Never Again

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Never Again

By Plot Roach

There were plastic flamingos everywhere the eye could see. Jude had never seen so many bits of plastic fowl in his life. Even when he visited his Nana in her trailer home in Florida. He raised his camera and took a few more pictures for the local newspaper, overwhelmed by the bright color of pink funneling through the lens and back into his eye. As he snapped the last photo he saw movement from the corner of his eye. It was an old man, in teal gym shorts and a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt. He was stomping on the shards of a flamingo as if it was a cockroach, a sneer on his face as he fractured the plastic beneath his foot.

Jude crept forward, snapping a few more pictures of the old man. It might make for a funny article later, he thought. The man looked up as Jude put the lid back on the camera lens. “I hate these foul things.” the man said.

“’Fowl’ things?” Jude joked.

“Oh, ha-ha. Yuk it up. But you watch, the world will go to Hell because of them.” The man looked deadly serious and reached his foot out to extinguish the life of yet another artificial bird, nearly falling in the process.

“What do you have against them?” Jude asked.

“It’s not me so much, but the winds spirits themselves.”

“The ‘wind spirits’?”

“Yeah, you know the ones. They’re like fairies, but not so damned fru-fru.” the man said, pulling a cigarette out of his shirt pocket. He offered one to Jude, who declined. He was trying to kick the habit. After lighting the cancer stick, he launched into a lecture that only Jude and several million bits of brightly colored pink plastic were witness to. “They call ’em sylphs, I think. They’re of the elements, sylphs being wind creatures. Sailors used to prey to ’em to get a good wind to take the boat back to shore so they wouldn’t get stranded on the ocean. They play with the windmills and the wind chimes -that’s what they’re there for. The wind toys, I mean, not the sylphs.”

“So people put all this crap up around their houses to appease the wind spirits?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“Why?”

“Back in the old days, when we were just apes barely walking upright in the world, things used to be balanced. When we killed, we left a sacrifice. We lived and died by the will of the land and its guardian spirits.”

“These ‘sylphs’?”

“Them as well as others, boy. Don’t get your drawers in a knot.” The old man paused to cough for a while and spit something into the grass. Jude knew from personal experience, that he would not want to examine the spot. “But then we started staying in one spot, tending crops and animals. We tamed the elements as well as the world around us, though we rarely gave thanks. And it sent the world spinning out of control. Until here we are now, what with Global Warming and other disasters chewing at our heels like starving wolves.”

“All because we didn’t feed the spirits?”

“Aren’t you listening, boy? They were here to tend to the earth, not us. They ain’t pets! But they’ll work with us when we respect and pay homage to them. And they’ll sure as Hell kick our butts when we don’t.”

“So how do you ‘respect’ the elements?” Jude asked.

The old man pointed over to a mobile home, still standing almost intact, with a yard full of various items. “That there is my cousin Sarah’s place. She knows what from what. She’s got a well and a water fountain for the water spirits -those are the undines. She’s got rocks all around, for the Gnomes-”

“But I thought gnomes were little elf like things, ceramic statues people put in their yard?”

“You’re showing your ignorance, boy. Do you want to learn or not?”

“I’m sorry I interrupted, please continue.”

“For fire, she’s got that barbeque and pit thingy, she lights it up almost every weekend to make the salamanders happy.”

Jude was about to say something about slimy lizards and thought better of it, holding his tongue to listen to the old geezer speak.

“She’s got a few old pets’ ashes in the urns over there, for the shades to watch over. And her wind chimes and windmills occupy the sylphs.”

“So why do the plastic flamingos upset them so?”

“Because they don’t do nothing!” the old man yelled. “They just stand there like embarrassed anorexic turkeys. So they totaled them. Smashed every offensive one. And you wonder why some trailer homes get hit harder than others… Just look at the pictures, there will be a pink flamingo in every one.” Jude could not hold back his smile any longer. He found it hard to take this old man so seriously.

“Look at this crap.” the man said, kicking over the headless body of a pink flamingo. “Would you want that as an offering to you?!”

“No, I guess not.”

“’No, I guess not’ indeed.” the old man spat again into the grass at his feet. And for a moment Jude wondered if it was another gift for the water spirits. Not a good one, he thought. “End of story.” the old man said and wandered off.

Jude went back to the office, sent the photographs to his boss and relaxed at a local pub for a cold beer and a few moments to himself to mull over the events of the day. Crazy old man, he thought. But as he flipped though the sample prints from his work that day, he did notice that every home that had no flamingos was virtually untouched by the mini tornado that had wrecked the small community. Could it be a coincidence? He asked himself. There’s no way to know unless I experiment.

On the way home, he stopped by a home improvement store and bought every single plastic flamingo he could find. At dusk, he set them all around his yard, then sat on the front porch swing drinking another beer as he waited, camera in hand, for the mysterious sylphs to plague him.

As the sun slipped form the edge of the world, and night crept in on the silent paws of a predator, a slight wind surged through the yard. Just a coincidence, Jude told himself. But the breeze grew stronger, rocking Jude in his spot on the porch swing. Okay, he thought, this might be something. He pulled the cover off of the lens and watched the yard through his camera, snapping pictures when he saw movement. And I’m definitely seeing movement, he thought.

It was like his yard was host to an invisible man. He could see where the being had been, but not the creature itself. He could tell from the dead leaves whirling about and the displaced dirt next to the tree where it was, by the wake it left in its passing. He snapped shot after shot, laughing with a terrible glee. They’re never going to believe this back in the office, he thought. And then a shiver raced through him as he realized that he now faced not one invisible intruder, but many. The plastic flamingos were pulled out of the ground in unison, as if choreographed by the beings. Each pink bird exploded in the hands of invisible hooligans, the shards dancing on the wind. The wind grew violent and Jude could hardly catch his breath. The water hose unwound in the air and circled like a snake, smashing out his front garage window, denting his car door and finally hovering like a menacing serpent next to Jude, about to strike. And still he snapped pictures, until the head of a plastic flamingo shattered his lens, embedding itself in the camera.

“I’m sorry!" he yelled. "I just wanted to see if you were real. I thought the old man was pulling my leg. I’ll do anything you want. I’ll buy windmills and wind chimes and anything else that moves by wind. And I’ll honor the other spirits like you as well. I Promise!”

The camera was snatched out of his hands and dashed to pieces on the cement walkway in front of him. The wind dropped as suddenly as it had manifested. Jude wiped the sweat from his face and sat with his head down, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. In the clear glass from the shattered camera lens, his visitors had left him a message:

NEVER AGAIN.