The Bird That Stabs
Short Story Review: “Other Animals Coming Close” by Rachel Genn
Rachel Genn’s short story “Other Animals Coming Close” begins with a woman attempting to write in her garden. It’s too warm to remain inside on her computer. The keyboard is hot to touch, each letter a burning coal, so she retreats to the garden and finds herself distracted by her surroundings. The air moves around her. The short, ungracious sounds of neighbors speaking to each other drift over the fence they’ve erected against her. She indulges herself in the symbolic here-and-there of birds.
“When creatures are anxious they cling to the boundary in thigmotaxis because they don’t dare the open spaces. Just imagine if it were being afraid that made us yearn for obstacles.”
The birds seem to be the prime movers of this story. Their movements sharpen the narrator’s focus, leading her to greater understandings of her life. We see a fat wood-pigeon dragging a bough to the ground in a pre-flight ritual. We picture a sharp-beaked bird stabbing a child as she writes out this imagined scene. We feel the vibrations of a bird beating its wings as they rebound off of her belly. The shadow of a small bird darkens her vision, tightening the “loop” of her idleness.
The narrator understands the symbol of each bird. She articulates their lessons clearly and applies them to herself. She’s avoiding something. Is it the prevailing wind that will allow her to move forward? The fangs necessary to puncture a story’s throat? The realization that the boundaries of upward motion have not been decided?
“But out here, even the smallest live thing picks up your signal, suspending you in a communal attention while you are trying to pretend that this story waiting to be told is yours and that only you can tell it and that the need will diminish once it’s told.”
In the end, we’re left with the narrator in the garden, acutely aware of the eyes watching her from the forest, the birds wheeling above, her hand resting between her sweating breasts. She sends her love up into the warm air, its point sharp and maybe dangerous. She moves into the shade and decides to remain there to tune into “the buzz.” As she sits, “winged life” repeatedly returns to “scoop up” what she is giving off.
It’s interesting that the narrator ends the story with such a statement. After some musing, she’s concluded that she’s the prime mover, not the birds. The birds, she’s decided, only reflect the lessons and ideas she’s radiating. The power source for her life is inside of herself, not outside. The boundaries, the limitations, the fear she’s been visualizing are nothing more than illusions. If she’s capable of articulating a concept like a bird’s prevailing wind, then she’s capable of understanding the liminal space she’s created for herself.
Go to the link below and read the entire story. I’ve touched on the birds, but there’s a LOT more to this story. Genn takes us through the anatomy of tongues and vaginas, the narrator’s butcher beginnings, the synergy between prayer and planning… Let me know what you think. How did you interpret the symbols given? Did you enjoy this hot afternoon in the garden? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Link: https://www.shortfictionjournal.co.uk/post/other-animals-coming-close-rachel-genn
