Chatter

"I have a new idea about chickens."

He doesn't move and, from all appearances, is either deep in thought or in a self-induced trance.

"I said, 'I've been thinking about chickens,'" she says, slightly louder, a little more insistent, bordering on a shout, but not quite there, 

He nods. "I heard you," he says, "and now I'm thinking about chickens too." He pauses, shrugs his shoulders, mutters, again, but (an important but) pauses before going back to the paper. "...but, that's not really new, is it?"

She laughs at that, grateful for the opening. "Don't you want to hear my new idea."

He shakes his head, slowly, as if in anticipation, stops himself from saying not really, because now he is actually curious, and waits.

She is waiting too, waiting, for him to say, "tell me" or "what are you thinking" or "I'm all ears." Which is what he does say, "I'm all ears," and smiles at the image of his body transfixed into ears of multiple sizes and shapes--something to describe to her when the chicken conversation peters out, as it surely will.

"Well," she says and sits up straighter, animated by his encouragement and the new idea. "We'll get a chattering of chickens, house them in the old dog house in the back yard, a lesson for the neighbor kids--adults too--on our urban farm, a way to fertilize the garden--their poultry waste improving everything , making our grass and garden, and . . .

"They grow up, you know."

"Yes!" she says, enthusiastic again, and goes on about eggs, protecting the environment  "And chicken production of carbon dioxide and methane is very low," she says.

He interrupts her stream of enthusiasm. "You've Goggled again, haven't you?"

She stops mid-word and is clearly disappointed that he figured it out so quickly. "How?"

"A chatter of chickens?"

"'Chatter' is the proper collective term for baby fowl."

"Yes, but they are also called "peeps, as in a "peeps" of chickens," he says, with a suspicious strain of authority. (He knows her and also knows a thing or two about the power of Google...and, to tell the truth, is quite prepared to welcome a modest chatter, or  even a peep, of chickens.)

The Gift

    It was quiet. Ella loved quiet when the only sound was the tinnitus in her ears--the wavering drone that was always with her, annoying when the volume was too high, distracting when she allowed herself to be aware of the brain music, conscious of the prickly sounds that accompanied her everywhere.

~

    She had thought it was normal, assumed everybody had a constant scramble of sound in their head and was surprised when Mary Sue stared at her wide-eyed when Ella asked her what kind of noises were in her head, "You know the tinkling, bubbling stuff in your brain."

    "What!" Mary Sue had hissed, too loudly, too obviously, right there in the recess line where, luckily, a lot of other kids were still talking, laughing, punching each other.

    "You don't have them?" Ella whispered.

    Mary Sue, her best friend in life, her constant companion, snorted her high pitched laugh, and shouted the predictable, "YOU'RE CRAZY!"

    Ella laughed too, too quickly, too loudly, and never again mentioned the breathy, crinkly sonata that daily...and nightly...inhabited her skull.

~

    Then, years later, when Google, with its pathways to all knowledge, emerged, Ella learned the word tinnitus, even casually mentioned it once or twice and still got the same response: "So you're hearing voices...."

    No. 

    That wasn't it. 

    But it was hers and became her secret, her carefully held secret, a gift she embraced, an inner orchestra of sound, scratchy the first thing in the morning, then shifting to gentle merriment by noon, sometimes verging on hysteria on a hot day, but, by evening, the soothing melody of a cool breeze, a hymn to life, to joy, even love.

    It was enough.

    Not every gift has to be shared.

Bright and Shiny

          "Cold for August," he said.

"Hmmmmm."

"I said 'it's cold for August.'"

"Yes, I know. You are right, absolutely correct. It is unusually cold for August."

"Well, doesn't that bother you?"

No reply. She is attacking something in the sink with the ball of wire she refers to as the "scrubby." Another point of disagreement. 

"There is no such noun in the English language. Scrubby is an adjective, as in small, ragged, shabby." He had pointed this out more than once, which inevitably set off that peal of derisive laughter he knew so well. (Well, maybe not consciously derisive, but certainly a peal of disagreement conveyed with that damn musical voice she could produce at will...and was the first thing he noticed about her from the other side of the physics seminar.)

The operatic lilt of her joy caught his attention then and somehow he managed to sit next to her the next day...and the next and then...well, you know. Here they were, married and here he was, bristling at the music of her voice.

Well, it wasn't just the voice. Part of it was her irrational ability to find beauty, even joy, in the most insignificant ways. A scrubby, for God's sake.

"Made in Poland," she had pointed out as if that mattered, "and look at the colors."

It was bright--and she was attracted to bright, shiny objects.

Well, so was he. Isn't that how they ended up here, together, and him complaining about a cold day in August, a day that should be bright and shiny.

"Ah, got it!" she said and pointed to the sink. "Now that is clean!"

He tried again. "Overcast today."

"But," she said, "the sun is still there...somewhere...and if we wear a jacket, we'll be fine."

"Right," he said, because he knew she was right, and his only worry now was that she would produce the bright red slicker she had bought him for days just like this one, his bright red to complement her fluorescent yellow one.

Morning

  There was something going on outside, but she wasn't going to look. Just men moving dirt around, the familiar shake and scuffle of big machines--big as in HUGE--picking up this dirt and putting it there, making a mountain of rubble on the left and a hole of emptiness on the right--a hole to be filled by the next crew of workers, the builders.

    Which made her laugh because her first image was of ants, red ants bearing a twig or shard of grass in their mouths, trudging on their impossible tiny feet from here to who knew where--and why?

    Because that is what they were born to do.

    Did they even think about it?

    No.

    They picked up the blade of...the blade of...the blade of...something, and moved it. 

    Which is what was going on outside now, just the other side of her window. Men moving stuff, scraping and hauling, moving this to there and that here.

    Which made her laugh again. We are all just ants, aren't we, for all our pretensions of...what? Progress? Of doing what we are born to do?

    Which made her smile.

    Do the ants even think about it? Well, who knew the mind of an ant? They got up and got busy, did what they were born to do.

    Which was true of every living thing. Right? 

    Elephants....elephants...? Well, what actually did elephants do?

    She had no idea.

    Unbelievable that she couldn't come up with a purpose for an elephant. Enough to get her up and out of bed, into the shower, into some semblance of dress appropriate for the day, and in the kitchen starting the coffee.

    "Just like an ant," she said. "That's what I am--a worker ant."

    She was still smiling when he came up behind her, freshly shaven, smelling of soap, gave her a quick kiss on her neck, and reached around for his cup.

    "You're my favorite ant," she said, and twisted to kiss him on the cheek.

    "Uncle," he said. He knew enough to not to ask her what she was talking about, and was out the door before she could yell uncle?

Memory Tape

Hot! He was hot, sweaty hot, suffering hot, not hot in the way he'd heard his daughter describe some hunk at school, some football player type who inspired a covey of female followers. Apparently nothing had changed since he was the be-speckled nerd raising his hand too often in chemistry class. He shook his head and smiled at how instantly ancient humiliations surfaced in his brain.

Especially now, when he was so hot, but not in the desirable, sexy sense, but in the middle-aged guy-sweating-visibly-hot. He'd never been cool, or accused of being cool. Of being cold, yes. His first almost girlfriend when he....What did he do that night at her door? He'd brought her home, got out of the car, opened the passenger door like the gentleman his mother was training him to be, offered his hand to help her out of the car, which she didn't exactly refuse, but didn't take either. He walked her up to the front door, well walked with her, okay, just behind her. He remembered how incredibly awkward he felt. She paused at the door, turned slightly, smiled at him--that girl with perfect teeth--he remembered wondering if she had ever had braces, but now, as he thought about it, it dawned on him that she was expecting something. A kiss? Or an attempt at a kiss?

From him?

He blushed thinking of it, remembering the familiar tinge of embarrassment, a feeling so familiar that it surfaced immediately when he said, as he had done just now, out loud even though nobody was around, said it twice, I am hot, I am hot, and then, a third time. "I am hot" and felt better immediately.