“Check out the heron.
Karin pointed at the dark, pointy-beaked bird perched on the edge of a wooden pier, ten feet from
the shore of Lake Merritt, the man-made city lake next to downtown Oakland.
“That’s a heron?” Geoff asked. He was wearing thin-soled kung fu shoes and a
sweatshirt with Chinese characters on the back.
“Yeah,” Karin said. “In
Chinese writing, the character for meditation has the figure of a heron in
it. So he’s like good luck.”
“He’s always here on the weekend,” said Robert. He was also wearing kung fu shoes and a
Chinese sweatshirt. Karin was, too,
actually.
“Dude,” said the egret.
He was next to the heron, cleaning his long, white feathers with his beak. “They’re talking about you.”
The heron sat perfectly still, staring at the water’s
surface.
“Yeah,” Robert said, “when I do tai chi here on Saturdays—when you guys
aren’t here—he’s always there, in that same spot.”
“Funny,” Karin said.
“I’ve never seen him before. But
I guess we’re usually here on Mondays and Fridays.”
“Maybe he goes to his job during the week,” Geoff said. They all laughed.
“Seriously, are you hearing this?” the egret said. “They
think you’re a dude.”
“Well, it’s definitely auspicious to do tai chi in front of
a heron,” Karin said. “We’ll be extra
meditative today.”
Karin, Robert and Geoff bent their knees, lowered and raised
their arms, stepped out slowly on shaky ankles.
“Is that supposed to be graceful?” the egret asked. “They look like retards.”
The egret took a long, slow step forward, planted his foot
delicately on the wood of the pier. Then
he balanced on one foot and stretched his neck towards the sky. He looked sort
of like them except way, way better.
The heron stared down past the surface of the water, let her
gaze drift over fish and sea vegetables.
Maybe in a while she would eat.
In the periphery of her vision, the egret blurred and faded into
nothing, a breath exhaled by the universe.
So did the people and pier and her own feet and the fish and seaweed and
water.
Karin,
ReplyDeleteThis cracked me up -- the idea of some water fowl making fun of hipster humans.
Like here: “Is that supposed to be graceful?” the egret asked. “They look like retards.”
I love the turn at the the end -- the turn from humor to true beauty: In the periphery of her vision, the egret blurred and faded into nothing, a breath exhaled by the universe. So did the people and pier and her own feet and the fish and seaweed and water.
This is hilarious. I found myself chuckling out loud.
ReplyDeleteI love how your imagination posed the two birds' conversation against the humans, and how the birds talked like real people. These two lines especially cracked me up: '“Is that supposed to be graceful?” the egret asked. “They look like retards.”' and '“Seriously, are you hearing this?” the egret said. “They think you’re a dude.”'
I can feel how much fun you had writing this piece.
I agree with Anna. It feels like you had fun writing this. It works in a Portlandia kind of way, poking fun at "self-actualizers" but not in a mean-spirited way. The serious turn in the ending is refreshing and proves the humans' pursuit to be a good one. The heron is achieving what I'd imagine the humans are trying to achieve. Nice touch! And the use of "and" repeatedly in the last line works well stylistically to emphasize the "list" feel of the things she's letting go of.
ReplyDeleteA thought: The shifts to the birds' pov jarred me just enough to take me out of the piece for a moment. I'm wondering about giving the reader a heads-up for the shift by moving the birds' dialogue tags to before their dialogue, or maybe italicizing the birds' sections.