18

They did not sing, the very first birds of day but, rather, were talking to themselves in a buddy-to-buddy manner. They needed no audience, no approbation, they only shared their opinion about the current moment to their most trusted, seeing what you mean, bosom friends.

No staple quips loved so much and waited-for by their fans, no taking a shot at getting another empty compliment… Nah! They, like the first, still drowsy, news program for yet sleeping population marshaled out in brief digest style, to themselves, their personal impressions from this here dawn widening around.

They were addressing no one but themselves (which has been mentioned already) the way of a bone-dry vet-aviator from WWII would broadcast to his favorite cockpit bench by the entrance to apartment block, not too loud just between them two, the bench and the vet, about his yesterday’s... or what, eh? yes, yesterday it was… visited that department, aha… and complained to that important comrade… personally… well, that same who’s as bold as Illych from flat 48… the machine-gunner… about that crazy lot upstairs… because them motherfuckers… shit, at all… or maybe it’s tomorrow… but he will go to that department.

The black birds sounded with tranquil pedantry while small-fry whistlers of wobbly complexes sought to overcome those with exaggerated harshness to their tweets...

Yet, she was not exactly attentive or keen on following the dove’s narcissistic, full-of-tender-love cooing and outright ignored the abrupt sarcastic observations of a moody goldfinch.

She was still basking and, just like they, did not care who chirped what. They did not interfere in the least with her half-slumber, just as their disordered multi-voiced chorus did not impede the gradual outflow of one more morning to which all of them were also a part.

The morning sun squinted sleepily thru the motionless serene foliage in the quiet trees.

That way, little by little, submerged she from her night repose under the calm gossip of birds, each one to themselves...

The house was located in the secluded part of a podonk town, in the southern outskirts of it, separated from the asphalted streets by the steep slopes of a deep creek all grown with the almost impassable thicket of sundry deciduous trees.

Once her pet Fluffy—a bantam half breed of sandy-colored hair who sported a gorgeous tail flaring like the cockade in the Italian carabineri uniform caps—broke his chain and ran away (the anticipatory complaints of neighbors from the cottages irregularly scattered thru the outskirts, who were too anxious about dog’s possible raids on the chicks populating their respective yards, deprived the poor thing of freedom, just in case).

The following morning she got up earlier than the first birds and discovered the pooch in one of the vacant lots about the neighborhood. The length of his broken chain was caught by the thorny bushes in the rank tangled grass. The dog met her with happy lament that woke the morning birds up. She looked around and understood the meaning of being happy.

Much later, when Fluffy had already passed away and Dad never told under which of the trees in the steep slope he buried the dog, she went off to live in a big city. In the tumult imprisoned between the stone street walls she was coming across neither birds nor trees to speak of, none of those she used to mingle with back in her childhood anyway. But still she knew for sure that moments of poignant unrestrained happiness did happen in your life.

That’s how she told me...

‘Yeah, that’s how she told me…’ repeated V to himself silently, not a sound produced, forgetful to press power button in the secondhand notebook, over which he craned his head and stilled a couple of minutes back.

‘Hopefully,’ added he with a wry smirk yet still as mutely as before, ‘this thought of mine would give the slip to their fucking net.’

They split in a correct, civilized manner. Each one moved to a separate lodging, their mutual account in the social net annulled and deleted.

For half a year he could hardly get it whether he was alive or otherwise. Then, little by little, he surfaced from the murky depth of his listless indifferent prostration. Developed a custom of shaving no seldomer than every other day and honored it. Almost.

To somehow fill his days, he began fiddling about computer things. A self-tutored programmer, no certifications, no allegiance to a particular programming language; a freelance outcast of no affiliation belonging to none of teams beavering about this or that product.

He just read tutorials and replicated their hands-on applications, typed away for hours fretting off the character marks in keyboard. Yep, he was typing, no copy-paste, all their snippets, anything, to whittle away the sticky boredom of his minutely regularized existence.

On the whole, he came on terms with a passable life style and they were getting on (V and his life-style) pretty well. Faith!

It’s only that at times he had those fits of phantom pain which may crash a guy’s limb long since it had been amputated.

There happened nights of desperate scramble to fight awakening off, he clutched and clung at the shreds of sleep to get back to the dissolving dream where he stood upright on his knees before her, his arms cast around her hips, his eyes dead closed—no! not yet! no waking up!—pressing his face tight to her womb...

Then he stretched supine midst black infinity. Wide awake. Indifferent. Unseeing eyes open. Just waiting for the morning to arrive.

In our beloved we love ourselves…

What?! Who told so?

Someone of too wise shitheads… what’s the difference?.

At times he also had those “gutted” days. Not overly often but they happened too, days filled with nothing, full of abysmal void. Stretches of time he had to live thru and, fortunately, he coped with the task. He did it by walking, sitting, producing occasional utterances, and waiting. He had nothing to wait for yet he knew that it would happen. What ‘it’ it should be he had no idea and simply waited for it to happen. Maybe, because of his waiting, such days passed too…

That sort of a day, exactly, V was in right now.

With a strange start, he woke and raised the notebook lid, wearily. The fleeting touch to the power button gave start to the slight purr in plastic innards.

A hurried knocking at the door made V start once again. He’d never entertained a visitor at his place, his rent was always paid a week earlier. Even the kids playing in the tier-deck-gallery, run along the row of identical apartment doors, never hit his one with a ball.

He got up and went over to answer. Right behind the door there stood Lex staring into V’s eyes. Unswervingly.

‘May I come in?’

‘What the f… How have you found me?’

‘I’ve been instructed how to answer this particular question… but may I come in first?’

‘Sure! Get in.’

V cautiously looked out in both ends of the desolate gallery grated with safety railing in rare spots of blurred glint reflecting yellowish bulb-light spilled, here and there, to contrast the gloomy dark of night with their cones of rarefied light.

Then he closed, and locked, and latched the door.