drawing pictures of birds

Thirty-two year old Stephen spends his days drawing pictures of birds on the wallpaper of the apartment his mother built for him above the house. He doesn't have much else to do. Mom doesn't allow Stephen downstairs when she's teaching. She has enough on her hands without him stirring up the kids. After they leave he'll be able to go down for a while. He likes to watch his mother sing to herself as she cleans up the mess of crayons and toys. He could watch her like that forever - but soon little brother Neil will come home from his normal school and it's back upstairs for Stephen and back to the birds and the wallpaper. The good times are so short lived.

This is not Stephen's story, however. Stephen is dead. The scraps of wallpaper are boxed up the in basement next to the shovel and the washer and there are new people in the house now. Mom is still here. Neil comes and goes. The kids in mom's class change over like seasons. Some of them die. Some move away. A small handful grow up and graduate, kicking and screaming all the way.

Then there's Madison, the girl living in Stephen's old apartment, here to help Mom now that she's gotten so old. That's whose story this is. This is Madison's story - and Mom's and Neil's and that guy who walks through the yard every day with the disheveled black hair like the crumpled wing of a broken bird. If Stephen were alive he'd probably look out his window and start drawing pictures of the man on the wallpaper next to the rest. He looks like a bird from a distance, small and black there against the snow.

But Stephen is dead. This is not Stephen's story. It's Madison at that window, cutting herself with her new kitchen knives and wondering how the hell she ended up here, right in the middle of the lives of so many strangers. All she wanted was to disappear somewhere, to escape from herself somehow. She never intended to become so involved.

No, this is not Stephen's story.
Not until Madison finds his birds, anyway.