Hannibal

Hannibal 1864 words

Hannibal spent every minute of every waking hour silently cursing his
mother for ruining his life. That is, until last Friday when he was
distracted from his lamentations by a tiny bird.

A sparrow. No bright colours here. Grey, with streaks of light brown,
delicate and beautiful in an understated way.

He was fascinated by its little flights and walks from tree to balcony
to ground. A sort of mindless meandering, unconcerned about watchers
like Hannibal, or anything else in the universe. Sometimes its
pin-wheeling freedom took it near larger birds, but they ignored
it..

Eventually, it perched on the rail of his balcony, cocking its head to
one side as though looking at him. As if to say 'What do you think of
that?'

It was close enough to touch. You plucky little thing he thought,
reaching towards it then freezing. His mother had taught him that birds
are animals, and animals are dirty. Germs, diseases , skin and
respiratory conditions. But how could something this small and
beautiful be so dangerous, even deadly?

Hannibal stopped at the open door to the balcony. The tiny bird was
perched on the edge of a large table. Hi little sparrow he mouthed,
voiceless, lest he scare it away.

Then he repeated the word 'sparrow'. It sounded just right for a tiny
bird: two pretty syllables, light, appropriate. The name 'Hannibal' was
far stronger, from the huff of an 'h' to the burst of the 'b'.
Hann-i-bal. Great name for a General, but not for an ordinary man, a
grey man. Not strikingly grey like the sparrow. Just boring and
colourless.

How silly the name must 've sounded when he was a babe-in-arms. She may
as well have called him Popeye.Of course Hannibal remembered nothing of
his early infancy, or as a toddler, but there must have been a time
when his mother carried him as a small bundle against her chest. And he
thought: It was like that, wasn't it. There was a time when she loved
me and cared for me? But it was more a wish than an affirmation. An
impossible wish.

Hannibal's first recollections were extremely varied in terms of
context, yet each image, quite consistently, had his mother at the
centre. Belittling him. Punishing him for trivial offences. Making him
do the household chores, but never to her satisfaction. Saying vile
things about 'the man he would become'. Hannibal had no friends

He quite clearly remembered the not-so-early years before school.
Weekdays were no different - hard work, increasing punishment, and
verbal abuse. Mother's weekend tennis offered a break in routine. At
least the adults there tried to treat him well, but they couldn't help
themselves, and just had to resolve the little-kid-big-name mismatch by
calling him 'little Hannibal'.

Their children were far more inventive and vindictive. To them, he
became Hannibubble. Why? Why did you do this to me, he thought,
bitterly. You deliberately gave me the name, knowing that this would
happen given him the name which now made him an object of
derision.

'Hannibubble' had no father to turn to. He had never met him, nor even
heard of him. Mother simply would not discuss the matter and that was
that.

But she did not refuse to listen to Hannibal, as he poured out all the
details of his humiliation. She laughed at him, and she taunted him by
playing with his name too. Hannibawl, Hannidribble, Hannibaby. Many
times.

She had always been hard on him, and had often hurt his feelings, but
never like this..He could no longer avoid the truth: She didn't want
him in her life, and wished he had never been born. And so he came to
hate her. And when she hurt him, he found little ways of paying her
back, petty things like trampling her roses, hiding the TV remote,
putting tissues in the wash with her best clothes.

As he moved through primary and high schools, the scale of his revenge
increased. Mail stolen and thrown away. Her computer accounts
penetrated and abused. A brick mysteriously through her car windscreen.
On one occasion he was so enraged, he set fire to the kitchen, but
panicked, and put it out, though the kitchen was largely
destroyed.

He felt no guilt, just fear. None of the episodes was spontaneous. He
would save his 'revenge' for weeks or even months, separating them from
the precipitating event, savouring the prospect of the pay-back,
thriving on the planning process. Yet at all times, when it came to
doing the deed, he was paranoid that his mother would find him out, and
was forever turning his head to see if she was coming.

The sparrow was similarly on watch, listening, but its head movements
were not sweeping like his, but a sort of flick, so swift that the eye
could not keep up. Like jumping from one still photograph to
another.

The bird's last head flick was directly toward him. Their eyes met, his
darting around at first, the bird's absolutely fixed, but devoid of
human sentiment. The sparrow captured his gaze. The only time mother
did that was when she knew she was doing him harm, and then her
witchy-bitchy eyes lit up with a malevolent joy.

At least he no longer lived with her, not even in the same city. His
moderate, but humdrum job supported his hermit-like lifestyle in the
small ground floor apartment. Other than tradesmen, he could not recall
inviting anyone through the door.

Suddenly the bird flew through the doorway ,into his bedroom, its wings
beating loud in his ears. His hands swept up to keep it from touching
his face. Thwwacck! Face, hand and bird collided, and he felt a scratch
to his cheek. The bird caromed off him to the bed, where it lay still
for a moment, slightly stunned, then stood again and shook off its
confusion, staring at him again.

He laughed, recognizing the irony. A bird in his bed? No way. Mother
had been most diligent with his sex education, and had delivered the
lot, coldly and dispassionately, before he went to school. Actually, he
was far too young to relate to most of this, and she knew it, but he
was absolutely ready to internalize the real message: Girls are dirty,
girls have GERMS. All girls, she would say, and if you touch them,
something bad will happen. Just an itch if you're lucky, but some will
kill you. Or your willie will shrivel and stop working.

When he got older, he surfed the web, and what he found about STDs
reinforced his mother's indoctrinations. There was no way he would
touch a woman. Ever.

Or a man - mother had not left them out. Every one, it seamed, was
filthy with germs and disease. Perhaps mother was too. Thus in his
first forty years, he had never had a pet, nor allowed another human
being to get close to him. No brother or sisters. No father. He could
not contemplate being close to his mother. .

The little bird raised its wings, slowly, but brought them back down:
the left wing did not operate properly. Hannibal surmised that it was
broken. But he could not touch the poor creature; who knows what he
might catch. The sparrow's eyes met his, and for a moment Hannibal read
a plea for help into the look. I will if I can he said, aloud, but the
sparrow did not react.

He went to the other end of the bed, and pulled the sheet. It needs my
help, he thought, and he remembered its unfettered flight, and the joy
it had brought him. What would that be like? How marvelous, he thought,
as he dragged the sheet to the verandah.

If he could only get it into a cage, he could take it to a vet. Perhaps
one of the other residents in the block could help him. It took thirty
minutes to get a cage from the local pet shop. Finding help was easier
than he thought . Hannibal had lived there for twelve years, and had
almost no contact with any one. He avoided body corporate meetings ,
and residents had quickly learnt the folly of speaking to him in the
car park. Thomas Harris's Red Dragon had left him with the nickname
Doctor Lecter, and there were always jokes circulating about his eating
habits.

When Gwen Beam, answered the door in Unit 2, she found Hannibal,
clearly upset and flustered, clutching a cage. He did not hear her
stifle a 'Doctor,?', as he burst into the request for help he had been
rehearsing. He not only explained what needed to be done, but also why
he could not do it himself. She felt sorry for the little man, and
rather admired him for being so forthright about his phobia. He was
anything but the 'spook' she had imagined.

He had never allowed a woman into his apartment before, but had no
hesitation now when Gwen offered to help. They hurried to his
apartment, and onto the balcony. The sheet was there, but no bird. Nor
was it on the stretch of lawn below? He came close to tears, believing
it dead by his hand.

'It may be all right' said Gwen. 'Its wing may not have been broken'.
How strange it was to talk to someone, particularly a woman, in his
home. Strange but not threatening. He was saddened when she rejected an
offer of coffee. And left.

* * * * *

Hannibal had never kept a diary. Who would, when your life is miserable
and empty. But when Gwen left, he had an urge to record how he felt on
this extraordinary day. Buying a small leather-bound journal, with
blank pages made from saa paper he came home, and sat contemplating for
some time, then wrote:

Sunday 12 August (the first day of my life?)

Lucky are those for whom freedom is a given. But it is a fragile gift,
easily lost.
Or stolen. Passer mortuus est.

Today I saw that the walls that protect me also hold me back. I peeped
over them, and glimpsed a better, less lonely life.

It may, however, be too late for me. I am too staid to create
opportunities. But this I promise: if they come, I will seize them, as
I have nothing to lose.

A week passed. The cut on his face entirely healed, even though he had
been too preoccupied earlier to clean it or apply antiseptic. The germs
had not infected him. Hannibal started rethinking the whole animal
germs connection, which really was mother's, not his.

The sparrow did not return, but in looking for it, Hannibal saw a world
of birds, doing as they please. He took to sitting on the balcony
watching.

Then one evening there was a knock at his door. No one ever did that.
Seize he told himself seize the chance!

Gwen stood there, a full percolator in one hand, the other held a
budgerigar in a cage. 'Come in, he said unhesitatingly.

'Why thank you Hannibal' said Gwen.

And he liked the way she said his name.