Photo by Frankie Lopez on Unsplash
Trees are standing in the sea, water up to their branches. The water is calm. They seem like people who cannot swim but are braving the waters. The branches are searching for something to hold onto. The water is teasing them, splashing against their brown skin. I watch this scene from a bench while the sun rises and obligates me to move or risk blindness. This scene makes me happy.
Trees standing in the sea, water up to their branches. The water is not calm—it looks like a horizontal waterfall. The trees see death, their own death coming to collect them, roots and all. The water is threatening, it is a bully. Like clouds that form pictures, the water creates pictures too. One big picture. It is nature’s graveyard. The trees lie here, the flowers there. I watch this scene from a safe place. Cars and boats are carried away. I am not sure if the next time I look, the tree will still be there. It may enter the picture that the water created.
Wednesday at 3pm makes me happy. It is the time we meet. The flame tree seems redder and every month seems like spring with birth, hungry babies, busy males and females gathering food which they store in their inner kitchen cupboards, ready for spotted-dove beaks to dive in headfirst. The intricate designs on cups and saucers seem to come to life like moving pictures. Marie-Antoinette in her carriage looks behind her lace-bordered fan. She tells her driver to hurry it along and the horses pick up their pace but not at the Château de Versailles. The ride is around his teacup. Round and round they go. On my teacup she is with Princesse de Lamballe eating brioche. Both on his cup and mine, the sky is blue and the scene is animated. Through Marie-Antoinette’s window, I can see sparrows. Both on his cup and mine, she sees Madame du Barry but pretends not to. Madame du Barry is near the handle so when his hands grip to bring the cup closer to his full lips that are now parted, Madame du Barry is disguised so Marie-Antoinette is happy. On my cup, Madame du Barry is listening to the two girls behind the gilded door with pastel blue, floral motif. Happy is like a magnifying glass; I can see the finest details.
When it is not Wednesday at 3pm, I am alone and lonely. The flame tree is a light red, an uncertain colour as if the tree has been poisoned. The nests are empty and grieving and the male and female birds are taking it out on my car’s front window. The teacups and saucers have spots of colours resembling an 18th century scene or a failed attempt at impressionism. I see spots near and far.
I see a dead bird. It is a canary. Its yellow has faded. Have I killed it? I place my left hand onto my left eye analysing the bird only with my right eye. It is enough to see death. Why do I cover only one eye? Death is death. Half death is meaningless. Death halfway is actually all the way. The bird is beautiful even if it is lifeless. Yesterday in art class, I saw a picture of a painting called A Girl with a Dead Canary and now my own canary has died. I never wanted it caged. The painting has become real. I welcome its visit because it has come to grieve with me. I do not want to grieve alone. The bird from 1765 has been resurrected and has chosen to die again within my bird. It has experienced its second death. Flying again throughout the ages, defying science and longevity statistics, witnessing men in trenches, poppies in vast fields and humans in funny clothes landing onto the big, round, white ball in the black sky. The girl from the painting has come too. Sad because my canary died but happy to experience this existential, transtemporal moment of beauty: the little girl with blue ribbon in her hair, lilac flowers around the cadaver, translucent shawl covering her bare and cold shoulders. I am about to destroy the cage but the girl stops me. There is anger in my actions and this can make us all even sadder. I bury my canary under the weeping willow with the other five canaries but today is different because I am not alone and this makes me happy. The weeping willow is not weeping, nor does it look like it is weeping. It looks like it is showing visitors where the birds are buried. Pointing downwards. The girl and the bird have now left. She did not say goodbye; maybe she will revisit when I bury the next bird. I do not want another bird. I want to burn the cage so I do not have to feel lonely again. If they do not give me a bird, I will never miss one. I will never lose one.
I am on a see-saw controlled by others. My feet do not touch the ground. I am trying to touch the ground and use the soles of my shoes to push myself up again. With one arm, I am trying to push away others. When I am on the happy side of the see-saw, I want to stay up for a long time but they will not let me. Long arms push me back down.
It is Wednesday 3pm again. I feel happy because he is here with me and sad because I see Valentine Day love hearts and he sees the day after.
My epitaph shall read: Happy and sad.
I see his body in a poem. Baudelaire’s The Giantess. I am moving around his body like an explorer moving his finger around a map. Then I use his body as place. A mountain. The ocean. A forest. A desert. Happy because this image is sublime, sad, because it is just a moving picture in my brain.
We eat fresh fruit together when it is hot. I have prickly pears but I hate prickly pears. I do not serve him prickly pears. When I look at them, I see: sad, bad and mad. When the fruit is near me, glochid-free, I see big hands cutting the fruits and dropping them into little hands. Big hands that have made me sad, almost made me mad, and always made me bad. The fruit that I eat with him is different. No peeling necessary. Fresh watermelon slices, melon cut in half, full of seeds—what a sensual fruit. I cut again to make it easier to eat. Juice is running down his beard. I wipe realising he could have wiped himself. The action comes instinctively. He moves back—sad, but he laughs—happy. The happy gives me hope.
He is flawed. Everything is. Even prickly pears that have glochids. To get to the smooth, you have to get rid of the rough. He says he gets angry too quickly. I do not get angry enough or I hide it. When he gets angry, he is not afraid to show it. I am afraid to show it. It builds like compound interest and after a few years, I have quite a balance.
The letters D E V make me happy. The colour red makes me happy. The words deviant and devil make me happy, snakes make me happy. Marie-Antoinette, Medusa and Lilith make me very happy. They say I must have been mixed up with the real baby at the hospital. I look like I am on fire. Long red hair like depictions of Lilith, like Medusa’s snakes. It makes others look. The hair on their arms stand tall like uncut blades of grass, their eyes want to look elsewhere but they cannot. The brain is telling the eyes, keep staring, what you are seeing is rare. Make the most of it. Children run up to me and parents pull them away.
He thinks I look like the female demon. I tell him the story of the day I went to the park swinging on my favourite swing and a man with a long black robe came up to me and said, we should be getting home. He said that he was going to destroy the evil spirits within. I knew the man so I went home with him. I lay on the bed. Black. Blank. Blur. Then when I woke up, I was untied and heard other people say that the evil spirits went away. I also tell him that the evil spirits are still here. I know they are. They move a see-saw that I have no control over. They eat prickly pears with glochids. Nothing hurts them. When I see snakes in the backyard or on the porch, I feel happy. I know I am in good company. I take them and they move around my body. I love how they make me feel. They seem to move as if I am the conductor and they are the instruments. My heartbeat moves with their hissing. He giggles. Half-giggle. Uncertain giggle. He thinks my imagination is amazing and I tell him, that I am not joking.
He has not brought any flowers today. Flowers from his garden.
He used to bring me flowers whose petals had not opened; we spend long afternoons together, the flowers have time to open and show their centre. Our love-making scene could be like this: He the bee and me the flower. I open my petals and he comes to gather his pollen. Happy. But then he has to take the pollen elsewhere. He cannot stay. Sad.
His body close to mine makes me happy. We discuss art history and essay writing. His shirt touches my bare, red-freckled arm. My hair is in a ponytail today. The flame tree is on fire. It is encouraging me to let down my hair, to have it cover our essays. His side and my side. We can have melon cut in half, prickly pears far away, serviettes handy to wipe juice running down forests of hair and speak about my favourite subjects: death, demons and their associates, snakes, red hair, birds out of cages in little hands waiting at death’s door—weeping willows.
He moves away.
Shirt has ink stains. My hair is a ponytail of knots, the fiery tree has been extinguished, nothing is covering my essay, plates are empty, the prickly pears are in a bowl watching me—why do they still have their glochids? The forest has been banned until further notice after a passer-by found an unresponsive body.
Sad on Wednesdays
3pm melancholy
And again, again.
Silence that is only broken by his voice—on the phone explaining why he cannot come this Wednesday and the next and the next.
Sad on Wednesdays
3pm melancholy
And again, again.
Sad on Thursdays
3pm melancholy
And again, again.
Sad on Fridays
3pm melancholy
And again, again.
Sad on Saturdays
3pm melancholy
And again, again.
Sad on Sundays
3pm melancholy
And again, again.
Sad on Mondays
3pm melancholy
And again, again.
Sad on Tuesdays
3pm melancholy
And again, again.
Sad wins
Every hour
The number you are trying to reach
is unavailable, please try again later
The number you are trying to reach
is busy
The number you are trying to reach
is no longer available
I see broken sentences.
I sit with my prickly pears. Gloveless, I take away the glochids and bleed. I am used to blood and it matches my skin tone and hair. The evil spirits have let me down from my see-saw. I can try the slide now or even the swing if I want to. They promise me the man with the long, black robe will not come to get me again. I can use the swing for as long as I want but I do not feel like going to the playground anymore. Now that I have control over my steps, now that there is no more see-saw of happy and sad, I do not know where I want to go or even how to go, how to walk on my own two feet. My feet are getting caught in my hair, the evil spirits carry my hair like bridesmaids carry the bride’s long fairy-tale veil. I could have been his bride. I see a snake, it is black. Its eyes are green, an emerald green. It crawls to me. It can move everywhere, he is a predator but not to me, he laughs off his punishment. Punishment? What punishment? Ha! Ha! He slides up my body. The church bells are ringing. We decide to walk toward the bells and the closer we get to the church, the sounds change. The church bells do not ring anymore, they toll. A single bell, slowly, longer before the next STRIKE—the rattle. The evil spirits reassure me that they are still there, they always will be. Green eyes speak to me. The snake says, I am coming with you.
He should be able to hear the tolling of my bell. Maybe he will come to my funeral at 3pm. Maybe he will say a few words of what made me happy. Maybe he will mention paintings of grieving children and poems of giants. Will he kiss my forehead in the open coffin? Will he ever tell anyone about the day at the park, evil spirits, snakes and she-devils? I do not have time to tell them that I want to lie under the weeping willow with the canaries. Even if I did have the time, they would think it ludicrous and will ignore my wishes.
I close my eyes but I do not need to because darkness is everywhere. I see the dead canary and this is my last vision. Yellow and black. I am happy because we are no longer caged. We are finally free.
Isabelle B.L is a teacher and translator currently living in New Caledonia. She has published a novel inspired by the life of a New Caledonian politician. Her work can be found in the Birth Lifespan Vol. 1 and Growing Up Lifespan Vol. 2 anthologies for Pure Slush Books, Flash Fiction Magazine, Visual Verse and elsewhere.