The Voice is Never Heard
By Hagy Averbuch
One chick was a splatter of red on my screen. The rest were a yellow sticky mess, fluffy heads chirping, reaching out. Finally, a long minute later, the small bodies were all lost in the grinding machine.
“Maybe I’ve seen enough for now,” I said.
“Maybe you have.”
“What do you want from me?”
He sighed. “Nothing at all.”
His fingers tapped on the table, then he looked away.
I noticed that the video kept playing, stopped it and raised my head from the laptop to gaze at the tree towering over the café tables on the pavement. I loved sitting there. Loved the peace and regularity of things.
One of the regulars, a sleepy-eyed mother, ordered some coffee. Her child was bored, as usual. She tried to choose a sandwich, and while she was busy dealing with the waitress, the little boy walked away. I saw him take one step towards the busy road, then another. Perhaps something attracted his attention there. Then he ran into the traffic.
Someone screamed and Sleepy-Eyes chased him and caught him at the very last moment.
The handsome olive-skinned man that sat with me shrugged and went on sipping his coffee. I have known him less than a month, though it felt like more than that.
“Is that what you keep talking about? That’s how it’s going to be?” I asked.
“No,” he said,
At half past nine in the evening, I finished three sets. Only 40 kilos bench pressing, but my trainer was happy. So was I, but he looked worried. His skin is ivory colored and freckled and that’s his job, to worry about me. He said, “You’re not eating well.”
I gave him the list again: “14 grams of protein in a cup of lentil, 22 fucking grams of protein in 100 gram of Seitan. I’m cool, man.”
“Why don’t you try and go vegan for a while,” I said, as always.
As always, he said, “If it goes ‘moo’ I want it steaming on my plate.”
He looks even cuter when he laughs, and he doesn’t understand.
The handsome, olive skinned man doesn’t really have a name. I met him in one of the cruising parks. It’s been a while since I felt the urge to visit such places, what with apps and all. That night I did go, strolled here and there on the dimly lit paths, taking my time, becoming somewhat bored. After about twenty minutes or so of no action, I started thinking of going home when a couple of guys came hastily out of the bushes, almost running. Then they vanished in the shadows.
He came out slowly from the brush. We stood silently, facing each other. He had nothing on, just a pair of sky blue Crocs.
“Do you suppose I scared them off?” he asked.
I nodded.
“You find me scary?”
After a moment’s hesitation I said, “Not really.”
“Still, you’re staring.”
“I don’t think there are pants wide enough for what you have down there.”
He smiled. “I’m like Priapus.”
“Who? Does he come here often?”
“A Greek deity,” He said. “Keeper of the gardens. Chokes thieves with his cock.”
“Maybe you’re a descendant.”
“I am, sort of.” He patted his cock gently. “Want to be my friend?”
“You’re funny,” I said. “and a bit strange.”
“True,” he said. “Wanna see something really weird?”
“Sure.”
“Promise not to run away?”
“I’m not easily scared.”
He turned his back to me, approached a tree, and hugged it with strong, muscular arms.
“Now what?” I said.
“Now I go to sleep.” He turned his head towards me, a full circle, his eyes looking straight at me from above his back. Branches came out of his skull. He opened his mouth and his tongue fell to the ground, a red, twitching twig. I heard a deeply moist sound and saw his balls and cock sink into the gritty bark. His ass trembled. He moaned, satisfied, spread his arms, and his chest went into the tree. His legs lifted slowly high up behind him, along with his arms, like a pinned butterfly. Then his whole body got sucked in.
Like I said, I’m not easily scared.
I went slowly to the tree. At the roots lay a pair of sky blue Crocs. I bent down, took them, and went home.
A couple of nights later I heard a knock on my door.
He had loose pants on and a torn t-shirt and was barefoot. His feet bled. He asked, “Can I have my shoes back?”
“I think I’ll call you Aiken. You okay with that?”
He nodded.
He came every day, every moment that I was available. I didn’t ask this wonder any questions and I didn’t count the days.
*
They made a deep cut under the mink’s head and pulled off its fur, completely. The mink kicked and became a wavy chunk of meat that sloshed on the floor. They threw the pink chunk on a pile of similar lumps and went away with the fur. After a moment of silence, it raised its head. It was still alive. Shiny beads peered wildly out of the bleeding lump and then it tried to crawl away, uselessly.
He said, “There’s more.”
“I can’t watch.”
“Hey, it gets even better.”
I shut it off.
We sat at my place. Nearly finished the vodka. He rolled a joint.
“Why do you insist that I see these things?” I asked.
“I told you, it’s important that you understand when it happens.”
“Maybe it won’t,” I argued.
“You’ll know when it does.” Sure, he never stopped saying that. But now there was something else in his eyes. Something I couldn’t read, so I thought, whatever.
We talked of other things, then had sex as usual, but at a certain point, subtly at first, then more fierce and wild, something started penetrating too hard, went too deep under my skin. I breathed deep, confused and excited, was about to cry out but at that moment he changed, and I found myself hugging a living, breathing bark. I heard a whispering voice in my ear, a murmuring breath, like wind, and my hand brushed against leaves and I was so surrounded by it all that I started crying. I never felt this close.
I came like mad, of course.
He changed back, and we lay still for I don’t know how long.
“You didn’t come,” I said, finally.
“There’s no need.”
“But I want – ”
“We’ll never ever make love again,” He said quietly, “and you’ll never forget what just happened here.”
I lifted myself slowly on one arm. Looked at him. “What?”
“You should hurt inside, you should remember the sound. Let it be carved on your skin.”
“Aiken…” I could barely hear my own voice.
“Your sages said it – ‘When a tree is cut down, the voice travels from one end of the earth to the other’ – ”
“‘and the voice is never heard’,” I finished quietly. Stared at him. “What are you doing?”
“Maybe now you’ll understand us. Cause it’s true. Now I know it. Now I heard it myself. Your hearts really do make the same voice when they break.”
I don’t remember the exact words that came out of me then, only the feeling, the pounding hands. The general idea was that he got out of my bed, out of my house, and the fuck out of my life.
Five nights later there was a knock on the door. He wore jeans and a tight t-shirt and looked tired.
I asked, “What do you want?”
He said, “I’m sorry.”
I said nothing.
“Something is going to happen,” he said. “Soon. Just one more thing, so small. And then… I don’t want you to get hurt. I’m going now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Can’t before noon.”
He said, “You’re going with a friend to spay her cat.”
“You know everything, don’t you.”
“We see everything,” He said. “It’s so close.”
“Yeah,” I said. “sure it is.”
“Then tomorrow… after that?” he said. “Please?”
I sat with Joanne at the SPCA. We waited. It took some time. Her cat is usually calm but this time she seemed all edgy. People around us sat quietly. I wanted to go home.
A man came in with a teenager, carrying a cage with a cat in it. The cat barely moved but she looked healthy. Fat, ginger, pretty. She looked at me. They sat down.
“She looks healthy,” I said. “What’s wrong with her?”
The teenager said, “We’re going to put her to sleep.”
“Why?”
The older guy looked at the teenager, who lowered his eyes.
The older guy said, “None of your business.”
The youngster said, “She became aggressive and attacked my father’s girlfriend.”
I said, “Really.”
The older guy said, “Don’t talk to him.”
“You can set her loose somewhere,” I said. “There are parks. She’s big. She’ll survive.”
The ginger cat started meowing. It was a thin sound, like a sick baby.
The older man said, “We already paid.”
We sat in the café on the pavement, in front of the busy road. I didn’t enjoy my coffee. I didn’t enjoy the shade.
Aiken said, “Tell me.”
I told him.
He asked, “How long did you wait?”
I said, “An hour.”
He said, “It took an hour to kill that cat.”
“Yes.”
“A pity.”
I took a bite of my tofu sandwich and swallowed. I looked at Sleepy-Eyes. She sat with her child at the table next to us. Had a roast beef sandwich.
I didn’t know why I agreed to meet him.
Something fluttered above my head. I looked up, then followed it down. A leaf fell on the table.
“Autumn is coming,” I said.
He said, “No.”
I raised my head and saw him staring at me.
He said, “Please forgive me.”
“I can’t”.
He lowered his head. “I understand,” he said.
I heard a soft whisper. Looked down. A hole gaped in the middle of our table, where the leaf fell.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. I stared as his fingers traced the softly bubbling edges of the hole. Like acid.
“What… what is this?”
“My people, speaking up,” he sighed. “It was engrained in us, wood shall not harm wood, or animal. Not anymore.”
A slight breeze, and another leaf drifted down. It fell on Sleepy-Eyes. I thought she would brush it off, but instead she started screaming. Another leaf fell, and another one, and as I watched they burrowed into her face, burning their way down an impossible bleeding crack, where her nose and eyes vanished fast. She stood up, flailing, throwing glasses. Her child took a step back and a leaf fell and sank in him with a hiss. He gurgled and a trickle of blood came down his shirt. I heard a water pitcher break.
The olive skinned man said, “Please look at me. Look at me now.”
I stared at him, heard the clamor around me, as if from afar.
“I’m going,” he said. “I’ll join my brothers soon.”
The voices dimmed even further and I couldn’t see anything. Just his eyes.
“All this time,” he said, “there was only one thing I could ever really do for you.” His eyes glistened with droplets of resin. I saw him bend over me, felt his hand on my cheek, burning. He said, “My love, I promise you won’t feel a thing.”
The wind came and let the leaves fall gently, one by one.
