We Were Birds

A filmy grey dawn breaks out over the mountains and Quinn Sutherland opens his eyes to the yellow light of morning peeking over the jagged skyline.

For a moment he is back. During that strange moment between sleep and awake, he is home again. Home for him isn't some shack by the beach that always smelled like his father, home isn't the countless motels and hotels, home isn't his Ford truck or his Chevy, home isn't that broken down apartment in the city or even the Moulin in Montmartre, even though he's lived in all those places. Home is the smell of Neroli, bitter oranges, on the breeze. A lingering scent that cruelly makes him believe that he is once again with her.

But he's been dead two years now, and there is no going back. For him, though, there is no going forward either. He could, he could move on, but he will not. He won't continue on without Fern. So he'll wait, he'll wait forever if he has to. The only question is will she wait? Or will she forget about him, move on, get her degree, marry some rich, smart asshole and have two beautiful children?

She'd always wanted a family, she'd always wanted to have children. She'd almost gotten her wish, too. He'd almost done it. His ever-imminent death was coming and coming fast and she'd wanted a piece of him to remember forever and she'd wanted a child so badly, he'd almost broken down and given it to her.

She'd broken down first. "I can't do it," she'd said in that dirty apartment in the city, tears streaming down her face. "If we have a child, he'll never know his dad. And I don't want that. I don't want that. And I couldn't bear to look at his face each day and see you."

So they'd met. They'd been together for awhile and then apart and then together and then who really knew what happened. And then they'd parted, like nothing had ever happened. Fern went her way in one world while Quinn had woken up after seeing her eyes one last time to discover that he was sitting on a train. And it was hurtling through a soft countryside.

He'd been perplexed at first, but there were others on the train, who looked like they knew where they were going. Some were reading books, some were gazing out the window with far-away expressions on their peaceful faces. "Excuse me?" Quinn had asked a man sitting in front of him who was quietly reading Moby Dick, which was, incidentally, Quinn's favorite book. Or it had been, when he was still, well...himself. The man had turned back to him. "Can you please tell me where I am?" Quinn had implored.

The man, who looked quite ancient had smiled. He wore a tweed jacket and brown corduroy pants that were extremeley moth-bitten. "Why, you've died. This is Limbo." Quinn had felt shock ripple through him. "Now if you wish to wait in Limbo, you may get off the train. But if you have nothing to wait for, you can keep on this train, you can go to the Final Stop."

"What's that?" Quinn had asked.

The old man had shrugged. "No one knows. I am waiting for my wife, who is not long for the world much longer and should join me in six months at the very maximum. When she does join me, then we will go off to the Final Stop together. For now, however, I am going to go wherever the wind takes me." Quinn had looked up ahead, at the rolling hills. If this was Limbo, why was there a train? Why was there anything? Shouldn't this be a place of endless white where people waited to find out where they would go? Leaning back into the seat, Quinn had felt slightly confused, but he'd known that he'd have to get off at the next stop. There was no question. He would not be going on without Fern.

The train had whistled to a stop in a sleepy town with tiny cottages and a long strip of platform. He was the only one here, it seemed, and yet a small white curl of smoke was unfurling from one of the chimneys. This is it, he'd thought. I'm dead. But death was such a strange concept here because he could never remember a time when he'd felt more alive. When he blinked, he still had those clear blue eyes in his head and they were the color of the sky above him. He had taken a surprisingly deep breath and had closed his eyes and felt sunlight warm his unblemished skin...

And then when he truly opens his eyes to the new light of the other-worldly morning, there is no mistaking where he is. The real world, the living world, never looked as clear or as pristine as this world does. It is all country, forests, mountains and train tracks. Everywhere there are train tracks.

The train stops in tiny settlements of people who refuse to go on. They build homes, they try to live in a world that exists beyond most imaginations. Quinn has even heard rumors of a tall city by a blue-green sea where people come together and laugh and forget the most crucial of facts: that they are dead. And this is Limbo, and they are not supposed to stay here forever.

Quinn leans up from his bed of soft grass and looks beyond his own small hill that is dotted by white flowers and takes in an abnormaly deep breath for someone who lived with a smoker for nineteen years of his life, for someone who had smoked a pack a day from age eleven to age eighteen. For someone who died from pneumonia tied to emphysema. However, now that he's dead, his lungs are completely clean. Which is, Quinn thinks with a smile, the proverbial slap in the face if there ever was one.

In the distance there is a small fawn, grazing on the green grass. Nothing is ugly here, he knows that, but there is still a small amount of pain in his heart. This small animal is young and it is dead. Everything here is. Everything that has died comes back here. Quinn doesn't understand what happens to the animals that die and come here, because they don't know they should move on. And yet, maybe that is what makes them so beautiful is the fact that they are so naive.

There is a noise from the sky and Quinn looks up to see the flock of Canada geese, flying in V formation, over him. He remembers when Fern used to look at them and pull her knees to her chest and say in that awe-filled voice of hers, "They're so smart, they just know to fly like that. They just know."

She'd been enamored with the birds from the start. They'd never talked during primary school, they'd only met the last year of secondary school, but he'd seen her often. She'd been one of the beautiful ones, one of the untouchables. Her and her innocent and beautiful friends, they were the girls who always looked washed and pretty, they always had the answers to the questions Quinn never even understood. Her friends were the ones who used to laugh in twinkling laughs when Quinn and his friends had once again said something stupid in class. Fern had never laughed though. She'd always been looking out the window.

He understands it now, as he had when he'd first seen her in the aviary. "My father likes to keep beautiful things," she'd said. "Ah," Quinn had remarked on that, "I understand why he protects you so much then."

Quinn walks down the steep hill to the dirt road. It's just another day of wandering, maybe stopping in a small settlement. He walks along the road with steps that are deliberate and slow. Something feels different about today. It's almost as if a weight has been lifted from his chest, but he doesn't know why. Nothing is different about today, whatever today is. In death, today is such a lucid concept that he doesn't quite understand.

Still, something feels strange within him. The yellow light of dawn that made the hazy sky so light is now turning the sky blue, a blue-grey. A cool breeze rustles against his back. Quinn is wearing the same plaid flannel shirt he was wearing when he died. The same beat up black jeans. The same sturdy Doc Martens. His hair and his beard have not grown an inch since he died. He is not dirty nor has he ever become sick. Death is a very strange place and even after two years, he is not exactly used to it. So maybe something is supposed to feel strange inside him. Maybe this is...whomever...telling him that he should get a move on, get on the train, and just go. Except for the fact that he promised never to leave Fern.

He will not break that promise. Not for anything. Fern was his life and is his death, forever. For always.

Beside him rattles a train. He looks up to the car and briefly sees blury faces, looking out. He breaks out into a smile, just because he can. And on the breeze he once again smells Neroli, he once again smells Fern. That has never happened before and it gives him a feeling that is pain mixed with happiness. Quinn wants to remember just as much as he wants to forget.

As he walks and walks and walks the day grows brighter, the new morning glowing with pinks and yellows and finally the sky is a clear, iridescent blue. Small birds flit and twitter, singing their morning songs. They are dead but they don't seem to mind. Every day, whether it is real or not, is the same to them. They do not mind. They sing and they fly. Fern loved that about them. "It's not what they do," she'd explained. "It's who they are." She'd been right, but she always was right about things like that.

He is close to the sea, because here the air shifts and becomes colder. Quinn was always one with the sea. He'd grown up by it and spent half his life in it, he felt. He knows when he is close to the sea, he knows where the sea is, always. On the breeze there is a hint of salt and fresh air, a sea smell. Different winds always had different smells in life and in death, strangely, it is no different.

Ahead of him is a small, squat house build of bricks and stones. It looks mostly abandoned but Quinn knocks on the door anyway. No one answers but the door is open and Quinn steps inside. The house is dark but there is one window in the back that makes only barely possible to see things instead of totally impossible. Looking around for anything interesting, Quinn spots a piece of paper on the dirt floor. He realizes it is not paper as he picks it up, but a photograph. A polaroid picture of two women, their arms thrown over each older's shoulders. They look like sisters. Putting his hand into his jeans pocket, Quinn pulls out a silver watch he had on him when he died. It does not work in death, but it is comforting just the same.

This person, whoever it was, had left behind their life. It is a sad reminder of what exactly Quinn is and just how far away he is of the only person who ever meant anything to him.

When he first died, Quinn spent months searching for his father who had died years before. But there had been an inkling in Quinn that his father would not have stayed long here, no matter how beautiful or peaceful or perfect this place was. He would have gone on. He would not have waited. For some reason, the thought, when he had first let himself really think it, had not made him so sad.

There is a very different feeling inside him when Quinn thinks of how, what if, what if...what if Fern goes on, what if Fern just goes without him and they never see each other again. And what if Quinn spends an eternity here waiting for someone who has already left without so much as a backward glance.

It is the chance he is forcing himself to make and Quinn leaves the small shack without regret.

All at once, when he leaves the house, a strange feeling of deja vu washes over him. Something has changed. From above, a hawk screeches loudly and soars around in a circle above him. The breeze shifts and the perfume of bitter oranges is strong. This is not just an ordinary day, Quinn realizes with a start. Clutching his fists, he realizes he is still holding onto the watch that doesn't keep time. The watch that Fern gave him for his birthday.

This is not just an ordinary day, because this is the day that Fern Whitelaw dies. And this is the day that Quinn Sutherland starts running. And this is the day where their story begins. This is the day that they begin to search for each other, in the beautiful and perfect utopia that is death.