Waiting for a Kiss

Waiting for a Kiss

Craig aimed the tip of the arrow at the swan's neck. "Keep still, will
you? Stupid bird!" But the bird wouldn't keep still. Instead she
continued preening herself, flitting through her feathers, standing,
turning in a circle before once more alighting gently upon her
eggs.
Craig raised his bow and arrow again. Once more he took aim at the
bird's slender neck, not seeing the grace and beauty of what he was so
eager to destroy. His friend Dale collected birds' eggs. His friend
Dale collected lots of things, friends amongst them, and Craig didn't
want to lose him. Not many people liked Craig. Not even his dad.
Dale said you couldn't get near a swan's nest when they had eggs, the
male swan was very aggressive and, as ever, Craig absorbed every word
that tumbled from his lips.
He'd found the male swan floating belly-up in the muddy canal water;
he'd never seen a dead swan before and supposed a barge must have hit
it. A few hundred yards further along the towpath he'd found the female
swan sitting regally atop her nest.
Craig's Uncle Batch said collecting eggs was illegal. Craig's Uncle
Batch was a vet so he supposed Uncle Batch was right and Craig liked
his uncle. But so what? Drinking and driving was illegal too and his
dad did that all the time, "It's only a crime when you get caught, and
I ain't yet," his dad liked to boast.
"That's it, little birdy. You stay still, just like that and?" he
pulled the string taught until he reached what was the right tension,
holding his breath, his heart banging in his ribcage, trying to get
out. A trickle of sweat ran into his one open eye and he had to squint
to see the bird as the salt began to sting. He let go the arrow.
He watched it cut through the air and as time seemed to slow the
arrow, it appeared that the afternoon breeze would bend it away from
its target; strangely Craig felt himself hoping now that it would. But
that horrible thwack sound and the clamorous flapping assured him that
he'd been successful.
Craig thought that his heart had stopped beating because he suddenly
felt very cold inside. He swallowed and glanced around guiltily then
looked back at the bird. She was flapping so wildly now he was sure
someone would come running to see what the commotion was. He threw down
his bow.
"Stop it! Die, will you? Just die!"
He didn't know what to do.
'What would Dale do?'
He tried to calm himself. He turned his back on the bird so he could
think more clearly. Put it out of its misery, yes that's it, that's
what Dale would do. Dale would be good at that but he wasn't here,
Craig knew that he'd have to do it himself.
He turned back to the dying swan. He scanned the ground, searching for
a weapon. If what Dale had said were true he'd need one; a blow from a
swan's wing could break your arm and its beak could crack your skull.
He bent and picked up a fallen branch; the bark crumbled in his hand,
the wood disintegrated in his grip and fell to the ground.
He looked around once more until his eyes fell upon an empty Guinness
bottle, he recognised it as one of his dad's favourites, its label
partially scoured away by the rain. He picked it up and knocked off the
few snails and leaves that were adhered to it then held the neck in his
ten-year-old hand. He looked over at the swan, her wings now flapping
feebly as she continued to protect her eggs. Just an ugly duckling, he
thought.
She was dying and he hoped he wouldn't need the bottle. An arrow was
like a bullet; you could close your eyes and pull the trigger then walk
away but the bottle, with the bottle he'd have to keep his eyes
open.
He stepped closer, the bottle held out before him in defence rather
than attack, and as he moved nearer his eyes began to absorb the beauty
of the creature before him, the one blemish, the expanding bloodstain
from which protruded the arrow that he, Craig, was responsible
for.
I could just go, leave her to die, thought Craig. But the eggs, he had
to get the eggs. He stepped on a twig and the resultant crack was
enough to shake the swan from her death throes. Her head came up, her
wings beating so fiercely he could feel the breeze from them cooling
his hot cheeks. He stopped; sure she was about to attack and held the
bottle before him. But her resurrection was short-lived as her fanning
wings began to fade.
Craig didn't like this anymore. It wasn't fun and it was turning out
to be too real. He hadn't really meant to kill anything; he just wanted
to see if he could. He had his mobile phone; he could ring Uncle Batch.
But how would he explain the arrow?
"I'm sorry Mrs Birdy, I really am." She looked up at the sound of his
voice, her beak opened as if to speak but no sound came. Craig threw
the bottle away and then the first tears began to flow. Craig hated
himself, and felt he knew now why others didn't like him and why his
parents had rejected him. He sat down a few feet from the swan's nest
and blubbered through tears of self-loathing. The swan flapped a wing
meekly as if she were shooing him away then was still once more.
"I remember when I was five," he sobbed, "I never knew my dad; he
worked abroad a lot. But whenever I smell beer I smell my first memory
of him. I ran to him when Mom told me to. 'There's your Daddy, run to
Daddy' and after a shove in the back I did as I was told. He just
knocked me away with the back of his hand as if I was a fly that was
after his beer. I fell against the open door, it broke my nose." Craig
looked at the dying swan, she was nodding her head, as if encouraging
him to carry on and he continued. "Mom screamed at him then, not
because he'd hit me but because he'd gone straight to the pub before
seeing her."
Craig could still see the memory as it played in his head, still smell
the stale beer from his father's hand as he ran from the house, too
shocked to cry, as the shouting faded behind him.
He stopped talking. The swan was now motionless, as if she'd grown
bored and simply fallen asleep over the telling of his tale.
He looked at the remains of the family he'd destroyed and wondered what
it would be like to be part of a proper family. Had he destroyed this
family because he was jealous? Perhaps that was why nobody liked him.
Perhaps they could feel that his family wasn't normal, and were scared
of him like he was scared of Auntie Carol when she'd been dying of
cancer.
"What do you think birdy?" She didn't answer. "I'm going to take your
babies but not for Dale. If I have to do this to get friends then I'd
rather not have them. I'll take them instead to Uncle Batch, he'll save
them; he's a vet. They'll grow up and be fit and healthy swans that you
would have been proud of."
Craig knelt down beside the nest and with a struggle lifted the bird's
still warm body. Not yet dead she stirred slightly but Craig was no
longer scared. She turned and with as much grace as she could muster
gave him the tiniest peck on his tear-starched cheek - a touch as
tender as only a mother's kiss could be.
The bird died in his arms and he cried some more before placing the
corpse beside the now redundant nest.
"I'll come back for you later, Mrs Swan. I'll come back with a spade
and bury you properly with Mr Swan. But first I have to take these." He
picked each egg up in turn and placed them gently in the hammock he'd
created in his tee shirt and held them close to keep them warm.
He would not lie to Uncle Batch, he'd tell him everything. He liked
Uncle Batch and hopefully, after he'd heard what Craig had to say,
Uncle Batch would still like him.