Presented without editing or revision from 2012 Vinny Reads.

The old man went down to the pond to feed the ducks.

It is the same pond he has gone to for years. The rod iron and wood worn in the shadow of his form on the slender bench beside the pond. He used white bread, as he had always used white bread. The ducks now are not the same ducks; not the same ducks as when he started as a much younger man. He was older than these ducks, as the bench was older than him, and the pond older still.

It started as a lark; an eccentricity of his youth. He’d walk through the park, break the heel of his lunch into pieces and toss it to the same ducks that congregated at the pond in those days. He met his wife at that same pond. A slender woman with a long neck and a fondness for all God’s lesser creatures.

Years later the Parks Department would erect a sign that read “Do Not Feed the Wild Animals.”

He asked if she minded if he sat beside her to feed the ducks. That first time he said nothing else. The second time he asked her name, and on from there it went. They would eat their lunches together and bring the remnants for the ducks, breaking the pieces into smaller, manageable chunks while they laughed and the ducks became secondary players. One day, she brought a bag of chips and the old man – a young man at the time – said “They won’t like those chips, they’re too salty.” She laughed in that carefree way she had when she was still young and emptied the bag into the air. They watched as the potato chips floated like leaves down into the water and along the bank, and as the ducks scrambled to devour them as fast as they fell.

It was almost forty years and three children to the day after that when she died. For as long as the old man – middle-aged at the time – held his job, he would walk by the pond and bless the ducks with the remainder of his lunch like a benevolent deity. As he grew older, he began to notice that these weren’t the same ducks he had always fed. Some were larger, some were smaller and some had different plumage. He fed them nonetheless and entertained fantasies that they were the sons and grandsons of the ducks he’d always fed. He had sons of his own in those days, and daughters, too. His eldest followed him into the trade business; the rest went their own way, but all made him proud.

When the old man became an old man and retired, his wife asked him to move, but the old man had never been very far from the house where he was born. The thought of moving filled him with unease. So they stayed in the over-large home where they had raised their children and lived out the rest of her days. His wife died when she was an old woman and he was an old man, but when he still had many days left to go on living.

During those days, he didn’t feed the ducks so much. When he did come back to the pond, hunched and gray, the ducks were there. They greeted him with their usual chatter and aloofness. They had always maintained the demeanor of teenagers; acting as if they had no need for a parent but always readily accepting any easily given charity that had no strings attached.

And so the old man gave the broken remnants that remained eagerly, if unsteadily, to the ducks. His eyes yielding to cataracts and his hands to arthritis. He could no longer make out the shifting ripples the ducks left upon the surface of the pond, nor could he stoop any longer to make ripples of his own.

I wish I were a duck. Driven by the certainty of instinct. To have the grace to know that when the seasons slip away that I must migrate and slip away with them.

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If you’re interested in taking one of these workshops, I cannot recommend it enough. Clev is a great teacher and has a surgical eye for prose. Check out burnt-tongue.net for updates on the next course availability.

He holds it in the soft cradle of his hands, feathered neck askew.

“Momma, what this?” He proffers his hands to her, yellow against his pale skin.

It is a dead bird. The fact of it arrives before anything else. The weighty droop of the head, the glassy lifeless eyes. Its resting place between her toddler’s fingers. It is a dead bird.

“Where did you find that, sweetie?” She speaks softly and crouches down to his eye level, trying to control the flutter of my heart. She knows better than to reach for the bird just yet, to avoid the ever-present risk of the tantrum lurking behind his cherub’s cheeks and his father’s eyes. The bird’s bright yellow plumage is streaked with dirt.

“On the ground,” he points to a shaded spot near the trash bins, “It’s a bird.”

It is death.

“That’s right, honey. It’s a yellow bird.”

He repeats “yellow bird” in a quiet voice, testing the feel of it, “Why it not flying?”

Because it is dead. Dead things do not fly.

“Well…”

“It sleeping?”

“No, honey, it’s n– ”

“Wake up, bird!” His shriek is joyous and hopeful. She flinches as he shakes the bird in his hands. He grins without guile. “Wake up!”

“Honey, honey, honey,” She reaches for his hands, but he pulls the bird closer to his chest, twisting his little body away from her. The lifeless head flopping over.

“No, I hold it!”

“Okay, okay. Gentle, honey.” Gentle hands, palms down. Gentle voice, volume down. Breathe gentle. Eye contact.

“Momma, it not waking up,” his smile fading as recognition of some new phenomenon encroaches on his little life.

“I know, honey. It’s not sleeping.”

“No, it sleeping.”

“No. It’s not sleeping.”

“No! It sleeping!” This shriek is not joyous, but punctuated with little tantrum stomps. His babyfat fingers squeezing the lifeless thing. “Wake up, birdie, wake up!”

“Adam, sweetie. The bird’s not going to wake up,” she holds his gaze, his eyes are an insufficient dam. She swallows, “because it’s dead, honey.”

“Dead?” His head cocks slightly, as if the slight tilt might realign his world to some known perspective. The tears slide out of his eyes and along his face.

She nods. Lips pursed tight.

“What dead?”

Inevitable. Inescapable. Inexplicable.

Like a sleep you don’t wake from? No, that will make him scared to sleep. Like being really hurt? Like endless nothing?

He’s looking at you. He’s looking to you.

“It’s… you know how you sleep and wake up and eat your snacks and go play?”

He nods.

“Well, when you’re dead, you don’t do those things anymore. You don’t do anything.”

The tears start to dry on his cheeks. He blinks and extends his arms to her, fingers uncurling from around the limp yellow body, “Momma, fix it?”

“No, honey. Momma can’t fix it.”

“Why?”

Because you can’t fix death.

“Because,” delicately she removes the dead bird from his hands, covers it with her fingers.

Because that is how it is. There is no deeper explanation. Death is immutable fact.

“Hey, why don’t we go watch some TV?”

“Yeah!” His eyes alight, smile returning, this incursion on his innocence receding.

“Okay,” she exhales and stands, “Go get ready to wash your hands. Momma will be right in.”

He does a little hop and toddles to the door, feet slapping the ground and arms erratic. He’s newly able to reach and open the sliding screen door.

She watches him go before she looks at the dead thing in her hands; then to the spot on the ground the boy indicated, and finally up to the branches of a nearby tree. In a low branch, overhanging the trash bins, is a small cup-shaped nest. She moves to it; places the dead bird back in the nest before tugging it loose from the branches.

The nest is a mix of twigs, shredded bits of paper, part of a torn condom wrapper, and other small detritus. Inside are three small eggs, green-blue and speckled.

Potential outcomes appear in her mind: the eggs could be eaten; the eggs could hatch and the hatchlings could be eaten; the hatchlings could starve to death; the eggs might never hatch. Every path ends with the same terminus with one obvious exception.

The cascading internet queries materialize next: how to incubate birds, how long until bird eggs hatch, what can baby birds eat, can you keep wild birds as pets, how long do birds live, pet stores near me…

You need to choose.

A shriek from inside the house interrupts her rumination, “Momma! I ready!”

She looks at the yellow mother, her eggs, her home. The entirety of a small universe nestled in her palms.

The world is too cruel a place for delicate things.

She opens the lid to the trash bin and drops the nest, bird and eggs, with the rest of the discarded.

“Coming, sweetie!” The lid claps shut.

It is not true that only God must choose what lives and dies.

She slides the screen door open and steps into her home and back to her life. Reflection is not a luxury she can afford.

When the trash collection truck comes the next morning, birds will be singing. They will sing as the bin empties, and as the compactor makes space for more garbage cast in the wake of living. They will sing but she will not, cannot, hear them.

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Thanks to (my favorite handle on Substack) whose Note inspired this story.

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Sharing another workshop assignment; this is week three and the assignment is around decisions and consequences. I liked how it came out, but I’m sure there’s plenty to critique as well.

Little more than halfway done when the first of them arrives. My head’s still above ground when the headlights mow through the grass and flit between the headstones. They probably don’t see me yet. They will. Toss the shovel out of the hole and place the bottle of Jack, a little more than halfway done, beside it. It was her favorite. Fingertips press into the soft soil as I pull myself out of her grave, pick up the bottle, and pull the 1911 from my back waistband.

In short time, two more roll up. The lifted pick-up assaults me with the floodlights. I squint against the halogen white. Hard to tell if it’s the drizzle or the sweat that’s muddying the gravedirt against my chest; I must look a revenant. Some abomination of inconceivable mind, teetering.

Their doors clack open; I click the safety off.

They are shadows and silhouettes, but they are known to me. The dark can’t cover everything. Not even death can. They file out and array themselves like a firing squad. Good little soldiers, just obeying orders.

“Don’t suppose you’re here to help.”

A rifle cocks in response. Tall, broad-shouldered figure bearing it. Dale. Older brother. He’s either a step closer than the rest or he’s somehow grown even bigger since this morning. Regardless, an easy target.

“Boy,” says the father; his voice booming, righteously indignant, “just what the hell you think you’re doing?” Undercurrent of anger, a family flaw.

“Exactly what it looks like.”

The hole yawning black behind me, flower arrangements still aligned around the headstone. ‘Beloved Daughter.’ There’s only about two feet of freshly tilled dirt and a coffin lid between us now. We could watch the sunrise like we used to, after a night of bad behavior, and then sleep the day away. ‘Cept she’s never waking up.

I know it’s not rain or sweat in my eyes. I feel something in my throat trying to force its way up, trying to force its way out.

“You didn’t let me say goodbye!” It escapes in a shrill and tremulous cry. I sniff in hard, but the words aren’t coming back. A lot of things aren’t coming back.

“Now, son,” a third voice, older. Squat and round body to my right. The uncle. Sheriff. No lights on his car. Not official business. He wasn’t never here. “I understand you’re upset, but we don’t want this to go any further, do we? This is obviously hard on all of us, and we don’t want to see anyone else hurt. Why don’t you put the gun down, I’ll give you a ride, you can sleep it off, and we can talk about this in the morning. How does that sound?”

I mean it as a warning shot, but my arms are tired. I pull the trigger before the barrel reaches the sky, blasting out one of the pick-up’s floodlights in a cascade of shattered bits. At least it’s not so bright. The rain’s even let up some.

They’re cursing and threatening, guns up and calling me a sonuvabitch. It’s all just noise. I can see beyond them, the night’s giving way on the horizon. There’s not enough time. There’s never enough time.

“Couldn’t just let me see her,” they probably don’t even hear me. Even if they could, they wouldn’t listen. There’s no sound except the low growl of their engines, and the gentle rattle of the 1911 against my leg. “Wouldn’t even let me say goodbye.” They had their minds made up before they came here. Hell, they had their minds made up long before that. Long before she was gone.

I guess I did, too.

“All I want is to say goodbye.”

“Ain’t gonna let you desecrate her grave, boy.”

“Not desecrating nothing,” I look at bruised purple of the horizon, then back at the open hole in the earth, “Just keeping a promise.”

Said I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye. You’re the one that left, but I still aim to keep that promise.

“Just wanna see her. Just wanna say goodbye. That’s all. You don’t need to do anything. You can just drive away, come back tomorrow, and it’ll be like I was never here.” An uneasy silence. “Please.”

“Can’t do that, son.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t. Won’t. Don’t make a difference,” Sheriff’s voice is level-calm like ordering a coffee.

“No,” the weight in each of my hands tugging at me, “I guess it don’t.”

I feel that thing in my throat again, and I pull up the Jack to force it back down. I don’t hear the shot; hell, I barely feel the bullet. Just impact and then falling, and then the ground waiting to greet me. The wind knocked out of my lungs, the bottle of Jack emptying into the gravedirt. Me emptying into it, too.

I can make out the edge of the grave four feet above my head, cut across the rising dusk. The rain’s stopped. The sky’s lightening, but I can’t see the sun. Senses seeping back into me. Pain, mostly. Just a broken body in hurt.

There are footsteps and shouting as they close in. I think it was Dale that got me. Smug bastard. They get close and I fire. The bullet doesn’t even leave the hole, striking the side and sending a drift of dirt down across my legs. The ringing is deafening. One less sense to worry about. Didn’t want to hit them anyways; just wanted some privacy.

The rain’s stopped. The sky’s lightening, but I bet the sun is red. Your favorite.

I put the barrel to my temple, the ground under my arm supporting me. What’s left of you, supporting me.

“Goodbye.”

I’ve been going on Substack Live as a way of trying to coral my ADHD brain into doing work. It’s a mixed bag so far, but it does make actually knuckling down to do ‘the work’ both social and fun. With that in mind, I figured I’d share something I wrote on Live for a workshop assignment.

Without giving too much away: the assignment was to make dialogue the primary action in the story and use character quirks to tell the story with subtext.

My thanks to , , , , and anyone/everyone else that popped in for keeping me company and letting me bounce ideas off you.

Fiona caught the thin trails of sandalwood and vanilla, as the man took the barstool across the corner of the bar from her. Her boyfriend’s eyes were latched on the televisions over the bar, showing some umpteenth iteration of Sportscenter. She took a sip from her gin & tonic and glanced over at the newcomer as he ordered his drink.

His eyes drifted around the bar before, finally, inevitably settling on hers. She held his gaze like a dare; breaking only to glance down to his hand. When her eyes came back up he was smiling, and she returned it. When he did look away he found the man next to her staring back at him.

The bartender slid a small blue can, with ‘Fat Tug’ in bold white lettering across it, in front of him and he tipped it toward the other man before taking a sip. The boyfriend turned back to the TV and took a hard pull of his pint before leaning in toward Fiona.

“Do you want anything to eat?” His arm slid around the back of her chair, setting a boundary.

She made a noncommittal shrug as his hand slid up to her shoulder, camping there. She turned back to the man across the corner.

“What’s that you’re drinking?” she nodded toward the white tallboy can.

He turned the can slightly so bold font faced her, before lifting halfway to his lips. “Just a Fat Tug.”

Fiona turned to her boyfriend, easing briefly into his grasp. “Have you tried that one, honey?” And turning back to the other man, “My boyfriend is a bit of a beer snob.”

“I have.”

“It’s pretty good,” the other man offered.

“It’s fine.”

“Well,” he pulled the Fat Tug toward his mouth again, grinning and looking back to Fiona, “we know what that means.”

As she feigned stifling a giggle, the boyfriend’s handle on her went white-knuckled, a cliffhanger hovering over a chasm he actively ignored, trying not to succumb to the vertigo.

“Do you folks need a refill?” The bartender, hands spread across the bar like chaperone.

“We’ll have two more,” the boyfriend answered.

“Actually,” she paused and seemed to revel in the vacuum, “I’ll try a Fat Tug.”

The bartender turned and left, Fiona’s smiling eyes met her boyfriend’s glare.

“What?”

He scoffed and slid his hand off her shoulder, turning his attention back to Sportscenter.

“What?” she demanded.

He finished the warm dregs of his drink, “Nothing.”

Released, Fiona turned back to the other man.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Paul.”

“Fiona.” She extend her hand in mock formality. His hand was warm, grip firm.

“So, Paul, what do you do?”

“I’m in finance.”

“Oh, Derek is in finance, too.”

Paul broke his eye contact to engage the boyfriend, “What do you do, Derek?”

“Auditing,” Derek’s eyes never leaving the redundant highlights.

“What about you, Paul?” Fiona picked up the conversation.

“Large scale risk assessment, mostly.”

“Oh, that sounds important.”

Before Paul can demure, the bartender returned with the next round, silently placing and removing glasses.

Fiona pushed herself back off from the bar, chair skittering along the floor. “If you boys will excuse me…” and she off she walked with Paul’s eyes tracing after her, before settling back on his drink, and begrudgingly on Derek’s waiting glare.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Derek said.

I took an oxy for the pain this morning. Down to about three left. I don’t know what the expiration date is on them, but I do know they’ll continue to work well past it. Used to be a lot easier to get with my old PCP, but he went and retired and the new guy believes in stuff like diet, and stretching, and exercise. I want to tell him that I’m one of those lucky bastards that opioids work for as intended; no lie. No weird side effects or dizziness. Just, the pain stops. Percs were great when we’d have a bunch of games in a week. Like hitting the reset button.

Reset button.

Back up.

The ball tips off the bat and the catcher’s mitt doesn’t catch up with it. It hits me square between the eyes. I am not wearing a mask. Blood…

No, too far. Forward.

I remember the moment before impact thinking, “he’s swinging that pretty hard.” The chair smashed into the peak of my forehead. My forehead won. The seat of the chair popped off with a loud, wooden clonk. Steel legs wrapped around my shoulders like a medal. His face saying “oh fuck,” mine – facing away from the camera – smiling. I bet that looks fucking sick. Stumble, teeter, fall.

Rewind. Play.

The chair explodes off my head. Rewind. Grainy VHS noises. Play. Again.

“Hell yeah.”

“That didn’t hurt?”

“Not too bad.”

It hurt more than the 15-foot double-footstomp off back porch onto a chair on my chest, but not much more. I am the world’s toughest 13-year-old.

Still too far.

A slapshot to the facemask, a dull ringing in the ears that doesn’t fade as quickly as it should. Was that intentional? A montage of clappers, wristers, slashes, knees, skates and sticks to the cheap, ill-fitting plastic helmet from a second-hand sports store.

Again.

A cheap shot, a knee to the side of my helmet. I wake up and there’s fewer bars than there should be in front of me. And grass. Oh right, football. This is my first concussion playing football.

Forward again.

A decade under the influence. Binge-drinking. Browning out. Blacking out. I am 160-lbs soaking wet; I am drinking with the rugby team. I am building my mystique. Upperclassmen back down from fights. My roommate files for a transfer. I discover tequila. Ole.

Graduate.

I hadn’t been drinking that much. It was the black ice. I was in control, and then I wasn’t I watched it happen with absolute clarity. Unable to stop it. Here comes that pole. This is gonna hurt…

The airbags didn’t deploy. Front windshield is cracked to shit. Head throbbing from where it hit the steering wheel. How long was I out? Car shaped like a giant letter-C around the impact point on the passenger side. Told my buddy to come out tonight. Glad he declined. The car starts. I force it to limp home.

I’m supposed to stay up all night. I go to a buddy’s house. Crawl in bed with his older sister. We talk and watch Lord of the Rings on her small TV. Make out a little. I leave when the sun comes up. Still invincible.

Fall off a railing, trying to do a flip into the pool. Hit concrete. Friends think I’m dead. Wake up laughing. Have a few more beers. Fuck my girlfriend in the pool. Pass out.

Somewhere along the way there, can’t keep track of the chronology, I run my mouth. I get punched in the head. Guy breaks his hand and gets tossed out of the bar. I get to finish my drink before I’m sent packing. Another W.

I’m getting fat. I take up boxing. I work at it. I enjoy it. Weight comes off. I get decent. I start doing amateur fights. I’m a god, until I’m not. Guy knocks my contact lenses out in round one. I push him to a five-round split decision without any depth perception. Beers on him after the fight.

Girlfriend leaves me, different one this time. Takes the dog. I call out sick from work. I do not leave the house again until every bottle in it is empty. I send a lot of texts. I have some visitors. I am consoled.

Fast forward.

I am married.

Fast forward.

I have a kid.

Fast forward.

I slip while putting together a swingset, bang my head on the slide. It’s plastic, not even that bad. I’m pushing 40 but I’m still imvincible.

I am getting old though. Tired all the time. Probably just from kid. Just need to take a few more naps is all. Maybe cut back on the drinking. Doc says the vitals are good.

I fall asleep behind the wheel. Wake up with a swerve. No harm, no foul.

I fall asleep behind the wheel. Family’s in the car. I wake up with a swerve, tires over rumble strips… wife offers to drive, but I’m fime.

Forgetting things a lot more now, miss a deadline and get passed over for a promotion at work. Wish my kid a happy birthday; I’m off by a month. Oops. Laugh it off.

Headaches are a lot worse these days. I quit drinking, the hangovers are worse tham death. Didn’t get that promotion so money’s a little tight as the kid starts thinking about collage. Health imsurance is shit, but blood pressure is still good. Cholesterol okay. Not working out as much because of exertion headaches, but I golf every so oftem.

Forget our anniversary. Typical stupid husbamd. Wife’s not mad, wife is comcermed. I’ve always been forgetful, though. Nothing new.

Nightmares more frequemt. Hearimg voices. Muffled like through static. I see the faces of kids I went to grade school with, but they look like melting wax statues. I can’t think of amy of their names.

I call my wife by my ex-girlfriend’s name. We’ve been married twenty years; together for thirty. She asks me who “Stacy” is; it’s a name she’s long forgottem but used to haunt her. I catch myself before amswerimg “you are.”

“Uh, sorry. Someone from work. Brain fart.”

Just the trouble with age.

Sound in the middle of the night. Scuffling feet on the first floor. Did I forget to lock up? I’ve been forgetting that a lot. I feel lucid. Adrenaline pumping. We bought a gun during the bad years, I haven’t taken it to the range in a long time, but it’s still loaded in the bedside table. I grab it. I creep downstairs. Faint light from the kitchen. Fridge door is open. I round the steps slowly, quietly. The door closes. A man’s standing there. I pull the trigger.

The man is my son. The safety is on. He’s bleary-eyed, back from a night of drinking in the woods with friends. A grown boy, I barely recognized him. I didm’t recognize him.

“Jesus, dad!”

Dad? Dad. I lower the gum a few secomds after I should. Dad, I’m Dad. I… gun… I…

I’m playimg catcher without a mask on. A foul ball catches me betweem the eyes. I wake up on a football field, and there’s a chair there. It starts to snow. Cold. Ice. I’m drivimg on ice. I… I have my helmet on. I am riding imto Helm’s Deep. I…

I…

I…

…I?