Have you ever sensed a grave error at hand, teetering on the verge of occurrence, but felt yourself lacking either the will or courage to prevent it? Or have you resigned yourself to the fact that over the centuries, sandbags have accomplished very little towards averting a flood? Such was my inner state at this particular cross-section of time, plagued by apprehension. After class had ended, Ms. W pulled me aside and said that she’d be stopping by later that evening to address my little comment—indicative, she protested, of the emergence of a moral turpitude that would not go unseen by God—and thus it accordingly fell to her duty to bring the matter to Mother’s attention. When the bell rang, heralding the end of the day, Arthur smacked me upside the head and snickered, “Let’s get out of here!” What could I do but follow?
Arthur tossed a rock up in the air with one hand, while his other maneuvered a toothpick between his teeth. “So where are we going?” I asked. “You’ll see!” We’d just had a flash of rain and now, in the warm glow of the late-afternoon sun, a milky vapor arose from the asphalt in the shape of a wild boar, a miasma of manure imbuing the air around us. Its large porcine head turned toward me and snorted gruesomely as it passed and then disappeared.
We reached an abandoned warehouse at the end of some anonymous, forgotten street. As we approached the building, voices bawled from around the corner. I looked askance at Arthur and stammered, “What’s that?” He grabbed me by the sleeve and dragged me toward the ruckus, leaping over a few rotted wooden crates. A large crowd had amassed in a tight circle around what, I couldn’t say. “Come on, let’s sneak up here for a better view,” Arthur whispered, leading us quietly up the sharply inclined fire escape, stopping when we reached the platform on the second floor. Below, at opposing sides of the circle, two men each squatted over a rooster as they fastened what looked like tiny knives, glinting and smiling in the sunlight, to the roosters’ feet. A short old man with dark, calloused skin collected money from the crowd. Then the two men stood and tossed their roosters into the center, careful not to get caught in the fray of exploding feathers that immediately followed, the two birds clashing in midair. I could barely bring myself to watch. Then, with my eyes averted, I saw her, Anise Zephyr, in her black boots holding her red suitcase, ten yards behind the crowd. When the shouting died down, some of the onlookers gathered around the short old man to collect their winnings. The defeated rooster lay lifeless, its blood darkening as it mixed with dirt. Anise cut through the legs of the crowd and entered the circle, her suitcase in tow. No one noticed, except the dead cock’s master, who apparently could’ve cared less, as Anise dropped to her knees beside the lifeless bird. She then opened her suitcase, picked up the rooster, gently placed it inside, stood, walked back through the door she’d opened in the crowd, and disappeared.
We stayed on the fire escape until everyone had left. Small feathers littered the ground like confetti. Arthur turned to me and said, “Do you know that Father has a robe made of feathers?” I didn’t, but I wouldn’t let on. On our way home, I thought I saw Anise turn a corner or cross a street out of the corner of my eye, but when I looked—nothing. By the time we got home, I’d remembered Ms. W. She could be here already, I thought. Slowly, I turned the handle of the front door and peered into the living room. The lights were off. I went inside. “Hello?” my voice cracked. Silence. Then, a series of intermittent muffled thumps. I looked up the stairwell, its banisters like a row of sentries standing guard. The wooden planks creaked beneath my feet as I ascended, Father’s voice sputtering from behind the door to the master bedroom. When I reached the top of the stairs, Ms. W’s celestial voice quavered through a chink in the door, like a seraphim daring me to look inside. What I saw, I never thought possible, so I turned, crestfallen, back down the stairs. The beating of wings ceased, and I when turned: a flurry of feathers silently descending to the floor. nth