What the Warbler Whistled

I'm standing on a bridge

Alone, I know what's coming.

Cold steel tracks beneath my feet.

I'm beset on both sides by ravenous waves,

and an engine humming.

I can't tell its direction

but I see no point in running.

My chest beats to the rythm

of train cars bumping.

A crescendo—

I'm caught in suspension

by blaring horns and

smoke, pluming like a raven coming.

Screeching—

stretching its metal wings

and of all things

I find myself jumping.

A heavy cloud covers my body. My mouth feels like it's stuffed with cotton balls. There's an eerie peace before your brain receives the message that you're drowning. It sounds like putting a seashell to your ear.

The message hits my brain.

I'm flailing.

My lips gasp for air.

The salt water burns my throat until—

And then my eyes open. There is no water, only sweat. There's no thrashing against heavy waves, just kicking against heavy winter sheets. I walk out to the balcony to light a cigarette, tripping over stacks of paper and bits of a broken chair as I do so, and again my throat burns. The ashtray is full, so I let my half finished cigarette fall and flicker onto the street below. No point in going back to bed. I left a bottle of water out here, which I pick up to water the foxgloves. That's right. The terra cotta pots are full of cigarette butts too, and the flowers have been long dead. They smell like corpse flowers.

Water. Drips down my hair and stings my back. Sitting on the floor of the shower, I see the fungi has returned. I scrape some off with a fingernail but give up to rest my back against the wall. I turn the temperature down, hold my breath and close my eyes for a moment to give myself a drowning shock.

Back on the balcony, now wrapped in a towel I see a leather bound book with a weathered spine. Opening it, I see my words as though from a stranger, in the guise of my handwriting:

'January 1st, 2012

As it turns out, no amount of drinking will push back this deadline. This publisher wants another book ready within a few months. I'd have declined another publication offer, but the rent on the apartment went up. I'm being milked.'

Boring. I skip a page.

'January 2nd

My first book was a fluke. A story of some struggling writer – if only they knew how autobiographical it really was. Good fiction lies in reality, but I laid all my cards out on the table with that first book, and now there's nothing left for me to write about. I must search for my genius, or else Annie and I will be out of a home.'

‘January 4th

Back in school a teacher told me that 90% of writing occurs not from behind a desk, but in the workings of life itself. So I reason that most of the time working on this novel should be spent learning from life, so as to create a realistically compelling story.

Today I looked past the foxgloves Annie leaves on the balcony to see a man and a woman making love in the building opposite.'

I run my finger over the scribbled out paragraph of notes beneath this. I turn the page and my eyes continue to railroad along this track of words.

‘February 1st

Walked out onto the balcony. Woman in a black dress bleeding in gutter. Calls for help. Lights flicker on around various buildings. Curtains get momentarily disturbed as people peek from behind them. One by one the lights go off. No police, no ambulance. Girl bleeds out. Could use this for an allegory?'

I remember that night. I was out there for hours. I adapted those events into my realm of fiction as a writing exercise. I'm not so much a part of this world, as a spectator.

'February 2nd

Annie threw a chair at the wall when she found out a girl died not even 10 metres from our balcony. She knew I'd been out there all night writing.'

I lift up my bookmark to reveal the last page I'd written on. The page bears no date. A horn followed by rhythmic rapping on metal sounds from a distance. It must be the first train of the day. 5am. A raven lands on the railing of my balcony. My hairs are on edge. I read on.

Annie's funeral yesterday. Her flowers are still on the balcony. Pieces of chair still on the floor.'

I take another shower

I take another shower

and I take another shower.

I can't wash off the smell of dead flowers. I draw a face on the wet glass pane. Beautiful Annie. I'm bad at drawing.

It looks like she has a beak.

I have the urge to write, so I scribble on the glass beneath her bird like face. Splinters of memories flit past my eyes.

A spectral train;

Blinding light;

A metal ferryman comes.

Lightning – rain;

Blackened night

Annie, the depths your body plumbs.

I'm at my desk, hair still wet. No matter how much you scrub it's hard to feel clean with everything in a mess. Annie smelt like foxgloves. The foxgloves now smell like her. The last I saw her, Annie asked me if I saw myself in my first book. I said, “I'm the struggling writer. But I'm also Kat, a flaming personality. And I'm her best friend Maya, a dull spirit. I'm the comic reliefs; I'm the drunks and the fools.” It's in remembering this final conversation with her that I find myself able to write out a part of the story I'd been struggling with:

'We always came here as kids. Returning now, the colours seem much more muted than the days in secondary school where everything was vivid. The cliff face, once alive with yellowing grass that appeared painted on top a vast, blue lake which, in our smaller minds and bodies, felt as large as the oceans, was now a patchy ground, picked apart for resting carrion. Beneath the weathered cliff was an old wooden bridge that once supported magnificent steam trains.'

I stopped writing there. Too autobiographical. The memory of that day flares back into my mind in a twister of metal rage. A train passes the station that's situated about 100 metres from my open window and I struggle to breathe, as though the foxgloves were choking me. It feels like I'm drowning.

I fall back on my chair, knocking the contents of my desk over. The sounds, like galloping race horses, fade back into the distance as I lay curled up on the floor. Now all I hear is my breathing. My calendar fell in the panic. I've been avoiding checking the date, but now it's glaring at me. March 5th. My self-imposed ostracism has lasted over a month.

I pick up my book and attempt to continue writing from the floor. Still collecting my breath from before, I stare at a blank page. I could put any story that I wanted on here, but I've always been attracted to the macabre. See, this book I'm writing is about two lovers who fall out, and I've been struggling with the climax. While I worked on it I had a news clipping next to me:

'The Daily Review

February 6th, 2012

A train going from London to Exeter faced delays when a woman on the rails was struck in a tragic accident. Witnesses claim to have seen a man in the moments before the woman was struck, but conflicting accounts say that he either ran or jumped. Their identities are yet to be confirmed.'

In the search for a genius, it feels like I've been watching my life instead of participating in it. Reading these words as though it happened to someone else. My Annie has died and I'm hurt, but it feels like I'm watching it hurt, perhaps even relishing it. Because of her I can write a true death scene. A real loss.

The sun begins to rise and I close the curtains. The raven on the balcony is joined by the rest of its conspiracy. I get to work on my magnum opus.

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