Freya, something’s going on. We’re levitating. Or dreaming we are.
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Short Fiction
The Red Bird
Just days before, their baby was stillborn, and no cause was found. Now they were stood, embracing. Yet somehow, lifting upwards, right off the ground.
Evan, what’s happening?
They continued effortlessly rising until they came to a halt and were dangling, mid-air. Not just the rules of gravity and logic but surely the low ceilings in their cottage made this physically impossible. Swirling beneath them, ambiguous haze.
Freya, something’s going on. We’re levitating. Or dreaming we are.
Freya was still in his arms and feeling cocooned, comfortable even. More than this, she didn’t feel separate anymore.
Everything’s so fluid. I can’t tell where I end, and you begin. And how can we be floating?
I don’t understand either.
What if it’s the end? I’m not ready, Evan, please don’t let it be that.
But the thought wasn’t convincing. Surely death wasn’t so gentle, as tender as this?
Evan shut his eyes and opened them again. Nothing made sense. The division between them was muddled. And that wasn’t all.
I can’t believe I’m saying this. Try not to panic. We’ll wake soon but just think of this as the most immersive virtual ride. Right now, it looks like we’re both made up of lines and shapes, and we seem to be overlapping.
You’re saying we’re fading away? Vanishing?
Obviously, visibility couldn’t be shed, like a coat. But being blind from birth, the specifics of physical appearance eluded Freya.
We’re not disappearing, Freya. I promise.
They were far from it. Evan was a blue blaze of conspicuousness. Mostly an electric, tropical ocean shade. His outline and the segments within were darkest navy. Freya was also blue, except for her pale checked skirt, the only part not intersecting with him. Her colours seemed to be less concentrated, secondary. In this respect she hadn’t vanished but could almost be described as transparent. Something nagged at his mind as he noted this. Something Freya had said about the feeling of emptiness without her infant inside and no baby to take home. Hollow, was the word she’d used.
Freya untucked an arm and swept it outwards, a gesture achieved with surprising smoothness and ease. I can feel my limbs still, she told him, lightly touching his thigh, and yours. Her hand crept to where her shoulder blades jutted delicately. The idea they’d become angels and would join their baby, if she were now one, was outlandish. But finding they hadn’t sprouted wings evoked an intense, exhilarating surge of loss, even so.
Freya, curl back into me. It’s going to be ok. Do you feel alright?
Just, you know.
Yes.
Strange, lightheaded, but ok. Actually, better than that. Everything is – heightened.
If you gave yourself up to it, whatever this was, it was almost pleasant. Nothing hurt, and nothing seemed immediately threatening.
It was then he noticed the room had undergone drastic change. Instead of cosy lounge with log burner, sagging two-seater and bay window overlooking their courtyard garden – just misty, yellowy stuff. Their home wasn’t veiled and hazy. It wasn’t there.
And Freya’s face. What the hell had happened? Her jade glass artificial eyes were now murky smudges, her other features vague cerulean blurs.
Yet for some reason, he didn’t panic. He would just have to be more Freya. What did how things looked matter if the two of them were still living and breathing?
*
Evan twisted his torso to examine their surroundings. A window frame, yellow with a sprinkling of the same blue as theirs, hovered directly behind them. Yet it wasn’t wood. It was tacky and soft yet solid, like unfired clay. With shock he saw that where he’d touched the window’s edge, the blue of his skin was tinged with yellow. Seconds later, the colours resolved into green.
Again, there was no discomfort. He didn’t feel ill. His movements were pleasurably rhythmic and flowing. This was all just indescribably surreal, and Evan was beginning to feel braver, more pragmatic and clearheaded.
He would find out if the ‘window’ gave onto some kind of portal. It could be their way out.
*
More of the ambivalent yellow stuff floated inside the window area, carrying with it a breezy coolness. Like sky, but not. It didn’t appear to be an actual opening, more like the suggestion or representation of one. But he’d seen something he wanted. The crescent shaped object had a creamy glow and was saffron-amber rather than the more generalised yellow. He closed a fist around it, felt a sort of sticky sizzle, pulled hard, and turned round to face Freya. Here, take this.
What?
Just hold out your hand.
It was warm and luminous. Fizzing delicately in her palm, the thing sprayed gentle spumes of sparkles. Roughly shaped and approximate, and yet they could feel it, were touching it. It gave the impression of a moon. It had been created to show what the moon was like. It was real, it had reality, but it wasn’t the moon.
And that’s when Evan worked it out.
*
I can see the edges, Evan said, the perimeter, which must be the frame.
Now I know we’re dreaming.
Yes, it’s hard to believe –
You think I can’t understand because I can’t see, Freya said. I still know what things are.
I know. But I have the advantage here, sorry but I do. Listen. First, everything is colourful, and surfaces blend when they touch. I don’t have the skills to explain it any clearer than that. Secondly, the smell and the texture and feel. We’re in another place. I don’t know how but – you’re holding the moon Freya!
It’s obviously not that.
No, but it’s presenting as the moon. And I’ll tell you what’s undeniable. I’m certain it’s familiar, this place.
Freya was frowning but stayed silent, waiting.
Or should I say ‘scene.’ It’s – a picture. Some part of me recognises it. Here, let’s put the moon back, it’s so radiant, it’s a distraction. Evan had noticed Freya shivering. And it’s making everything else dull and chill.
Freya, what’s in this picture, also has a kind of reality. I think colours here aren’t just decorative, they have significance. We’re both blue, but the moon is creamy pale and bright, and pretty much everything else is painted yellow. So, let’s use what we have.
Reaching above her, Evan scooped as much of the yellow as he could with one hand, keeping the other firmly on her back. Then he rubbed Freya’s clothing and very tenderly, her cheeks and forehead. As the yellow worked with their blues, it was an easy process to steadily build up total coverage and soon they were green all over and much, much warmer.
*
The paint seemed to be self-replenishing. But not quite replicating. A subtly different texture and new aroma was uncovered, an underlayer revealed that was unmistakably floral. Sketchily rendered, sunflower-like blooms jostled with impressionist dandelion and daisies. The massed petals were emerging from a bronze vase on a red and white tablecloth, near the bottom of the picture.
A basket holding apples, oranges, grapes and lemons was depicted next to the vase. Evan bent down, parted the flowery mass and quickly located the basket. He grabbed a red fruit and put it to his lips. There was no substance, nothing to bite into. Yet it had taste. Ripe and moist, sweet with a sour aftertaste. Try this Freya. Apple, I think.
Are you mad? First, we’re levitating! Now you want me to eat paint?
If this is a dream, Freya, why not? And it’s not actually paint. It’s half and half; it shares something with the item it’s showing.
You’re seriously still insisting we’re inside a picture. Subjects, of a painting.
Yes, and, we’re us. He kissed her softly on her nose. Parents. To a baby girl.
And before he’d finished speaking, out of nowhere a shaking-flapping sound started and something fluttered right past them in a whoosh of air and feathers.
*
Freya, are you OK?
Yes, what was that?
It’s a red bird – like one drawn by a child.
The red bird flew as high as it could go, bumped against the upper frame edge, then swooped back down in haphazard loops. Freya felt the shifting air trails pass by. One tail feather brushed her cheek, and a pink trail showed faintly before melding back to inky blue. Then, the bird began to sing. First frail, fluty and trembling, then gaining depth and steadiness. It sang with a final burst of lyricism and then paused. Evan held out his arm.
The bird flew to him, set down on his wrist and made small, contented sounds. It exuded a hotness a thousand times greater than the moon had. Clearly, this bird was important. In this canvas of blues, yellows and whites, it stole the limelight.
Now the bird was singing again, but it was also somehow, spilling out words. The words fell out of its mouth audibly, but also physically. The strangest sight and sound for Evan, and Freya, respectively.
The letters were fuzzy at first, then developed into a neat font. The letters shivered and moved, bumping against each other until they separated, stirred one last time and froze.
Snarled Overflows.
Soon they distended, then reconvened to create a new message. Lavenders for Owls.
The same happened twice more. Land Forever Slows, then And Servers Follow.
Evan waited. He sensed the real and final sentence would soon emerge and when it did, this out-of-body experience would reach its finale.
Lovers and Flowers said the letters.
Lovers and Flowers! said Evan. The Chagall! The one over the fireplace!
*
Nothing’s changing, Evan.
But this is where it turns, it has to! That’s how it always is. At the end of a dream there’s always that understanding, a realisation, then you’re sweating and awake.
Nothing’s different. I’m cold again, not sweating. Seriously, this isn’t right. What is this place and since when do we dream in unison?
Freya. Just wait. We’ll be fine. We’ll be back home before you know it and I’ll make you a cup of tea and we’ll light the fire and talk.
But we were standing, Evan, we weren’t lying down. I don’t remember going to sleep, do you?
Evan was trying to remain calm. He didn’t remember falling asleep either. And she couldn’t see what he could. All around them, just flowery, white and yellow space. A mass of detailed coloured lines down below them, orange and yellow checks and fruit shapes and the bold outlined vase. Behind them the moon, fizzing in the blueish, yellow-flecked sky.
And the enigmatic red bird was gone. Its absence, as sudden and miraculous as its arrival, made everything else seem less.
They were alone again, just the two of them against the world.
Author Biography: I live and work in Yorkshire, in the UK, and in my spare time have always loved to explore ideas through drawing, painting, and writing short fiction. I enjoy the feeling of being in a creative flow, putting the things I imagine onto paper and into words to give them a life of their own.