A Song Disguising a Scream

Written By: Rebecca Kemp

The twin birds lay motionless on the hot pavement, their beaks tucked tight against their bodies, protecting themselves from the humid August heat beating down on their delicate, brittle bones. The sun burned my scalp as I stood there. I wanted to protect my head, the inevitable red line that would decorate my hair follicles, but I knew if I looked away, I would be disrespecting their memory. So I continued staring. Their whole life was lived just to be ogled by a human who didn’t want to look at them.

I bent down as if I knelt toward the earth, and the sun would have mercy on me. I shifted my body a few inches, casting my dim shadow on the birds. The midday sun was affecting their small bodies; a bubbling odour of rot seeped from their tissue. Faint enough that you almost wouldn’t notice unless you pressed your nose to the fibres of their feathers. The sickening scent stuck itself between the follicles of my nostril hairs, demanding to be remembered. I wanted to reach down and pet them; you don’t often get a chance to be this close to birds. I wondered if their instincts were still screaming within their souls to fly, fly away! If so, their mutilated bodies

didn’t twitch. Even if they wanted to, one of the birds' wings was bent around and must have been pushed down by its body, crushing its tiny skeleton. I looked toward the cloudless sky.

There was a telephone line running directly above their graves. Was there a power surge in the middle of the night? Were they relaxing one moment and electrocuted the next? Had they been killed during a conversation? A song stuck on their beaks, jarred open by the volts and the pavement crashing into the delicate bodies. A scream disguised as a song.

“Good afternoon, Mina!”

A surge of fear rushed from my toes to my burning scalp, and I jumped away, guilty for investigating the little bodies of the dead littering my driveway. “Hey, Jan!” I cleared my throat as I stood, my knees cracking as I stretched my body toward the sun. 

“Good afternoon.” Standing, my body no longer shielded their carcasses. 

“Oh gosh, Mina! What happened?” Jan pulled her son's stroller close to her, the instinct to steer his fresh eyes away from the death littering the pavement. Jan’s face flushed, the heat boiling the sweat from her brow at the sight of her neighbour staring at two dead birds lying flat on her driveway.

I tried to play it cool, shrugging my burnt shoulder; flakes of skin flapped in the motion.

“I don’t know! I came out to mow the lawn, and they were just,” I swung my hands out, “there!”

Jan visibly shuddered, as if a jolt of electricity ran from the soles of her open-toed sandals to the knot of bone at the top of her back. She shook like a leaf. 

“Well, gosh, Mina, make sure you don’t get rabies getting so close to them,” her blue eyes reflected a postpartum madness, a deep protectiveness ingrained in her psyche, “and maybe throw them away before a dog eats them; that wouldn’t be a pretty sight, now would it?”

Jan quickly pushed herself and her son forward, giving them and the birds ample space, creating an arc of area to leave the rabies behind and go on with her day.

I stood there, watching Jan walk away, the soles of her sandals sticking to the pavement as she went. I looked down the street and seemed to have the all-clear as I bent over the twin birds again. Could birds have rabies? How was rabies passed? I didn’t think it was viral, so maybe if I didn’t touch them with my hands, I would be fine.

I quickly shuffled up again, brushing the rocks from their new place embedded in my kneecaps, and walked to the garage. I must have gloves around here somewhere. After rifling around the tools and the equipment my husband usually uses to maintain the lawn, I found the garden gloves he uses to trim the hedges with the big shears. He was away on business, so it was my turn to cut the lawn. Of course, this would happen when he was gone. I revelled in the stale coolness of the garage for another minute before I trudged outside with the rake, an old shoe box, and my gloves already leaking from the sweat that lubricated my palms. I couldn’t tell if I was sweating because I was nervous or if the heat was really getting to me.

The second time I looked at these birds, the smell seemed worse, their blood cooking on the pavement, set to a low simmer. It reminded me that I needed to make dinner tonight; a wave of nausea coursed through my bloodstream, and I felt my gag reflex trigger.

I glanced at the birds again. As I set my rake down, I felt immensely guilty for even thinking about pushing their tiny bodies into the empty box. The sharp plastic digging into their feathers, the soft flesh that lay just below the immediate layer of ruffled feathers, penetrating their skin, tickling their bones until they snapped and I was the murderer.

They were already dead. I could do this.

I felt my toes bouncing on the pavement, psyching myself up before another neighbour strolled by and mentioned my dead birds cooking on my property. I placed the box down next to them, hoping not to feel their bodies through the handle of the rake. My fingers shook in their grip. I was better than this. I was a woman who had a full-time job in a male-dominated field, and I didn’t need anyone to help me pick up two dead birds off the side of my parking spot. The plastic fingers scratched their long, brittle nails across the pavement, a racketing, grating noise twirled up my spine, and shot goose pimples across my body like a rash. I finally squatted back down and carefully tucked the plastic under their delicate bodies. I was relieved that I couldn’t feel their bones breaking under my light force; I could see their feathers ruffling, and another shiver erupted up my spine, contrasting the unbearable sun beating down. The faster I do this, the faster I can go inside, back to my air-conditioned living room. The first bird hung loosely from the prongs, as I slowly lifted it into the box. It slipped off the tips of the fingers and landed in the middle of the container. “I’m so sorry!”

I caught myself; why had I apologised to something already dead? It could feel no pain, and yet the guilt lodged its way into the spongy spaces between my ribs anyway. I instinctively reached down and, with a gloved finger, scooted the bird in the box over for its gravemate. The second bird went more smoothly until I had to shake the body off the rake, and its bones rattled within its carcass, and another wave of guilt flooded my bones, rattling my body in mimicry.

It was done. I put the shoebox lid back on and hauled everything into the garage. The door slowly sealed behind us as I pressed the automatic shut. Now what? Do I throw them away?

My hands shook as I felt the box; I could almost feel them rattling around in fear. I looked down and expected the lid to pop off and the twin birds to fly away, loitering in my rafters until I opened the door again and they flew off, back into the open skies. I knew that wouldn’t happen as their cooked blood still sat heavy and saturated in my nostrils. I couldn’t throw them away. It wasn’t garbage night, and I didn’t want the smell to linger in my garage all day and night. It was cooler in the garage than outside, but it wasn’t cold, and it would attract wild animals.

I debated bringing them inside, shoving them into the back of the freezer, but I couldn’t. My lasagna was there. I looked over to the extra freezer shoved in the corner of the garage. I would clean it and throw everything out later. I walked over, slowly opened the lid and was met with the few extras we had bought when my husband and I were expecting. I gently placed the box on top of the frozen peas and carrots that adorned the pile. 

“Just hang tight, guys.”

I sealed the top of the freezer and easily slid the glove off my hand, lubricated by my sweat. I walked into my living room and debated taking a shower, washing off the sweat, grease, and blood from my memories. If I looked out my window, I could still see the imprint of their bodies on the hot pavement, locked within the memory of the ground. I closed my blinds, and my stomach growled in unison with the pull of the string. Another wave of nausea flowed through me. I wondered if the heat had gotten to me today, or maybe the sickly aroma of the twins, or could it be the fertility medicine my doctor prescribed me at my last appointment that I put off getting filled at the pharmacy for months. I asked for it. I was not ready. My husband filled it because I’m under his insurance. I started taking it because it ended up on my bedside table with a glass of sparkling water every night at 8:00 pm. I might as well.

I picked at my skin flaking off my shoulder, and I thought about the bodies that lay in my freezer. Their carcasses lay sprawled in an old shoebox beside my frozen food. I wondered how long they would last if I left them there. Maybe I would wait until my husband found them, lifting the lid and jumping back in fear, shock; he was never good with death. His vomit stained the carpet when he saw the blood creating landmarks on my thighs. He didn’t even attend their birth, the way my body still laboured their tiny, deformed bodies out of my birth canal. They looked a little too much like the birds; baby one’s arm was a mangled mess of flesh and bones, wrapped around his torso like he was trying to comfort himself. Baby two’s head was caved in. He still had eyes, though. Eyes I wish would have opened and seen his mother. I craved for their bodies to be put back into mine. To feel whole with them again. The doctors said they never would have made it full term, let alone in life. I didn’t care. They were mine.

My stomach growled again; I realised my cheeks were damp, and I wiped the salt across my lips. I needed to be pregnant. I wanted my boys. I let a wet sob pulse through my body, my shoulders lunging forward, and I braced myself up against the wall. I needed to eat, but I missed the fullness of my abdomen. The weight of their bodies pressed against my stomach, my pelvis, my bladder. Nothing satiated that hunger, the desire to hold them in my body again. I grabbed the blinds string, and I slowly pulled it up, glaring at the patch of crimson blood that took up more space than I had realised. A dark red stain that matched our bedroom carpet, the sheets I had to convince myself to throw out. I thought of the mother who lost her twins today. I wondered if she was flying overhead, searching for her babies, calling out their names with a desperate ring. I knew that scream, felt in my throat when I woke up, enough to make my husband sleep in the guest room. A hunger pain pulsed through me, and I glanced at the dried puddle of fluid that had seared itself to my driveway. I looked down at my belly, flat and lined with the silver streaks that held their story. I was hungry. I wanted my boys back. I had twins in the freezer. I was hungry.

I marched myself to the garage again, swung open the freezer and removed the box. I held it close to my body as I made for the kitchen. A nursery rhyme erupted through my salt-stained lips; a song my mother had sung to me so long ago. “Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top.”

I grabbed the pan from the countertop and placed it gently on the stove, cradling the precious babies in my arms. The sharp corner of the box poked the space between my ribs, reminding me of a contraction.

“When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.”

I lit the element, fire blazing up and licking the underbelly of the pan. I set the box down.

Slide the lid off. The smell was pungent, the scent of the blood caking your pubic hair; you couldn’t reach for a few months. I reached in and plucked the first bird from its cradle. I brought it to my mouth, pressing the delicate feathers against the ridges of my lips. I placed it gently on the pan, the blood screaming in the heat. The second baby’s head hung loosely from its neck as I did the same, kissing its soft beak before placing it down. 

“When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.”

I moved their bodies delicately around the pan, oiled by the blood and bacteria that seeped from their corpses. I raised the spatula to my mouth, licking the juice from its grooves. A moan interrupted my singing. I could feel whole again; I knew it. These were my boys. My blood. I couldn’t wait any longer for the babies to cook, the smell of their charred bodies filling my kitchen, my house, my womb. I quickly turned the element off. Pulled a plate so quickly from the cupboard that it almost slipped from my slick hands and fell to the floor. It didn’t, and I gently placed it on the counter. I scooped up baby one’s body with the spatula and set him on the plate. Then baby two, his blood seared to his wings in deep black clots. I didn’t want to walk to the table, so I grabbed a fork and knife from the dishwasher, and I sank the knife into the soft flesh of the birds. Their bones crunched under the weight of the utensil. I lifted the first delicate piece to my lips, enclosing it around the tender flesh. My eyes rolled back in my head. A moan ripped through my body. I abandoned the fork and picked up the pieces with my fingers, shoving the wings, body, and the crunch of the beak in my mouth. I laughed, settling myself down on the cold tile floor. I wrapped my hands around my stomach, distended from my consumption. I stroked my belly; my babies were back, and I hiccupped. Vomit sloshed in the back of my throat, but I swallowed it down. I was back, my babies were back, and my husband would be so happy.

“And down will come baby, cradle and all.”

Rebecca Kemp is a writer based in Toronto, Canada. She specialises in feminist horror and absurdist fiction.
Connect on Instagram at becca_kemp07