Peacocks Like Children Screaming
Donnie Durstin was a self-aware man. Everyone in the whole lazy town of Mezoolah knew it and was always saying things like, “That Donnie Durstin, he knows what he loves and why he loves it.” Or “Ole Donnie Durstin knows what’s what,” Which among the earth salting folks in Mezoolah was high praise indeed. And they were right. Donnie did know what he loved and why and he knew what, was what. So when Donnie came thundering down dusty route 47 in that dented up old blue Ford and drove right down Main Street with the truck bed loaded up with bird cages the good people of Mezoolah figured there must be a reasonable reason for it.
And they were right, there was. What they didn’t know is that besides knowing the what and why’s of his loves and knowing the what’s of what Donnie Durstin knew a few other things as well.
He knew for instance, how to talk to the wind. He could smell the coming storm hours before the fall. He could tell you the sound of one hand clapping and he could recall with clarity every one of his fourteen lives. Having only been on the path in a serious way for the last 11 of those lives he was also prone to nostalgia so when he’d seen the add in the Pickney Journal last week stating Nate Blanton’s peacock farm was closing its unprofitable doors forever Donnie started wandering back to those comfortable days and nights over 10 lives ago. Fragrant warm nights in Sri Lanka filled with the urgent call of the rutting males as they strutted throughout his fathers’ small farm, seeking out mates, tails emblazoned in a staggering array.
He thought back on the fondness of his Lama’s calm voice spooning him his first bits of the truth as it is and explaining patiently the Dharma’s inner voice as the wild childlike screams of the birds sounded in the distance like raindrops. He’d been diligent these last ten lifetimes and knew from the bright whiteness of his own aura and the way the beating pulse of all things flowed so strongly in him now that this was finally his last time of footprints on earth.
“What a better way to end then at the beginning.” He thought with perfectly benign amusement when he saw the advertisement so he fixed up the whole backyard with the birds necessity’s as he knew them, drove on up to Pickney and returned with 30 beautiful pieces of his birth. Later that afternoon he sat in the shaded dewy garden grass with eyes closed and mind open full as the 21 peacocks and seven peahens milled about all around the yard, picking eagerly at the garden bugs in thanks to their newfound home.
His mind eventually let him come back and Donnie used the remaining light of day, as he usually did, to remain in lotus and go back through the fullness of all his lives, marking the growth along the way. Those early lives he remembered with the parents’ chuckle at the insolent child. He laughed at the eagerness for insignificance and he cried at the meanness- the ignorant intolerance- and it made the knowledge now that much sweeter. The road had been long and potholed- but never weary. He lingered longer than usual and enjoyed the birds, and the birds enjoyed him, then he rose up, leaving garden for the warmth of his bed.
The next morning he spent in the vegetable garden, his large six foot frame gently tending the summer lettuce, choosing tomatoes and cucumbers with care as his new friends mingled about silently, asking him funny questions about the day. Donnie’s grin grew warm as his neighbors would pass with curious stares and questioning hello’s. Mezoolan’s were above all things a curious lot, in fact, it’s one of the reason’s Donnie always stayed. Eventually little Lorrie Finley wandered into the yard, a nice green glow around her twelve year old frame, long blond ponytail wrapped in a bright blue ribbon.
“Hiya Mr. Durstin, where’d ya get all them birds?” She asked with eyes bouncing.
“Lorrie, I bought them in Pickney just yesterday, from a man who did not want them any longer.”
“Can I pet them?”
“I wouldn’t just now; the confusion from the trip still remains… tomorrow perhaps.”
A few other friends and neighbors had entered the garden, the unusual sight of 30 peafowl too much for them to bear; greetings were passed and questions were answered while the warm summer sun marked the passing day.
Mr. Meecham, ever the pragmatist wanted to know with mild concern through his aqua blue aura, “Donnie, won’t them birds chase ya? I mean the kids?”
“Only if they have a reason.”
Shirley Buckley, who lived down the street sat down in one of the large garden chairs ensconced in soft lilac light and as three birds pecked silently at the ground around her asked, “How bout the noise? I hear those things scream like crazy?”
“They talk like you and I are talking right now… but only when they have to and they will be quiet for now.”
Soon the garden yard was filled with mingling people and birds, walking the same grass, breathing the same air and Donnie saw all the different colors of light in all of them. Some have many lives yet to go, he would think, while others he could see were very close to his own place and others still, would never truly be born. Slowly, the crowd drifted away in pieces with the fading day’s light and Donnie was along in the garden with his birds.
The birds walked about in their easy fashion, pecking at this and that and Donnie talked to them softly and kindly; assuring them these were good people and they would be happy here. His sadness was brief and then, with lifetimes of knowledge behind him entered the house carrying a large wicker basket filled with the vegetables he had picked throughout the day.
***
The well oiled screen door opened soundlessly late that evening and the hulking man entered with the fearlessness of the insane. His large sunken eyes held the shrieking bloodlust from the night before, he’d cut the newspaper clipping out as carefully as he’d removed that old lady’s shriveled heart just one small state to the north. Donnie lay in bed quietly removed as he watched the man’s shape engulf his bedroom doorway. Finally he thought, finally my walk is over. He noticed the oily black color surrounded the massive shape of the silhouetted man standing before him and felt the lunacy in his heart; he was thinking how many lifetimes this one still had in front of him as the long blade gleamed in the darkness.
