The Ruler of the Birds

  Fredrick Vogel was an old man, he had separated from his wife as a young man and never remarried, he instead had buried himself in his work, and took no time for his recreation and enjoyment. he had only one child, a daughter named Penny, the duties of companionship had fallen on her over the years, and she too had gone now from his life, with only the occasional phone call and bi-annual visit to see how he was aging and that he was still getting along with himself. Fredrick’s life was very sad and lonely. The company he now kept existed only in his mind, the shadows of a life of drudgery and regret, shelves filled with dusty books and so many curious antiques, things of human curiosity, the tokens of ancient religions, cultures and empires now turned to dust.

  Fredrick was an anthropologist, and not a very good one, for Fredrick was given to wild speculation, more akin to writing fantasy novels than historical research, Fredrick however didn’t care much, for his efforts had served their purpose at the minimum, they had given him a not to uncomfortable living and surrounded him with the kinds of things which stirred the imagination, something Fredrick desperately longed for now more than ever in his last years, he would sit quietly with his thoughts for many hours, sitting facing his living room window sometimes from morning till evening, and from evening till late at night, with his waking dreams of ancient ceremonies and vast marching armies, Mighty kings and beautiful queens, magnificent palaces arrayed with slaves and servants for every desire. The inward life of the man had been invested with the most magnificent things that human history had to offer, Fredrick took far greater pleasure in his inward life than in his real life of sadness and misery, an inward life which now had very little expression or connection to his outward life as the aging man Fredrick Vogel.

**

  It was late afternoon, and Fredrick was sitting in his living room chair in his usual habit, among his thoughts and a cup of tea with a stack of old books at his feet when there came a sudden rapping upon his door, with three hard knocks his attention contracted back into his body in the chair with puzzlement, “who could possibly be wrapping on my door?” as his mind went through his list of candidates. Then came four more knocks with a greater urgency. Fredrick began to stir becoming more curious at the sudden intrusion when came three long frustrated knocks as he made his way out of the chair towards the door. Fredrick open the door. Before him was the man Peter Bayza, a fellow in his mid forties with whom Fredrick had business occasionally through the years. It was a happy interruption to Fredrick’s isolation as a small smile began to creep across his face, Peter burst in like an eastern wind “Fredrick its good to see you”, “Its good to see you Peter.”Fredrick replied.” What brings you by?” Peter smiled wide and presented Fredrick with an old, worn, dusty book like so many others he had on his shelves and scattered about his floor in neat little stacks. Fredrick held the large heavy volume in his hands and examined it closely, leafing gently through the front pages, “Fantastic” Frederick said “Hand bound probably about 400 years old. Appears to be copied from an earlier text, This is in Aramaic with many symbols I don’t recognize”. Only the title of the book was in English on the cover of the book an no other information, it read “To Rule the birds” Fredrick was delighted  at the mystery of it, and ask peter, what he wanted done with the text. he replied that he simply wanted to know more about the text as he didn’t have the first clue. He had purchased a large private collection at an estate sale, and had found the text, and thought that it might be something special. Fredrick felt certain that it was something special, he could feel it standing there holding the book. He buried his child like enthusiasm and curiosity, and told peter “I’ll spend sometime with it and see what I can come up with”. Peter smiled and said, “I thought you might enjoy it, take your time I’m in no hurry”. the men exchanged polite conversation for a few hours and then parted ways.

  Fredrick was now alone with the book, he cleaned off a small table and place it directly in front of his living room chair and placed the book at its center and leaned back to simply gaze at the book while he collected his thoughts, his fingers folded together and his legs crossed in a state of silent waiting, centering like a hunter and his prey. suddenly he sprang forward, leaned over the book and slowly put his hands upon it, “To rule the birds” he said out loud. Fredrick didn’t know the old language by heart and would have to spend a great deal of time sorting out its meanings. In this he had a mind like a detective, examining every nook and cranny of the book, every movement of the pen of its author, the slight irregularities in its construction. What, he wondered could be meant by the title of the book, which puzzled him. This process would become a daily ritual for Fredrick over the days and weeks to come, examining the book, pondering, scratching away in his note books, sorting out the meanings of the old language and the books many symbols.

**

 It was early  morning.
there was a warm friendly knock at the door, which marked the beginning of Fredrick’s greatest days. Penny has come to visit!
In an instant Fredrick quickly shuffled to the door, grabbed the door knob, paused to take a deep breath with his eyes closed and opened the door. A breeze entered the house as the door opened bringing to Fredrick the airy scent of Penny’s rosy perfume. He opened his eyes, to behold what to him was the most beautiful woman in the whole world, standing there in the golden light of the morning Sun. Penny always came to him in the mornings and this was the vision which sustained him, and gave him life.  “Hello Papa,” Penny said with a big smile and a bag of groceries in her arms “I brought you some bread and wine”, she gave Fredrick a one armed hug and a kiss on the cheek. Fredrick was in heaven. “What’s this Papa” as she gazed at the book, “Oh that’s some work I am doing for Peter Bayza, you remember him, “This is a fantastic piece Papa”. “Yes it is quite remarkable, he wants me to figure out exactly what it is”.”Tell me Papa, what is it?” “well it appears to be a sort of mystical book, at the very beginning it tells you the book isn’t to be understood or apprehended directly, or by trying to, figure out, Its put together like a story. I still don’t know anything about the symbols.”Penny nodded knowingly, and the two spent the day together catching up; having walks, drinking their wine and talking.
When she left Fredrick felt dark and empty.

   Penny had gone and night fall had come. The moon was full, and the night was cloudy and dark. Fredrick returned to his chair behind the book on the table in his living room. He could see the darkness that he felt hanging over himself and the book, like a silent ocean of black gloom above him, raining down cold meaningless emptiness into his life. At this moment, Fredrick could see that something was wrong, something was missing, “Where is the light?” he thought. Immediately a Vision of Penny appeared in all her glory, Fredrick smiled, quit his chair and went to Sleep in his bed. For the next few days Fredrick would only look at the book out of the corner of his eye for a moment.

***

  It was 4AM in the morning, Fredrick awoke to a thunderous roar. the waves of thunder from a close by storm where assaulting his house. Fredrick lived in the mountains, the closest neighbor was just over a mile away. The area Fredrick lived in was a forest, very dry and sandy most of the time,  Big storms where unusual and something was sure to be damaged. So Fredrick got out of bed and went to look out side from the safety of his living room chair. The book was still sitting on the center of the table in front of his chair. Fredrick looked at the book and thought for a moment, then he crossed his fingers and legs and leaned back in his chair. After a while he leaned forward over the book, and put his hand in the air above it, so as to prepare himself to touch it cautiously. At the moment he touched the book, his body was jolted as if by an electrical current surging through him precipitated by a Large tree limb which crashed through his prized living room window. Fredrick let out a shout, then fell back in his chair in shock, and awe. Once the surprise of the moment had passed, he rose from his chair and walked over to the open, broken window, and put his head in the rain to look outside to see Just what had happened. The thunder lighting and rain felt good on his head, He looked at the ground and looked at the tree. He pulled himself back in, and examined his broken window. A few moments later the storm ended and the sky began to cleared. The sun was beginning to rise, and it promised to be a beautiful day. the morning hours where spent outdoors pulling the limb free, and cleaning up debris from the storm the night before, Fredrick was removing the glass from his window when a little red bird flew in and perched itself on a rafter above. When he finished his work on the window he sat back down to rest himself and consider how he would get the bird back outside. He sat there looking at the bird above him and listening to its happy song. He thought that perhaps he could use some bread to get the bird down from the ceiling and lead it to the window, He got some bread from out his cabinet and broke it into small pieces and placed them to the side of the table in front of his chair, he then leaned back in his usual way to simply wait for the little red bird to come down from the ceiling. The two spent some time eyeing each other closely the little bird singing his song and dancing about on the rafter. Fredrick said out load, “its okay you can have it, its for you.”
in a moment the little bird descended from the rafter above and hopped along on the table, cocked his head from side to side as he looked over Fredrick once again, paused for a moment perfectly still, then grabbed the piece of bread and flew to the window and perched there, stopping only to look back over his shoulder. In his mind Fredrick heard the words “thank you” and felt a smile work its way across his face. Fredrick said out loud “thank you for coming” as the bird flew on its way.

   Many days had past and Fredrick had been working diligently on deciphering the book and his other various projects which kept him busy and moving, he had decided not to put glass back in the window and the little bird had been returning each day for a few crumbs of bread during the morning hours, Fredrick had gotten the habit of talking out loud as if the bird where listening and the two where having animated conversation, he thought it was good to have some company for a little while each day and the little red bird gave him exactly what he needed, Someone to talk to.

  The phone rang, Fredrick felt a sense of dread, the only time someone ever called him it was either something really good or something really bad, he could count the number of times the phone had rang over the past year on one hand, and it was always a big deal. He could feel his blood pressure dropping as he picked up the phone, slowly, a sinking feeling. He said Hello.  It was Senka, Penny’s secretary from her work, “Is this Fredrick Vogel ” She asked. Fredrick beginning to panic said “What’s this about, what’s the matter”. “Sir its Penny, she was in an accident on her way to work this morning” she said, in a choking voice which told Fredrick, something very bad had happened. Fredrick was locked in place, frozen with fear, he knew he would have to ask, and it would take a great deal of courage for him to speak at this moment for he already knew the answer, “And Penny?” he asked. There was another long silence on the phone, and Senka replied “I’m sorry, She didn’t make it, she didn’t make it to the hospital in time.”  as she burst out sobbing. Fredrick hung up the phone as he began to collapse, all of his memories of penny began flashing before his eyes, He knew it was true, and that she had gone from him, and for him this was as death itself, the will to stand, to breath, to even be conscious was fading from him. The vast Dark emptiness was below him and it had opened its mouth wide and was swallowing him whole.Fredrick lay upon the floor for many hours with his eyes closed, hoping that he might open them and find it was all just a dream, or that he could fall through it into the deep and forget about himself and his life, a life he would have to live now completely alone.

  Time had disappeared for Fredrick, he lay upon the floor with his eyes closed, sinking into his darkness for almost a whole day. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, Shocking Fredrick to his core, and rousing him from his deep dark abode, as his eyes sprang open. More knocking, as Fredrick began to pull himself back up. Fredrick made his way to the door, and opened it to find Peter standing there, “Fredrick, I heard about penny, I wanted to check on you to make sure you where OK, I called and there was no answer.” “I am still alive.” Fredrick replied somberly. Peter grabbed Fredrick and pulled him outside and gave him a hug then walked him back into the living room and sat him down. Peter having understood Fredrick’s state, began to talk, which for Fredrick was just a lot of extraneous noise. Fredrick finally looked at Peter as he said, “you have to want to live, you have to find meaning.” Fredrick said “I can’t think of any meaning to all of this” “It will find you Fredrick, if you let it.” as he put his hand upon his shoulder. Peter tried to comfort Fredrick and keep him talking for much of the day, and finally he turned to the book, and said, “How is the work on the book coming”. “well its some kind of mystical text, We’ll probably never know who wrote it, Its put together as a story, which your supposed to read, and in the back there are a few practices, and a short invocation, this book was I believe bound in Germany in the late fifteen hundreds, I had been spending some time with it each morning.” “What of the invocation?” peter asked. “Completely undecipherable” said Fredrick. Peter smiled and changed the subject. The two men talked a while longer and Peter left.

 
  Night fell, and Fredrick was Utterly alone, sitting in his chair, behind the book on the table. He would periodically burst into fits of wild sobbing holding his hands to his head. When suddenly the power went out in his house. Fredrick was immediately snapped out of his grief and mourning if just for a moment, He sat awake and aware in his chair, with only a little light from the outside creeping in, he now saw and felt himself surrounded by shadow, darkness and gloom. Fredrick heard something breathing behind him, he held his breath so he could hear it more clearly, But it stopped breathing as well. Fredrick called out “who’s there” and there was no reply.
Fredrick could still hear the breathing, like that of some large strong animal, a breathing which mirrored his own near perfectly. He was going to have to stand up, turn around and see just what was there. he placed his hands on the arms of the chair and positioned his feet carefully, in the case that the beast might spring upon him suddenly. Fredrick began to collect his courage and slowly rise up to face whatever it he might find. Slowly he started to turn, he could see nothing in the darkness before him, but he could hear it and feel its power. Fredrick knew there was no where to go, and no way to escape it, It was as if the darkness itself had come to life, and its attention was now focused upon him like a razor at his neck. He started to move back, and the thing followed, he thought “If I can just move it into the light a little, at least I could see what’s there” at this moment he and it seemed to be at some sort of stalemate. Fredrick moved ever so slowly, afraid he might provoke the beast, as he crept backwards towards the dim light of the open window. Just before the beast entered the dim moon lite glow of the night which streamed though the open window, it stopped. It had stopped following Fredrick’s every move, and he could begin to make out the figure before him, it was a man, taller and vastly stronger than he, his gaze told a tail of terror and murder. before Fredrick had finished his thought to ask the man who he was, the beasts right hand stretched out in an instant toward him in the moon light between the two. Fredrick gazed in astonishment, the hand was shaped like that of a man, but it wasn’t human. Should he take the hand? what would become of him? There was nothing else for him to do, he had no fight to offer the being, and he certainly couldn’t escape its speed and great power, so he began to reach out to take the hand of the dark being. The dark being evaporated in the light as the power returned at the moment just before Fredrick’s had touch that of the strange apparition. Fredrick was fairly certain it had not been just a dream as he stood there with his arm still extended. The experience had every nerve in Fredrick’s body on fire. Although Fredrick had now begun to question his sanity, he felt truly alive.

  The Dawn came, and it was a golden morning, Fredrick was Making his morning tea, and reflecting on the mysterious events of the night before, and came the familiar flutter of the little red bird which had become a regular visitor and Fredrick’s confidant. The Bird perched itself on the table next to the book awaiting its morning offering. Fredrick looked at the bird and said Jokingly “What the hell was that last night, have I gone mad?”. The bird replied “there are a lot of dark beings, the one you saw belongs to you.” Fredrick thought out load to the bird “So now I can hear birds talking to me, Sounds like I have gone mad, completely mad” Fredrick laughed an uneasy laugh of incongruity. The Bird said, “the phone is about to ring, I’ll leave you to your business, I will see you tomorrow morning”. The phone rang, it was Senka, who was inquiring about and offering support to make funeral arrangement for his lost daughter Penny, arrangements where made and Fredrick hung up the phone and sat down, “Oh penny” he thought as his eyes began to tear up anew. “parents should never have to out live their children.” he said to himself, “I am an old man, and I don’t have the strength to keep living”. Later in the day the thought occurred to Fredrick “How did the bird know that the phone was about to ring?” Its madness he thought “But if its just my own madness then how did I know the phone was about to ring?” Fredrick was perplexed and the event was disquieting to his already strained sensibilities.

(to be continued)