The giant bird,
solid sternum and pointed beak, plodded gracefully from the marsh of one pond
and took to flight. Jump started by a glimpse of unsteady violence, the bird
lifted, eased off the surface with a whisper of feathers and a splash of water.
Its wings flapped menacingly and drove fantastic gusts of air into swirls of
nothingness. The air was crisp and clean, the bird now ranging far above the
shallows of yellowed and stagnant odors. The sun shone and the wind was without
meaning. Fields began to move underneath the bird. Past its determined push,
the flight was: Straight. Wondrous. Driven.
Possible.
Moving its wings with beautiful
instinct, the Great Blue Heron went on.
“It brings the oil up. It brings the
oil up from the depths, where there are dinosaurs still.”
The boy looked up at his grandfather
with disbelief and pleasure.
“The dinosaurs were old and they
died. And their bodies make us oil. And we bring it up with these big machines”
“They look like dinosaurs too,” the
boy said.
The tufts of his bangs floated on
the breeze. His chocolate eyes said everything he would ever think. The
grandfather coughed into a handkerchief that the boy had seen a thousand times.
The clanging of the well was static behind their breathing.
“I like the way it looks,” the boy
said.
“Me too.
Always have.”
The steel grasshopper chugged
endlessly up and down under their combined vision.
“I call it fria,
cold, how it does its work without thinking, without stopping.”
The boy smiled, “I like to think of
it as a big dinosaur that doesn’t know any better.”
The grandfather spit a string of
tobacco juice into the dusty soil.
“Like he works for us and doesn’t
even know it.”
“Huh,” the grandfather said.
“Yeah,” the boy replied.
The pump continued all groaning and
clanking. The red paint was wearing off its body in big flakes.
“It brings the oil up,” he said.
“It brings the oil up,” the boy
repeated softly.
With each stride of his stretched
and taut wings, the Great Blue Heron went on.
The old Ford was gathering speed,
kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake, and tossing rocks into a ditch. With
the windows down he heard mostly high-speed wind and the sound of pebbles
connecting with the wheel wells. He had the ball game tuned into fuzzy a.m.,
and between hills it came in static and breakage. The home team up by two runs.
But it was the beginning, and you never knew which way things were going to go.
Last season the pitcher had torn a shoulder ligament. He was back in the farm
league now and you could see him Friday nights at the bar downtown. But as the
gravel flew from rubber tires, nothing mattered but the whistling air and
nearly inaudible radio.
“—Carls
rounds first on his—connection of the day. A high—ball——once——hitting the grass
off of left cen——not a bad hit for Car—especially the
first—season—but Carls is headed—at first, wai—next signal, but—ngle is a
good—for the young farm——”
Foot pressed on the gas, the pick-up
chugged fuel and sped. A gravel slip here and there meant nothing other than
the idea that the earth was still alive underneath him. Still
playing the same old tricks. The clouds stumbled. Signs
of an approaching storm. But he kept the windows down because the wind
was still cool and inviting. He leaned over the gearshift and moved the
passenger window down a half a turn of the handle to keep the air tension from
shaking apart the cab. He turned the radio up another few clicks.
“—en Pedro throws it’s a hell——to
strike out for—few newbies is not——deal. With Carls on sec———on third it’s—body’s game——steps to the
plate and kick——from his cleats—never saw that slid—coming——the second pitch is
a—to the outsi——”
Studying the clouds and carrying
through them, the Great Blue Heron went on.
She raised herself from her knees,
brushing the dust from overalls and clapping her hands. She’d been pruning and
weeding and tilling her modest garden since mid-morning, but with the rain she
wanted to get inside, out of the dirt. She picked up her tiny steel claw and
her tiny spade and winced as the tiny baby kicked against her belly. Left hand
on her stomach she rubbed the pain away and wondered how the baby ever moved in
such a little space. Kicking again, it still made her uncomfortable. Uneasy. But this time too, prepared for it, a little less
caught off guard, she was fascinated by how it all worked. It was a life inside
of her. Intensified from a single seed. A boy that would grow restlessly.
“Shhh. It’s okay. Shhh.”
She soothed with a circular motion,
feeling the baby settle into her insides. Some of the plants were already
starting to show in the spring soil. She looked up at the sky and found the
Great Blue Heron gliding silently across the clouds and the beginning rain. She
watched it with jealousy: It was such a giant bird but it made no sound. Its
instincts looked beautiful. Defined. It was a testament.
To nature. She rubbed her swelling with sweaty hands
and stepped out of the rain.
She whispered to the unborn: “Did
you see that? That was a bird. Yes it was.”
With nothing to say, the Great Blue
Heron went on.
Its
flight slowed and began a downward trajectory. Its wings rested. Its head
tilted to watch the rising earth. Its thin legs dipped causing ripples on the
surface that looked like the seam of something grand. The water here was clean
and pure and the air smelled of plants and rain. Water showered in even layers
lilting and radiant. The Great Blue Heron stretched its wings, the entire span,
then tucked them gracefully beneath itself. And all of
it, every last movement, was performed with ease and selflessness and unerring
judgment. It was nature and nothing more.
Author’s Bio:
J.
A. Tyler’s work has been published in numerous online and print journals
including Sein und Werden,
Arabesques, Thieves Jargon, The Furnace Review,
and AntiMuse and is forthcoming this year in Ghoti and Underground Voices. Along with other
honors, his short fiction recently received several Editorial Nominations for
the 2007 StorySouth Million Writers Award.
Visit online at www.aboutjatyler.com.