Rejections On Parade #1

At work the birds escaped. How did this happen? (The question resides in Rita's dark, prostrate eyes). It is your fault, she seems to say. The birds gone, flying in a strange formation; birds who were black yet now are silver and give a sublime effect in their maneuvers.

Did I dream this? Did it happen?

Rita's eyes will tell me.

When I go into the building I seek out those eyes. I wait by her door, staring foolishly at the Easter wreath she keeps there always. I lurk by the coffee maker. I stalk the corridors, seeking out those strange black embers that somehow glow from within (give light). But she is gone.

I ask the receptionist.

"Three day vacation," she says.

"Does she blame me for the birds?" I inquire with some plaintiveness.

"I don't know. Ask her when she gets back." She pops her gum.

"Well, is there a number where I can reach her? An email address."

"She won't take calls on vacation. You can email but I don't think she even brings her laptop."

"What if I just go to her? Go where she is?"

She sighs balefully.

"Well, look. I wouldn't go up there I was you. She's got a Rottenweiler dog hates all beings and he guards the place, and I mean guards. You go up there however and you can get in, keep it oral, will you? I don't want her getting pregnant now. It's a mess around here."

"What makes you think - ?" I'm really put off by all this. How do receptionists obtain such power?

She sighs again and pops her gum and doesn't answer.

"Well? Well?" I demand to know.

"Come on." She looks at me like I'm the last to have heard. What? Heard what?

Finding refuge in the occupational therapy saloon I employed my cell phone to provide a curt message for Rita which I won't reiterate in these papers. But here is the email:

"It's not about fucking it's about the birds. Why do you blame me? Look at their freedom. The formations they make, their change of color, the sublime aspect. I know you saw it. They are prepared to be free. I don't care what the Activity Director may say. That I did not feed them, for one. I did. Or had it seen to by peons on my detail. Yes it is true I want to have sexual relations with you but the receptionist warns that it must be oral. Will this satisfy you?"

I roamed the corridors, searching for her eyes. I turned off all the lights. I thought by this means to determine if they had acquired the same silvery phosphorescence as our fugitive birds.

But it was no go. It was a bust.

Only two days had passed, however.

The receptionist made paper airplanes from an instruction manual I had given her at the Christmas Drawing. She had written crude things on all of them. Crude things with reference to me, my habits, my relations with you know who. That's how she put it, too, those very words I saw in bold on one sleek, sweptback wing: "… YOU KNOW WHO." I am certain they fell into the wrong hands – hateful, vengeful hands, eager for the blood of disgraced officials – because normally friendly colleagues now glared at me, even spat on the rug when I passed. They are dogs. Worse. Poodles from hell.





Then Rita came back. She was there waiting when I showed up late for work, as usual. How beautiful she is. From India. Of the Social Service Caste.

"The birds have been restored to me," she announced. There was a look of blame darkening her already brown face. Her eyes, however, had gone completely dead. Her vitality had been stolen away.

I asked her where the birds were at this moment.

"They are no longer within these walls," she said with a voice full of glaciers. "I have placed them in a more suitable facility. Now, if you'll excuse me. We have no more to say to each other."

"Won't you even tell me if they still glow? Do they remain silver?"

"I am no longer at liberty to discuss it," she said, and her eyes went away. They were no good to me now. No good to anyone. I am alone and left to die in this strange city without the goodness of her eyes.