lost kid card co.

The late year light was weak like sun drowned in the scale of its own sky. The security lads tossed their cards down onto a pallet they’d stretched a worn t-shirt over and grunted fare thee wells. The dumped Jacks sneered into the chill. Dispersing there was a din of geese overhead that was loud and amplified by the natural contours of the landscape, and the throb of their flapping wings was eerie and mechanical as it passed, like an electrical transformer humming into darkness. They landed some distance away and pecked at the grass in hasty gobbles, some of the larger birds lashing at each other, their great swinging necks like the detonated chimneys of industry, the wonderful symmetry of their skein but a smokescreen disguising the deep hatred and ancient rivalries that coursed through their number and that could on land be given due attention.

Budd stroked the cards up and put them back into the sleeve. “Lost Kid Card Co.”, it said. There were detailed pencil illustrations of infant graves printed on the reverse of each of the 52 cards, the perfectly realised miniature headstones surrounded by several square feet of whirligigs, teddy bears, photographs, poetry, garments, which made for a sombre gaming experience but added an unarguable gravity to their every throwaway gesture. He propped the pallet up and drew the bolt across the small fenced area they used for these sessions. The others were by then out of sight behind the stark grey concrete buildings that thrust to the sky in sheer angles and were themselves memorials to dreams as pointless as any.

He turned his radio on but kept the volume low for his hearing was sensitive to interference. The slight feedback was punctuated with stuttered briefs, info, descriptions, some banter undertaken exclusively in acronyms. Soon it was intense silence. He held the radio to his ear and heard nothing at all, so increased the volume setting in increments until the maximum was reached. The trees were engorged with incredible solar colours and for a moment he felt quite afraid for reasons he could not grasp. He pressed down the talk button on his radio unit and spoke his name but noted that his voice was distorted and unrecognisable, and he recoiled and threw the radio onto the floor; the slight feedback recommenced and so did the stuttered briefs, info, descriptions. He retrieved the battery pack from the rear of the radio unit and put it in his pocket and left the radio unit itself on the damp grass. His mouth tasted very dry and foul. He walked hurriedly towards the lake and felt the stare of the buildings boring into him. The grass was long and soaked the bottom of his trouser legs, and gnawed tennis balls poked from its riches like fungus, dumped rancid by psychotic dogs. At the water’s edge he looked as best he could around the largely ovoid shoreline and saw not a soul, only the shapes of mute birds stood sentinel in pockets of the trees already laid bare and skeletal by the falling temperature. The geese converged about him and soundlessly opened their beaks in turn, their tough tongues stiff and coarse as fingers inside. In unison they honked with such ferocity that he was startled. He had seen a home video embedded within an internet resource some years ago where a vast gaggle of geese was silenced by a man across the water merely yelling out something unidentifiable. Nervously he shouted “hello” and his voice was perhaps even more distorted than before, amplified grotesquely and barely language. He clasped his flat hands to his ears. The noise of the geese was unchanged.

He began to run along the pathway that was heavily trodden into mud, wanting to scream but afraid to vocalise. He fell to the floor and with hands to his ears felt his undefended nose hit the ground and break easily and he writhed to his feet and continued to run. He passed a young fondling couple on a bench and fell to his knees before them.

“Please,” he said, his voice grinding like the crushed metals of a serious car accident. “Please help me”.

The couple bade him watch as they fornicated in the muck before him and then left him prostrate, their satisfied sniggers as honks in the afternoon.