Where the Birds Hide at Night

by Gareth Wiles

‘We were so close, Peter; you and I.’

  ‘Stuart was always your favourite,’ I outright gave her, feeling I was lowering myself to these feeble human things.

  ‘Is that what you think?’ she asked angrily, her voice sharp.

  ‘It’s what I know.’

  She tutted, crossing her head. ‘Let us not fall out. You haven’t been back five minutes.’

  ‘I didn’t come back to fall out.’

  ‘What did you come back for?’

  ‘I came back because I could.’ I looked away from her. The sight of her was beginning to unnerve me. I felt something hitherto hidden – hitherto repressed – desperately clamouring to come back. Or, to remain hidden. It was agony. ‘I also came back because I no longer need to hide from you. I can confront you now.’

  ‘Hide from me?’ she laughed. ‘Why would you need to hide from me, your own mother?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I didn’t. It was a rather foolish thing. ‘I’ve done a lot of hiding. A lot of running away from things.’

  ‘You’re a coward, like your father. He was too afraid to even live, that’s why he just upped and died. Petty man.’

  ‘So I’m a petty coward, just like Father?’

  ‘That’s not what I’m saying at all,’ she dismissed, waving a veiny hand about.

  ‘Then what are you saying?’

  ‘You had a lot to run from,’ she mused, a brief glimmer of compassion seizing her.

  ‘Yes, Lucy’s murder for instance.’ At my mention of this, she straightened her arched back and cleared her throat. ‘I’d repressed the memory of that the most.’

  ‘As well you should. We have managed to move on from that,’ she said, pausing as she seemed to stop seeing. It was a difficult expression to describe, but I certainly saw it: her current vision drained, replaced by far-off recalls. ‘As a family,’ she finished, moving her gaze to mine.

  ‘I must find her killer,’ I told her, almost like an afterthought. ‘Now that Noose has been cleared of murder.’ A dreaded clamp wrapped around my chest, like there was something I really did know but had forced down so deeply that it had been lost in the abyss.

  ‘Oh Peter, you know Stuart was responsible for Lucy’s death. You’ve known all along. It was an accident – a terrible, sorry accident. It was better you forced yourself to forget it all. You and Stuart have had a very good relationship since, really.’

  I had known all along, and I had forced myself to forget; so much so that I had become sick with it. Lucy had first been denied life by my own brother, and then denied justice by the family cover-up. No more of this! It was all out in the open now, and I was ready to serve up some proper vengeance for the cruel murder of an innocent young woman.

  ‘Thank you Mother,’ I said calmly as I stood up, a weight lifted from my being. I felt very good, very complete.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she cried out as I left her, the revelation suddenly dawning on her. I did not answer her. She did not deserve an answer.

  * * *

  I didn’t quite know what to do. The flood of rage was drowning me but I just kept on walking, half knowing where my legs were taking me; to Stuart’s house. What would I do to him when I arrived was anyone’s guess. I, if there even was an I, was certainly complete again with not one single repression left lurking in me. Stuart would feel the full wrath of this completeness as I dished out justice on his physical form. But, then my body just stopped dead. I could move it no further, I was not in control. Was there an ebbing of my desire for destruction of my own brother? Why had I not already destroyed him, in the past, when I first became aware of his guilt before hiding it from myself? I now gave my thoughts to that past event, the full force in demonstration as I caught him weeping in his bedroom with Mother and Father by his side. He sobbed for forgiveness and pleaded not to be turned over to the police for the “mistake” he had committed. There I was, in the midst of both grief at my loss and anger at my near conviction for Lucy’s murder, and now Stuart’s confession was echoing through. Her killer had been my own brother, a constant rash on my existence for his arrogance and affront to it. He had taken my love, my life. I collapsed right there on the spot, seized by a self-pounding as my mind consumed itself. Never again would I remember – accept – Stuart’s guilt until this day. I had been running from it, allowing him to grow and grow in his sheer indestructible flippancy. He was my prosecutor, driving me down and down until there was little more than a hollow crack of bullshit. It was as though everything that had ever happened, or would ever happen, was just crap I’d invented in my head in order to force this deeper and deeper. It was too horrific to fully contemplate: my own brother murdering Lucy. Again the rage built, my body moving forward once more. It was not long before I had reached Stuart’s house. My hand was not my own as it bashed on the door. No reply. I found myself going around the back and breaking a window, climbing inside and hunting for him. The house was empty, I was alone.

  It was some time before he came home. I had lost any concept of how long I’d been waiting, and was left relatively undisturbed in my patience. The only interference had been several unanswered calls. When Stuart walked in, alone, the energy had fully drained from me. I sat at the top of the stairs and listened as he gently sobbed to himself.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked instinctively from my hiding place.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he yelled, clutching his chest. He squinted up at me from the hallway below. ‘Where the fucking hell have you been all these years? I thought you were dead.’ He wiped away some tears with his sleeve. ‘You might as well have been, you haven’t missed much.’

  ‘You seem upset.’

  ‘Diane’s left me, said I’m a waste of space.’ Again he looked up at me, limply outstretching his arms towards me. I got up and walked down the stairs towards him. I couldn’t quite believe it, but I found myself hugging him. His grip of me was loose. Still, this just wasn’t what was done in our family. His head turned, catching sight of the answer phone light flashing. He eased away from me and pressed the button.

  ‘You have one new message, message received today at 17:36,’ the automated voice announced.

  ‘Stuart my dear,’ Mother’s voice sounded from the phone, ‘where are you? Guess who’s back – and he remembers about Lucy.’

  ‘It was just an accident, Pete,’ he fumbled, a deep intake of breath seeming not to cease as he tried to avoid my face. ‘I fancied her, you see, just brotherly jealousy. I went to see her and it all happened so quickly. She misread my actions, thought I was trying to do something horrible to her. It all happened so quickly.’ He stepped slowly away from me, not turning his back, as I sorely wished this was again something I could forget and repress. But no, it would not end and I optioned my physicality to deal out pounding justice on his body. Nothing happened. I was frozen to the spot, Stuart getting further and further away until he was gone from the house. Once I felt he was far enough away, I picked up the phone and called the police. It was his turn to hide.

  * * *

  I was waiting for Lauren when she got home. She looked so much more vibrant and alive since Noose had been cleared. Still, the fact it was his own son who’d framed him was a difficult fact to get to grips with. The shattered mess of a man we’d been left with was also a burden on her, but she was much lighter in her step now. She smiled as she passed me and opened her fridge to get a drink out. ‘You need to get a job,’ were her first words to me. ‘You need to start doing something with your life, settle down.’

  ‘Settle down with you?’ I replied with a wry smile. She even gave me a smile back.

  ‘Stranger things have happened.’ She poured herself some apple juice and took a sip, dropping the day’s newspaper on the table in front of me. ‘I feel we’re all sort of turning a corner, you know?’

  I looked down at the front page of the paper, the headline reading: “ALEX WINS ELECTION!” For a brief blip I could see my long future ahead with Lauren. The perfect life full of burge
oning love. She was a woman who could give all the love in the universe to one man, and I was that man. But, she needed coaxing and allowed to blossom over time. As I stared down at Alex’s haunting face below me, I knew I couldn’t give her that time yet. Would I ever be able to? Reaping Icon would wreck terrible destruction on all of humanity through Alex, and I knew now that if I existed, Reaping Icon existed. To remove him would remove the sickness from the world, and in so doing I would be removing myself too.

  That night I allowed myself a glimpse of the life I would likely never lead, as Lauren and I cosied up on the sofa to watch an old film. I gave in to her simple needs, her basic wants – the cuddle, the peck on the cheek. These things brought down my centuries long struggles with the madness of anger and hatred. Our slow, warm intimacy made me want to die of pure happiness right there and then. And, it was better Lauren never find out who she really was.

  * * *

  These are not orders,

  They are observations.

  Giving up your borders,

  Leading to procrastinations.

  Profundity in abundance,

  Everyone has their five minutes.

  ALEX’S ISSUES

  (PART ONE)

  ‘It’s a happy day for me… a very happy day,’ Alex revelled.

  ‘It’s a happy day for us all, Leader,’ replied one of his doting minions, rubbing his eye. They were just mindless means to an end in both Alex’s opinion and in reality.

  ‘Yes, now I’m in a position to deal with all the sickness I see in society.’

  ‘Society’s ills are a major concern.’

  ‘So much illness. So much pain and suffering.’ Alex walked over to the large mirror on the wall. The fireplace below was glossy and grand, but being gas with fake coals made it less appealing to him. Anyway, it was off. He tried to look at himself, but he couldn’t see anybody. However, he’d come here so now he felt he had to stay for a while. The minion was also faceless; just a bland yawn of a man awaiting instructions to do something ineffectual. No, Alex had other ideas – ideas he would command from the safety of this office. He was the new Leader, and he would most certainly lead. Lead into misery. ‘So much…’ Alex uttered, pausing to think up the correct word. And then, Katie entered his mind. ‘Perversion.’ He smiled, hoping to see it in the mirror. There was nothing to see. ‘Our traditional values have been twisted and perverted,’ he carried on, as though formulating some imminent policy off the top of his head.

  At that moment, Ruby walked in from a little side door. Apron on, and duster in hand, she casually went about her business of ridding the room of dust. Well, moving it about. The static grab of the duster was slack, most of it simply shifting about in miniature whirlwinds as the operator of the duster whistled and hummed happily to herself. Arthur soon appeared too, pushing a vacuum cleaner. He slowly set about uncoiling the cable and looking for a free plug socket. Alex cleared his throat to get their attention, but they just carried on regardless. He did it again, more pronounced, and Arthur looked across.

  ‘You want to get a pack of lozenges for that throat, lad,’ Arthur remarked.

  ‘Get your lackey to pop out for some,’ Ruby added, pointing at the suited minion with her duster. She narrowed her eyes at the glaring man. ‘Looks like he’s slacking to me.’

  The minion suddenly looked on edge, fiddling with his tight collar and rubbing at his eye yet again as Alex focused his attention on him too. Ruby obviously felt she held some sway in this place, and that was enough for Alex to allow her to hold it. It amused him somewhat to think of this silly insignificant man working up a sweat over an old cleaning woman’s vague implications. Then again, why shouldn’t the man sweat? He’d spent his whole life crawling and tugging at the hem of wealth and power. Alex had just shot straight to the top within a matter of weeks. An act worth applauding. This snivelling suckling in front of the amazing Alex right now was all too willing to pay lip service in his continuing struggle to reach the top; but it must have frustrated him to some degree when he compared his own ongoing journey. He’d spent his entire life taking one step forward and two steps back, but he’d just about managed to reach his position in the offices of power. He’d been here a while, having dealt with the previous prime minister; and now had to crawl around ‘The Leader’. In many ways this was his office more than it was Alex’s – in his own mind, at least. And now the new crew were in, doing as they pleased and headed by the quick man who could rise up from obscurity to the most powerful position in the country in a flash. Still, the man certainly was a doting minion. Though a part of him grew more and more angry at Alex’s speedy rise, he was still in awe. It had been a superb feat, and this was still the honeymoon. The Leader could do no wrong at present. Well, with Reaping Icon in bodily form, he would never do any wrong… if there was nobody to stop him. It took a certain type of person to stop Reaping Icon – not that Reaping Icon had ever been stopped before. You fight evil with evil – even when the first evil is just quelling other evil to begin with. The minion knew nothing of Reaping Icon, and that was how it was to remain. Alex’s label was The Leader, and his rise was purely of his own doing – officially. There was much awe surrounding him. He had that affect on people now. All he’d have to do was think about how he wanted somebody to feel about him, and they would. It wouldn’t be an altogether full or ongoing feeling, but it was enough to create the buzz necessary to do as he wished. The Space was at his whim, just a malleable tool to ease the task at hand. Nothing more.

  ‘Something wrong with your eye?’ Ruby asked the man as she and Alex kept on with their intense staring.

  ‘No, no, not at all,’ he stuttered, trying not to rub as he twitched. ‘Just an eyelash in my eye, it’s gone now.’

  Ruby dismissed him with a flick of the duster, and he dashed, overwhelmingly relieved, from the room. She now turned to Alex as Arthur went about vacuuming the crimson carpet. ‘So what are your plans now, oh Leader?!’ she chuckled over the noise.

  He smiled back, but did not reply. Ruby didn’t need an answer, she needed nothing. She already had everything she’d ever wanted.

  * * *

  Give me a reason,

  Supply more than goods.

  I am gripping,

  On tenterhooks.

  THERE’S AN EYELASH IN MY EYE

  There’s an eyelash in my eye, and it’s driving me crazy. I’ve been trying to get it out for over an hour now, and it just won’t come. I’ve tried everything from rinsing my eye out to just plain rubbing it, and I’m fresh out of ideas. My eye is getting pretty sore now, and no matter what I do it is so irritating. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. The longest I’ve ever had an eyelash in my eye for in the past is about five minutes. Even that felt like an age. Usually, with a bit of rubbing and rinsing, it comes out. Sometimes I can even see the eyelash floating around in there if I look in a mirror and pull my bottom eyelid down. Not this time, no! This time is the worst eyelash in my eye incident I’ve ever had. I suppose you have to laugh, really, that it’s been going on for over an hour and I probably will laugh once I have it out. What to do next, though? I’ve gone right around the houses with methods to get it out, so the only thing to do is try them all again. It’s getting so, so sore now that it really isn’t much of a laughing matter at all. In fact, it’s more of a crying matter. I haven’t cried in a long time, but this situation certainly warrants tears. I’ll blow my nose and see if that gets the damn thing out. Another rinse too, and that might just do it. Oh God, I look so awful. Here I am, silently screaming as I plead with my own reflection to help me out. If I can’t do anything myself, what is my reflection going to do? This is madness, I’m talking to my own reflection now! Those sort of people are crackers, aren’t they? Talking to yourself is just a self-indulgent waste of time. Still, that’s what I’ve always thought up until maybe right this very second as I’m doing just that. Here I am, the man with the fucking eyelash in his eye and it’s getting more and more pain
ful as the time passes. It must be well over an hour by now. I should really have kept a tab on when I first felt the eyelash, then I’d know the exact time wouldn’t I? I suppose the reason I didn’t make a note of the time is because usually an eyelash in my eye never lasts more than a few minutes. I really should have made a note of the time, then I’d have a record of this bizarre, rather horrible event. I shouldn’t swear, but fuck it! This kind of pain truly does warrant lots of swearing. It’s difficult to explain the pain. It’s almost like a culmination of every possible pain there is, but compressed down and focused on a small body part. There’s a bit of drowning as I get short of breath because I’m so worked up, and a bit of stabbing as I jab my bloody eye. I almost feel like I’m on fire with the searing throb of the rubbed eye. Bloody hell, I’m going mad standing here trying to sort this out. I’ve got so much work to do, I can’t afford to have this bastard eyelash in my eye. It’s ruining my day. No, it’s ruined my day. No matter how long it now takes to get out – it could pop out right now, or take another hour – this day will go down in history as the day I had the worst eyelash in my eye ever! Oh God imagine it, another hour of this! I think I’d have to kill myself before I let another hour pass in this condition. This isn’t living, it’s not even existing. I feel like I’m caught in some kind of purgatory between life and death. It is sheer torment, like an everlasting hell with no let-up. No, it’s not even like a state between life and death; that would be far more tolerable. This kind of annoyance goes far beyond any kind of comparison. It is unbelievably beyond anything else yet suffered by the entire history of life on any planet anywhere in the universe. I’m babbling, I’m off my head! Look, just calm down and let’s get this out of my eye once and for all. If I just settle my breathing and think logically about this, I can sort it all out and my life can go back to normal. I’ve got all this work to do; nobody else is going to do it are they?! And, nobody else here has got an eyelash in their eye either, have they? I’m all alone in here, nobody has been in to check if I’m alright. Nobody cares about me having an eyelash in my eye. It’s not like cancer, or a heart attack is it? I should count my blessings really, I’m very lucky I haven’t got cancer. Still, my eye is throbbing now with this irritant in it and to all intents and purposes I could very easily have a massive inoperable brain tumour pummelling at my eye from behind. At this exact moment in time, right now, I could be seconds from its explosion inside my brain. My head is just milliseconds from popping like an over-inflated balloon. The mirror I’m looking at would be home to the splattered goo that remained of my face. Maybe my face would look better as mere goo, because at the moment it looks dreadful. I can’t quite see that it is my face because I’m losing vision in one eye. The other is straining to see but it can’t quite make anything out now. Maybe it’s all in my head, a desperate attempt to detach myself from this body as that twat of an eyelash does its evil bidding from my eye. Maybe there is no eyelash in my eye at all, and it’s all a figment of my imagination? Would my imagination be so cruel as to do that to me? To itself? I don’t feel myself at all anymore, even though my life has been pretty good of late. There were simply no worries whatsoever in my life up until just over an hour ago. I’ve got a lovely partner, well-paying high-powered job; the works. What have I done to deserve an eyelash in the eye? No, I really should count my blessings. When this torment is all over, my life will go back to the way it was before. I might be behind with my work, but there are mitigating circumstances. Alex will understand when I explain that I had an eyelash in my eye. Everyone has experienced that, surely? I’m not so sure they have. Nobody could have experienced this prolonged level of injustice and survived to tell the tale. Then again, it is no tale. I’m not going to just turn this into some sort of after dinner comical anecdote and cheapen the frustration and horror. Oh, listen up my friends, I spent several hours weeping in agony as I struggled to get an eyelash out of my eye! What a complete and utter tosser I’d sound. Perhaps my friends already see me as a tosser and an anecdote about my suffering wouldn’t make much of a difference to their opinions of me? I really should ask them what they actually think of me. Right now I reckon I could ask anyone anything, and say whatever I wanted to say. I could walk straight up to a crazed lunatic pointing a loaded gun at me, put my lips around it, and tell him to go to hell. I can do anything right now, except get this eyelash out of my eye. I’m completely powerful and completely powerless all at the same time, able to conquer the greatest evil yet brought to my knees by an eyelash in my eye. Yes, here I am on my knees now, with my head in my hands crying like a little git. Nobody could care in the slightest about my pain, could they? They let it all wash over their heads as my eye pulsates with greater and greater ferocity. How would they like it? How would they like to suffer as I am? Maybe I should gouge my eye out and force it into their skull to let them feel the pain! See how they like it! They’re all laughing at me, I know it. Everybody in the entire world is roaring with laughter at the stupid little git on his knees in the bathroom. No, let’s get up. Pull yourself together, you fool! Nobody is laughing at me, are they? Although, I can kind of hear laughter. If I stay silent long enough, suppress even the voice in my own head, I can just about make out a distant giggling. Is it for my benefit, or is there something else going on that I don’t know about? I don’t know about anything now, I’m completely broken and finished. This is so utterly spirit-breaking for me. Nonsense, I’m not dying, I’ve only got an eyelash in my eye. Only? Do people not know how painful it is?! It is agony, the pain of a million tropical diseases rolled into one syringe and injected directly into my pupil. This is madness, madness, madness! I need to laugh about this, laughter is the best medicine! Haha, oh how funny it is to have an eyelash in my eye causing me so much grief. There isn’t even a window in here for me to look out of or get some fresh air. I’d never noticed that before now. All I’d done was shoot in and out of here for a piss or a poo, never giving the actual room any consideration at all. I now know everything there is to know about this room. Or do I? Maybe now I know there’s no window in this room it proves I know even less about here than I did before? I know nothing at all about anything, all the information I’ve seemingly clung onto so easily in life now pouring out of me and speeding away down the drain. I need some fresh air, badly. I can’t get any in here, I’m closed in as the walls tower above and close in. But, I can’t go out there and seek any oxygen; if I do, I’ll be exposing myself to all and sundry to be made the laughing stock of the entire office. I’ll never live this down, never be able to regain any kind of respect ever again. Forever I will be the little git who was brought crashing to his knees by an eyelash in his eye. That’ll never do, I can’t be that person in their eyes. I must retain the impression they already have of me. Well, the impression I think they have of me. For all I know I’m already the idiot who gets brought down by an eyelash in his eye. I’d never given it much thought before today, never before pondered much upon what people thought of me. If anything, having this eyelash in my eye has made me see more clearly than I have ever done before. I’m beginning to see people for who they really are, beginning to see what they really think of me. It is not pretty, but it is truth and truth is far more honest than what went before it. This eyelash in my eye has changed everything, it is the beginning of the rest of my life. It will reshape who I am and what I think. Hello again, face! My eye is really bloodshot now, but that doesn’t matter. The pain and sight of it is such a small payment to make for the clarity it is delivering me. It’s giving me time to think now, for possibly the first time in my entire life. Do I really like my job? I certainly don’t like the people I work with. They’re all horrible, horrible people with sad little lives who just go on and on about the same things over and over again. I hate that, I can’t stand their self-obsession. It is not me at all, I am not like them in any possible way. And, Alex is the worst of the lot. The Leader? How pompous. Such a liar and a cheat, and the most idiotic person you could ever come acro
ss. That he could possibly think himself fit to lead anyone, let alone me, is anyone’s guess. I should be The Leader, he has no right to tell me what to do. And then there’s my partner! Hah, that’s the biggest joke of the lot. If there’s anything more irritating than an eyelash in the eye, it’s her and her constant moaning and telling me what to do. If anything, I’ve kind of got caught up in the whole thing. I never wanted to go out with her, I just wanted a girlfriend because everyone else had one. It’s gone on far too long now though, it’s too late to back out of it now. Everything has gotten ever so serious, with our families merging and us living together. There’s so much talk of a wedding, I just don’t know what she has planned for my life. Just like this eyelash, it’s never me who plans my life; everything is laid out in front of me in the order they want it to happen. There is the set path I must follow, and God forbid I deviate from it! In fact, the more I actually think about it, my life has been one long torment in which this eyelash saga is just the latest attack. I must be thankful that the rogue eyelash has afforded me this insight. It has been delivered from some higher being with the purpose of forcing me to see where my life has been going wrong. I will not ignore this opportunity to start afresh and alter things for the better. I have been gifted with a second chance by the eyelash, it is wise and all-knowing! Now I know I have lost the plot. An eyelash with higher powers? I’ve flipped my lid. Is it any wonder I’m going out of my head in here with this awful eyelash in my eye? So many rinses, so many blows of the nose, and still nothing. If I rub it any more I’m afraid I’m going to start punching it. I could just grab a pen out of my jacket pocket and stab the fucker. Stab myself right in the eye, pull it out and flush it down the toilet! That would serve it right for not flushing out this eyelash by itself. Does my eye want me to suffer? Is it punishing me on purpose? Perhaps I have looked upon something that I shouldn’t have in the past, and this is my penance. I’ve done no wrong in my life, I’ve caused no suffering to anyone. Except myself, probably. This is yet another opportunity for my own body to make me suffer, push me to the edge of fragility and watch me teeter like a helpless baby starved of its mother’s milk. I could do with a drink, actually, but again I cannot leave this room until the eyelash is out. I’d drink my own damn piss if it meant the eyelash would come out. What then, though? I fear the time after the eyelash has come out, it represents the next stage of my life; the stage where I must make good my decision to change things. As long as the eyelash remains in my eye, so does my current set of circumstances. I just cannot believe it! I blinked really hard and it’s gone, vanished from my eye! The torment has disappeared, I am free from the eyelash’s reign of tyranny. Hurrah, huzzah, oh how silly I have been. I didn’t mean any of what I said, my life is fine as it is and I was just worked up is all. I can leave the bathroom happy in the knowledge that I just had a brief blip in my life, just a flash of the darkness that has thankfully not befallen me before. You must be fucking joking, I’ve got to the door and blinked heavily again – it’s back, worse than ever before! There’s an eyelash in my eye, and it’s driven me crazy.