Magpies in the Attic

 (This is a translated version of the short story "Quelques pies", which can be found here )

This morning, it was the same as ever. Cold tea, cold coat and cold seat. Then I go outside and of course it had to be winter. Well well… the opposite would have had be me astonished. I go inside my cold car, but before, I cast a cold look around and I meet eyes to beak with a bird. Some sort of magpie, well in all cases the animal was black and white. But I’m sure there are a lot of black and white birds. Maybe the colours of the male and female are even different. But “magpie” seems like a female word, there would be no male. I’m stupid in the morning. Stupid and cold.

There was only one magpie, fluttering gently on the street lights which annoyingly lit the fog around it. I ask myself “is this magpie cold too ?”, then I turn my car on. The engine is cold, so it takes a little while. When finally it is… hot, I drive my way to work.

After that I come home. I am… hot but it is only an illusion. I’m not stupid in the afternoon, I know that around me everything is cold. Especially the gear-lever. But I don’t know why. I could ask but I do not dare. I fear people would think me crazy if they saw me.

When I come out of the car which is so deceivingly… hot, I notice that instead of finding only one magpie where there was only one magpie this morning, there are now two of them. They croak like two old crows. Strange, because they are definitely magpies (I looked it up at work). I walk to them softly and all of a sudden they stop speaking to look at me with their black cold eyes. I feel this coldness ripping through my body, going to my cold heart which pulsates in his turn coldness in all directions. Being cold by nature, I only feel a tickle, as if some cold ladybugs were caught under my T-shirt.

Since I’m not welcome among the birds, I decide to walk to the right. But I take the wrong direction. I turn around, dawdle my way in front of the birds which are still silent, in front of the car dealer whose cold gigantic shiny billboard cast a shadow on me during summer. Even in summer, I’m cold.

I go inside and eat food. I don’t talk to my television, this is a sign that my mental balance is starting to collapse. I take a cold shower and think about these birds again. What could they be plotting ? I can never know, not even guess, not even some kind of story to explain all this. So I went to bed.

This morning, it was the same as ever. And it was even colder than usual. That made the usual even usualler than usual. Even my cup trembled. The fire was sick and coughed a dark cold smoke, leaving its sustenance to dry in its black entrails. I donned my cold hat and my rubber boots (the ones that are cold) and went outside.

Arriving before my car’s very cold handle, I think I hear a farm screaming not very far from here. But I was wrong. It was the magpies. There was now three of them, and they clucked like chickens telling each other stories about the neighbours. I was puzzled to see these birds would not use their natural chirping. This question materialised in front of me, left a cold kiss on my blue cheek, then left. I left too.

A day of work, one hour to come back, usually. Traffic jams, cold people tossing abuse at each other. Insults like cold spit, so cold it would turn into little balls of ice. I personnally use a little cold protable baseball bat to hit back these little projectiles to were they belonged. When I do that, I say “return to sender !” and even if this is a very nice joke, it leaves everybody cold, even me.

Home sweet home ! It is black and the frost (on whose nature I don’t need to be specific) begins to gently cover the grass. The grass did not ask for anything, yet it yields to this numbing coldness. When I step out of my vehicle, I immediately turn my eyes to the place where the birds gathered. This time there was ten magpies. Maybe twelve. I wouldn’t know, I was never thaught how to count after ten. And they chirp like little sparrows. They are close together, probably because it’s… hot. I look at them, they stop singing and turn their frosty gaze to me. Well it wasn’t altogether frosty, but cold. And their small eyes, let’s not talk about it at all.

At this very precise moment, I understood I would never understand. I went home and fell into sleep with my clothes on. I dreamt I was a magpie and I was troating like a deer in the middle of my brothers and sisters. We all had little curvy horns. Then, as it is too often the case with sleep, it ended. I woke up. I feel like I’m going crazy. It was a pleasant dream, yet I wake up covered in cold sweat. I change clothes and go to work without eating breakfast, without looking at the birds, without even turning the engine on. And I do that for days and days. I never want to hear about birds again, and I’m so cold one could freeze eggs on my forehead. It is not only me feeling cold, I AM cold. I don’t say hello to old ladies anymore even if I meet them in the woods. And I keep up with this cold behaviour for two weeks.

With so much time, winter had had well enough time to settle comfortably. It had solidified all it could solidify, be it blades of grass, fruits, people…

No one moves anymore, the whole world is cold as death. Even colder. I myself have trouble walking. I still go out each morning to go to work. But this time it seems cold will have the last word. Before I put my foot on the ground, my leg starts freezing at the speed of freezing light. The veiled sun casts a cold light when possible, and that only makes things worse.

Soon the rest of my body starts freezing too. And I see all these people outside who had the same misfortune, frozen forever in ridiculous positions. I thought I was fed up with everything, but suddenly I lost my cold blood. I panic. I feel my egotist heart abandonning my limbs one by one, until even the holiest of them is turned into a gloomy icicle. The end draws near, I am going to freeze. I’ll stay cold forever, until the end of times. I close my blue eyelids and think about how I’m going to let my last breath away. I shed a tear that breaks like glass when it touches the ground.

And in a cold sigh, I hear the magpies. I open my eyes, even if this sole move is so painful. At last they use their correct chirping. There are fourty-thousand of them. Even more maybe, because I was never thaught how to count after thirty-thousand. The noise they make is deafening. I would even prefer not to have any eardrums, I would like them to freeze so I can be left alone at last. But it did not end. It feeled like a last moment of horror before the long sleep. Maybe I deserve it, I don’t know.

For a few minutes I waited death like a nice dog waiting at home for his master to return. But she was late, very very late. Only my eyeballs were still active, and they only permitted me to see lots and lots of screaming birds. Soon, they chirped three times together, then they all flew away, made a circle in the sky three times, plunged three times to the ground and flew back again. Then they all landed on the enormous billboard, the cold metallic car-dealing billboard. It was so shiny it hurt. They suddenly went quiet. The silence was even more deafening than they screaming all at once. And in this silence, something made a very deep creaking. A powerful sound one would like to hear in an old piece of wreckage.

A fluttering of wings, a creak again. Again and again. Soon they all moved together frantically, filling the cold air with their airy hum. And in a moment of perfect waking dream, they tore up the billboard, cutting the wires, twisting the metal, destroying the lightbulbs and they took it far away. Very far. Probably to their giant nest. Like a monstrous war trophy. And the veiled sun unveiled, and the billboard’s shadow did not keep me cold any longer. All of a sudden, it was summer and I felt like melting, unfreezing. I was the first, because I deserved it. Then the city, then the whole world.

And for the first time since so long ago, it was really… warm.

A Day in the Flesh

Llevulok Ritor is Hungarian and lives in a small house in Györ. He is thirty-two but one wouldn’t notice, as his eyes radiate some kind of mysterious youth that makes other people around feel old themselves.

Everybody knows him, although not personally. This is because he is so very quiet a person. He doesn’t like talking very much, but that is kind of a relief as the sound of his voice is so shrilly and distorted that it would make a sheep go red in envy. “Holy mother of fuck !” The sheep would say.

Llevulok’s most important dream is to be left alone in total silent bliss, in a forest somewhere or high in the mountains. That is because he can’t stand life in a city. He thinks those are too big, too noisy, and most of all that they stink the hell out of his nose, especially on Friday afternoon when sweaty people run around yelling and drinking, wearing silly hats and all that.

No matter what he tells himself, no matter what his mother or his stepmother (he has two mothers) tell him, that won’t change. His life lies elsewhere, far away. And until he meets his fate, he won’t say a word.

Ever since Llevulok finished school with special mention “oral exams had to be done with a pen but still, kudos”, he has been working as a butcher in a local supermarket. In fact, it was more of a hyper-gigamarket : as big as twenty cathedrals, with entire rows dedicated to fish sticks or alcohol, many many different kinds of peanuts and ridiculous signs everywhere to guide customers. It was so enormous that his little butchery stand seemed lost in a small corner. And he liked that, as you may now understand if you know the man.

Although he is a vegetarian, he doesn’t mind working around dead flesh too much. He cannot stand to kill to eat or even the taste of meat, but cutting and wrapping it wasn’t all that bad. In fact he is very good at it, even if he is absent-mindedness incarnate. The only downside was of course that he wouldn’t talk to the customers, so they had to get an assistant hired to help people choose their favourite dead animal while he cut and cut. And kept his mouth shut.

Mister Ritor, that’s about it.

During the day he is that peculiar man cutting meat to earn money to buy vegetables to eat. But during the night, everything changes. When he returns from work, the shiny gleam in his eyes grows stronger and shinier, making him look like a strange cat on two legs.

Llevulok Ritor was not a normal person.

He tried his best not to make other people find out about his true identity and so far he had managed to do that pretty well. He was a super-hero whose name was Plant-Man, and whose fearsome supranatural power was the ability to turn into a plant. The process was quick, and it had gone unnoticed for years now. With a small green flash that lasted about one or two seconds, he transformed into a beautiful ficus and transported himself magically in his garden.

The moon shone bright, like a great celestial eye, sole witness of this nightly miracle. And there he lain gazing at the stars, extending his leaves farther and farther. At last, night engulfed every single noise in the street. People slept quietly, or minded their own business with passion. Some snored, it can’t be helped, but Llevulok had no ears anymore so it was no big deal. As time passed, he began to get drowsy too, fell into slumber and started to sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream.

One day though, he knew that people would discover his secret, and then their jealousy would know no bound. As always. With that in mind, he intended to enjoy every second of it. And that he did all night. Until he woke up in his bed, and began looking for his slippers as usual.

Life's Brewery

The morning rises

The sun goes up

Burns my face and I kiss him back

I wake up and then go down

Make myself a coffee just for the smell

When it's ready I pour it

I put my finger in it and it burns and I love it and it rhymes.

The bell rings and the sound rings a bell

I open the door to see a back-door man

The ever-shy ever-late postman

I smile at him with fangs of joy

He retreats in his van after tossing my mail

Back inside, paper walls with spots of green

Put my mail in the toaster

Makes me a toast of mail

Later the night will fall

Birds will fly back to their nests

Sing songs of truth

Melodies of life in an innocent chirping

Pipapelipipupapuuupiiipupupu

I will cry on the inside

And my heart will drown in my tears

Cold zombie in baby skin

But ever so loving.

The Principles of Light - Part II

I have no legs but I don't need them
No arms, but I was made to do without
Through the small windows beneath my eyelids the light pours itself in dreamful colours, causing warmth and joy.
Would I say my heart leaps up ?
Yes I would.

The Principles of Light - Part I

The planets are aligned
I open my eyes before dawn
And I welcome tea
Flying hands deliver it from the sky
Or what's left of it
Two bits of sugar be my guest
While the ever-glowing stars of the morning print my name up above
One way like many others of saying hello.