Ghillie Part 1: Suits You Sir

He loved to lie in wait, flat on his belly like a snake, watching them. Binoculars basically glued to his face so when the light reflected off them he looked like a surprised owl, caught sunbathing in the middle of a field.

Sometimes he snapped a photo if he wasn’t afraid it would make his target flee in fear. He had seen some great tits in his time, and sometimes he got carried away and saw blue tits, but to him it didn’t matter it was his obsession. He was patient, he was meticulous, and he always got his target. He was…

A birdwatcher. He liked to think he was the best of the best, but you could argue that was akin to being the best at masturbating or the best at burping the alphabet. He had of course, never been with a women in his life, but he had seen some great tits, and a bald eagle to boot.

His success at his desk job had allowed him to spend much more money and time on this hobby than any normal person had before, and he was just about ready to test out his latest new idea, to spot the one last bird he was missing from his book. Arguably the rarest of them all, according to Birdwatcher’s Weekly – though how they managed enough new content about watching birds to fill a magazine every week is anyone’s guess.

“I saw this big, fuck-off white bird last night, near the crossroads.” He had overheard one of his co-workers saying in the canteen yesterday, and his inner bird watcher came dangerously close to exploding all over the office in a messy orgy of social awkwardness – but he managed to keep calm and cool.
“What did it look like?” He asked casually, staring into his coffee cup as if there was something very interesting floating in it.
“Why do you care?” Looking at him with something close to disgust. He knew he was weird, and he also knew that he probably needed to wash more often, but the looks and whispers still hurt him. At least he had his passion to get him through it.
“I’m just curious.” He muttered, not looking up from his cup, wishing he was a braver man, brave enough to look people in the eye more often.

The jerk that saw the bird rolls his eyes and then elucidates, “It was big, fuck-off, and white. And probably a bird.” He said, emphasizing every word. This description didn’t really help George at all, but it did sound vaguely like what he was hunting for.
“Did it have big eyes? And thick white feathers?” He said, his heart speeding up, the folks in the canteen all started looking at him funny.
“What’s it matter about this bird?”
“Yeah, man, fuck the bird, tell us about the girl you hooked up with after that.”
“Yeah, tell us about that again, you dirty dog.” The room erupts into laughter and George’s face flushes red, and he backs out of the room without a word.

Later that day he manages to get hold of the guy again and find out where he saw this bird, he sees the look in the man’s eyes and knows that he is thinking you’re a freak, but George doesn’t care, if he finally spots his first Snowy Owl it would make all this worthwhile.
“Did it look like an Owl?”
“No, looked like a bloody bird.”
“An Owl is a bird.” Jesus Christ, he thought, but he’d never say it out loud, that’d be too brave. That was one of the best things about being a birdwatcher, bravery was not a necessary prerequisite.

“Whatever, Einstein.” Said with obvious scorn. “Why do you care so much, bird brain?” The meathead grinned, as if coming up with two nicknames in one day was the best moment of his life.
“I’m a birdwatcher.” He mutters quietly, wondering how this guy knew that his account name on barmybirdwatchers.org was BirdBrain, spooky.
“That’s weird, you’re weird.” The man laughs walking on ahead of George out of the office and George having to double time it to keep up with his long legs.

“Yeah.” George laughs distractedly, “But anyway, was it an owl? Big eyes and a weird head and all that?” He stops again, as if deep in though. The act of remembering for this man probably is deep thought. George thinks if he asked him what he had for lunch he probably would struggle to remember.
“Somethin’ like that, yeah.”
“And white?”
“As white as my shirt.” The meathead said, tugging at his shirt. It was closer to a dull grey but the point had been made. George was getting excited, it sounded like a match, the ever illusive snowy owl. He hurried off without another word to the man, but the idiot was so lost in his own thoughts he probably didn’t notice.

And so here George sat, in his mothers basement, slaving over a design he ‘procured’ (read: stole) off a military website, preparing to create the ultimate bird watching device, in the desperate hopes to catch a glimpse of an owl that usually spent it’s time in sub polar regions, in order to finish his list. It was a long shot, but he had nothing better to do because his mother was out playing bingo and his porn subscriptions had run out.

His ultimate contraption is a Ghillie suit, something similar to those used by the army and by hunters, and now being relegated to the status of bird watching. George figured he could lie in wait, face down in the grass, or hiding in the trees, and wait for the bird to make an appearance, at which point he would tick it off in his weathered old book, and maybe snap a photo, if he got lucky.

He finally finished sewing leaves, twigs, and grass to some old potato sacks that he fashioned into trousers, a jumper, and a sort of hood thing. He looked at himself in the mirror, it was good, the effect couldn’t be see as well in the basement with the grey brick walls and dripping pipes, but it still looked the photo he had copied, so that was always a plus.

He waited until his mother went out and then sneaked out into the dark, wearing the ghillie suit; lugging his bag filled with his camera, book, and a snack (a whole cooked chicken wrapped in tin foil). He took long way to the crossroads through a woodland area, being glad that he lived quite close to them so no one saw him in the suit. He looked like a Wookie that had an accident in a camouflage factory, and he bet if someone drove past on the road and caught a peek of him slinking through the woods, they would have thought they saw an overweight Bigfoot hauling a Doctor Who bag on his back. Enough to drive anyone mad.

He settled down in the undergrowth on the edge of a field, next to the crossroads and close enough to the small cluster of trees that passed for this town’s ‘forest’. A few cars drove past close by, and George practiced at lying completely still. At one point he heard a few voices pass by alarmingly close, but no one noticed him, hiding in his amazing contraption, not that people noticing him was something that usually happened.

He went into a trance of sorts as the night moved on, occasionally ripping chunks from his chicken and gnawing on them like an animal. He saw a few other birds flitting through the darkness, but he had seen them all before and they weren’t of much interest to him. He eventually slipped on his cheap, rubbish mail order night vision goggles that a guy he knew online called OwlReally had recommended to him. The night suddenly turned into a haze of green and his head began to ache, it always hurt his head.

It was getting really late now, and there was still nothing but boring birds in the trees, and George began to wish that he had of stayed at home and watched Sci-Fi TV shows in his Snuggie, with a bag of Doritos. The hunt was always annoying when it ended with disappointment. Suddenly, he heard the roaring of an old engine, spluttering and coughing like a dying beast, and as it quieted to a stop; he heard several people pile out of it, speaking in hushed, gruff voices.
“Just dump it here, quick.”
“Don’t be a fucking moron, someone will find it here, we gotta bury it.” The voices carried on arguing in hushed tones, while George lay face down in the dirt, like a yellow bellied snake, shaking gently and trying his best not to piss himself.
“Grab the shovel, come on.” Suddenly one of the men hopped over the wall next to him, and he saw a pair of black boots hit the ground mere feet from him, tinted in the green of his night vision goggles. He held his breath and hoped that his ghillie suit worked, for his own sake.

“Hang on.” Called the other man. “I’m gonna throw it over.” And almost immediately, too close for comfort to George, there was a heavy thud and something landed in front of him.
“You fucking idiot, have some respect!” The other man spat.
George immediately wished he didn’t have his goggles on. It was a corpse, wrapped up in sheets. The dead eyes lolled at him and the jaw hung open, gaping. The teeth inside were smashed to bits and the tongue was cut out. The green of the goggles made it look like a rotting, ancient cadaver. He tried his best not to scream, but couldn’t entirely hold it all in. He made a small squeaking sound and immediately his heart turned to ice.
“What the hell was that?” The man clambering over the wall muttered.
“Don’t shit your pants.” The man standing mere feet from George said, picking up the body. “It was just some stupid creature.” How beautifully appropriate.

The two men lingered for what seemed like an eternity before trotting off into the woods, lugging the body between them, one of them whistling merrily and the other one trying his best to pop a cigarette into his mouth and light it while carrying the body at the same time. George lay there, completely still, for a long time, frozen by fear and disbelief, and he could imagine the screaming face of that mangled body following him for the rest of his life. He had to get out of here, he had to call the police, he had to –

But then he heard it. A loud yet soft hooting, the most beautiful thing he had ever heard, coming from the direction the men just went. That sort of hooting was unmistakeable, he had listened to samples countless times on the internet (because that’s what weirdo’s like George do with their valuable free time) and there was no doubt. It was the Snow Owl, lurking in the forest where those two ghouls were burying that poor soul’s body.

George didn’t really need to think about it, he was that stupid and desperate. He promptly stood up, and then promptly fell over because there was no feeling in his legs. He then stood up again and walked slowly, on pins and needles, towards the hooting, and towards the two men. Suddenly brave in the face of all this because he might see a bird, what an idiot.