Southern Fried Weirdness

By Mari Ness

The lake was poisoned. Not, state officials said, irrevocably, making various statements about wetlands mitigation and biological reclamation and cleanup efforts, but for now, it rested heavy with phosphorus and other chemicals. Alligators still came to the lake, preying on dying birds. More rarely, a boat would inch out into the shallow waters – at its deepest, the lake was only 20 feet deep or so – to feel the sun and the wind, but for the most part, boaters avoided the lake. No fishing, and besides, they were terrified of poison.

Lucy came down to bury the dead birds sometimes.

She owned a house by the lake, a leftover from the orange grove days. She still had a few orange trees left on her own property, although she did little to maintain them. Unpruned, they now grew so closely together that she could not walk between all of them. Still, they gave her enough oranges to send to various friends in winter, and sometimes take to the little farmer's market. Most, she left for the birds and squirrels. The trees stood close to the lake, and she sometimes thought the poison ran up the trees and helped lure the birds to their deaths.

She found two this morning, twin tricolored herons, the bugs already buzzing about them. She sighed, and returned with a large black trash bag. That never felt quite right, but she could never stand the feel of the cold feathers, either – and they were always cold here, even in a Florida August, even when everything else was too hot to the touch. She rolled the birds into the bag with the ease of long practice, then dragged them a little up the hill, near an orange tree, and began to dig.

She knew the eyes were watching her. She did not bother to look back.

###

She worked as a geologist, focusing on water quality, although in her case it meant mostly paperwork, endless paperwork. The job was near enough to be a long bicycle ride from the house, which she had inherited from grandparents. On rainy days, or in the summer heat, she took a car, but otherwise, she biked. To save gas, she told everyone.  An excuse for not joining coworkers for after work socializing, she knew. She did not dislike her coworkers, but she did not want to make friends among them either.

She had other friends. Friends along the lake.

Ironically, or perhaps not, she never studied the lake in her job. Instead, she reported on groundwater samples from planned gas stations and construction projects; advised builders how to remain in compliance with laws; did paperwork and more paperwork. And sometimes thought of the vast emptiness of the lake, of the way birds settled into the wetlands of other lakes, spreading their wings.

And in the evening, she came home, to rest in her graveyard of dead birds.

The oranges had fallen around the grave of the dead birds, their skins a mottled orange and brown. She knelt down, grumbling to herself as her knees cracked, and dug up the black bag. It shifted under her shovel as she pushed aside the sandy earth.
She held the bag by its edges as she returned to the lake, still ignoring – or pretending to ignore – the eyes that watched her from the lake shore, from the dark patches in the overgrown grove. Above her, a small hawk flew above, not crying out, his eyes intent on squirrels and other small rodents. Her arms ached a little.

She knelt by the lake and looked over the water. By now, the sun was setting, not quite replaced by the rising half moon, turning the lake waters into a rich gold. She could see, not too far away, black knobs drifting in the water – the heads of two alligators as they shifted from one shore to another. They looked, in the light, and at this angle, almost like sticks, but she had seen enough of them to know them.

They had always meant to build a small boat dock here, or at least some wooden walkway out into the lake, but they never had. She could go, she supposed, to one of the parks that edged the lake, and walk on a walkway there, but that meant meeting people. Or more precisely, people seeing her. She sighed. It was cold, even by Florida standards. Still.  She bowed her head, then stood and waded into the water. When it splashed above her ankles, she opened the bag and tossed out the birds.

They flailed as they hit the water, flapping their wings. She stumbled back as the water splashed about her. Her imagination, she knew, but the water felt heavy. When she reached the shoreline, she knelt again, trying to ignore her wet socks and shoes, the cold of the lake breeze.

The birds struggled in the water, their wings stretching out to catch the sun.

The black knobs moved silently, steadily.

Her feet ached with the cold.

The feet and legs of the herons were swallowed first, then the wings, and finally their long necks, which flailed silently, desperately, with none of the cries they might have made, when they were alive, hunting for fish in the mud. She rose to her feet, and watched the alligators, mere bumps in the water, head into the dark waters of the lake. She could never be sure, but she thought, heading out, that they swam a little more swiftly.

Mari Ness lives in Central Florida, near a lake haunted by alligators, though she hasn't buried any birds, living or dead, near it. Her work has previously appeared in numerous print and online venues, including Fantasy Magazine, Polu Texni, and Everyday Weirdness, and may continue to appear in odd and weird markets from time to time.  When her cats have not kidnapped the laptop as a cat bed, she keeps a disorganized blog at http://mariness.livejournal.com.

Copyright © 2009, Mari Ness