Skybirds
When I was a small child my brother and my father took great pleasure in freaking the hell out of me. Yes, a child of single digit years being tormented by her family members is not necessarily something to make light of, but in this case I think it all stands in good fun.
The brother and my Dad used to tell me the skybirds were going to come and get me. As to what they were going to get me for none of us knew, and as to what they were none of knew that either. Those two would look to the sky and point and start yelling “Nessa, Nessa, the skybirds are coming. You better run and hide!” Sometimes I would run and cry, usually I would run around a corner iinto another room and then yell for Andy.
“Andy, where’s my Andy?” my panicked voice would bellow.
He would run around the corner to me and say “What Nessie? What’s wrong with my Nessie?”
I would belt him in the stomach. Everytime.
Andy was gone for a long time, and at one point we thought he died. That is another story for another time. Let’s just say when he called four years later, alive and well, nearly everyone had small coronaries. The first time I saw him after him return he tried to pull the skybird game on me. He quickly found out that at 20 I had a mean right hook. None-the-less, we had our game, our memories, and life slowly came back to normal. The last time we played the skybird game was in December 2002, the last time I saw him. He had just turned 33 and I was 26.
As to what the skybirds mean I may never know, but the one thing that lingers with me is that on nights like tonight—when I can’t sleep and I feel like I am spinning circles on an article—I wish he was around to yell out for the skybirds.
The last few years of his life I was in New York, and he was in Delaware. On Friday nights he would call me, invariably around midnight, drunk from the bar. Just as we had gotten older, and lived miles apart, our game carried on. Instead of asking me for the skybirds, in his inebriated state from his local watering hole, he would ask me if I was hanging with some Yankee. He always told me how he would just have to lose his job so he could come beat up some troll for messing with his little sister. He never did have to do that, as the train ride to hell didn’t occur until after he passed.
Never-the-less, I think if I don’t get past the road block I have with this academic piece Andy’s skybirds will come find me. Eh, I think I’ll go back to writing so I don’t have to find out what they are.
The brother and my Dad used to tell me the skybirds were going to come and get me. As to what they were going to get me for none of us knew, and as to what they were none of knew that either. Those two would look to the sky and point and start yelling “Nessa, Nessa, the skybirds are coming. You better run and hide!” Sometimes I would run and cry, usually I would run around a corner iinto another room and then yell for Andy.
“Andy, where’s my Andy?” my panicked voice would bellow.
He would run around the corner to me and say “What Nessie? What’s wrong with my Nessie?”
I would belt him in the stomach. Everytime.
Andy was gone for a long time, and at one point we thought he died. That is another story for another time. Let’s just say when he called four years later, alive and well, nearly everyone had small coronaries. The first time I saw him after him return he tried to pull the skybird game on me. He quickly found out that at 20 I had a mean right hook. None-the-less, we had our game, our memories, and life slowly came back to normal. The last time we played the skybird game was in December 2002, the last time I saw him. He had just turned 33 and I was 26.
As to what the skybirds mean I may never know, but the one thing that lingers with me is that on nights like tonight—when I can’t sleep and I feel like I am spinning circles on an article—I wish he was around to yell out for the skybirds.
The last few years of his life I was in New York, and he was in Delaware. On Friday nights he would call me, invariably around midnight, drunk from the bar. Just as we had gotten older, and lived miles apart, our game carried on. Instead of asking me for the skybirds, in his inebriated state from his local watering hole, he would ask me if I was hanging with some Yankee. He always told me how he would just have to lose his job so he could come beat up some troll for messing with his little sister. He never did have to do that, as the train ride to hell didn’t occur until after he passed.
Never-the-less, I think if I don’t get past the road block I have with this academic piece Andy’s skybirds will come find me. Eh, I think I’ll go back to writing so I don’t have to find out what they are.
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