Angry alabaster birds.
Angry alabaster birds.
Green. Intense, angry, green
Birds. but quiet. very
QUIET. no feathers
ruffling. feet still too.
No shuffling side to side
Or bobbing heads. Angry,
Green, Alabaster Birds still
so very angry
still so very still.

She was an accessory, an aide de camp, indispensable, unoticed, unappreciated, or so she hoped. Her job was perfect, its low wages a blessing. Shopping was painful. What would she buy? Elizabeth did not like questions. She didn’t care to know exactly what her brother did. She knew that Robert looked at things, to see if they were safe.

Voices had kept Elizabeth from feeling lonely since she was very young. It was like listening to the radio, a comforting background noise that she could tune in and out of, just as many people leave a T.V. on, for background. Like a radio, listening required not that she reply, though some people do enjoy talking back to broadcasts, but only tuning in. She disliked doing anything that interrupted these voices which, sometimes, were sounds without words.

Ba ba ba boom, one of these days—come to be paused
Da da da dum dee,
brown-green the worser, darker but black. Question: I again? you again? no Wall there. High blue window. window. Squared square. To Window true square. why rhyme with no reason. You had to be there. To be square shall we share? To be or be air. Fare be the token, the taken…… affection, reflection brings air. Be still, or Clara, form fool.

Elizabeth worked for her brother. Early in 1991, when their parents disappeared, she left high school a semester before graduating. She’d finished her business classes: accounting, payroll, records and reports. Robert, having finished an engineering degree and started his own office, asked her to work for him. She did so without question. Thereafter, he told her what to do, where and when. Anything requiring her full attention, such as making major decisions, interfered with her ability to hear the voices. If her brother asked her to go out for coffee, she preferred that he tell her where to get it.

He wakes sweating,
Fear still pounding.
Swings up pivoting
Feet on floor first
Then pushing through sweaty heels to rise and breathe
deeply.

When their parents disappeared, she was relieved. They could no longer interrupt what she alone could hear: sometimes the same words and the same voices. Other times the same words from different voices. Most of the time, the words were new and different, regardless the voice. She could have wondered if her parents disappeared because they were afraid of her and her “voices,” but she never gave it a thought.

Better than butter: harder than hail
Smaller than smoke: broker than broke
Smoother than smoke
Smoother than butter
Haler than Adam
Smoker gone broke.

Her parents never tried to find out if Elizabeth really heard things or just feigned them, as a stratagem to avoid being obedient. Her brother was a child who did what he was told.

Are you alive? We don’t know. Please indicate how. Who is? Send mixed signal birds and pastry. Come closer. Walk up the hill, away from the house, but follow the farming road fishing. Follow no rhymes but, sometimes again, it sounds just the same. no matter.

Pleasantly, working for her brother, life held little variety. While venues changed, hotel rooms were similar, furnished in the same manner. They felt more like home than her parents’ house, to which Robert and Elizabeth didn’t return. She had one medium-sized, expandable suitcase. Never needing to meet Robert’s clients meant the quality and style of her clothing was as unimportant for her job as it was to her. She was an attractive person, without being stylish.

She enjoyed washing her hair, regardless of the need. Hot water felt comforting, friendly. In her morning and evening showers, attending to her body, the voices seemed particularly clear. An extra-body shampoo made her beautiful hair stunning, even without adornment. When she tied it back with a scarf, she left speechless those who saw her.

“One of these days, look for something. Fire burns in the pit. Clouds rain lightly, bare trees.You become a tree, why not. Green leaves, green sleeves, white birch blooming beetles. The dead stand as long as they can, feeding billions, pecking order: decay.

Elizabeth loved the fact that the voices didn’t always make sense, but still, sometimes, she wondered if she was missing something. Each offering seemed unconnected to the previous. When she had to speak with anyone, she could hear no voices, which made her lonely. Going to get coffee was fine, because on the way there and back, she had their company, felt warmth and comfort. The short time in the coffee shop, while placing her order and paying the tab, the voices politely refrained from interrupting.

She could feel a wall that separated the voices from her ability to fully comprehend the meaning of their words. Perhaps she would see over it, sometime. She had no fear of what she might learn, if she ever did find a ladder, or perhaps a bird to lift her.

Robert, on the other hand, seemed tone deaf. He heard almost nothing. He could hear and understand conversation, but other sounds went unnoticed. He did not listen to music. Instead, he saw everything in terms of numerical relationships. His special ability in mathematics led him to engineering. Engineering led him to the study of structures and this business of inspecting structures. Most jobs were in the Mid West.

In April of 1992, in Chicago, Robert began inspecting tunnel walls beneath Wacker Drive. The Chicago Tunnel Company had begun construction of the railway freight tunnels early in the 20th century to supply buildings with merchandise, coal and mail. By 1992, most were no longer in use, but to the extent that they contributed to or detracted from the structural strength of the buildings above, their condition was important for the city to note.

Except when needed in her hotel room-office for administrative tasks, she floated in her private world. Walking was her greatest pleasure.

While Robert was working the tunnel job, she enjoyed tracing the path of the river along Wacker. The water was a welcome companion and lead her out to Lake Michigan. She could hear water at the same time as her voices. These walled out all others.

Early on April 13th, as Robert was working beneath the street, a tug and barge, engaged in bridge repairs, lost control and rammed the outside of the tunnel wall. Elizabeth saw this happening from the sidewalk above. The bow of the barge briefly plunged into the tunnel with a surge of water, but was pushed out again as the water hit the opposite side of the tunnel and washed back, sucking Robert to his death.

July 2022