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. My husband and the kids occupied the second row; a few neighbours, including a high-school girlfriend of my brother's, sat 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. He put in an unheralded appearance or two at a family dinner every alternate year, apart from short phone calls and sporadic messages. What my brother did for a living, who he lived with, loved, worked for - every other identifying detail was still unclear.

When I saw the coffin go down, I merely allowed my throat to twist. Here's what the funeral was like: no one was crying. We sat there, my parents with glassy stares, my painful throat and a couple of my brother's friends who held themselves stiffly. His ex-girlfriend- the first and only one from our town: she trembled. But there were no tears.

I watched the long wooden box sink low. 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. The coffin slipped through their grasp with a thud. My kids shrieked, and the mourners yelped as the struggling object zoomed right over their heads before disappearing directly into the afternoon sunlight.

My surprise 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. No one else seemed concerned by this. Even my parents were more preoccupied with managing the distracted crowd, than observing the lasting peace they had meant to provide for their son.

After the funeral, lunch was served in a small reception hall on the same grounds as the cemetery. I didn't feel like eating much: after sampling the hors d'oeuvres, I made sure my kids ate before leaving them to my husband. He didn't try to comfort me, and I appreciated him for it.

Something niggled me. A surreal feeling from the moment we'd heard news of my brother's death - he'd fallen while mountain-climbing in Austria - was back. I left the hall, ignoring the crowd. There was a grove of trees by 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 steady inhales were now part of it.

Crack!

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Pushing away from the wood, I turned around. Nothing. No one. It was so desolate... I couldn't hear the muted talk from the dining hall even when I strained. 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 sweep across the tombstones all the time. But the dead cannot cast any.

Chirrp.

My head hit the wood as I started violently, before looking up. Two beady eyes regarded me intensely. 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 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. I didn't like this, and backed away, shaking my head.

I needed to return to the hall. It was late, and I had a flight to catch next morning.

Where do you think you're going? A voice echoed, and I screamed.

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

Calm down, sis.

I stilled.

That was my brother.

From my spot below, I looked up to see the lark flit 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 stared at me. It did not answer.

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

Would it kill you to be a little out there 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 peck.

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

It didn't answer.

My eyebrows drew together and there was an abrupt burst of nostalgia in my heart.

You used to do that when you were younger, especially when I ate your Halloween sweets.

'I remember,' I said, with a sudden laugh. 'And you'd make sure to clear off those milk sticks I'd save up, and sneer 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.

'Ha! Now I knew that was you,' I sniffed, crossing my arms. The lark cocked its head. I curved my neck, 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,' I pointed out dryly. 'Do you expect me to frolic?'

Not the funeral. You're only performing a duty.

I was stung by this. My brother had never bothered to stay truly connected after he'd left - no, those years fled by with the odd birthday gift or text when he remembered, and maybe a courtesy call once a six-month, between his infrequent 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 had said bluntly. A frigid day, like this one; the sun had resigned itself to a sulky spread of urine-yellow amidst overbearing clouds. I was supposed to be deliriously happy on this day, and told him so.

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

'You're wrong,' I retorted. 'He's smart, he cares, he calls when I want him to, knows what I think - and is handsome, too!'

'You're talking up an advert. This man isn't what you need, and I think you know that ,' he replied calmly. In that moment, I had known the absolute frustration - as politically incorrect as it is say - of talking to a stubbornly deaf individual.

'What the hell do 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 an 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.'

He'd opened his mouth to say more, maybe defend himself, to give me an actual reason; a drunken aunt then latched on to his arm and dragged him away before he could reply. I watched him leave.

I did not go 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 seeing memories I didn't want to revisit. Glancing at my watch, I rose 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, tuning out of the world to enter into a universe deep within oneself. I felt 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. I looked back, trying to plumb something, anything I could learn of my absent 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, sis. To tell them suddenly that I didn't want their company, that I was fine with hanging out alone - everyone expects you to constantly need someone else.

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

For most part, at least. Then, as he listened to my mother chatter away - she was excited by his rare participation - a light went out: as though someone was drawing out his energy through an IV. Mid-conversation, he strode outside, leaving my mother 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. '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 icy 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, no one stays ever the same.'

Then why are you so sad? With your husband, your children? Do they 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 upwards to the topmost branch, cocking its head fearfully.

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

To a passerby, I would have seemed insane. And perhaps I was, because the next thing I knew - I was reaching for the slim boughs, climbing and grappling to seize that stupid bird and make it understand. I got as far as the second branch above me, before the lark fled to another one below.

'You don't know anything!' I bellowed down at it, hair whipping my face. 'Don't 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! Do you realize 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've killed them on the inside. Mum doesn't ever raise her voice anymore, not in excitement, not in anger, not anything. And Dad's stopped laughing. He never talks to my kids the way he'd play with us. They just wander from room to room. They're never happy, never animated. This is 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 fallen off a cliff and I had to go home straight the next morning - Mum and Dad were seeing the guests off; I fancied I could hear them from my post, and my husband would then look for me -

My brother was dead.

The damned tears flowed fast. I sobbed.

CRACK!

'Oh, shit,' I whispered. The branch I was braced against gave away and I fell, sucked into the earth as it were. I crashed knee-first into the ground. This birch was cursed.

The twigs around its base 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 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, as though rebuking.

Shut up.

It was becoming 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.

The lark was kindly. It 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 happiness to your life.

'Well, you're just doing fine, aren't you?' I said sullenly. The sky was darkening further. A freezing wind whistled through the woods. If I wasn't careful, I could get caught in a winter storm.

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 when we last spoke, you were just so... It scared me. I didn't know what to do. And Mum and Dad weren't picking up my calls anymore. It seemed to me that they let the phone ring out whenever I tried.

The wind was starting to numb me.

The point is - I was tired, 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. The leaving didn't help.

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 we have 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 mentioning him to my parents - and I had assumed he had stopped caring as soon as he'd left...

The weight 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 faint moonlight before it disappeared.

My stomach was hollow, and I could feel my eyes brim again. But it was with a strange calm, and an even stranger, lighter heart that I finally turned to face my frantic husband, who emerged from the shadows with a torch.

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

'My battery ran out,' I lied, hugging him. He picked me up as we were joined by the rest of my family, asking question after question.

'Where were you?'

'Where'd you go?'

'Have you eaten?'

'Mum, can we get hot chocolate?'

I can see that I was wrong, eh?

I buried my head in my husband's shoulder.

This would have been nice to come home to.

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

Yeah.

I knew then that we had parted well.