Fly High, Fly Low [ON-HOLD]

Chapter 6

Fly High, Fly Low
By GinoongONEGANI

CHAPTER SIX

THE CAR makes a roundabout to the backyard. Nasty pigeons fly around, apparently disturbed. His mother climbs out first, riling another round of those vermins. Jay is hesitant to follow, he hates the smelly environment pigeons create by merely existing. His mother shoots him a look. In the end, he exits the vehicle, movements slowed down with reluctance.

Birds in different colors and sizes are scattered like a carpet on the ground, that Jay needs to kick his feet in the air to make a way. Feathers are all over the place as they fly as an impulse to the violence. It doesn't take long for them to fill up the space again.

Jay sighs in defeat, groans in disgust, and circles to the back of the vehicle to haul out his trunks. Surprisingly, the ground is not ruined with waste, but that doesn't mean there's nothing foul lingering about the place, because Jay can definitely smell it. The sour smell makes his stomach churn. He scrunches his nose up, following his mother inside the house using the backdoor, his trunks rolling by his side.

His grandmother is busy with something in the living room and she springs up from her seat at the sight of the expected guests. She abandons her activity on the sofa, Jay spots a hooked needle, she must be crocheting. There's an excited smile on her face as she limps over to them. An eye contact is shared between her and Jay, which the latter cut short, deciding to wander his gaze around. A flower vase beside the old television, a rocking chair by the window--- nothing's worth mentioning, really. The house is maintained at an abnormal level of cleanliness. It speaks old, OLD.

"You are joining us for dinner, I hope?" asks the older woman.

"Oh, I really, really, wanted to, Mom," the other says, "but I can't."

The women talk for a bit about how a ride could really be exhausting and about how Jay grows so tall since the last visit, and is Jay already in college --- "No," he says curtly --- and how he looks exactly like his father when the latter's still young. It's uncomfortable so he excuses himself.

The stairs creak at contact. Jay's already in tiptoe by the time he reaches the second floor just to avoid unnecessary attention. "Jay, I'm going!" is yelled from the living room, and he takes that as a cue to start unpacking. The bed dips as he sits, getting his clothes out of the trunk, folding it nicely this time, and into the closet. It takes him one, two, three sprays of his perfume until he gets satisfied with the smell. It doesn't really stink, just that, it smells old, and he hates everything that's old.

The engine roars and a horn blares. He walks up to the window, watching as the car bobs away to the space where the road meets the horizon. He gets rooted to the ground, incapable of movement. The sun has descended, the sky bathed in garish orange, the birds flying back home. Home.

That night he doesn't go down for dinner, even with his grandmother knocking on the door. "He must be resting," her muffled voice says, followed by footsteps fading away. After tossing and turning, he gives up the idea of a good night sleep and proceeds to organize the books ("Ah, there's no shelf," he whispers) beside his bed. They aren't as creased as he imagines, still he's sad of what they've become.

Sleep is yet to visit him even with his body sore and all. He retrieves a book from his side. He reads for God knows how long, and when finally his eyes become droopy, a sigh escapes his lips as the world slips away.

It's still dark, but he's already wide awake because of the chatter outside the window. He opens it rather aggressively, driving away the pigeons that seem to take interest in the ledge to build a nest in.

When he gets called for breakfast, he has no choice but to attend. Attend, because he doesn't really feel like going but he has to. He needs to show up because he doesn't want his grandparents to have something to report to his mother.

The three of them sit around the table. Nana is a better cook than his grandmother, the food barely has a taste. It's too bland and dry it feels like he's eating raw noodles instead of fried chicken. He notices they are having a different breakfast than him, leafy vegetables that look two times tastier than his pair of drumsticks. Is this some kind of mistreatment, Jay wonders.

"So," Grandma decides to break the ice, "how was your first night?"

He swallows, wincing a little. "Fine." Then, for his mother, he's doing this only for his mother, he adds: "Just had a bit of a hard time adjusting."

He can only tell by the sound (because he's too focused on his plate) but he assumes Grandma nods. Beside her, his grandfather is quiet, seemingly uninterested, but he can feel his intense eyes on him, following the movements of his hands, counting the number of his chews. He's shrinking more and more in his seat as minutes pass by. It feels like Grandpa doesn't want him to eat.

The blandness becomes completely tasteless, and it becomes difficult to swallow no matter how small the portion he shoves in his mouth. In the end, he resorts to stuffing the food in on either side of his cheeks like a chipmunk, stands up, walks up to the refrigerator to get a glass of water, and swallows everything down.

"I'm done," he says in a low tone. "I enjoy the food." He's holed up inside his room since then, only appearing in their eyes to use the bathroom and when he's called to eat. If he can turn the invites, he will but words will reach his mother, and he's more afraid of that than actually starving.

Several days have gone unnoticed as he engrosses himself in the books. But there are still times, quite a few of them he must say, that he's itching to go down and turn the television on. There's no internet access so he can't watch on YouTube. Sometimes he wonders where their money goes, as there's no real improvement in the house.

Today it seems boredom is that much that he finally pads down to the living room. The shawl over the old television is removed, and Jay is slouched on the sofa, picking a channel. Midway through the show, his grandmother appears from the veranda, holding a fresh bunch of roses to replace the ones that are going dry and sapless in the vase.

She starts friendly, "That television is really old. I wonder how it managed to survive with us until now. Ah, it holds a lot of memories."

Maybe you don't use it too often, he almost says aloud. He realizes something. Does she want Jay to leave the television alone? It's old, yes, but not that old that watching a single show will hurt. It's more of possessiveness and less of what she's implying.

It's decided when she continues, "Why don't you go outside with me and tend to the flowers?"

He makes the mistake of looking at her eyes. It's the same set as his mother's and he can't say no to them. He nods, however reluctantly. Grandma gives him a pair of gloves and shoves him outside. She's even the one who turns the television off, securing the shawl over the screen like a voiceless order not to touch it again.

Some plants are in the same state of helplessness as he is, stems and leaves dry and dying. He helps her pull all of them from the ground. Grandma asks him to gather rocks the size of a fist so she can line it up around the garden. They do gardening until afternoon, taking breaks more often than actually working, in the shade of a big Narra tree.