Uncaged

By Wes Leigh featuring the contributions of Rob the Scribe

 

This is a work of fiction intended solely for the entertainment of our readers; any resemblance to any real people or places is purely coincidental. Readers who would like to chat are encouraged to contact us at weston.leigh@protonmail.com and robthescribe@protonmail.com.

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Chapter Three

 

In the still of the night, as the airliner rumbled around him and the other passengers dozed fitfully, Roderyk scribbled on a notepad, pouring his emotions onto the paper.

PAIN

Longing. I'm pressed to the ground.
Yearning. Yearning to feel again.
Lingering, I'm disembodied. I can't feel anything.

Mourning about loss.
The pain, torn apart inside.
Hating myself for my deafness.
Despising myself for this weakness.

I want to feel something again.

I want to get out of here!
I want Freedom.
I want to be set free.
I want to end the Pain.

My nature ...
Joy.
Ecstasy.
Shame.

Joy ...
to be able to feel, relief to feel anything.

Ecstasy ...
because of the pain.

Shame ...
being born this way, for harming myself.

Take me out of here.

Blood.
Long dried.
Tears.
Long gone.
Pain.
Unfortunately grown in love.
Scars.
They remain.

Roderyk put down the pen and studied the words. What did they mean? Not to the rest of the world, but to him personally. Why these words? Now? When he was leaving Germany and headed to America? Headed for a new life and a new start.

Why was the pain still there? Why was he taking it with him, when he'd much rather have left it behind?

He turned off the light above his head. He adjusted the blanket across his chest, closed his eyes, and drifted to sleep. He'd seek the answers to those questions in the morning.

͠ ͠ ͠

Roderyk woke and shook his head. He sat up and looked around. The lights were on in the plane and the stewards were moving down the aisle, taking pillows and blankets from the passengers as they prepared for landing.

Roderyk turned to look out the window. The sky was still dark. The night had chased them across the Atlantic to America, though he thought he could detect some gray shapes in the sky around the airliner.

Something had awakened him from the dream. A beeping sound?

The dream was still powerfully real to him. The vision dreams, as he had started calling them, were always powerfully real. They grabbed his mind and wouldn't release it until he found the hidden meaning in them. Like the Pharaoh of ancient Egypt dreaming of cows coming out of the river Nile, Roderyk often saw strange visions that foretold the future. It was too bad Roderyk had no Joseph in his life to translate the dreams and tell him what was to come.

He pulled out his pad of paper and began writing.

I'm in a cage. I'm not a bird but I have a bird's wings, pale blue like the songbird I had in Bamberg, the bird I set free when I left. Now I'm the one in the cage, with no one to set me free.

Another bird hops up to the cage and pecks at the door. This bird has purple wings. It pecks again and the door opens. It hops back, waiting for me to leave the cage.

I jump out of the cage and spread my wings to fly, but the wings disappear and all I have are arms. I can't fly. I'm free of the cage, but I'm still held to the ground.

The purple bird scolds me, chirruping fiercely in my face. It spreads its wings and flies away.

I'm in a hospital bed. Machines all around me are beeping. Nurses are moving on each side of my bed, touching me, checking me. A doctor leans over me. He has a purple beard. He studies me. "Why are you still here?" he asks me.

"I'm sick," I say.

He shakes his head. "But you aren't," he replies. "You shouldn't be here."

I'm standing in the Hainpark. I look down and see my feet rooted in the ground. A little girl with a purple balloon skips over and stops in front of me. She looks up into my eyes and smiles. She hands me the balloon. It pulls me out of the ground and carries me up into the pale blue sky.

Roderyk finished writing and studied the pad of paper. Three dreams, but all the same. It had to be another of his visions, but what did it mean?

A stewardess stopped and held out her hand. "May I take your blanket, sir?"

He handed her the soft blanket he'd covered himself with for most of the flight.

She took it and smiled. "We should be landing in another hour."

He nodded, turned his head, and looked out the window. The darkness was giving way to morning.

͠ ͠ ͠

First, it was New York. Landing and disembarking. Standing in line at Immigration. Presenting his passport and answering the many questions. Passing into the massive airport and walking down endless corridors to the next terminal. Finding his connecting flight to Atlanta. Waiting for another hour and boarding another airplane. Flying through the now bright morning sky to a distant city where they landed and taxied down runways that looked much the same as all the other runways he'd seen so far, making him wonder if he'd really left Bamberg at all.

Standing in the aisle with the other passengers, he waited for the plane to slowly empty, then followed the others into the jetway and out into the terminal. He stepped to one side and looked around. There she was. Auntie Meyer.

It was hard to miss her. Wrinkled face and wrinkled arms and piercing blue eyes behind wire-rimmed bifocals. A long straight nose, just like Roderyk's. Pink chubby cheeks. Pink lips pressed together in an exasperated frown. Hair so gray it actually looked purple, piled in a disorderly mass of curls on the top of her head. She was dressed in a bright yellow blouse, faded blue jeans, and red cowboy boots. In one hand, she held a ratty straw hat with a magnolia blossom in the hat band. In the other hand, she held a Bible.

When she saw Roderyk, she screeched, "Praise Jesus! He's here!"

People turned to stare. Roderyk blushed. Auntie hobbled forward and grabbed Roderyk in a tight hug, pressing her face against his chest as she pulled him against her. "Thank you, Jesus, for bringing my nephew safely to me."

People were now gawking at the two of them, and Roderyk didn't know what to do.

Auntie pulled back and looked up to stare into Roderyk's eyes. She chuckled and said, "Whoever acknowledges him before other men, he will acknowledge before his Father in heaven! Don't be afraid to let everyone know who you follow, child. Jesus has his hand upon your life, and he's brought you here." She studied Roderyk carefully for a few seconds, then closed her eyes and began praying. "Lord Jesus, the pain in his heart has followed him here. Cast it out! The fear is still chasing him. Block its path! The shame seeks to hold him. Break those chains! Set him free! They have no hold on him now, for he is like a new baby, born to a new life, born again in you, dear Jesus. I stand against all that has gone before, in your precious name, Lord Jesus. Let my boy fly free."

She stopped and looked up at Roderyk, now smiling gently.

The other passengers scurried past them, pretending to ignore them, while casting furtive glances at the crazy old woman and the tall, muscular man.

Roderyk felt a wave of warmth flooding his body from the base of his skull to the soles of his feet. His heart thumped rapidly, with excitement? Or anticipation? He looked down at Auntie and realized, with amazement, that he felt something he'd never felt before.

Freedom. Freedom from his pain. Freedom to start his life all over again.

He began weeping and pulled Auntie up in a tight hug, crying in her arms.

She laughed and whispered in his ear. "Remember, boy. You ain't the only one who has visions and dreams dreams. I saw you coming. I saw the pain you brought with you. And I saw it fleeing and leaving you forever. Leave it back there where you came from, back there where it belongs. It's got no hold on you anymore, `cause you're home now, boy. You're home."

͠ ͠ ͠

Roderyk felt the sweat rolling down the center of his back, plastering his shirt to his skin, making his back stick to the seat of the pickup. The only air conditioning came from the wind howling through the open windows as they hurtled down a dirt road, stirring up a dust storm in their wake. Auntie was driving, singing hymns in a high-pitched, sing-song voice, smiling joyfully. She paused in mid verse and turned to Roderyk to say, "Almost there, boy! Won't be long now."

They'd been driving for two hours. The first hour took them out of the city with its huge buildings, twisting interstate highways, and endless snaking lines of cars. The next half hour took them past one suburb after another, filled with manicured lawns, strip malls, and fast food restaurants. Finally they'd passed into farmlands and scattered forests and winding rivers before turning off onto unpaved county roads headed for who knows where. Wherever it was, they were leaving civilization behind in the cloud of dust stirred up by their fleeing vehicle.

The straw hat was jammed down on Auntie's head, holding her purple curls in place. She was just tall enough to peek over the steering wheel, and she had to sit on the edge of the seat to reach the gas and brake pedals. Her driving was erratic. Roderyk had quit counting the number of times he thought they would hit another vehicle. Now that they were off the main roads and hurtling down a country lane, he felt marginally safer. The only risk now was that Auntie would skid off the road and crash in a ditch, but she seemed to be staying more or less in the middle of the road.

She didn't bother braking when she reached the next intersection, but steered the old truck into a lumbering skid as she careened around into a left-hand turn. "That's the farm up there," she cried, pointing out Roderyk's window. He saw a few trees, an enormous barn, and a dilapidated farm house. Sadly, the barn looked to be in far better condition than the house. "Home, sweet home," Auntie said with a satisfied smile.

Roderyk nodded. What else could he do?

Auntie shoved the truck into a lower gear, making the engine whine as they slowed down quickly. The dust storm behind them didn't slow down; it caught up to them and covered them in a layer of dust before finally dissipating. Auntie swung the steering wheel, sending the truck bumping down a rutted dirt track filled with holes that sent Roderyk flying off the seat as they hurtled along. Auntie whooped each time they were tossed in the air, but her fingers squeezed the steering wheel in a death grip, which Roderyk hoped wasn't a sign of how the trip would end.

Auntie stepped on the brakes as they neared the farmhouse, bringing the poor truck to a sliding stop underneath an enormous oak tree. "I park here for the shade," she explained, "except when the crows are nesting. They can leave an awful big mess. Splat!" Laughing, she pointed at a large white stain on the hood of the truck, then pointed up in the tree. "Don't let `em get above you," she warned.

Roderyk opened his door and slipped out of the truck, glancing upwards nervously. Seeing no crows, he thought he would be reasonably safe. He grabbed his suitcases from the bed of the pickup and walked quickly out from under the tree.

Auntie was already scurrying up to the front door, opening it wide and holding it so Roderyk could muscle his luggage inside.

He set the suitcases down and looked around.

The front room was tidy but incredibly cluttered. Pictures of family covered the walls. Shelves held knick-knacks and curios. Three chairs, a sofa, two end tables and a coffee table filled the floor space in the tiny room. Dozens of pillows rested on the furniture and a knitted Afghan was draped across the back of the sofa. An upright piano was crammed into one corner. A huge plastic fern filled the other. Heavy woolen rugs covered the floor, which appeared to be made from wooden slats joined together in long strips.

"I'll show you your room. It's back through here," Auntie said, leading the way into the kitchen. Orange cabinets hung above an orange Formica countertop next to orange appliances and a small white dining room table with orange vinyl chairs. A large glass bowl in the center of the table held a dozen magnolia blossoms. As Auntie passed by, she leaned over and took a deep sniff. "Just like lemons," she said with a satisfied sigh.

She walked through a door in the back of the kitchen and into a bedroom. "This one is mine," she explained. Faded wallpaper covered with roses. A narrow bed covered in a red and pink quilt. A lamp next to the bed with a crimson lampshade.

In the opposite wall of Auntie's bedroom was another door, that led to a bathroom with ancient fixtures and a claw-footed bathtub. On the counter next to the sink was a small bowl with three magnolia blossoms in it. Roderyk chuckled, causing Auntie to glance his way. When she saw what he was looking at, she laughed. "I do love magnolias," she said.

A door on the other side of the bathroom led into another bedroom. "Me and my sisters slept in here when we were young. I'm using it for my sewing room now." The bed was pushed against one wall and covered in rolls of fabric. A small table next to the bed held a vintage Singer sewing machine, in faded ivory with gold lettering.

Auntie led the way across the room to another door, which led to another bedroom, which led to another bathroom, which led to a fourth bedroom.

Roderyk realized they had been going in a circle of sorts, gradually working their way around the back side of the house. They were now standing in a bedroom with windows looking out on the front of the house. It was a decent size, with plenty of room to move between the bed and the dresser. The closet was small, but he didn't have much clothing, so that didn't matter.

"This will be your room. And you can use that bathroom," Auntie said, pointing back over her shoulder.

"To get to my room, I have to go through your room, the sewing room, and all the other rooms?" Roderyk asked, trying not to laugh.

"Of course not," Auntie replied. There was a second door in the bedroom. She opened it, showing Roderyk where it led. The door opened next to the upright piano in the front room.

He shook his head. "Why didn't we just come through this door in the first place?" he asked.

"I wanted you to see the house," Auntie replied, grinning. "Throw your suitcases on the bed for now. You can put your stuff away later. I want to show you my babies next."

͠ ͠ ͠

As dilapidated as the house was, the barn was a modern, no-nonsense agricultural facility. Hanging on the front of the born above the front entrance was a large sign with a magnolia blossom in one corner and the words `Magnolia Farm Poultry' in a bold script font.

The front of the building was divided into two large coops, each one holding 2500 chickens producing eggs.

Two smaller coops at the back of the barn held 150 chickens each. "Them's broilers," Auntie explained with glee. "They's for eatin', not layin' eggs."

She led Roderyk along a hall between the coops, pointing at shiny machinery. "Every mornin', we start off walking through all the coops, checkin' the automatic watering and feeding systems to make sure they're all operatin' correctly. I have a contract with a company in town to repair any of it that ain't workin' right, but we have to call `em out when we need `em, you understand." She led the way around to the front of one of the coops. "Next, you check every coop for animals that are sick, dead or dying. We remove those. Not allowed to sell them, so we give `em away to the workers and sometimes to folks who aren't as well off as us. There's a few folks at my church who are mighty appreciative when I give `em chickens, seeing as how they can't afford to buy `em at the store, you see."

She opened a door into one of the coops and led Roderyk inside. "Next we collect any eggs we find. They could be anywhere with these dumb birds. On the ground. In the nests. You gotta look everywhere." She took him through the coop to a door on the other side. They walked through the door and approached a machine in the middle of the barn. "This here is the sorter. I'll teach you how to check all the belts. Make sure they's workin' proper. When the sorter is up and runnin', you stand right back in there and divide the eggs up into sizes. The eggs go down to that end over there, where a couple more workers pack the eggs in cartons for shipment. That usually takes us a few hours every morning."

Against one wall were wheelbarrows and large grain scoops. "The job that takes the most time is mucking out the coops," Auntie said, pointing at the barrows and scoops. "It's not the most glamorous job, but it has to be done, or we'd be up to our elbows in chicken shit in no time." She put her hand over her mouth and giggled.

Auntie led the way out of the barn and headed back for the house. "Well, boy, that's what we do here. That's what I need your help with. It ain't one of the biggest poultry production facilities in the state, but I do right well by myself with it, and I've built up a bit of a nest egg over time." She chuckled. "I know this is comin' as a surprise to you, my boy. I don't expect you planned to be a chicken farmer when you was little, but I hope you settle in and enjoy it, `cause I plan to turn it all over to you when I die. That means you'd best be learnin' how to run it now, `cause the whole shootin' match is gonna be yours one of these days."

"Auntie ... I don't know what to say." Roderyk said, stunned by what he'd just seen. "Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine all this. There's just so ... so much!"

She turned and cocked her head. "What? You thought your auntie had one rooster, a few hens, and a milk cow." She snickered as she turned and started shuffling up to the house. "We'd best be gettin' cleaned up, boy. Supper will be in an hour."

 

The end of UNCAGED, Chapter Three