The Bird

By Alireza Yaghoubi

Translated by Mohammad Ghasemi 

Right now. Right here. I can’t figure it out. They keep dripping from my eyes. I can’t figure out which one. My shoulder is on fire. Although I don’t feel any pain, I can detect a muted burning sensation under my skin. I used 100 ml of Lidocaine on my shoulder. My entire body is numb. My clavicle, my right arm, and part of my neck. I feel the heat of blood on my shoulder. The scissors gently slip through my fingers, and in the blink of an eye, they disappear into the steam that has filled the bathroom. A stinging cold has taken over my entire body. My feet tingle. It seems like a rat is chewing on my toes. Drops of blood run from my shoulder and fall on my feet. I should have picked them up from the bathroom floor. As if all these drops of blood could be back in place. The entire house is cold. This is where it all began. The bathroom in which I’m standing now. The cold I mean; it started from this very spot. The cold leaks out from under my feet. Right between my toes. Once, it was my father’s house. Not many people live here anymore. Quite unintentionally and unexpectedly, I am the only survivor of the family. For now, of course. The last human of my own kind. There is also another entity that occupies this realm. It’s been a long time since I’ve thought I my house is not safe enough for me. In one of the census periods, my father counted this entity as one of the family members. His decision was totally unexpected, but my mother was not surprised. Later I changed my mind about taking care of him. His exclusive landing site was our shoulders. His original owner was my grandfather, and then I took custody. However, it didn’t sound like I was happy and satisfied with that. It just didn’t sound like that. Maybe I just wanted my late father to rest in peace. When I read my father’s obituary in the newspaper, he was there in the picture. Right there. Next to my father’s face. On the street. Actually, he looked rather good. When I took my father’s stuff back from forensics, even then, he was there. I had been afraid of him since I was a kid. When I walked on the streets, I looked like a rookie. I moved my legs like someone who had never experienced walking. Then, he was smaller than what I see now. Such affiliation is not supposed to happen to everyone. He was there on my shoulder all the time I spent on the streets. Although his claws didn’t touch my skin, I felt pins and needles in my shoulder. I could feel his feet move. It’s hard to explain to other people. It’s hard to tell people that this entity doesn’t belong to you and find out that nobody even cares. That’s why it’s been years since I left home. I didn’t need a job because of the little money that the government assigned to me after my parents passed away. It felt like a part of my life went on easily and smoothly, and I spent the hours of my life having fun. It’s just for fun that I wake up every morning. It’s just for fun that I have no one to talk to about going to a party. It’s just for fun that my phone has not rung for years. It’s just for fun that I don’t sit on the sofa waiting for my husband to come home. I never fell into the trap of marriage. It’s just for fun that it has not been raining for months. It’s like I have turned into the massive bottom layer of a huge rock. Even before words get out of my mouth, my mind runs out of anything that used to be there. I feel the heaviness and the warmth of his feet on my shoulder. After all these years, he had finally decided to sleep next to me. That was a selfish decision that she forced on me. It even affected my sleeping habits. Most nights, the heat made me sleep bareback on the bed. I pulled my belly fat up and used baby powder on it. Every night I colored my neck and between my legs white. I used so much baby powder that the air around me would go white for a while. He’d smoothly crawl onto my cheek and stare into my eyes. I’d look at him from behind my hair that sometimes fell into my face. I was afraid that one of these nights, he was going to peck my eyes out and start eating my brain. That’s why I wear a blindfold to bed. I had to set an alarm every other hour. After closing my eyes, I’d count my teeth using my tongue. Some of them were still there. It was always clear to me that they are more loyal to me than anyone and anything. 

Sometimes I dreamed about the years when he flew more than today. He used to fly all over the house. My father used to follow him with his eyes until finally, he landed on his shoulder. When I was a kid, when my father came back home from work, when he fell asleep out of exhaustion, I would go close and look at his skin. It was hairless. Full of thin red lines caused by the bird’s claws. As a child, I thought the lines were text in a weird alphabet that the bird wrote on my father’s skin. Such stupid thoughts I had about my father’s relationship with the bird in those days. Sometimes when the heat made me wear fewer clothes, I felt more heat come out from his feet. These last few years, I think my skin has become looser than before. But I’m not sure. It had never crossed my mind that I was supposed to get so fat. A huge mass of fat has surrounded my body. I keep getting heat rashes all over me. The tips of his claws keep penetrating my wrinkled skin. Some of the wrinkles on my skin were so deep that he could hide his seeds in them. They seemed to be pre-determined routes, and he only moved through them. I could predict how he would move on my shoulder. He also monitored all my moves, and it tormented me the most. Nowadays, I don’t have good hearing, and I can’t hear any of the noises he makes. Only by looking at my crooked shadow on the wall or feeling his fast and short breath next to my ear, can I recall his presence. Sometimes I wouldn’t see him even once during the day. Neither of us paid any attention to the other. At my age and due to the illness, I constantly had tears running from my eyes. I had a little limp in one of my legs. But I can’t remember which one. Sometimes he didn’t move a single step. All the time, I felt the danger of him choking me with his claws. It’s weird that quite uninterestingly, I let him keep living his life. I don’t know why. I have forgotten the last time I left home. But it was not long before now. It was agonizing answering people’s questions about the bird attached to my shoulder. I often stood by the window and imagined myself in the city. I’m among people. I’m walking. Somebody is walking with me, holding my hand. I get to the street. I’m waiting for the car that killed my father. I don’t know who would take my stuff back from forensics. From up here, I used to wave to the boys passing on the sidewalk. They never see me. They’ve been avoiding me since I was a kid. Nobody is passing on the sidewalk on the other side of the window. It’s dark. It’s not snowing. Out there, it’s probably quieter than before. My sight shifted off the street and fell upon my broken crooked face. I saw my face shattered through drops of water. Every time, I looked for little spots on my skin that didn’t seem to have been there before. The spots spanned from my face to my neck. Sometimes he mistook them for millet and started pecking at them. That’s why you could also see some scars among them. I saw him staring at me through the window. My life used to be better before all this. The days when I visited every painting gallery in the city by myself. He was so small that I could hide him under my dress. I used to cover him with a scarf or a long handkerchief. I used to visit friends who have been through peculiar lives of their own if they’re still alive. I cut out all the paintings published in the newspapers and magazines with scissors and glued them to the pages of my album. I had gathered a perfect archive of the world’s most famous paintings. It was then that the bird dropped a big one on my shoulder that went down my scapula. I stayed quiet. Not even one word came to my mind. We had grown up together with full loyalty. I have forgotten when I last left the house. Once every three months, I’d go to the closest store, which was far from downtown, and buy what he and I needed for three months. Every time, I had to fit my fat body in my dress and squeeze my swollen feet into my shoes. My toes scratched the inside of my shoes, but they couldn’t break through. Then I’d pick up my small purse and take many stairs up and down with a leg that couldn’t keep up, and I had to drag it. Useless people always get more stairs in their lives. Gradually, I’d enter the scene that had a city as its audience. He’d come with me too. I’d do my best to finish this play as soon as possible, but my best was not enough. I walk on the edge of the sidewalk, where the wall and the street meet. Limping. Each time there was more talking behind my back. Nobody would get closer to me than a hypothetical range. What if I carry a disease? These things happened every three months. The cruelest form of living in an abandoned city. To be honest, now the entity can claim to be the king of this lost realm. I wake up from a simple sleep only to find my body on one edge of the bed. I think that’s a proper place. The doors and walls of the house and all the frames that are nailed on them looked different before I woke up. It seemed like objects were constantly moving. My eyes fall upon my wardrobe. I had torn some of the items on the shoulder using scissors. I look at the dried stains of droppings on them. This life smells like droppings all over it. Just for fun, I pick a cigarette from the drawer next to the bed and wait for someone to light it for me. My shoulders feel heavier, my skin looser. Today I found several new stains on my forearm. One was close to my wrist and a few inches away, another one. I must have seen many years of my life. I’m a happy woman. How long more am I to live? I smell rotten meat in every room of the house. The heat is killing me. The fat layer under my chin gets longer every day. Endless heat rashes have given me a red line all around my neck, just like a necklace. A gift which I don’t know when exactly was presented to me. I get up and start walking around the house. Naked. Quickly. Remains of a bitter past. I don’t know where I’m standing. My legs start to fall asleep. At first, they are motionless. They shake hard, and my hands grab the wall. It doesn’t matter how hard they try to get free; it’s hopeless. The rat has come up to my knees. Soon the water drops show up. When did I find the time to open the faucet? They flash in the air, shine most beautifully and fall down one by one. Their bones break. I try my best not to hear them screaming. They glide under my feet quickly, keep hurtling, and finally, they throw themselves down to the dark hatch on the bathroom floor. It doesn’t matter how these things happen. I have to deal with all these confusions. With my life, with this bird whose presence comforts my heart when I’m alone. With the smell of rotten meat coming from every room of the house. Occasionally, the scissors in my hand start to shake. The sound of blades knocking on each other filled the bathroom. Without any ceremonial gestures, I cut him off my shoulder. Now even the blood drops loudly. They make a fuss and get out of my shoulder. The outburst of all my pains. The sound of blades still runs all over the bathroom. I don’t know which day of my life I’m going through. It’s been years since I stopped caring about how life goes on. I should wait until my vessels run out of blood so that I calm down. I run my tongue in my mouth and start to count my teeth. So these hours stop being so frustrating. I’m a happy woman. I lean my hand against the wall next to me. Blood erupts from my shoulder. I lean my back against the wall behind me. There is no wall. Either there has never been, or I can’t see it now. My legs and hands swing and I fall to the floor. The ceiling is heavy and walks over my body. 

What am I looking for? Is blood coming out of my arm or my shoulder? I can withstand its heat. Slowly and silently, they join the drops of sweat on my skin and find their way through the deep cracks and scatter on the mosaics. I think it’s the sound of their screams that I hear. They leave stains on the mosaics. I press my hands on my stomach, so that blood comes out more quickly. There were stains as far as the eye could see. The mosaics and the bathroom window, the walls that are about to hug me tightly. The stains of dried droppings on my dress, the stains on my skin, and the yellow stains of urine on the floor. I have withstood all the hardship. My feet feel colder. I move my arms and legs every now and then to remind myself that I am still alive. Sometimes my knees tremble. I gradually turn white. I have no energy. The rat has chewed me up to my chest. The daylight suffocates before it passes through the bathroom window. Recently it seemed like even the bird was crying. Blindly. My shoulder burns, free of fear, I roll on the bathroom floor, and turn over. I listen carefully lest the phone rings just for fun. I have used 100 ml of Lidocaine on my shoulder. My body is numb. I feel the warmth of blood on my shoulder. I have left the scissors right there on the bathroom floor. The steam covers the lifeless piece of meat on my shoulder in a blink of an eye. Biting cold has embraced my whole body. The rat has nothing else to chew. Blood fills the bathroom. I can feel it.

That’s not all. The whole world goes cold. My legs and arms tap on each other and the floor. They pause and move again. The walls touch the fat mass surrounding my body. The faucet leaks drop by drop. My spoon has been rusty for weeks, and my dirty plate has been in the sink. My whole life smells like droppings, like death, like loneliness. I should have done it sooner. At least so much oxygen and food would be saved. I’m sure many people on the face of the earth are more worthy than me to use them. One by one, the drops slowly glide under my body until the dark hatch on the floor swallows them all. They leave nothing behind. Everything gets lost on the scene. But I will remain on the bathroom floor after the last drop of blood leaves my body. My loneliness grows. My body gets dirty. Drops of tears fall from my eyes. But I can’t figure out which one.