Commandments

Birds and Beasts

Photo by Rhys Kentish on Unsplash

The cigarette butt landed in the dusty remains of some moths that had fallen from the light in the parking lot.

Did they get too hot? 

Did they love it up there and die of old age?

Roddie didn’t figure a creature with wings could commit suicide by jumping from somewhere high.

Sonia wanted to ask Roddie what he was thinking about, didn’t really want to ask him. 

“When you were a kid, could you name the Ten Commandments from memory?” Roddie asked.

Sonia smiled.

“The Commandments, the Seven Deadly Sins, and no running through the kitchen with your tap shoes on.”

Roddie pulled out another cigarette.

Sonia wanted to tell Roddie he should think about quitting, didn’t really want to bring up cigarettes at all.

“All these birds died the other day,” Roddie said. “Flew into a glass building in Chicago. Hundreds… dead, instantly.”

Sonia wanted to pull out her phone and search Dead Birds Chicago,  she really didn’t want to touch her phone.

“Why did…”

Roddie pulled a lighter from his pocket.

His thumb started to depress to light it and he stopped.

“You hate that I smoke, don’t you?”

Because a nod has a downward motion, it was easy for Sonia to let her head drop, then raise it. In that millisecond, she found more confidence and made the nod faster, more adamant.

“Conservationists, environmentalists, ornitallo…orni…fucking bird people,” Roddie said”… and the people who manage the building know that birds won’t fly into the glass if the lights are turned off at night.”

Sonia moved closer to Roddie, held her hand out.

The hand with the cigarette took hers, but just the pinkie, like they were making a pact in a tree fort.

Roddie’s face reddened. He was angry.

“The building people won’t shut the lights off. What Commandment is that? Is it “Thou Shalt Not Kill? Sounds like it to me. No, sorry, we won’t turn the lights off, fuck the birds.”

“It’s not like the birds just killed themselves, right?” Sonia was pretty sure she was right.

“If you were a bird would you kill yourself?”

Sonia said “I wouldn’t kill myself.”

“Well, these assholes at that building killed those birds. You know some of them have to know it’s a sin. Even if it’s birds. It’s a sin. Makes me sick.”

Sonia twisted her hand around Roddie’s, so they were both holding his cigarette together.

They were silent for a while, holding hands, starting to walk without either of them saying anything.

“What are you thinking about? “ Roddie asked.

Sonia squeezed Roddie’s hand, and crushed the cigarette.

***