite, quite dead. And dead is the tiny golden egg inside that tiny chicken; and the tinier white chicken inside that tinier egg, dead too; and the even tinier egg inside that tinier chicken—all dead, all dead, countless chickens, countless golden eggs, dead, dead, dead.
And yet the stars sing on around me!
For the rest of this man’s life, I will watch him from the sky, as he struggles and fights and wars the world to earn another golden egg. I will watch him battle, watch piles of green paper grow taller around him, watch the other black wool suits shake his hand.
But he will never be happy. I work so hard, I work so hard, he will think, all the rest of his life. Where is my egg?
From the night sky, I, the man’s own star-fish, I will weep, as I do tonight. What will it matter, how hard he works, when he works for the wrong thing? What does it matter how hard he works for the egg, when only the chicken would have made him happy? Only the chicken, the beautiful, odd-smelling, squawking chicken, that he was freely given by a star who came with dirty feet to answer his heart’s desire, his own swimming star-fish, who can never come again.
February is the Month of Envy
Dear readers,
As much as we Curators don’t quite want to believe it, time has continued on, as it tends to do, and we now find ourselves in the month of February.
February, I think you’ll agree, is a funny sort of month. It’s shorter than all the others, for one (not that there’s anything wrong with being short), and it’s when the groundhog pops up and does or doesn’t see his shadow (a strange custom, if there ever was one), and it’s that last stretch of winter when it seems like the world will never be warm again.
It’s also a month in which people celebrate love, or don’t, or wish they could, or are glad they don’t have to, or think it odd that a day originally meant to honor a martyred saint has evolved into a day on which we give each other boxed chocolates and cheesy greeting cards.
And let’s think about love for a moment. Last February, when the Cabinet was newly opened, we Curators wrote about love in its many odd forms–between a woman and a child that isn’t hers; between a girl and her doll; the love between friends, and the love between the living and the dead.
Now, a year later, we write about a thing that often comes along with love, or interferes with love, or pollutes it, like a burr stuck to the shadowy underside of something that should be beautiful, if you do it right. This year, we write about something that doesn’t even have to be associated with love at all; no, this thing comes in all shapes and sizes.
This month, we write about envy.
A person might envy someone their happiness, their success, their magical abilities, the love they share with their boyfriend, girlfriend, sister, parent.
A person might envy anything, big or small, good or evil.
What will the characters in this month’s stories envy?
You’ll just have to wait and see for yourself.
Teasingly,
Your Curators
China
This story begins the way most things begin, which is to say that this story begins in a rather dull way: a milkmaid is getting ready to take her tea. She is a very poor milkmaid, and her cottage is bare as an egg. It has a three-legged iron stove in one corner, and a rug that’s gone threadbare and grey in the spot where the milkmaid stands to churn the butter. There are cobwebs in some places, and dust in others, and in one corner there is a photograph of two smiling people who are perhaps the milkmaid’s parents, but they are dead now. The only thing of any interest in the cottage is a set of china tea-things, sitting atop the sideboard like a veritable shrine.
It is a splendid tea-set, though upon closer inspection one can see that the china is a lacework of cracks, and very old. There are two dainty cups with tiny orange flowers painted around the edges, a creamer and a sugar-bowl with a pair of pewter tongs to fish out the lumps. There is the loveliest, loveliest teapot you can possibly imagine. And on the bottom of three of the pieces are symbols, sharp black lines and crosses, a language the milkmaid has never been able to read.
The milkmaid drinks tea from her tea-set exactly once per week, and she takes great care to make the occasion special. She sweeps the floor with a twig broom, opens all the windows to exchange the air, boils the water, measures out the precious leaves, arranges her tea-things precisely, sits down at her table. . . .
*
Should you have come by the milkmaid’s dwelling just then and peered through her bottle-glass window, the scene that would meet your eyes would most likely strike you as ridiculous—a stout milkmaid, no longer quite young, alone at a wobbly table, trying to be prim, simpering with the sugar bowl, buttering slips of bread and nibbling at them prettily. You would think her silly.
But the milkmaid does not know that you are watching, and so she doesn’t mind. She is very happy when she drinks from her tea-set. It was her inheritance from the smiling people in the photograph, and when she uses it, when she even looks at it, she feels she is a child again. She feels her parents are right there with her, and she feels they will always be her parents as long as she has the tea-set. It is her favorite thing in the whole world.
Until one day. Until today.
*
For just in the moment when the milkmaid is lifting the teacup to her lips, the teacup moves. Only a little bit. Only one tiny, tiny shiver, like a bird about to hatch. But it moves.
The milkmaid looks at it quizzically. Then she raises her eyebrows and brings the cup back to her lips. The cup shivers again, this time so severely that flecks of tea spatter the milkmaid’s nose. The milkmaid, in an attempt to calm the teacup, lays it back hastily on its saucer. But it does not stop. It continues to shiver, rattling and spilling tea over the rim, harder and harder, and now suddenly there is a voice, cold and pure as porcelain, saying: “Break it. Break it. Split its back and shatter its bones.”
The milkmaid jerks away in terror, but the teacup continues to speak, hollow and dark, louder and louder. And then the milkmaid picks up the cup in a fright and throws it down with all her might against the tabletop. The teacup explodes into a dozen small white pieces . . . And what should come out of it but a very long, skinny creature, brown and red and green, and flat as paper. It might be a dragon, but it is very furry, and it has horns. It turns a circle on the tabletop, joints clicking, looking rather stiff, and then, noticing the milkmaid’s wide-eyed stare, squints up at her and says in a silky, hissing voice:
One wish now
Quick and careful
Then have your tea
And be quite cheerful.
The milkmaid screams and hits the creature with a heavy fist, and its legs squeeze out on either side. But then it turns to smoke and blows out from under her fingers, and comes to rest on the corner of the table.
“Come now, quickly, what would you like?” it says, in a slightly less sinister voice. The milkmaid screams again.
The creature peers at the milkmaid askance. “I do not understand your wish,” it says.
The milkmaid lets out one last strangled cry and then puts her head between her knees, trying to calm herself. She has heard tales like this one. Be careful what you wish for. Be careful, be careful. She raises her head. The creature is still there. She watches it carefully, and it watches her back.
“Shouldn’t you give me three?” the milkmaid squeaks. “Three wishes?”
“One wish!” says the creature imperiously. “And you can’t wish for more wishes, now hurry.”
The milkmaid thinks and thinks, so long that the creature wonders if perhaps it got a bad apple and it will have to wait all night. The milkmaid thinks of the tales she has heard, and she tries to makes sure her wishes will not backfire too badly, and then she says: “I would like a great lovely house, furnished and weather-tight, right here where this house is.”
And the next instant the cottage is gone and it is replaced by the strangest, most marvelous building the milkmaid has ever seen. The walls are lacquered wood, and the floors are strewn with pillows, and the windows are large and wide. The rooms are a bit too colorful for the milkmaid’s tastes, and she is not enamored with the artwork, but it is too late to change anything, because the creature has dissolved into a purple plume that is making its way up the chimney.
*
The milkmaid is so pleased with her new house. She wanders through it and admires the many rooms and the many windows and fire-pits. She finds the remaining pieces of her tea things sitting on a low, glimmering table, and her heart hurts for a moment, for the broken teacup, but then she thinks the china looks even more lovely now, like it belongs here. She thinks she will be very happy now.
But the next day, a tax-collector, coming along the road down from the town, sees the great mansion and he comes up the path and knocks at the door, wondering where this wonderful new house has come from and whether it has been properly taxed. Of course, it hasn’t. The milkmaid is very afraid when she opens the door. She tells the tax-collector that the house is only just built, and she will be paying the taxes the very next day, and then she closes the door quickly and locks it, and hurries through the house wringing her hands and wondering what to do. She doesn’t want to sell the house, or anything in it, and she doesn’t have time to, really. She comes to stand in front of the magnificent tea-set, sitting on its table. She stares at it. And now she is taking another teacup, and her heart is pounding so dreadfully. She is lifting it and smashing it on the floor. She winces as it breaks. Please, she thinks. Please be another strange, small creature.
And indeed out slips another one, this one like a spider, emerald-green, with long and spiny legs. It says:
In such a house
All red and gold,
What could there still be
You wish to hold?
And the milkmaid says, “Quickly, please, I must pay all the taxes on my house and I haven’t any money! Give me all the money I will ever need.”
The next instant the house is full to bursting with gold and jewels. There is enough to pay all the taxes for the rest of the milkmaid’s life, and she nearly dies of relief.
*
It is not long after the tax-collector had come and gone, that people begin to notice the beautiful house with its many gables and colored walls, and begin to think the milkmaid far more interesting than they had before. They come from far and wide to knock on the milkmaid’s door and speak with her, and she revels in the attention. No one ever visited her before. No one spoke to her, except to tell her the cows were in the wrong field, or the milk was late. Now they compliment her lovely house and the gape over all her gold and jewels. But as time passes, the milkmaid notices that while they talk to her a great deal they never really say anything. It is so strange; the milkmaid is sure she had had better conversations with the tea-set in her lonely cottage than with these people, who paw over her furniture and drink great quantities of her tea.
The milkmaid doesn’t know why this is. She wonders long and hard, and she decides it is because she is still a great clumsy milkmaid, and though she is kind and unassuming, she feels she is not as fine as all the wonderful people who visit her. Perhaps, she thinks, if she were like them, they would be her friends. They would tell her secrets and invite her to their own homes, and not just come to hers. And so, without another thought, she goes to her tea-things and takes up the sugar bowl and smashes it on the floor, and out comes another odd creature, this one like a black worm, all glistening and wet.
A third wish then?
Again, again?
You want a lot,
You silly hen.
The milkmaid says, “I would like to be someone else. Someone beautiful. Someone more beautiful than anyone in the entire country, in the entire world!”
And the next instant she is just that, and the worm has split into a thousand smaller worms that wriggle and creep into the floorboards.
The milkmaid goes to the mirror. She can hardly breathe when she sees herself. She has glimmering crow-black hair, and her face is so beautiful it is like the sun and the moon and all the stars put together, and her old, work hardened hands have become long and fine as any china.
*
But when the milkmaid again receives visitors to her mansion on the hill, they are somewhat quieter around her, somewhat more cautious, and then one of them asks her what has become of the silly, ugly milkmaid who had lived here before. It breaks the milkmaid’s heart to hear them. She sends them all away. She stops letting anyone in when they knock. She becomes lonely, lonelier than she ever had been before, and though she tries to sweep her great house and lay out the tea-things and feel happy again, she has only the teapot now and the creamer, and it feels desolate somehow, and not the same.
At last, she is so unhappy that she goes to her teapot and clutches it to her. She does not want to break it. But then she thinks of the picture in the frame that had vanished with her old cottage, of the smiling faces, and she thinks of drinking tea and buttering scones in the quiet of her shabby home, with only her own thoughts and memories, and all her tea-things gathered around her, and suddenly she knows what she wants, she knows exactly.
She lifts the china teapot to her chest, after a long, fond gaze, lets it slip from her hands. There is a great crashing. The china blooms across the floor like a sharp flower. . . . But there is nothing inside the walls of the teapot. No dragon or spider or worm, and nothing to grant the milkmaid’s last, most desperate wish.
*
Now, if you came upon the milkmaid’s mansion and pressed your face to a crystalline window, and glimpsed through the gap in the velvet curtains, the scene you would meet your eyes would be very different from before: a beautiful room, and a beautiful woman kneeling in the midst of it, crying her eyes out, and spread all around her the remains of a lovely china tea-set, smashed all to bits. And perhaps you would wonder what such a beautiful woman could have to cry about, and you would see her gold and jewels and think she really has no reason to cry; she could simply buy a new tea-set. And you would go on your way, and think how foolish are the rich and vain. But the milkmaid would not know your thoughts, and she would weep and weep and weep. . . .
*
So as you see, this story ends differently than most things end, which is with a sunset, or a wedding, or a bloodied axe. But it is an ending, and the milkmaid has come to realize something very cruel about the world: that you can have a great many things from life, but not for nothing, and perhaps the things you gave away are what you wanted most.
Harvest Day
“Peter? Are you awake?”
“What do you think?”
“Sorry, jeez. Just . . . I can’t sleep.”
“No kidding?”
“I just wanted to talk. Okay? I’m about to go crazy over here.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t feel like talking.”
“Why are you being such a jerk? Peter? Pete, answer me. Are you still there? They haven’t—”
“No. I’m still here. And don’t cry, Adam. Just . . . don’t cry, okay? I can’t take it.”
“So?”
“So I’m just freaked out, all right? And I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Do you think They’ll take me?”
“You’ve asked me this a million times.”
“And?”
“My answer’s the same: I don’t know. No one ever knows who They’re going to take.”
“. . . Peter?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you scared?”
“You’ve asked me this before.”
“I know. I’m running out of thoughts. They’re all turning panicky.”
“Yeah. I don’t know. I’m scared, yeah. But at the same time, I’m so used to being scared about this night that I’m kind of past being scared. I mean, it happens every year, and there’s nothing I can do about it, so why waste time being scared about it? Does that make sense?”
“No. Kind of, I guess.”
“Yeah. Well, that’s how I feel. Until I figure out a way to get out of here, I’m stuck with this night, and I’m stuck with being scared.”
“Peter?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think our parents knew about what goes on in this place when they moved here?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“. . . Do you think they’d still have moved here if they did know?”
“What kind of question is that? God!”
“Well, it’s just that . . . it’s so beautiful here. You know? And my dad’s always wanted to live someplace beautiful. Maybe he thought it was worth the risk? I just wonder.”
“Let me tell you something: It isn’t worth it to wonder. You’ll drive yourself crazy. Have you heard the story about that kid Rory?”
“No.”
“Rory lived over on 10th Street. He was so paranoid when it came to his mom. Like, he thought she was in on the whole thing. That she’d made a deal with Them. Because he and his mom didn’t get along so well. You know? So he started to think she’d moved them out here so she could get rid of him, nice and clean, without anyone knowing, without her ever getting caught.”
“But, I mean . . . he was wrong, right?”
“Who knows? He tried to kill his mom one day. Tried to push her down the stairs. He just knew, you know? He knew she was in on it. He knew she was just waiting on the day They would come and take him.”
“God.”
“I know.”
“Well, so what happened to him?”
“He vanished after that. His mom was fine, though. She’s that old lady now, who lives on 10th.”
“Ms. Rowengartner?”
“Yep.”
“But she’s so . . . sweet.”
“Yeah. They all are, aren’t they? Until they’re not.”
*
“Peter! Pete, wake up.”
“Huh? What? Adam?”
“Listen—”
“I can’t believe I fell asleep.”
“Shut up! Just shut up and listen.”
“To what?”
“Outside.”
“Is that . . . ?”
“I think it’s next door.”
“Moira. Oh no. Don’t listen to it.”
“I can hear . . . what is that? Oh God, it’s Them.”
“I said, don’t listen! Plug your ears. Listening to Them is one of the ways They find you.”
“But Moira—”
“What are you gonna do? Save her? It’s too late.”
“Peter, I’m freaking out—”
“I’m right here.”
“They sound like—like animals . . .”
“It’s okay. Plug your ears. Just breathe. Breathe, and don’t listen, and They won’t be able to find you.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve lived here all my life, and They haven’t taken me yet. So there’s that.”
*
“Peter?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think it hurts? When They take you?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
“I’ve heard people say that when they get inside you, it feels like your skin’s going to split open. I’ve heard stories about people taken by Them who go nuts before they’ve even been dragged out of their house. They go nuts and tear their own skin off because it hurts that bad.”
“I wouldn’t listen to stories, Adam. People will say anything.”
“You mean stories like the one you told me about Rory?”
“Yeah, well, some stories are true. You just have to know who to trust.”
“Who am I supposed to trust, Peter? Who am I supposed to trust when I can’t even trust my own parents?”
“You can trust me. I’m your friend.”
“For now.”
“What the heck, man? What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, what if it came down to a choice between saving me from Them and saving yourself? What would you do?”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
“I hope it was quick, for Moira.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“Yeah, well, you’re being an idiot. I hate hypothetical questions.”
“. . . Do you think that was it, then? Are we safe now? Do you think what we heard was Them taking Moira?”
“Or was it a trick? Is that what you’re getting at?”
“A trick, or maybe Them just having fun. Not taking her, but just . . . messing with her.”
“I don’t know. You never know until the next day, at dawn, when you wake up and realize you’re still safe and in bed. That’s the only way you know for sure that you made it. That They didn’t take you this time.”
“Peter?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that the sun coming up, over there, do you think?”
“Could be.”
“Or maybe it could be Them burning someone’s house down, like last year. Flushing them outside.”
“Maybe. You never know.”
“Yeah. You’re right. You never know until dawn.”
*
“Peter? Crap! I fell asleep again.”
“Peter? Why is it so cold in here?”
“Peter. Peter, why did you open the window?”
“Peter. Come on, stop trying to scare me. Say something.”
“Peter, you know I’m not going to get out of my bed. My feet aren’t going to touch the freaking floor, not until sunrise.”
“Peter, I’m going to throw this shoe at you. I’m sorry if it hurts, okay? Don’t yell at me for it. I just . . . I have to know. And I’m not getting out of this bed.”
“Peter. God . . . Peter.”
“You’re not there. Are you? Pete?”
“You’re not there. Oh my God, Peter. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I fell asleep!”
“They . . . I don’t believe it. I mean, I know I was asleep, but . . . They must have come in so quietly. I would’ve woken up.”
“Unless you went out on your own. Did you?”
“You wouldn’t be that stupid, would you, Peter? You wouldn’t try something stupid and heroic?”
“I would’ve woken up, if you’d yelled for me. I would’ve woken up. I would’ve helped you.”
“Peter. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m so, so sorry.”
A Birthday Song
I wake up with that excited, awesome birthday feeling. Yeah yeah YEAH: it’s my birthday.
I wake up already dressed, actually, in my best and favorite clothes, lying on top of a made-up bed — I was so excited last night, I just wanted to be READY.
For my BIRTHDAY.
Everyone’s playing it pretty cool at breakfast. I grab a bowl of cereal and sit down next to Luke, and he doesn’t even look up from his Minecraft game. Thanks, bro!
Mom’s on the phone talking like mad. I try to catch her eye, get some happy birthday, honey! going, but she walks out the door still talking, holding her other ear closed, even though we aren’t EVEN talking. Dad’s already left for work. Luke’s still on Minecraft. Oooookay.
Then from the front door, Mom’s yelling, “Into the car, let’s GO, leave the dishes. Game turned OFF and left on the table, please!” I jump in the car behind Luke and we’re off.
And I’m feeling a little weird, because, hello, did everyone forget it’s my birthday? But just then, like she’s reading my mind from the front seat, Mom says “Hey, kiddo. Big day today. I haven’t forgotten. Don’t you worry about that, buddy. Me forgetting why today is special, that will never, ever happen. We’ll celebrate tonight, OK?”
“OK!” I say, feeling Yes, yes, yes. “I knew you remembered, anyway. I knew you wouldn’t forget.” I smile hugely at her eyes in the rearview mirror. But she’s all eyes on the road, as usual.
Luke just kind of slides down in his seat, staring out the window. Doesn’t look too happy. Um, jealous much? Your birthday’s next month, today is mine-all-mine.
School! Which I slightly hate but it has its good points, and one of them is home room, which is also music class, which I love. I sit at the table in my place by Brandon. As usual he doesn’t even look up from his thing he’s drawing, maybe it’s a dinosaur this time, or I can’t even tell.
Ms. Revis is my favorite teacher. She has short black hair and giant brown eyes like a manga drawing, and she’s super cheerful. “We’re singing today,” she says. “We’re going to apply some of those principles of harmony we’ve been learning.”
I do not remember a single thing about harmonies—guess I need to pay more attention in this class. We’re singing some extremely ancient folk song called “Sweet William’s Ghost,” about a dead guy who comes back to bother some lady he was supposed to marry or something. This was supposed to be their wedding, or their anniversary, or some big-deal date like that. Anyway, so he shows up, a ghost, and then she wants to get into the coffin with him or something. It’s pretty weird.
Is there room at your head, Willie,
Or room here at your feet?
Or room here at your side, Willie,
Wherein that I may sleep?
The class is singing it with these pretty harmonies, that sort of weave together in and out. I stand right behind Dylan and sing along with what he’s doing, because he’s pretty good. Twice he looks back though and gives me the weirdest look, like I am making him nervous. Everyone is in a VERY weird mood today.
There’s no room at my head, Margaret
There’s no room at my feet
There’s no room at my side Margaret
My coffin is so neat.
Kaylee, I’ve known her since kindergarten and she cannot sing AT all, is playing the recorder. It actually sounds really pretty, this sort of sad whistling sound, like wind in bare trees, under the singing.
The whole thing is really pretty beautiful.
And it makes me sad, for some reason.
But no good being sad on your BIRTHDAY. I shake it off. I’m fine in math. I try to make Jessica crack up in biology, but she keeps a straight face.
Before lunch I think: maybe this is it—maybe Mom and Dad sent a surprise cake. Or maybe one of them will come themselves, holding a gigantic cake with a zillion candles, and the whole cafeteria will sing for me.
But: nope. Most exciting thing that happens is the cafeteria lady lets me slide through without paying, which if that’s the best birthday present I get, I’m going to be pretty depressed. I sit by myself, making lots of room for someone to come talk, but, whatever. No one does.
At home after school, it’s also weirdly quiet. No big hanging HAPPY BIRTHDAY sign or even a balloon. I guess maybe they figure I’m getting too old for that? Which kind of sucks, actually.
And I don’t get why everyone is so sad and quiet at dinner. Dad makes one of his dopey jokes, and it’s pretty funny, so I laugh. No one else does, not even Dad.
But then finally — finally—it happens. We clear our plates, and Dad turns down the lights, and Mom brings out a cake, a German chocolate cake, my favorite kind. And the candles are lit, and she sets it down in front of me, and I feel so happy. I feel so happy that I don’t even care about presents any more, I’m just so glad someone remembered. I’m just so glad my birthday finally came.
Happy birthday to you, my mom sings, really soft. Dad and Luke don’t sing, which is weird. Happy birthday to you. Her voice is soft and shaking, and tears are coming out of her eyes, why? Happy birthday my darling, happy birthday to you.
“We miss you, baby,” she says, in the quiet after. She blows her nose in a napkin. “We miss you so much, we miss you every day, and we love you forever and ever and ever.”
She sits down, crying really hard now. Luke is crying, Dad is crying, everyone is crying. I stand up so suddenly I knock my chair over, and they all shout and jump up.
“What the hell,” says my dad.
“But I’m right here,” I say. I guess I’m crying too. “I’m right here, look at me, you don’t have to miss me, I’m right here.” They are staring at the stupid chair on the floor, holding each other, like they don’t see me, like I’m not even here.
And then, all of a sudden, I know. All of a sudden, I see.
I run into my bedroom and throw myself on the bed.
I remember my Mom in the car. Hey, kiddo. Big day today. I haven’t forgotten, don’t you worry about that, buddy. She wasn’t talking to me, oh now I see.
She was talking to Luke.
And now I know why Luke looked so sad in the car.
Now I know why Dylan kept looking over his shoulder when I sang.
Now I know why I woke up wearing my best clothes, my favorite clothes today.
It’s because they buried me in these clothes. Of course they did, I remember now, somehow I forgot, how could I forget?
I died. I died six months ago.
I forgot, the way you forget a bad dream. And then suddenly, it all comes back to you.
I lay back down on my made-up bed, in my favorite clothes. But it isn’t my bed anymore, in my own nice house, with my pale blue walls.
It’s my coffin I’m lying in, now.
It’s my coffin I’ll always lie in, now.
In my coffin, in the dark, on my birthday, all alone, I start to sing. I sing really softly, the saddest birthday song.
There’s no room at my head, Margaret
There’s no room at my feet
There’s no more birthdays for me any more
My coffin is so neat.
I hope I can fall asleep.
I hope when I wake up, it’s my birthday.