Song, Unheard

11. A Life, Taken

A tall cupboard stood by the back door that led from the rustic kitchen to the outside of the cabin. The storage had begun life as cloakroom but over time it had become a utility closet that housed a mixture of the necessary and the forgotten. He grasped the handle and pulled the tall door towards him, the familiar scent of cleaning products and old shoe polish rushing to greet him as the door arced open. He scanned the upper shelved region in search of some efficient means of disposing of the animal in the hearth.

A certain reluctance to act remained in him. There was no guarantee the bird was infected with anything after all. He rummaged about the top shelf as he contemplated this point. Perhaps he should leave the creature be? But then, who knew the extent of the contagion it might carry. When would others come? Tomorrow? The next day? What kind of petri dish might the place have become then? As much as it pained him, it was only dutiful to do away with the thing and limit the potential for infection. He retrieved an old package of rodent poison from the upper shelf, considered it. Slow, he thought. Internal bleeding. Cruel. He continued his search.

He shifted his attention to the taller open space beneath the shelving. Not much stood out. An old broom and dustpan, a mop and bucket. Surely there was something. He stooped, the chill of the floor assaulting his knees through the fabric of his pants. He removed the bucket and behind it stood an old pair of the child's wellington boots. He removed these, regarded them for a moment. His face slackened slightly as he turned them in his hands. Could he remember the last time she had worn them? Last fall perhaps. Stepping through deep sloshing piles of wet leaves, the three of them in boots and rain jackets. The memory seemed to reach its hands into him, twist in his abdomen like his stomach was some wet towel to be wrung. His balance wavered slightly, and he set the boots aside, pushing further into the lower depths of the cupboard. Those emotions were no good, not productive. He had to keep moving, and retain focus on the tasks at hand.

He had begun to contemplate returning the cupboard's contents and giving up, when his fingers rested on something low and light and familiar at the rear corner of the cupboard. The texture of the thin wood beneath his fingers set his teeth on edge. He allowed his thumb to glide over the thing's surface, felt the subtle metal ridges standing out atop the wood. He considered it for a moment with his hand still curled about it, buried in the shadows of the cupboard. It would work, he decided.

In the living room, the bird remained in position, unmoving. He dropped into the worn leather armchair by the fireside, just beyond the animal's view. The trap was of the traditional variety. The primitive but effective kind. It was a thin rectangle of bare wood with a spring-loaded metal cross-bar. There had been an old roll of tape in the bureau, and it hadn't taken much to fasten the trap to the end of the broom he'd found in the kitchen. The bristles had screwed off easily and now he held a four foot pole with the trap mounted to upon the business end. He hoped for an ending that would be fast and effective, hopefully painless. The desire brought a wry half-smile to his face. He thought of the thing in the shed. It had been chosen for similar reasons, but it had no place here now.

If the bird remained still then things should pass off peacefully and with little distress. Carefully he pressed the trap bar into position and secured it. He winced at the sight of the thing before him, keeping fingers well clear. He leaned to afford himself a view of the bird. It appeared content. Its eyes were forward, ignoring him now. All the better, he thought. He shimmied his hands along the length of the pole, slowly extending the trap end toward the fire. Some caution was required for the fireguard was still in place and he would need to rotate its near side far enough outward that he could insert his improvised weapon without either activating the trap, or disturbing the bird. If the bird was agitated he would have the added difficulty of a moving target, which only increased the chances of striking a non-fatal blow.

He touched the bottom edge of the trap to the brass surround of the fireguard, and applied delicate pressure. The cautious approach reminded him of times together spent playing a giant version of the buzz-wire game together. The stakes here were more morbid. The guard slid with a muted grating and its edge retracted a couple of inches from the tiles. He stopped, listened. The bird was silent. He gauged the width of the trap and pole against the newly created opening. It was a snug fit but he had an even gap along the entire near edge, that the trap would fit through without making contact with the guard. Better still, the gap didn't approach the width the bird would need if he decided to try to escape into the room.

Raising the handle before him, he stood and stepped toward the old fireplace. He held the weapon before him like a spear-fisher might, hands tensed and ready to stab. He took another step toward the fireplace until his shoulder almost touched it and he was sure that he was unseen to the bird. He sucked in a deep breath and held it, willing his pulse to settle, steadying his vision like a sniper about to take fire. The feelings of guilt and doubt began to flow again, thoughts of the emptiness of it all, questions of the point of the animal's existence. He tried to force the thoughts out, focused hard on the edge of the fireguard as he began to push the edge of the trap inside.

If you can't even do this, he thought.

He took a single step outward, fixed on the bird and stabbed downwards with both hands, towards its head and those shining black eyes, before it had the opportunity to even register his movement. He stood silently for some time, gazing along the length of the wooden handle.

His aim had been perfect. The unforgiving crossbar had struck the bird squarely across the neck, crushing it instantly. The act had been clean. Not even a moment of fear registered, he thought. He sighed relief at this thought, remarked to himself at just how incredibly fast it had been. It really was quite humane, merciful in fact. The thing had simply existed one moment and had ceased to be in less time that it took to blink. A certain calm came over him as he gazed down at the tiny corpse. The eyes bulged and shone, and a fine line of brightest red emerged beneath the point of impact, but the consciousness was gone. Only a shell remained.

He pulled a crumpled plastic bag from his pocket, shook it loose and pulled the trap from the fireplace. The bird hung, limp and lifeless and black but for the slash of red across its neck. The body arced, pendular as he drew it toward him and pushed it into the opening of the black bag. With trap and bird inside, he gripped and squeezed the bag around the wooden pole and pulled hard. The sound of tearing tape reached him and the broom handle emerged, only ragged steps of tape remaining at its end.

He tossed the bag outside and went to the rear of the house where there stood a covered woodpile. A tree had fallen the previous year and he had spent a day sweating with axe and chainsaw as he sliced and chopped the huge trunk into fuel-sized pieces. He had stacked the wood neatly and covered it in order that wind and sun would strike the rows and columns of exposed log sections while moisture was largely excluded. The stuff was well cured now and he carried armfuls of it through the kitchen and stacked it neatly by the fireplace.

He set about starting a fire in the hearth. A brass chest by the fireside was filled with kindling wood and old newspapers, and he balled paper and stacked wood about it. He lit the pile with his cigar lighter and when the wood had ignited sufficiently he stacked larger chucks of the cured wood about it.

Soon a fire blazed.