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Lazuli Bunting Bird – Kik Lodge

The gentleman has seen I saw him sink a chainsaw into another man’s chest cavity, even if I ducked behind my caravan window at the same time as the slump, because that’s him knocking on the door now, and what a peculiar gesture it is to knock, how incongruous that etiquette should feature in slaughterous situations, and so I suck in some breath and mirror the man, curtesy when I open the door and see blood group O dripping from the metallic tusks. Good evening, I utter, and he smile-winces, observes my left-hand cupping two jubilee glasses, my right tilting the bottle to expose the label of a 1998 Pommard; a wine merchant’s recommendation. I pour. You’ll find tertiary aromas within, I tell him, peat and mud and wet leaves and blood, and our eyes flit to the chainsaw that clunks to the ground. We clink glasses. He looks up at the sky and a rivulet of fear runs down his jowl. I don’t think I know much about the moon, I say; I get confused about anything bigger than me. The gentleman doesn’t answer. The man needs calm. Reassurance. I put my hand over his shoulder and tell him what my noona says when I’m having one of my episodes; life is a labyrinth sometimes poppet, your head hits hedges and you end up with burrs in your hair, thistles, but you carry on finding a way out. He shakes my hand off. We could bury the man if you like, I say, and I pour more Pommard, then we can marry and buy a bigger piece of land and have goats because I went on a goat’s cheese-making course, twice. The gentleman sniffs, stares at the moon, chock-a-block with dots. His profile is splendid; he could be on a coin. I say it’s scientifically proven that singing alleviates many an ailment. My noona once told me my voice possesses the qualities of a lazuli bunting bird – jumbled and fast but with astounding range. I close my eyes to muster a starting note and it warbles into the night sky. When I peel my eyelids open, the gentleman is walking past the hedge down the hill – finding his way out of the maze – chainsaw penduluming inside his fist, the other punching the air in a gesture of gratitude, camaraderie, and on I warble, thumbing 999 slowly below me, masking the phone beeps with the sharp metallic plik-plik the male lazuli bunting bird makes during unforeseen territorial disputes.