The Battered Suitcase July 2008

  "That's when you tend to get pissed off real fast. Mighty pissed off and mighty fast. That's when you snap off a switch from the nearest maple bush and start clipping their wings. That's when you run them down and begin to mash and smash their little bodies into bits of colored powder. Twitching pieces of brightly-colored powder. It's not that you want to hurt them. Or keep them from getting to where they want to go - wherever that may be. But they just won't hold still and be counted. Just won't allow you to properly tag them. You understand, don't you? It's all a matter of counting, life's inevitable census taking. Something we all have to go through before we can rest in that cold, cold ground. Safely immobile. Safely unemotional. Safely unseeing. Safely there in the true sense of the word - with no longer the option of not being there. Do you see what I'm getting that? Do you? I doubt it."

  I'm talking to a man in a long coat and a sharp-featured, deeply pock-marked face. A face that's practically beak-like in all its contours: nose, chin, forehead, ears - everything comes to a point. Even his glistening, slicked-back hair sweeps to a Brillantined tip. A sculpted helmet-visor sitting squarely on top of his head. And his legs, they're more like stilts than human legs. More like jointed-stick appendages than properly-shaped limbs. When he walks, he lifts first one, then the other, straight up, straight into the air before bringing it down again ever so gently, ever so carefully. The coat, open at the front, drags over the sand, picking up the wetter particles on the way. These particles cling for a while but then fall off as soon as they dry. It's a spring day. A warm spring day. And, even though we're walking along the lakefront, where the breeze is fresh and on the brisk side, he really doesn't need the coat. A windbreaker or some kind of light sweater would do just fine. But he's wearing a long, black, ground-dragging coat - like he's an old-fashioned gunslinger or something. Like he just came out of the Black Hills, pockets full of gold-colored dust. Like he's about to pull an ace out of his many sleeves. He isn't and he hasn't, of course. Just some guy who likes wearing long, black coats. Even in the sweltering heat of August, I'm willing to bet.

  When I speak, he nods and smiles at me but otherwise doesn't answer back. Even when I ask him something and expect some kind of response. Be it pertinent or non-committal. Or even a curt "fuck you, buddy - you're full of shit". At first, I think he's just not the talkative type. Or one of those people who choose their words very carefully - like gunslingers and prospectors and riverboat gamblers. But then he gives me a hand-written card that explains his silence: Cat got my tongue. At least, it sounds like it explains his silence. Now that I've had a chance to think about it, I'm not really sure.

  "Sorry to hear that," I say. "I mean, sorry to read that."

  He shrugs and then hands me another card: You know, I was lonesome as I traveled, but you know, I'm talking now.

  "Glad I could be of help," I say.

  We continue to walk along the beach, which stretches before us in both directions. Occasionally, he picks up a flat stone and sends it skimming across the waves, making it hop and skip and jump until it finally loses momentum. Until it finally sinks out of view. I do the same. Or try to anyway. He's much better at it: the way he positions himself, legs out and well-balanced; the way he leans sideways so that his torso is parallel to the ground; the way he whips his arm back with a sort of half-twist and releases the stone at just the right moment and with just the right spin. All a matter of practice, I suppose. Years of frequenting the same beach and picking up the same stones. Or perhaps some people are just better at certain things. Are born with the ability to skim flat objects across choppy water. Could that be possible? Something to think about anyway. In the distance, the sailboats are also skimming, carefree, kittenish after their long winter confinement. I find them easier to count than butterflies. But they, too, won't hold still for any period of time. They, too, bob and weave. And there's another problem. If I stare too long, if I focus too sharply, if I concentrate on concentrating, they begin to blur. To rise above the water. To change shapes. To become dragons or some sort of prehistoric birds. Or even everyday kitchen appliances that have suddenly developed the ability to fly.

  "Have you noticed that? You stare at a spot for too long and it wants to get away from you. Wants to edge out of the frame. To slither away beneath the nearest stone. Like it's afraid of you or something. Like it's got something to hide. I wonder what it wants to keep from you. I wonder what secret it doesn't want anyone to know about. Maybe that's not it at all. Maybe it doesn't have any secrets. Maybe it just wants to be left alone. Leave me alone, it says. Let me be a sailboat and nothing else. Let me exist in my brute dumbness without you putting words in my mouth - a mouth I don't claim to possess in the first place. Or maybe I've got it all wrong. Erratum in fundamentum, as the scholastic philosopher would most likely say. Now, where the hell did that come from? I don't remember reading any goddam philosophers at all - never mind scholastic ones. Maybe, it's all a mirage, you know. All a trick. A trompe-l'oeil. The sailboats, the beach, the elevated highway, the traffic jam on the elevated highway, the people shouting at each other in the traffic jam on the elevated highway, the bus driver trying to calm down the people shouting at one another in the traffic jam on the elevated highway. Maybe I just make them up as I go along. Like some sort of demolition-construction company. Like some firm that's just as good de-constructing as it is putting things up. But, if those particular objects are mirages, tricks of the eye, then where are the real things? Tell me that, huh? Where are the things that really count? Better still: Where are the things when they really count?" I look at my friend, at his beak-like face, the eyes black and beady, almost all pupil.

  "Am I making any sense?" I ask, head tilted, foot on solid rock. "Am I going crazy? Am I really here? Am I man or mouse?"

  He pulls yet another card from what seems an endless selection in his vest pocket and hands it to me: Let me be a young boy, with a mustache just starting to show above my lip, I wish.

  ~

  It's just before dawn now. The two of us are once again walking - it's what we do best, I think. We're walking, each of us holding a cardboard box in his hands, between the glass walls of the city's skyscrapers. It's still dark on the streets where we're walking but, high above us, the sun glints off the mirrored windows, sending off little sparkles where the paint has been flecked with gold. Soon, it'll be blazing, impossible to view directly. I'm on one side of the street; my friend, the man in the black coat, is on the other. I call him "my friend" but I don't really know if he is or not. And I don't really know what we're doing here in what's called the financial district - but my friend insisted, shaking me out of sound sleep in the middle of the night and dragging me to this spot. I look across at him, hoping for clues. He doesn't give me any. Not a one. Instead, he simply continues to walk slowly, deliberately, stopping occasionally to look up. I look up when he does - but I don't see anything. At least, nothing out of the ordinary. Just the skyscrapers and the sun climbing relentlessly their gleaming surfaces. Like the walls of some Aztec temple. Like some landscape where dark rituals are performed, growing more blood-red by the moment. Aztec temple? Dark rituals?

  "What are we doing here with these boxes?" I shout across to him. "Come on. I don't like mysteries. Especially this early in the morning. You'd better tell me right now or I'm turning back. Come on. Flash one of your cards or I'm going back to sleep."

  He indicates I should hush, exaggerating the motion of finger to nose. A moment later, a police patrol glides down one of the grid-like side streets. Predator on the prowl. Crosses the intersection. Snout, torso, tail-lights. And vanishes again. My friend resumes walking. His head is now constantly in the air, acting like some ball-turret gun as it swivels left and right. I'm about to follow through on my threat to leave when I hear a thud. High above us. Echoing. Re-bounding. I'm still trying to locate the sound when something plummets through the air in front of me, landing squarely in the middle of the street. My friend rushes towards it, getting there only a sp
lit-second after it strikes the ground. By the time I arrive, he's holding it in his hands, cradling it.

  "What the... " I begin to say. Then stop.

  It's a bird. I have no idea what kind, except that it has a red chest and deep blue wings with little streaks of yellow. Cute little fellow but obviously accident-prone. My friend is stroking the chest, rubbing it, coaxing it to revive. But it's no use. I can tell by the way the head hangs and the tongue droops out of its beak that it's no use. I've seen that exact same look before somewhere - the vacant stare; the stiffening claws; the useless wings; the still, unbeating heart. They're sure signs. Inescapable signs.

  "It's dead," I say. "There's nothing you can do. Just leave it there. Some cat will gobble it up. Have itself a pleasant surprise of a feast. Or it'll serve as a home for the spring flies. Maggot heaven. Nothing more you can do."

  My friend, crying openly now, shakes his head and continues his hopeless attempts to bring it back to life. I'm about to reach down and take the bird out of his hand when the sky overhead resounds with a flurry of thuds, rapid-fire, one after the other. Entire flocks are falling now, plunging towards the asphalt. They're falling all around us. Some strike head first. Others, struggling to right themselves, end up smashing the ground with their chests. Or backs. Or wings. Some arrive dead. Or die on impact. Others pick themselves up and walk around in a daze. Like cartoon characters who've been hit over the head once too often. Some even attempt to fly off again - to once more smash into the sides of the self-reflecting, self-absorbed buildings. I try to help those I think have the best chance of surviving, those with the least injuries. I lift them and put them in the box. When I look up again, I see several dozen other people doing the same thing. They're all silent in their work. All concentrating mightily on what they're doing. A van appears behind us, moving slowly down the middle of the street. The driver takes the full boxes and places them in the back of the van. Then he distributes more empty ones. When the van is filled, he drives off - to be replaced by yet another van. This goes on all morning, until the sun is high and the glint vanishes and the thuds stop.

  Something ought to be done, I say. Just to say something, you know, and not really expecting an answer.

  One of the women looks up at me. Her task is to toss the obviously-dead ones into a garbage bag. Perhaps as precursor to a proper burial - I don't know.

  "Raze the buildings," she says, dropping one more stiff little body into the bag. "Paint them all black. Nuke them to hell. Hiroshima and Nagasaki them. Suck them kicking and screaming into the lair of the white worm."

  "Yeah," I say. "Something like that."

  She continues down the street, talking and getting more angry by the moment. Soon, in a rage, she's slamming the bodies into the bag, hurling them with all her might. I return to my friend who is still sitting where I left him, the bird cupped in his hand.

  "Come on," I say, searching my pockets for a few precious coins, a few coins earned from street-corner labor. "There's nothing more we can do here. Let's go get a cup of coffee. A sweet, hot cup of Java."

  My friend stands up, holding the bird like a sacrificial offering. And then, with a shrug of his shoulders, tosses it in the air. Like all tossed objects, especially those that were once alive, it looks for a moment as if it were moving on its own. A leftover momentum like the wing flaps of slit-throated fowl. But I know, from past experience, that's just the spasming of involuntary muscles. And I expect it to resume its plunge the moment it realizes how serious the situation really is and gravity takes hold of it again. Instead, the bird continues to move upwards. And I stand there slack-jawed as the wings open, as the wings stretch wide, and it darts away. Up between the buildings. Then quickly past them. Higher and higher. Red breast flashing beneath the blue sky before it spins and becomes a dot and vanishes forever.

  "How did you do that?" I say, turning back to my friend. "I was sure it was dead. I'd swear to it. But it wasn't, was it? Just stunned, I guess." I shake my head. "Jeez, you never know, do you?"

  I expect him to pull out a card. Another of his cryptic cards. Another of his caligraphically-perfect, encrypted cards full of pseudo-explanations. Maybe something about a bird in the bush and what it's worth - or not worth. But he just looks around for a moment, tilting his head up and down, chin making contact with breast at one point and then jutting straight into the air the next. He just looks around, spiralling on one leg until he's back facing me. Until I can see my reflection in his beady eye: scruffy and unkempt. In desperate need of a shave. In desperate need of a bath. In desperate need of illumination. And then, smiling, he holds out his hand. That sharp, talon-like hand.

  Who needs God? I think as I reach out to take it, as I feel its rough, comforting touch, its goosebump-producing touch. Who the hell needs God?

  ~

  I'm curled up tight in a bed, knees to chin. It's not my bed. I know that because it smells newly-washed. My bed never smells newly-washed because no one bothers to wash it. Or even change it. Of course, I only call it my bed. It's not really my bed as such. Not really my property at all. More like a place where anyone can drop. A way station. A kind of transit point from which people are launched into their lives. Or out of them. And the stories always filter back to the latest inhabitant: The last person to use that bed before me jabbed herself in the left eyeball with a syringe - just to feel what it would be like. The person before that managed to escape into the countryside where he's now a gentleman farmer, raising prize pigeons. Or something like prize pigeons at the very least. And me... well, I'm not in that bed anymore either. Someone else has taken possession of it. Someone who needs desperately to sleep and who doesn't care that it smells of piss and cum and puke and monthly blood-lettings - both natural and induced.

  The bed I'm in at the moment is clean and starchy. It feels stiff, like a Victorian matron of some sort covered to the ankles. If I stay in it for too long without moving, without bothering to visit the little boy's room, someone comes along and pulls the dirty sheets away from beneath me - like a magician yanking a table cloth and leaving all the settings intact. Placing the new sheets is a little more difficult - but just a little. I hold perfectly still, determined not to help in any way. Despite my lack of cooperation, the job is always accomplished in less than ten minutes: corners all tucked in; pillow cases replaced; covers folded back in neat pleats. And that's not all. Every morning, I get the same treatment - whether I'm dirty or not: a shave, followed by a complete change of clothing. With a sponge bath every second day for good measure.

  An operation of military precision, I want to clap when it's over but I just don't have the energy. I'd like to put my hands together like a seal and make "aarfing" sounds of approval. Bravo, I'd like to shout. Hip, hip and well done. I'd like to set up a trapeze act and balance myself high above the world. Way beyond where things can reach up, take me by the ankles and suck me back down. But it's not worth the effort. Instead, I just lie there with my back against the wall. With my back right up against the wall. All scrunched up and with nowhere to go. I just lie there waiting for the oxygen to be pumped out of the room and the whole place turned into an airless bell jar for certain experiments that must be performed, that are of crucial importance not only for this generation but for those yet to come.

  At least, that's what the scratching from the other side of the wall tells me. Whatever you do, it says, be prepared at all times to offer yourself up as a sacrifice. The short term effects might be devastating. Fatal, in fact. But that doesn't mean your sacrifice has been in vain. On the contrary, the more you die now, the more likely future generations will survive. After all, you don't think all this suffering, all this pain and torture and anguish is for nothing, do you? Come on. You can't be that ridiculously near-sighted. You can't have become that much of a sloth - what do you call them? Slow lorises. That's it. They got big eyes so they must have big hearts, right? No, no. Forget the anthropomorphy of primate equivalence. Set your mind to the higher things. Thin
k of purpose and meaning and the good of the species. Think of evolutionary change and the necessity inherent in our plans for you. Against that, your suffering (the suffering of some slow loris) pales to nothing - a hangnail in the universal scheme of things. So make the sacrifice. Now! Be prepared to offer yourself up.

  I have no answers for any of this. No rebuttal. All I can do is hold my breath. I hold it until I'm bursting. Until my gut is aching. Until my eyes bulge and my skin turns blue. And then I have to let go. There's the moment when I have to let go. The inevitable moment. It comes out in a huge rush - and I grab another mouthful before the vacuum kicks in. I have no idea what I'll do when that happens. When the air runs out. But I do know I want to have plenty of the stuff in my lungs. I want to be able to last for as long as possible before the last gulp is gone. And I don't care how selfish that might sound. I don't care about those scratching noises telling me that each breath I consume is one less for those who really need it, for those who aren't about to be sacrificed, for those who have something to contribute. I don't care about any of that. I just want to stay alive for one more gulp. For one more moment. For one more blink of an eye. Is that too much to ask?

  Yes, the scratching noises tell me. Your death is needed. Your non-existence is requested. Your vanishing from the face of the planet is demanded. So stop resisting. Stop being childish. Stop being Mr. Important and screw everything else. Stop-