Untitled – Chris B.
October 3, 2025
They can see him. That’s trouble. A couple of robins on a powerline. A daily reenacting the same limb-twitching routine. Quick flutter of the left wing, followed by a left-leaning neck crack into a 90° head swing to the right. Center the head. A single “twee”, followed by a full flap of both wings as the legs shift slightly leftward.
“Motherfuckers.”
Everyday around noonish, the living room window produces a near-perfect reprint of the prior. Today is not much different, besides it being a tad overcast and muggy. Most days he has to wear sunglasses to watch; today he’s sucking down the scene unfiltered.
“I hate these damn birds.”
Grandma stabs at the T.V. remote with a bloated diabetes finger. “Don’t use Cognex if-” “Babies-” “Bite force-” “Try our all-new-” “Tornado watch in effect-”
“David!” she hollers through a wall of Marie Callender’s, dirty clothes, Beanie Babies and bugs.
“They’re back on the wire ma!”
The rightmost bird shits. The left one locks eyes with David – then shits. He ducks below the windowsill, still watching. He can smell something… damp. The T.V. quiets.
Grandma lifts herself from a Clifford-red fat person recliner and into her tennis-ball-toed walker. The house groans at her rising, aching as she does while she “badumps” across the floor.
“Christ.” she rasps.
She smells sickeningly flowery today. A pungent mega-bundle of Marigold and sandalwood something-or-another.
“You smell lovely today ma.”
“It’s the Lord’s signature, boy. Let me have a look at the bastards.”
Scuttling around her bulk, David continues to peer over her shoulder while spearing the birds with a furious look and a finger-made crucifix. She slaps her palms heavy against the glass.
“Git! Git outta here!”
One of them trills and the other flaps for a second but doesn’t fly away.
“Git!”
Another thunking slap. Nothing happens.
“GOD DAMN YOU!” she wails.
Great-uncle Damien drove his Suzuki at a D.C bike show and died. Grandma swore to him that Japanese shamans cursed that bike. Great-uncle Damien never wore a cross around his neck like Grandma. He never prayed at Pearl Harbor and he kept riding that Japanese bike. He didn’t listen and now– “Get the Jesus statue, David!”
“Which one, ma?”
“Any of ‘em!”
In each room of the house there are at least three statuettes of Jesus. Some of them are dirty and discolored, rubbed faceless from years of needed luck. Some are slick with various stinking oils, missing limbs, or lacking craftsmanship. David grabs a mid-sized Christ, dripping with geranium oil. The form is decent. Nothing particularly wrong with this one.
“Hold it up for ‘em!”
He grabs the statue by the base, dropping to his knees and holding it up for the birds to see without his body in the frame. Some of the oil drips down his forearm, pooling in the pocket of his elbow.
“How long I gotta do this for?”
Joining her hands together with a meaty clap, Grandma pouts while producing a tear. She closes her eyes. Opens. Realizes she can’t see God through the mess of clouds outside. Closes.
“Please relieve us of the sins of our lost Damien. He made a mistake that can’t be forgiven. The devil had his hand but not mine, Lord.”
Clear and runny mucus is flowing from her nose down to her chin.
“Make them stop. Tell them folks over at the Oval Office to stop sending these evil drones to our home. They’re droppin’ toxins into our soil to punish us for Damien’s mistake. I beg you, Lord. I beg you for forgiveness. Ame-”
“Ma… MA!”
She opens her eyes to the twisted image of a hummingbird buzzing an inch away from the window, giddy at the sight of the geranium-soaked Jesus.
“OH MY GOD!”
David cradles the statue like a football and sled-pull charges his way outside. Grandma cowers and screams into her toenails. The hummingbird flies away before David can make it to the lawn.
“NO, DAVID! THEY’RE GONNA KILL YOU!”
“Enough is enough”, he thought to himself.
Nobody, not even the government was going to scare his dear old grandmother like that.
“MOTHERFUCKERS!”
He’s swinging around that statue of Jesus in a primal daze, with every tendon in his arm rippling and angular. He growls while he spins to the pulsing of his grandma’s dopplered wailing. David is an impenetrable vortex of pain. Nearing him in this state would prove unthinkable. Except, the hummingbird must’ve been blind or something because it flew right into Jesus while he was spinning – eviscerated into a scintillating Christmas-cloud of lime-jeweled feathers and angry blood.
That wasn’t a drone. No. Drones aren’t full of organs, right? Grandma puffs her cheeks, chipmunking the puke back down. She isn’t just disgusted, but completely bewildered and borderline dissociating from a massive pump of cortisol. What even makes sense anymore? Is she dying? David continues to swirl, miraculously gripping onto that statue of Jesus slick with geranium oil and bird soup until — it slips. It rolls out of his hands and launches itself in a perfect spiral, sprinkling oil everywhere.
The clouds crack and deliver the delicious golden yolk of UV radiance as Jesus power-slams one of the robins. David blinks into the light. Grandma falls to the floor clutching her chest. There’s a mass of film tape, microchip dust, CPU pins and formless circuitry hovering in the soft breeze. The other bird tweets and flaps its wings for a second.
…
Motherfuckers.