The Lark

The day my brother became a bird, we were attending his funeral. My parents sat way up front, I next to my father. The husband and kids sat in the second row - my son , fifteen and unfortunately blessed with a mindset he shared with his late uncle, kept trying to get a better look down my brother's ex-girlfriend's dress. A line of the same occupied seats in the third.

They lowered him into the ground, a gaping hole that would seal the remains of the boy I grew up watching but never knowing, forever. My brother and I were not close, not since I became a teenager and he left home in search of...I don't know. I only ever received letters from him after that, maybe an appearance or two at some family dinner every alternate year. What my brother did for a living, who he lived with, loved, worked with - all of this was as unclear as my brother himself.

But something  worked in my jaw when I saw the coffin go down and I allowed my throat to twist. You'd think that I was being weird about not breaking down completely, but that's what the funeral was like - no one was crying. We all sat there, my parents with glassy stares, my painful throat and a couple of my brother's friends who held themselves stiffly. Only two of his ex-girlfriends - the first and the most recent - trembled slightly. But there were no tears.

I watched as the long wooden box sank into the open grave. A sudden squeak sounded loudly, and the men stopped, startled. Then a fluttering of wings and a flash of yellow caused them to fumble completely, and the coffin dropped with a loud thud. My kids shrieked and the mourners yelped as the fluttering object zoomed  right over their heads before disappearing directly into the morning sunlight.

I was as surprised as the others, but it was dulled by what was happening in front of me. The undertaker stood with his men, scratching his head and peering into the grave. Apparently the coffin lid had come undone during the fall. I frowned - this was definitely not your by-the-book funeral. Even my parents were more distracted  with the crowd than the lasting peace they meant to provide for their dead son.

After the funeral, lunch was served in a small reception hall off the cemetery. I didn't feel like eating much - after sampling a scone, I made sure my kids had a full meal before leaving them to my husband. He didn't say much  to comfort me and I appreciated him for the same. He was thoughtful like that.

Something niggled me. The surreal feeling that had started the moment we'd heard news of my brother's death - he'd fallen while mountain-climbing in Austria - was back. I rose and left the hall, ignoring the crowd. There was a little grove of trees adjacent to the cemetery, so I walked there. The air was still and cold, and very quiet. It wasn't a peaceful sort of quiet either. As I shifted between trees, I felt as though I was waiting for something, a waver in the horizon, the second before a crack spreads across a lake previously frozen solid.

But only my footsteps echoed. I leaned against the bark of a birch and closed my eyes, breathing impending frost. Silence pervaded everything now: even my own breaths were now part of the stillness.

Crack!

I nearly jumped out of my skin.  Pushing away from the wood, I turned around. Nothing. No one. Ii I couldn't even hear the muted din from the dining hall. My eyes darted from tree to tree, but each remained as it was.

Crack!

I flinched, and eyed the cemetery uneasily. Silent and still as the graves themselves - or was that right?  Shadows flit across the tombstones all the time. Only...the dead cannot cast any.

Squawk.

My head   hit the wood as I started violently, before looking up. Two beady eyes regarded  me, dizzyingly intense. I was staring at a bird perched on one of the birch's branches.  It was a lark and a most beautiful one at that. Lashes of pale brown along its back gave way to a smooth  black dotting its tail feathers. Its head was small and curved perfectly along the dome; a tiny downy tuft was the quirky eye-catcher. What really stood out though was its front: a lovely deep yellow, the colour of the sky between daybreak and the sunrise.

It was unusually large, and my first feeling of awe receded to slight discomfort. It was watching me so curiously,  as though scrutinizing my very soul. I didn't like it at all, and backed away. It was late and I had a flight to catch next morning.

Where do you think you're going? An amused voice suddenly sounded and I screamed.

A loud twittering, a crash; a flock of small birds in the trees around fled, startling me considerably, and I tripped over the roots of the birch.

Whoa. Cool it

I stilled.

That was my brother's voice.

From my spot on the cold, hard ground, I looked up to see the lark flutter down closer. It had not shied away like that flock. Instead, it hopped to the branch directly above my head, forcing me to tilt back further.

I called his name.

The lark simply stared at me. It did not answer.

'Some hope,' I muttered, feeling a little foolish. The stillness and the bird's preternatural examination was getting to me. I began to untangle myself from the roots.

Would it kill you to be crazy for once in your life?

My fist clenched. I did not dare look up. There was another fluttering of wings, a light weight on my knee: the lark had moved to perch on my body. Its gaze seemed almost kindly, like a nurse twinkling at a particularly difficult, but sick child.

It's safe to look at me, sis. I don't bite.

I now felt really foolish. Raising a hand to pet the downy head, I whispered incredulously. 'You're a bird now?'

It didn't answer.

My eyebrows drew together, and suddenly, there was a burst of nostalgia in my heart, a feeling of déjà vu.

You used to do that when you were a kid, especially when I ate all your Halloween candy.

'I remember,' I said, with a sudden laugh. 'And you'd make sure to clear off all those chewy milk sticks I'd save up, and burp in my face later.'

A soft twitter.

Like you were any better.  Now you know why Santa always put a piece of coal in your stockings.

'Now I KNOW that was you,' I sniffed, crossing my arms. The lark cocked its head. I tilted my head, staring up at the sky. Steel gray was slowly melting into something softer, darker - a charcoal memory.

Why are you so sad?

Jolted out of my reverie, I turned to the lark. 'You just died, brother,' I pointed out dryly. 'Do you expect me to frolic in the sun?'

Not the funeral. You're only doing your duty.

Surprisingly, I was stung by this. My brother had never bothered to reach back after he'd left - no, all those years simply fled by with a postcard or two when he remembered, and maybe a sundry email once a week after he hit the early 30's, in between his visits home for an important occasion. In fact, the last real conversation I could remember having with him was the day my husband had proposed to me.

'He's not your type,' he'd said bluntly.  A cold day, like this one, the sun had refused to shine and resigned itself to a sulky spread of urine-yellow in the sky. I was supposed to have been deliriously happy on this day, and told him so - pointedly.

'Well, you're going to feel like this anyway, may as well start now.' My brother's words were staccato in delivery, hurtful in impact. He'd sipped at a glass of apple cider, disinterested and separate from the celebrations as usual.

'You're wrong,' I'd spat bitterly. 'He's smart, he cares, he gives a shit, calls when I want him to, knows what I think -  and is handsome as hell, too!' 'You're buying off an advertorial. This man isn't what you need, and you know that ,' he'd replied calmly. In that moment, I knew the frustration - as politically incorrect as it is - of talking to a deaf person.

'What would you know? When have  you ever cared?'

He had stilled after that. Setting his glass down on a nearby table, he looked at me and for the first time, I'd seen something of emotion, something that had finally affected him enough to react. 'I have, always,' he'd muttered. 'I'm your brother.'

'You never act like it.'

That had really made him freeze. He'd opened his mouth to say something but a drunken aunt suddenly latched on to his arm and dragged him away before he could reply. I watched him leave. I never went after him.

What are you thinking about?

I shook my head. This was stupid enough already: I was talking to a lark, I was hearing voices in my head and memories I definitely didn't want to revisit. Taking a quick glance at my watch, I rose and turned to depart. My family was waiting.

Wait.

I didn't move.

The lark, jolted out of its position when I'd risen, came to rest atop a branch just above my shoulder. I looked at it. Its feathers caught the light of the waning sun, darkening the yellow to amber. With a quick turn of its head, it looked towards the horizon, and quite suddenly, I saw my brother - the same dreamlike gaze, the tuning out of the world to enter into a universe deep within oneself. I felt shamed, like I was interrupting something private.

'I'm leaving,' I muttered, and the lark beat its wings frantically.

I was coming back.

My eyes widened.

The lark bent towards me, its eyes a clear, honest black. Romanticised as this thought was, I could not help but gaze back, trying to plumb something, anything I could learn of my wanderer brother.

I realized quite early that I wasn't meant to have a home, or a family. I am too restless. I never fit in. To stay in one place is to let all experience of it rust eventually. People grow tired of a single person too easily. That kind of politics with emotions, with identity is not something I could deal with.

I swallowed. 'That is nonsense.'  How could I have missed this...this suicidal notion? It was so selfish, to even think like that.

Maybe it is. But it wouldn't have been just myself - I would have made you all unhappy. People exhausted me, sister. To tell them suddenly that I didn't want their company, that I was fine with hanging out alone - everyone expects you to need someone else ultimately.

I recalled a peculiar incident just then. I was twelve, it was my birthday. Mum and Dad had thrown me a huge party, and I had enjoyed it all: cake, friends from school, ice cream, a movie thrown in. And the best part was that my brother was there all along, laughing and joking, pranking my dad and graciously dancing with all the girls in my class who'd had a huge crush on him.

For most part, at least. Then, as he listened to an uncle who had been invited as well, a light seemed to have gone out of his face; drained as though someone was drawing out his strength through an IV. Mid-conversation, he'd strode out, leaving my uncle staring at his retreating back in disbelief.

I'd found him later in the backyard. He was on his back, staring at the stars spread out in a velvety expanse of navy sky. His trademark faraway gaze was back.

'Why'd you leave? '

His answer was simple. 'I had to.'

Do you understand now?

'No! I mean...a little, I guess,' I said shaking my head. Sinking to my feet, I rested against the cold bark of the birch, ignoring the tiny pinpricks of pain its grooves sent through the back of my head. 'But you can't assume that people will be that way all the time. Things change, people are never the same after a while.'

Then why are you so sad? With your husband, your children? Don't they still disappoint you?

A soft note of song. It was wistful.

I should have taken you with me.

I found myself bristling. 'You know nothing,' I snarled. The lark was startled by the sudden movement; it fluttered quickly to the topmost branch, cocking its head fearfully.

I rose, shaking. I had never felt so angry. 'You never stuck around to see how I got along!'  I yelled at him. 'I love him! I've always loved him, and just because he wasn't your type, he didn't think like you felt I deserved ... how dare you accuse me of settling down?'

To a passerby, I would have looked crazy. And perhaps I was, because the next thing I knew was that I was reaching for the boughs, grappling to try and seize that stupid bird to make it understand. I got as far as the second branch before the lark fled to the one below.

'You don't know anything!' I bellowed from above, hair whipping my face. 'Don't try and justify this - you were always running away because you never tried to understand. Everything had to fit your warped logic - if it didn't, you cut it off or shut it away! Do you know how you've killed our parents ?'

What are you saying?

Oh, he had no right to sound so horrified. The lark's feathers now seemed wholly unattractive: the brown of it - insignificant, pale, ugly -  was more apparent that its deep gold front.

'You killed them on the inside. They were so hurt that Mum doesn't ever raise her voice anymore, not in excitement, not in anger, like she used to. Grandma's death - she went back to work the next morning like nothing had ever happened! And Dad's stopped laughing. He never talks to my kids the way he'd play with us.  They're not ALIVE. This is all your fault!

'And me - ' But I couldn't go on. It was too painful, my brother was dead and no one seemed to care and he'd been too young, he'd fallen off a cliff  and I had to go home straight the next morning - Mum and Dad were saying farewells  to the guests, I fancied I could hear them and my husband would look for me and my kids - my brother was dead.

The damned tears never stopped falling. I sobbed.

CRACK!

'Oh, damn,' I whispered . The branch gave away and I fell, sucked into the earth as it were (never underestimate gravity). I crashed knee-first into the roots. This birch was cursed.

The roots tangled with the skirt of my black dress, and I bit my lip hard to stop myself from screaming - I could feel my right knee throbbing from inside out.

A slight weight on my shoulder, the soft brush of wings against my cheek.

Now imagine that - but from a cliff.

'Are you joking about your death?' I yelped. The lark pecked me lightly, as though rebuking.

Shut up.

It was starting to become colder, and I shivered, pulling my dress around myself. My knee hurt dreadfully.

Call your husband.

My husband. Right. I owned a phone.

I didn't move.

Why aren't you using your phone?

'I -' I didn't know how to frame it.

It was kindly. The lark nuzzled my cheek.

Call him, I'll be here long enough for some answers.

I texted my husband, and settled against the tree to wait.

Larks are known for bringing joy and happiness to your life.

'Well, you're just doing fine, aren't you?' I said sullenly. The sky was darkening once more. If I wasn't careful, I could get caught in a winter storm.

A cold wind whistled through the woods.

I was coming back, you know.

'What?' I asked, startled. The lark looked at me, really looked at me.

I was coming back. That trip to Austria - it was going to be my last for a very long time. I didn't like the way you sounded on the phone when we last spoke, you were just so...dead. It scared me. I didn't know what to do. And Mum and Dad weren't picking up my calls anymore. It was like they let the phone ring whenever I tried.

The wind was starting to numb me.

The point is - I was tired now, of myself. All those years of travelling, of escaping every time I felt overwhelmed by one place, one person, every time I was asked to weather out something despite my exhaustion. It didn't help, the leaving.

I could hear someone calling my name. My husband. A group of voices joined him, but I couldn't find it in myself to answer.

I guess it was too late.

The voices grew louder, closer.

I'm sorry.

'No,' I whispered. 'No, it's...you should know we never - obviously never stopped loving you.'  All those years in between, of me avoiding my brother's gaze because I was so angry, of not answering my children's questions about their uncle, of not even talking about him with my parents - and I had assumed it was over as soon as he'd left...

The weight was lifted from my shoulder. I looked up to see the lark soar high into the dense sky, its beautiful sunrise front glinting one last time in the moonlight before it disappeared.

My stomach seemed horribly empty, and I could feel my eyes well again. But it was with a strange calm, and an even stranger, lighter heart that I finally turned to face my husband, anxious eyes lit with a torch.

'There you are! Why didn't you call?'

'I ran out of battery,' I lied softly, hugging him with a sudden surge of love. He picked me up, carrying me bridegroom-style as we were joined by the rest of my family asking question after question.

'Where were you?'

'Why'd you wander off?'

'Have you had dinner?'

'Mum, can we go out for hot chocolate?'

I can see I was wrong then, eh?

I buried my head in my husband's shoulder.

This would have been nice to come home to.

I nodded briefly. 'It would have been nice to see you,' I whispered under my breath.

Yeah.

I knew then that I didn't have to say goodbye after all.