Home Is For The Birds

Pilot and Skye had a beautiful home, high up in the trunk of a dead tree. A wood pecker hollowed out an already rotting part in search of a meal. He found what he was looking for and abandoned the site when the food ran out. It was  a perfect home for a young couple of swallows.

One day Pilot went out to look for some food. He gave Skye a kiss on the beak and went his way. He flew almost a full mile until he found a promising location. He looked around for a perch to assess the area. He saw a branch with a wide angle view of the ground below.

Already on the branch was a beautiful female swallow.  Pilot thought he should maybe find another branch but she waved him over with a wink.

“Hello” she said.

“Hello” Pilot said.

“Name´s Libi” she said.

“I´m Pilot” he said, blushing.

“That´s a strong name. Are you a strong bird?” Libi asked.

“Well, not really, I guess I can be” he answered. Libi stayed quite. She knew that silence can drive a male mad.

Pilot´s mind raced, searching for something to say, to break the deafening silence. All he could come up was, “Do you live close?”

“Close to what?” Libi giggled. Pilot blushed again. Libi leaned over and kissed him on the beak. An explosion of emotions rushed over Pilot. The thought that rose to the top was “What am I doing?”

Swallows are hard wired for monogamy. They take a mate for life. This went against thousands of years of evolution.

Pilot pulled away. “I cannot do this! I already have a female”

Libi said with a devilish look, “You do and you don´t now”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the moment you return home, your “ex” will smell my pheromones on you, so you don´t. But, you have me now” she said.

Pilot wanted to protest but he couldn´t. She was right. Dejected, Pilot asked “Where do you live?”

“I don´t have a home, dear” she answered. “You have to make one for us”

“Oh great…” Pilot thought.

Over the course of a week Pilot made a home just as good as the one he left.  Two days after, Libi kicked him out.

“I thought we were going to be together forever” Pilot said.

“That´s so old fashioned. That instinct must have passed over me” Libi said.

“What am I going to do?” Pilot cried.

“I don´t know. Do the same as the others. Go crawling back to your old home” Libi said.

“Others?” Pilot asked.

“Yeah, the others that I tricked into building me a house. I´m just going to flip it for some quick cash” Libi said.

Pilot wanted revenge but realized this would just get more of her pheromones on him. In fact, he was so busy working, he hadn´t had contact with Libi for days. He flew off to see if he could get his life back.

Till Death Do Us Part

Dan and Carol were together for many years. They fought a lot. Carol thought that Dan´s lack of ambition made him a loser and was vocal about this. Dan thought Carol was cold and incapable of loving anyone. Their fights were never over anything of substance. They just didn´t like the way the other talked. It was a very volatile relationship. One or the other giving an opinion on a current even could lead to a knock down drag out fight resulting in them not talking to one another for a week.
They finally came to a point where they had enough. The both agreed to go their seperate ways. They were able to remain friends for the most part, as long as their contact was short and far between. Dan felt a responsibility to Carol. He didn´t´feel she was truly capable of taking care of herself.
About one year after the break up Dan got a call from Carol. She was hysterical.
“Hello?” Dan answered confused. He knew it was her but was perplexed by the volley of sobs be thrown over the phone.
“I just got back from the doctor” she said.
Dan knew this was not going to be a pleasant call. Carol was a strong person. She rarely cried so he knew this was serious. “Do you want to talk?”
“Of course I do, stupid. That´s why I called” she said.
Dan was about to attack but pulled back. He realized she must be very upset about something. “Ok, then tell me”
“I have cancer. Very agressive cancer. I have to start chemotherapy immediately. The doctor thinks that will only buy me….” she trailed off.
“Oh my god that´s….” he was cut off.
“Months. The chemo will only buy me a few months. I´m going to die” Carol said.
There was silence. Dan had no idea what to say to this. “Can I see you?” he asked.
“Sure. Let´s have dinner tonight” she answered, her sobs coming under control.
That night they met at their favorite restaurant. Carol gave Dan more details about the doctor visit. Carol decided that she was going to forget about the diagnosis, just for the night. She was going to throw caution to the wind. She ordered a bottle of wine. Then another, then another. Although Dan was not comfortable with that but he understood and after the first bottle his level of comfort grew.
They paid the bill and made their ways to their respective cars. In the parking lot Carol turned to Dan and said “Come home with me. I cannot be alone tonight” Dan obliged. He got in his car and followed her home.
They made love that night for the first time in over a year. It was like the first time only better. Carol asked Dan to move in with her. She would need him as the chemo sapped her strength. Dan was weary about this. In the back of his head, even though he was ashamed to admit it, he knew she would not be here too much longer so there was a way out. He did still love her after all and she needed his help so he agreed.
The fighting started almost immediately. Carol complained about the things Dan brought from his apartment. Daily she would remind him how much of a pig she thought he was, she insulted the food he prepared for her and would frequently threaten to kick him out if he didn´t stop fighting with her.
Dan pushed through it. He knew she needed him. He knew of her limitations and again, he knew this was not permanent. Three months in, Carol´s health deterioted rapidly. She lost so much weight that Dan was afraid of breaking her when he put her in bed. She asked him to marry her because she did not want to die single. Dan agreed. They had a minister come to the house to perform the ceremony. It was official, they were married.
Around the sixth month a remarkable thing happened. Carol started to gain weight. Her skin started to look healthy and resumed its normal color. The life was coming back into her eyes. With this new life came more ire thrown Dan´s way.
Each month Carol´s health improved. Her blood exams were confirming what the eye could see. She was getting better. At the one year mark, the doctor told her she could stop chemo. The cancer was completely contained and could possibly go into remission.
Dan thought that with this rebirth maybe Carol would change. He was now contractually obligated to be with her, after all. He was horrified of the thought of giving Carol half of his considerable assets after having nursed her back to health over the past year. He would have to make this work.
A few tortuous months passed. To Dan they felt like an eternity. How did he ever get himself into this situation? He asked himself this every day. One day Carol came home with a grave expression on her face. She told Dan they needed to talk. She informed him that she was seeing another man. It was serious. She was going to divorce him, leave him the apartment and not ask for a dime from him. Everybody involved lived happily ever after.

Half Assed

Martha dreaded Saturday mornings. It was the time when she had to clean the house. It reminded her of everything that was wrong with her life. Why couldn´t she had married a guy with the means to contract a housekeeper? Why did she have to live in such a shabby house? Why was her body giving out on her at such a relatively young age? Just bending over to sweep dirt onto the dust pan gave her pains in the back. Pains that as of late have been ever so increasing.

One Saturday morning, Martha decided that she would do a half assed cleaning job but double down the next week. The next week came and she did another half assed job. After a few months of half assed Saturday cleanings, her poor performance started to show and this raised some concerns from her husband, Merrill.

One day Merrill brought his dissatisfaction to Martha´s attention. “Honey” he started “the house is starting to look like a pig pen. What´s going on?”

Martha steamed. She took it as a personal attack. “What do you mean a pig pen? You see me cleaning every goddamn Saturday morning don´t you?” she shot back.

“Honey, calm down. I´m just saying, the line around the bath tub has been getting darker and darker and the toilet has that awful ring around it” he said, carefully monitoring her reaction. She didn´t look too stable.

“You know where the supplies are” she snarled. “Clean it your damn self”

“Listen, I don´t want to fight here, love. It´s just that you decided that you didn´t want to work and part of the deal was, I pay the bills and you keep the house up” Merrill said, regretting terribly that he had breached the subject.

“Well, mister money bags. Bringing home the bacon. Keeping us is luxury in this piece of shit house!” she screamed, spit flying from the corners of her mouth. “Peggy has a house cleaner come twice a week!”

Merrill felt rather hurt but he held his composure. “Yes, well Peggy´s husband earns a considerable bit more than I and furthermore, Peggy brings home a little extra with her crafts on E-bay”

This flew Martha into an even bigger rage, “So why don´t you marry Peggy if she´s such a better wife? I´ve seen the way you two look at each other. Probably got something going on for years! Don´t you?”

“Of course not!” Merrill answered though not being completely honest. “Let´s just drop this. I am sorry I brought it up. Hey, how about if I help you today”

“I´m not cleaning shit today! You do it all by yourself” Martha was sobbing uncontrollably. She had a strange distant look in her eyes and they were a little glassy. As she made her way to the front door she even stumbled a little. She slammed the front door, then the car door, then she was off. To where, Merrill had no idea but he decided to clean the house anyway just to smooth things over.

As he was vacuuming the hall carpet, the vacuum cleaner bumped into the air vent grate and it simply popped off. “That´s odd” Merrill thought. It should be held on by two screws. He looked and looked for the screws but they were nowhere to be found. He was crawling around on his hands and knees when he noticed a cigar boxed purposely put in the air vent that was now without its grate. He pulled it out.

When he opened it up a wave of horror and surprised washed over him. There was an array of prescription bottles all with warnings to not operate machinery and addiction cautions. Some were empty, some were half full. There were colorful pills in little baggies with no description. Merrill dropped the box on the floor as if it were too hot to hold.

Merrill was not a man of conflict. He avoided it at all costs. He slowly picked the box and its contents up and put it back into the air vent and carefully placed the grate back over the hole.

As he Googled “divorce attorneys” he thought to himself, “Well that explains a lot”

What’s in the Egg?

 

It was a normal school day and Brian and Chris were in the kitchen having breakfast as their mother was getting ready for work upstairs. They each had a bowl of cereal, a glass of juice and a hardboiled egg. This was normal school day morning fare.

Brian was his usually quiet self. He was taking their parents separation much harder. It was him, after all, who caught his mother felating his father’s best friend in a parked car at the supermarket and told anybody who would listen. He still felt guilty for breaking them up. Chris, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. If ignorance is bliss, Chris passed through life in ecstasy. He was a probably just an I.Q. point or two higher from being deemed a clinical moron.

Chris might not be that bright, but he was warm and lived off of human contact. He was always trying to engage his brother Brian. He would ask nonstop mundane questions just to feel a connection. He looked over at Brian and noticed a peculiar look on his face. Brian had somehow managed to break a perfectly circular opening in his hardboiled egg and was intensely staring into it. His face looked almost as if it were in a trance.

“What’s in the egg” Chris asked. There was no answer. Chris didn’t think much of it as Brian usually is stingy with answers. He went back to crunching away his cereal. A few moments past and he noticed that Brian had not moved and was with the same exact expression, staring into the egg.

“Hey man, what’s so interesting about that egg?” Chris asked again. Brian didn’t even sway. His muscles were locked into place as his stare was pulled into the small circle on the top of the egg. Chris’s tone changed a little. There was a little worry in it this time. “Brian. What’s going on? What’s in the egg?” No response. Chris started to get a weird feeling and goose bumps chased each other up and down his legs and arms as he looked at the face of his brother.

“Let me see” Chris said as he started to lean over Brian’s egg. Whack. The bottom of Brian’s palm struck his forehead before he got even close enough to get a peak. Brian did not take his stare away from the head the whole time. His eyes remained fixed on the contents of the egg.

“You’re freaking me out” Chris said. “I am going to tell mom”

Chris was confused as he walked up the steps. He heard the blow dryer going in the bathroom. He banged on the door. “Mom” he said. No answer. He banged again. “Mom” he repeated. Just more blow drying, but no answer. There was something odd about the sound of the blow dryer. It was steady. As if it was on but not moving around. Chris was getting really freaked out. He opened the door.

He could have never been prepared for what he saw. Not in a million years. His mother was lying naked on the floor with the cord of the hair dryer around her neck. Her face was blue. Chris did not need to check to know that she was dead. He ran back down to the kitchen screaming for Brian.

When he got to the kitchen, Brian was gone. But the egg remained on the table. Chris had the wherewithal to take a look inside. He slowly walked over to the table. Each step was laborious; his feet seemed to weigh a ton. As he leaned over the table and his eye sight was fixed into the perfect circle of the egg, his world went black.