The Absence of Sparrows

by Kurt Kirchmeier

  There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Dad put his hands together and bowed his head. “I’ll say grace,” he said, closing his eyes.

  Mom quickly put her own hands together and followed his lead, but not Pete, and not me either. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to say grace but because I saw the way that my older brother had set his jaw and crossed his arms in defiance, almost daring Dad to look up at him again before starting, which I was certain he would, and then our nice meal truly would be ruined. There would be an argument, and Pete would get sent to our room. Mom and I would sit there quietly until it was over, and then we’d eat, with nobody saying anything, just chewing and swallowing and feeling sad that our one empty placement had turned into two. I could already see it so clearly that it seemed inevitable.

  I guess nothing is, though.

  Instead the power went out without Dad or Mom even realizing it. Dad parted his lips to begin the prayer but got no further. The only sound that escaped was a gasp of air, a sudden inhalation, followed by silence.

  The change didn’t start in one place and then spread out from there, as it had with old man Crandall. It was more like that chemistry experiment we did once in science class, mixing iodine and starch together in water. One instant the water is clear, and the next it’s black, the transformation happening so fast that you could blink your eyes and miss it. I didn’t blink, though, and I don’t think that Pete did either.

  Mom was still waiting for grace. Perhaps she hadn’t heard the intake of breath, or maybe she had simply mistaken it as a sigh from Pete. It wasn’t until a crow cawed once from outside, close by, possibly right up on our roof, that she finally opened her eyes and lifted her head. Dad was solid glass, through and through, polished as a showroom Cadillac. Obsidian. Mom’s face went instantly pale.

  “No! No! No!” she said, jumping up from her chair. “No, Logan, you can’t! You promised!”

  I thought she was going to slap him for a second, the way you might slap someone who had fallen into a trance, but then she stopped herself, maybe because she was afraid to touch him, or maybe because she realized it was too late. Dad was gone. It was just the three of us now and nothing was going to change that. I watched as her arms fell uselessly to her sides. She began to sob.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Darkness came and went as the glass plague intensified. No longer was Griever’s Mill just on the periphery of things, experiencing the ongoing nightmare to a lesser degree than everywhere else. We now sat right at its epicenter. Or maybe it only seemed that way, since even during those moments of blue sky and sun that still appeared like bright islands amidst a black ocean, there was a different sort of darkness that never lifted.

  I decided to start sleeping downstairs on the big chair near the fireplace. I wanted to be close to Dad just in case he came back, or even in case he shattered. I didn’t want Mom to be the first to find him like that. Though in truth that probably wouldn’t have happened anyway; she was pretty much avoiding the dining room entirely.

  She moved through the house like a ghost now, stuck in an endless loop that began at her bed and ended at the kitchen window, the only occasional deviation from those two points being the bathroom, where she would sometimes run the water for an hour at a time, perhaps to drown out the sound of her crying, or maybe to drown out the sound of everything else, which, curiously, no longer included the normally incessant chatter of house sparrows. I hadn’t seen the ones that lived in our yard since Dad’s departure.

  “I don’t understand,” Mom had whispered at the window after noticing their absence. “I don’t understand what’s happening.” The loss of her birds was just one more insult to add to the rest, one more stupid and unfair kick to the teeth.

  I didn’t understand it either, especially since the chickadees and nuthatches and finches were still around. It was only Mom’s sparrows that had left, even her special bird, the leucistic one with white wings. It didn’t make sense, and Mom appeared to be taking it personally, as if the universe intended to steal from her every last thing that she loved.

  I felt like telling her, I’m still here and I’m not leaving, but her sadness stood like a wall I could barely see over, let alone break through or climb. And besides, I was sad, too, and she was my mother; she should have been comforting me.

  In his own way, Pete was gone, too, adrift in the static and whispers of his radio, seeking solace in the voice of a stranger instead of in the company of what remained of his family. Maybe that was partly my fault for not staying with him in our room, but I’m not sure it would have mattered. Occasionally he would come down and enter the dining room, but it was always with a certain wariness, as if Dad had become an imposter who might suddenly wake.

  I guess I worried about that as well. Not so much that he’d be an imposter, but that he might not recognize me as his son, or even his own reflection in a mirror. Worse yet, he might be stuck that way forever.

  The ones who’d come back were showing no signs at all of returning to normal. It was as though they’d been partially lobotomized, or had witnessed things so awful and unthinkable that something inside their minds had simply let go, snapping like low-weight fishing line.

  I kept on following the news because I felt like I should, but little of it actually touched me. I understood that entire economies were collapsing, and that shipments of food and supplies and medicine had pretty much stopped all over the world. I knew that in many of the big cities, food riots and looting had led to fires that now burned out of control, forcing families onto the streets with only the clothes on their backs and whatever else they could carry. Loved ones who’d turned to glass were simply left behind, to explode in the heat. Millions had turned to glass globally, and perhaps a third of them had shattered since then. Thousands had come back, but none of them in any meaningful way. Regression continued to be the only way to communicate with them, and those communications continued to be as much a source of frustration as they were of answers. Even under hypnosis, few responded to questioning. Most of what we learned came from repetition, as the few who talked shared similar details that hinted at a common experience. They spoke of fire and lightning, of blood and death; with wide-eyed intensity, they whispered of trenches of mud and pools of acid, of bones piled higher than the eye could see. It all seemed to be adding up to some sort of war—an End Times sort of war.

  I understood all this, but the magnitude of it seemed so far above me and so far away, so impossible. Never mind that the proof was right there in front of me, his head bowed and his hands clasped firmly together.

  It took me a while, but I finally screwed up my courage enough to touch him. I needed to know if he truly was as cold as he looked. I placed the back of my hand to his forehead, the same way that he and Mom always checked my temperature when I got sick. Surprisingly, he wasn’t cold at all; in fact, the warmth of the glass seemed to match that of my own skin. This was reassuring to me, for surely warmth must represent life and cold the opposite.

  I stood there for a long moment like that, with my hand against his head, not really thinking or remembering anything in particular, just feeling the presence of him. As long as he remained in one piece, I told myself, there was hope.

  TWENTY-NINE

  I’m drawing your favorite bird,” I told Dad. I held my pad up so he could see it, even though, of course, he couldn’t see it. Dad couldn’t see anything anymore, at least not in this world.

  Like Pete, Dad wasn’t really into birds, but he did have a favorite: the black-capped chickadee. He liked the sounds they made in the mornings when he was leaving for work, the chicka-chicka-chickas and the dee-dee-dees. The friendly chatter made him smile. It made me smile, too, as did the memory of him pausing on the front step, his ear cocked to listen.

  I put my pad back down and continued working. “I’ll show it to you again when I’m finished,” I said.

  “I don’t think he can hear you,” Pete said from behind me.

  I started
a little, my pencil nearly piercing the page. I hadn’t heard him come down.

  “I know he can’t,” I replied. “So what?”

  Pete shrugged. “Just saying.”

  I glowered at him. He didn’t have his radio on his shoulder, which was unusual.

  “Did your batteries die again?” I asked. He’d already turned the house over twice to find more, and would likely start searching our neighbors’ houses next—the abandoned ones, that is.

  He shook his head. “I thought you might want to talk,” he said.

  “About what?”

  He shrugged again. “I don’t know, just stuff. Are you sleeping okay down here?”

  “I guess so,” I said. I wasn’t, though. Not at all.

  Pete glanced over at the fireplace, where I’d already stacked some wood in preparation for tonight. I’d been thinking about our family camping trips, and how this would be the first summer we didn’t go on one. I thought it might be nice to have a fire, even though we didn’t need the heat. Maybe I could roast a marshmallow.

  “Don’t forget to open the damper if you have a fire later,” Pete said.

  “I know,” I told him.

  “Okay,” he replied. “Is Mom lying down again?”

  “She has a migraine,” I said, which was the same thing I’d told Constable Sheery earlier when he called to check in on us. He already knew about Dad, and had let others know as well. A few stopped by to say how sorry they were, and one even brought us a big box of fresh vegetables and eggs from his farm.

  “Thought you could use this,” he’d said. “Your dad helped my boy a couple of winters back, after he fell through some ice.”

  I asked him how his boy was doing now.

  “He’s doing just fine,” the man told me.

  “Good,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “My wife is doing some canning,” the man continued. “Maybe I’ll come back again with some jars.”

  I said thanks again and waved at him as he drove off, and that would be the last I ever saw of him. Perhaps he turned to glass like Dad did, or possibly his wife turned first, or maybe he just simply changed his mind, deciding that it wasn’t worth burning all that gas, and that the canned food was too precious to part with. Whatever the case, I was glad to have what he’d already given us.

  I had put the box down on the table close to Dad, but Pete had since moved it into the kitchen. I guess he didn’t want to be reminded of our situation every time he felt like having a carrot.

  Pete plopped himself down on the arm of the couch and glanced out between the open curtains. He started swinging his leg back and forth, and seemed sort of distracted and fidgety, like he was no longer sure what to do with himself if he didn’t have a mostly dead speaker hissing into his ear.

  “There’s a woman in Mississippi who got arrested for shattering her husband with an ice pick,” he finally said. “Her neighbor saw her do it, but they’re not sure if they can charge her with murder since her husband wasn’t technically alive anymore.”

  “He wasn’t technically dead either,” I pointed out. He probably wasn’t even cold. Not if Dad was any indication.

  “I know,” said Pete. “That’s the problem. What do you call it? Attempted murder? Manslaughter? Vandalism?”

  “Why’d she do it?” I asked.

  “She said he was abusive, and was scared that if he came back it might get worse. She showed the police some bruises.”

  “Self-defense?” I wondered.

  Pete nodded. “That’s what I said.”

  I thought about it a moment longer before deciding that it was probably a little more complicated than that. “Maybe she just didn’t want to take care of him if he did come back,” I said.

  Dad used to warn us about only seeing things in black or white. He said the world was mostly shades of gray.

  “Could you blame her if she didn’t?” said Pete.

  I shook my head. “I guess not, but she could’ve just left. There was no need to shatter him.”

  “I suppose,” said Pete, although it was clear by the look on his face that he didn’t think the woman had done anything wrong. I started to wonder how many others around the world had been shattered on purpose. In the absence of any witnesses, how would anyone know? You could just pretend that it was spontaneous fragmentation and people would pretty much have to believe you.

  I shuddered to think of how people like the Messam twins might react to this realization. By going on shattering sprees, perhaps—turning their slingshots on their neighbors instead of using them to break old windows in abandoned buildings. I wondered if we should keep our curtains closed just in case Lars came sniffing around.

  It occurred to me then as I thought of the twins that Pete and I had never gone back to get our wagon. Had anyone found it there in the alley? Did it even matter?

  Pete stopped swinging his leg and stood up. “I’m gonna go check on Mom,” he said.

  I noticed belatedly that he had tucked in his shirt, and tried to remember if this was the first time he’d ever done so. I was pretty sure it was, and I almost asked him why, but then I noticed that he was also wearing one of Dad’s belts, and it hit me. With Dad being gone, Pete now considered himself to be the man of the house.

  I felt a sudden rush of anger, and it must have shown in my eyes, as Pete paused before going upstairs.

  “What?” he asked.

  “That’s Dad’s belt.”

  He looked down at the belt and then back up at me. “So?”

  “So, he didn’t tell you that you could wear it.”

  “Well, I can’t exactly ask him, can I?”

  “Take it off,” I said.

  He gave me a weird look.

  “And since when do you tuck in your shirt?” I asked him.

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Dad didn’t leave you in charge,” I reminded him. “He told us to look after each other.”

  “I’m the oldest,” Pete said flatly.

  “Barely.”

  “Still,” he said. “I am.” And then he turned and left the room, saying, “I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” over his shoulder.

  I don’t need you! I almost yelled at him, but the words never got past my lips, because they weren’t true. I needed him as my brother and as my friend, just as I needed Mom to be my mom again. I looked down at my half-finished chickadee and started to cry.

  THIRTY

  I awoke at four a.m. to a noise outside. It sounded like gasping and heaving, like someone in the process of being sick.

  I sat up, forgetting for a moment that I was on the living room chair and not in my bed. I glanced sideways at the fireplace, where a few small embers continued to glow. Then I cocked my head and listened, wondering if maybe I’d dreamed the sound.

  Nope, there it was again, definitely coming from outside, and close, too.

  I crept to the window and pulled the corner of the curtain just a fraction of an inch away from the wall so I could look out without being seen by anyone who might be looking in. A drunk, perhaps, throwing up out there in our grass. Or maybe not. The front yard was empty, so I pulled the curtain back just a little bit farther. I could now see the driveway as well, and sure enough there was somebody there, crouched low beside the back tire of Dad’s truck.

  My heart started pounding. I squinted to see better, and noticed that the person was holding a hose that ran down from the truck’s gas tank to a jerry can on the driveway. The person hunched over sideways and retched again, and immediately I understood what had happened: He must have swallowed some of the gas when he started siphoning. I’d seen Uncle Dean siphon once from a wrecked car in his garage and I knew that if you weren’t careful doing it, things could go badly.

  I stood there watching for a minute, not really sure what to do. I couldn’t just let someone take our gas, could I? It seemed cowardly not to do something, but what? Knock on the window to let him know I could see him? Go outside and try to chase him off
? What if I wasn’t able to? What if the person got violent? Uncle Dean’s truck was still out there, too, so it wasn’t as if we didn’t have a vehicle with fuel.

  I was still debating with myself when the person pulled the hose out and rotated the gas cap back on again. He stood up then, his body now partially silhouetted by the streetlight, or rather, her body. The shape and curves left no question that this was a woman.

  She paused before making off with our fuel, looking this way and that to make sure that no one had seen her, the light from the streetlamp hitting her face just long enough for me to recognize her. It was Mrs. Gilmour from the end of the block—a nice woman who taught piano and who had babysat Pete and me a few times when we were younger. I remembered that she’d baked us cookies. Peanut butter cookies.

  I wasn’t sure why, but this realization made me pull the curtain all the way to the side.

  The movement must have registered in Mrs. Gilmour’s periphery, because she immediately turned and looked right at me, then shrank like a thief caught red-handed, which I guess she was. Her expression was lost in shadow now, but I imagined that if I could see it, I would find shame there, and desperation, and perhaps even a touch of defensiveness, since she must’ve needed the gas real bad or she wouldn’t be stealing it.

  A moment passed as we considered each other. I finally lifted my hand and waved at her, just a simple hello in the dead of the night, between neighbors. She waved back, and then quietly went on her way, her gas can firmly in hand. I closed the curtain and returned to my chair.

  THIRTY-ONE

  A week went by, most of it passing in darkness. I started to wonder how people could live in the Arctic Circle with no sun for months at a time. I wondered how they stayed sane.

  The meat in our freezer all spoiled. The electricity wasn’t coming on often enough, or staying on long enough, to keep it frozen. Pete said the outages were due to some kind of interference, sort of like how the power grid could go down when particles from the sun interfered with the atmosphere. In that case you’d at least have some pretty northern lights to look at.