they say the owl was a baker's daughter: four existential noirs

by KUBOA

  I got up, looked at Donald as best as I could, my lip stiff but trembling, wheezes of high pitched nonsense burping from my throat. He was putting more bullets in his gun, looked at me while he did it.

  My face screwed around itself like a hand, like it was trying to cover its own eyes, shrink inside of itself, burying itself in itself.

  I didn’t cower this time, stood, weak beyond falling, watched him empty five more shots into the carcass of the old woman, then one into the wall, then one into the ceiling, then another into the wall.

  It seemed to go on forever.

  He walked out of the room casually and I followed, immediately, like a chastised child, wiping my sleeves at my face, chest shuddering like I should say something, wanted to know where we were going, wanted to ask if I could just stay—I just didn’t want to have to do anything else, be anywhere else.

  When we were down the front steps, out in the cold, he shoved me hard and I fell over, easily, not even struggling, rolled more than I needed to from his force. He kicked me in the side and I bucked, closed up around myself, moaning like I’d moan if I were just playing a game of it. He kicked me again, stepped hard on my leg, on my calves, twisted his foot down, all his weight, then he used the toe of his boot to kick almost that same spot.

  I crawled away a bit, enough to get into a sitting position, Donald with another cigarette lighting, the gun likely in his pocket. He took a stride in my direction and I involuntarily covered as much of myself as I could with my crossed arms. He stopped, crouched, took up a random handful of dirt and the mash of leaves, approached me, crouched again, grabbed at my cheeks to make me open my mouth, but I kept it closed so he just forced the mess into my clenched teeth, onto my eyelids, choked me for maybe two seconds then stood up.

  For a long while, I thought he was gone. I was just left there, laid down on my back, rolled to my side, eyes closed, shivering until I stopped noticing. It was like sleep, very close to sleep, looking at the back of my eyes, listening to the frozen of the quiet, all alone, comfortable in that, the way an insect must feel if set down in a different field than it had been picked up from, no difference, no more or less lost than living where it had been born.

  Donald was dragging his foot, the heel of it, along the bottom of the front stairs, a kind of odd little hop, a game of seeing how smoothly he could do it. When he saw me looking at him, he stopped, titled his head we had to go.

  ***

  We were a good distance from the house, the ground seeming particularly uneven, when I looked up to see that we were not heading back down the path but into the thick of woods. I looked behind us, had no idea which direction the house had been, just followed Donald, looking at his pants becoming damp and soiled around the cuffs.

  The trees opened up into a length of field, mostly mud, some swatches of tall stiff grass here and there, more trees waiting on the other side. It was where he was going to kill me—this is what I thought when we stopped, the only way I could understand why he had beaten me, yet looking at him, all of the violence seemed to have vanished, he seemed almost wistful, relaxed, looked at me, told me to keep walking.

  About three quarters of the way into the field there was an arrangement of stones, some of them partway submerged, he went to his knees next to it and told me to help him dig. Not waiting for me to start, using both hands, humping himself into the motion, he scratched at the pulpy, half stiffened mud, strained at pulling out the first larger bit of rock he could, discarded it beside us.

  I got myself down, hesitantly put my hand to the dirt on the opposite side of the rock.

  -We’re digging this whole thing up?

  He stopped, pointed at where my hands were, nodding.

  -The whole thing.

  I began by scratching, but soon fell into Donald’s rhythm, fell almost into a harmony with him, feeling out the size of the larger stones, always astonished when there would be another after one came free. We were both breathing heavily, worse for the cold, I was coughing and my throat felt awful, probably my insides raw and aching from my fit of crying which oddly, while I dug, felt far away, a relic.

  At one point Donald stood, had himself a cigarette, looking off, looking at the tree line we hadn’t come from so that I vaguely wondered were we heading off that way, next, but mostly I was just intent on my digging.

  Two minutes after he rejoined me, Donald unearthed a little metal box, spent a moment trying to get it clean, the dirt of, but it was sullied to the point that even larger scabs were permanent, would need a bath in hot water to come away. He didn’t open it, just put it in his pocket, dusted at himself, slapped at his filthy clothes and when this seemed to dissatisfy him he told me to walk with him and we made our way back to the house.

  Back on the second level, taking the other turn, the broken door to the dead couple’s room letting light and shadow seep out like a carelessly overturned cup, Donald told me there should be something that we could wear, something that would fit. I waited in the hall while he dug through some cardboard boxes stored in a large closet. As he found garments we would use, he’d toss them at me and I draped them over my arm, just looking down at him, the back of his neck. I imagined his body there, strangled, contorted into an unrecognizable form, imagined it being overlooked by investigators, at first, because it would seem the long dead corpse of some stray animal, looked at his hunched over back and imagined myself beating him with an empty gun, glad it was empty, glad he would feel his life dribble out a blow at a time, a sound at a time, that his death would be long and boringly percussive.

  He had stripped down and was almost fully dressed, again by the time I shook off my reverie, immediately started disrobing, as well. In the moments I was naked, I felt peaceful, appropriate, I would have drawn out those moments, even let Donald run his hands over me sensually, let him beat me again if I could have kept all of my skin exposed.

  -I’ll just keep my own coat, I said when he nudged the thick coat he’d taken from the box with the side of his foot. He didn’t argue and I was burying my hands in my pockets as we walked back down the stairs, back outside, down the path to the road.

  -That really didn’t have anything to do with you, Donald said, another statement I wasn’t sure I was the intended recipient of. He didn’t look at me when I didn’t respond, just made distinct sniffles and wiggled his hands, fingers heavy cold rubber, out in front of him, put them back into his coat, one around the gun, one around the filthy old box.

  Headlights illuminated a turn in front of us and soon a car moved past, the driver squinting at us. He slowed down, stopped, but he didn’t say anything when we walked past him and once we were ten yards further on he accelerated past and soon there was no trace of his ever having been there, the gasoline smell of exhaust dissipated, the memory of it even seeming imaginary.

  It felt a long time since I’d seen another person, but then images of the old man, the old woman, Greg, Cynthia came to me—I got hung up trying to remember the name of Donald’s wife, tried and tried, eventually gave up, it didn’t matter if I remembered her name, plenty of other people would—I’d been around people all night, as much as it seemed I’d been just with Donald, by myself.

  There was something alive in the bushes across the road, some of the branches moved differently than the others which just had the normal uneasy stir of cold and slight unevenness of the moving air to them.

  I wondered would the car be gone, but it was there, and soon I was sitting at the wheel, warm air grumbling from every vent, Donald instructing me on how to get back to the highway.

  ***

  The sky began to colour, I noticed it as soon as we were out of the tree lined, narrow roads—a touch of orange, off-blue, not even quite a clean trace of the horizon line, like a blur of colour beginning from the center, slowly rising around itself.

  Donald turned up the radio and several songs I didn’t recognize played, commercials came up, he turned the volume down.

&nbs
p; -You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?

  The question hung there, Donald so unmoved I rather doubted I’d spoken aloud, couldn’t bring myself to repeat it. The silence was answer enough, how else would it end? It again felt near the end, but how many times in the course of just this night had I thought that?

  We were moving back in the direction of the city where he’d first accosted me, though, so this gave a particular sense of direness to things, a circle unconsciously closing itself, nothing left to do.

  -I don’t know what I’m going to with you, he said, a yawn starting with the last word. He excused himself, repeated it. I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.

  I tried to imagine myself opening the car door, rolling out, or just dashing out at a traffic light—now that so much had happened, now that things were so wound down, escape seemed as simple as this, like it would be impossible to think that death could follow such an action.

  He put the gun to my side, the muzzle right against a rib, held it there, not even looking. I tried to get a view of him in the rearview mirror, just saw my own eyes, blank, no panic, nothing.

  -Do you think I have any bullets left?

  I couldn’t look at my own eyes while I answered, just the few cars slipping onto the road, the smear of colour in the sky growing just a little bit wider.

  -I think you do.

  He tapped the muzzle against me in sets of three.

  -You think so?

  His voice didn’t sound like he was looking in my direction, it sounded like he was idly watching something out the window, like he was talking down at his own stomach, into the folds of his coat.

  -I think you do, yes.

  He had a short bout of coughing, the gun coming away for a moment, but then he put it back, coughing, the strain of trying to stop himself evident in how much pressure he was pressing the weapon against me with.

  -The coughing passed and he said I think I might, too, honestly, I’m pretty sure I do.

  I thought of him firing into the woman’s body, into the wall, into the ceiling.

  Had I heard him pull the trigger to a click? And if I had, was I certain there hadn’t been a moment he might have reloaded—while I was blubbering, while I’d been digging?

  If the gun against me was a posture, then he really had lost his upper hand, had nothing—perhaps I’d betrayed something of what I’d been thinking and he’d figured this as the only way to keep me subdued, maybe he’d meant to reload but hadn’t, needed me under his thumb until another opportunity could be manufactured. By this point, I really could run when the car stopped, he was too fatigued to do anything, there would be no wild spree of killing, nothing that wasn’t comparative to what he’d already done, nothing that had any more or less to do with me.

  The gun came away, a moment later the sharp slap of a shot sounding. I swerved, regained control, wheeled to look at him, shocked to see him looking at me, didn’t even notice the muzzle was back against my side, right away, warmth from it sharp through the fabric of my shirt and coat.

  -Do you think I have any bullets left? he said, using his free hand to point out the windshield, a gesture I responded to immediately, shifting into another lane, then back, just to feel certain I was not out of alignment. Do you think I still have any bullets left, Roger? The gun moved away from me, went off again, I tensed, staring hard at the few cars up ahead, none in the rearview. I need you to answer me, Roger, otherwise I think you’re not paying attention. Do you think I have any bullets left, even still?

  -Yes.

  -Yes?

  -Yes. I think you have bullets left, Donald. I know you have bullets left.

  He put the muzzle back against me, told me to make sure not to miss our exit.

  -How many bullets do you think I have left?

  -I don’t know.

  He needled the muzzle into me harder, I could hear the sound of him clearing a slurp of excess saliva off his lips with the back of his hand, his voice still seeming wet when he said Well, think about it and tell me.

  -I don’t know.

  -Don’t speed up the car.

  I lifted my foot from the pedal, but a glance to the speedometer showed I was well inside the limit. I kept my foot hovering just on top of the pad.

  -How many bullets do you think I have left, still?

  -Three.

  -Are you just guessing?

  -Yes.

  -Don’t guess, think about it.

  I counted to twenty in my head, silently, watching the road, the appearance of thought.

  -Four bullets. You have four bullets left.

  He moved the gun from me, fired it, fired it, fired it, fired it, put the muzzle, hard, then relaxed it, back against me.

  I mumbled that our exit was coming up in two miles, shifted the car into the next lane over.

  -So now you think I’m out of bullets?

  I didn’t answer.

  -You must, right? You weren’t just guessing the four, right?

  I didn’t understand the game, it seemed like a trap. If I said No I wasn’t guessing, he’d say Well then, I suppose it’d be alright to do this, squeezing the trigger, a bullet cutting through me and if I said I was just guessing, I don’t know, he’d say Let’s see if you guessed right, then, squeeze the trigger, a bullet cutting through me.

  -I wasn’t guessing, I said, knowing I had to say something. Then I tacked on, But I think I was wrong. I think you still have bullets.

  He tapped the muzzle one two three, told me our exit was just one mile, now.

  ***

  We parked the car on the street and I sat inside until he was out, when he was he kept the door open, I glanced over and saw his arm, part of his leg, his torso. It was certainly morning now, peach blue, my eyes stung and I could taste my breath, the flavor settled like skin all up my throat, under my tongue. He pointed in the direction of a coffee shop café, up the block, said we were going to get something to drink then we’d head to the train.

  I walked, consciously avoiding the eyes of anybody who happened to pass, early pedestrians, shop owners setting out mats, opening shutters. It was odd how familiar it all seemed, traffic lulling at lights and people at crosswalks—this had all been still going on, had never stopped, these people all had just stopped for awhile, slept, didn’t even so much start again as they just continued going.

  The coffee shop had its door propped open, even with the chill, four people in line ahead of us. Donald had his hand down in his pocket and for a moment I wondered if it was in the pocket with the gun or the one with the little box. Pointless thought.

  I read over the menu board, looked at the sandwiches and pastries on display, my stomach still sore, exhausted from cramp, but moaning.

  I tottered where I waiting in line, looked at the shoulders of the people in front of me—man, man, woman, man—listened as best I could to the person at the counter placing his order, to the clerk taking it bellowing parts of it out for the staff member preparing drinks and fetching whatever food.

  I just let my mind waft back and forth between did I just want coffee, a choke of espresso, or a breakfast sandwich, both—just a coffee espresso sandwich both.

  I was rubbing my eye, sore so that it felt swollen from a blow, when I was jostled forward, didn’t bother to stop myself reacting to the jolt, the man in front of me turning sharply, his eyes locking on whatever was behind me, face stiffening from shock.

  I turned, saw Donald being pressed up into the open mouth of the door, a man in a pale suit readying handcuffs, getting them around Donald’s contorted arms, two other men holding him in place though he didn’t seem to be struggling. Then as Donald was straightened, being centered in the doorway, one of the men had crouched down and was pulling the gun from Donald’s pocket, continuing to pat down his legs.

  Some people who had been in front of me in line moved past me toward the door, in front of me again. I backed up to the counter, the clerk br
iefly meeting my eyes, then squinting behind his glasses as best he could through the clot of spectators.

  Within five minutes, everything had settled back to normal. I was allowing the customers who’d been in front of me to take back their places, one of them insisting, for whatever reason, that I go ahead of them, making calm down motions with their hands, though I wasn’t the least bit agitated, argumentative, was flat, as nothing as I could be.

  When it got my turn at the counter, I actually felt confused, smiled a few times at the clerk dumbly before saying I’d just like an espresso, double, which he nodded to and barked generally, a high pitched clap to the elongated words.

  I milled with the other people waiting for their drinks, took mine when it was offered and found, soon, I was sitting in a chair by a short little bookcase in an area designated for reading.

  I tried a sip of my drink, but it was too hot, blew on it, stood and made my way to the toilet, irritated, but only for a blink, that the door could not lock. I shut myself in a stall, rubbed my face, started to shiver. I rocked, lifted my knees up and down like I was keeping a ball in the air, then went limp, folded over, straightened stiff, went to the sink and just let hot water run, wafted the steam toward myself.

  When I walked out the door, someone would be there waiting for me. They’d have taken the seat I’d been in, would stand upon seeing me, taking a cautious stance, indicating with a look that I should keep at arms distance, a pace back from arm distance. You’re Roger? they’d say.

  I lathered my face in soap and scrubbed hard, hands stinging each time I’d put them into the faucet stream.

  Donald would be out the door, gun ready, the people around him cowarded into whatever nooks they could find to use as concealment. He’d pull the trigger but it wouldn’t fire and I’d fall dead, anyway.