Migration

Where, if the sky fills with birds between the yellowing birches, the geese and the cranes and right above the field she can see the pair of swans who lived by the meadow right there in the summer take flight. They fly low at first, while the hundreds of cranes overhead are yelling goodbye goodbye for now, it is a beautiful grey sky.

In the large linden jackdaws are chatting away, but they don’t want their picture taken so she walks below the tree silently.

Where, if the monsters don’t come, she will reflect on how her heart keeps beating so irrevocably and instantaneously, and the left side of her body is hurting a little, but she can read a book still, without breaking a sweat.

Where, as is witnessed by many a generation of angry old men and their silent spouses and well-behaved children, now all flown from the nest, all except her, who keeps coming back and coming back, because there is something in the air and the flocks of cranes and geese in the fall, and the smell the smell of distilled innocence the innocence of childhood yes, but not just that, there is calm eccentric and remarkable, simultaneously.

A few spunky crocuses think it is spring again, and their purple little heads are violently shaking in the rainstorm, as the morning dawns, and she listens to music and looks out the window, she asked mother’s permission to take out the drapes so she can have a clear view.

There is nothing in this life she loves more than her peace of mind in this landscape.

The observation tower is all fixed now, and the monsters stay below the stairs, especially because she finds she is not alone there, but a young mother with a child, a boy who keeps making the sound of a car turn signal the old-fashioned kind the kind her car used to make back in the day when she still had a car, is there, at the top, taking pictures of the breathtaking view. Yes, it is breathtaking, and as she observes the surrounding land and water, she suddenly misses her lover so much she becomes a little unraveled and realizes the ache on the left breast and the tightness around the left side of her body is how she misses him.

Solitude. Overcast mornings, sunshowers in the afternoon.

In the yard, they are cutting some branches of the enormous silver willow and raking leaves, but it is early for that, the trees are still aplenty with leaves, hundreds, thousands, a hundred thousand.

The observation tower is fixed now, and the monsters cannot come if she doesn’t go looking for them, that is the deal.

Because sometimes she does go looking for them.

The wind smells of gorgeous autumn, it is cold, her rubber boots are new so she can splash away, careless.

She likes the cold on her face, hot from remembering the embrace of her lover. His body heat is sometimes too much, she likes a cool room, but is it not true that the pain on the left side of her body is no more if she is next to him?

It is that time of the year.

Where, if she turns around fast enough she can see the army of demons right behind, so she never makes sudden movements.

Where, if she did not think about it then, she will need to think about it now, when she is getting ready for bed, and the black eye of the window, now drapeless per her own wishes, is the hollow fixture of the most deadly and horrifying images, she thinks of how the tree attacked the kids in Poltergeist, but it is not thundering now, and her twin birches would never.

In the morning she goes to make some coffee in the kitchen. You made it through the night, her father says. The monsters didn’t get you.

No, I made it, she responds, smiling, happy for the exchange of words. Father always got her.

                                            

She asked once if her lover had any particular color he identified with her. Perhaps the color grey, he answered. She loved that.

And you?

The color of sand.

The observation tower is where she used to go back when it was still in terrible state. Then, it was closed for a long time, and she, unaware of the restoration work underway, was so sad. But all they did was fix it, remove the dangerous, rotten wood and replace it with fresh banisters and window panes and a few two-by-fours here and there. What is remarkable is the staircase, the seven flights of stairs, is the same. The stairs weren’t rotten at all.

How peaceful, yet how difficult to sustain the peace. The discrepancies, the hot and cold, the anger and softness, the hissing and whispering. How vulnerable and kind her lover looks when he is unaware he is being watched. How similarities invoke resentment and misunderstandings. But the colors are what sustain us, she thinks. How a tough man like him will answer, unfazed, a question like that.

If they discovered the staircase and the bearing woodwork structure uncompromised and only had to do some touch-ups in the observation tower, where she used to go when the rot was still in place, and still frequents now, then perhaps there is a lesson, a meaning, that lies in understanding that it will in all likelihood stand there on top of the small hill the rest of her life.

An uncomplicated life. Simple and straightforward. Nothing iffy about the strong woodwork and the chill in the luminous and fantastically refreshing fall air. Not even about the monsters, because monsters are the harbingers of simple truths.

This is where I love you the most, she thinks as she opens the window to let the cold wind inside. A tough man, but maybe he can hear her anyway.

(Thank you Chris Cornell)