Rhonda pours the strawberry cocktail margarita over the budding purple bellflowers in the back garden. It trickles to the roots through the crumbling topsoil and almost crackles on its way. One can almost hear it. She hums tenderly. Her veiny hand lightly pinches the champagne flute.
Vulture swoops down to the extended branch of the walnut tree. He grunts and squints. Glancing toward Rhonda, he notices that in one of the scattered patches, one lone, clean walnut lies under a canopy of browning grass amidst the dirtied berries and petals, stuck in the center of the yard just beyond the garden which covers half of the area.
It has another admirer perched upon the yellow dripping wooden fencepost; Squirrel lingers.
Vulture squashes the ground and opens his white beak to hook the walnut. A small tattered black feather falls away. Squirrel scurries to the site and stands on his hind legs, flapping his tail up and down.
He growls. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Vulture ignores him and angles his bald red head backward.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Squirrel adds.
“It’s dead,” Vulture scoffs.
“That’s mine!”
Vulture pauses. The walnut slides down his beak and thuds to the grass. “I’ll think about it.”
Rhonda gently shakes out the final drops of margarita, holding the champagne flute upside-down for a long period of time, watching the pasty globule grind the rim until it slips. Her back is arched down and her head is tilted to the left, her teal lace dress ruffling in the breeze. “Oh,” she blurts, teeth clenched. Her voice trembles. “I need more.” She trudges slowly toward the porch, reaching for the railing. “The garden smells pleasant today.” Vomit plops from above; it is melded to her wig. “Oh, damn it,” she exclaims, “my wig!” She feels for it. Her finger gets stuck in it. “Of all days…”
Rhonda’s house is not a far walk from Chan’s apartment. He reclines in his ergonomic chair in his bedroom, Skyping his ill uncle on his desktop computer.
“They’re telling you it’s that bad, huh?”
“Oh, yes,” his uncle rasps. “I hate to say it,” he coughs, “but it’s not looking so good for me. On the bright side, I won’t have to worry about finances anymore,” he says. “At least for a short while.”
Chan inches toward the screen. “Why is that?”
“There’ll be no money left by the time I’m checked out of this place!” He laughs.
Chan sighs in relief. “At least they treat you well, right?”
“They give me lots of apple juice!” He snickers. “Keeps up the blood sugar and all. Tastes good too! Anyway, you know, there’s—“Ugh, hold on… someone keeps calling me… I have to take this. Sorry.” “It’s alright, take your time…”
Chan’s smartphone had been vibrating profusely. Rhonda had called him seven times.
“Rhonda! You know I’m in the middle of something important, right?”
She screams, “Chan, god damn it get over here right now! You’re starting to piss me off!”
"I told you I’d be over there by 2:00. It’s 12:45. Give me a few minutes.”
“That’s too long. This is an emergency. What if I were dying at this very moment?”
“You’re not dying.
“Well, how do you know? You’re not here next to me.”
“Rhonda—”
“I need my medicine. I’m getting a bad headache.”
“I already gave it to you yesterday. Check your bathroom.”
“I don’t have it.”
“You do have it somewhere.”
“My head hurts! It feels like you’re pressing into my skull.”
“Christ, maybe you should stop screaming so loudly then!”
“Get over here right now! I’m in pain.”
“Rhonda, I— I’ll be there in a minute.” He hangs up abruptly. “Uncle K, I have to go…”
“We losing reception again?”
“I have to run an errand. I hate to leave you like this and—”
“No no, it’s perfectly alright. Please, go do what you have to do, Chan.”
“I love you.”
“I—” he violently coughs— “I love you too. Take care.”
Rhonda had climbed her old wooden ladder. She boorishly gallops upon the branch of her walnut tree hoping to secure a better view of Chan’s whereabouts. Meanwhile, walnuts disturbed by her tremors splash, sputtering mud.
Squirrel looks on from the neighboring tree. He declares, “Rank… doesn’t smell right over there. I don’t know what it is with that woman…”
“What is taking him so long?” she hollers. “I may as well be dead, Chan!” The branch stresses, chafing against her thighs through her dress. There are small holes forming in the lace. She ceases for a quick moment when she catches a glimpse of her garden, now flooded with days worth of alcohol. The plants are moldy and discolored; the thick gaps are erratic. “Come on!” Rhonda scoots backward and attempts to maneuver herself down the ladder.
Rhonda soon manages to pull open the glass door of her back porch and once again pick up her landline telephone which she had left on her small kitchen island. “Here we go…” Her manicured fingernails with peeling orange polish skip across the buttons slowly and mechanically. The operator responds after two hums of a dial tone. “Yes, I would like to report a case of neglect. … 33 Lincoln Avenue. … Splendid!” Rhonda hangs up and places the phone down on the counter. It is crumby from her earlier attempt at buttering toast. In the meantime, she finds her red futon in the den and sits. The walls are a bright shade of blue with intermittent picture frames, some crooked. Rhonda yawns trying to recline and blankly stares into the dainty cupboard filled with a variety of tattered novels. Directly next to her arm is a spare wig which would, askew, replace the one that she had been wearing. She then hears noise outside. “Finally.”
The echoes of the sirens blare ever louder while Chan runs alerted and rounds the corner to her driveway. Chan meets Rhonda in the backyard. “You called the police! You bitch!”
Arms akimbo, Rhonda retorts, “I figured you’d never come.”
Chan stands with a complexion of shock. “Every day I’m here with your medications and your food and—”
“Well then why am I dripping with sweat?”
A police officer interrupts. “Pardon me, ma’am, but you called to report a case of neglect?”
She turns to the officer and vehemently shakes her head. “Yes! He’s a monster! Look what he’s done to me.”
Chan jumps in, shivering. “Officer, this is insane. I’ve done nothing to harm her.”
“You need to quiet down, sir.”
“I will not quiet down. This is blasphemy. She’s low on her medications and she must have gotten the time wrong.”
“Sir, relax!”
“But I’m her caretaker. I volunteer.”
“Sir! I don’t wanna have to cuff you. Understand? Now relax. Stay against the fence.”
Mouse emerges from his burrow by the garden. He stares across the plane of the yard, and something catches his attention. Seeing his chance, he darts to it.
Squirrel halts him with a hiss. “Get away.”
“You don’t understand. I need this walnut for my burrow.”
“What? You can barely carry that thing. You’re lying.”
“I swear this smell is killing me and I want my barrier. Now please quit it with all the whining. I’m rolling this my way. I need to get back and clear out some more space.”
Squirrel chatters his teeth. “Can’t you smell my territory, rat? Give that back to me.”
Mouse continues to scale the walnut and push it toward his hole.
Squirrel pounces onto the walnut but suddenly both he and Mouse dash as Rhonda steps toward them. She may as well be a gray giant who spits down floods and mows their paths with her footsteps. Defeated, Squirrel scurries to the fence and deftly traverses it in time to avoid her. Mouse is safe in the dark.
Vulture swooshes back to the extended branch of the walnut tree. He furls his feathers for a moment waiting. The breeze has returned to stroke the leaves clean. Clouds bundle together and ride as one. Mouse pops out of his burrow once more. In the midst of running, he had not taken the walnut all the way; he needs another twig to secure the barrier too. Then, Vulture jumps at the opportunity with determination, thudding onto the dirt in front of Mouse. “I’m taking that which doesn’t belong to you.” He scoops up the walnut into his beak.
Mouse twitches. “What would you do with such a small nut? You’re losing it.”
Vulture mumbles with the walnut in his grip, “I don’t care.” He lifts his wings and flies toward the sky.
Mouse is left to settle on more pebbles, for the other walnuts had been kicked away or stomped into the soil. He gauges his environment, possibly anticipating Squirrel to arrive. Squirrel had been gone for a while. Finally, Mouse scavenges for a few seeds, or whatever he can find.
Rhonda rests herself in the den in her rocking chair, which is desperate for oil to stop the creaking. Everything else, in the house and outside, is silent. She pages through an indiscriminate magazine. Her legs gently push her forward and backward with the natural rhythm of her breath. 7 Rhonda bores into the words with her eyes glazed over. She licks her dry lips and pops them a couple of times and occasionally sniffles. Her trembling fingers follow every sentence, underlining some with a light streak of blueberry moisturizing lotion. The tea on the table to her left has stopped steaming, having turned into a lukewarm pond of milky chamomile. She sighs because now she does not have the urge to stand and find her frail eyeglasses, which she had left on the kitchen table earlier with the telephone.
The room is warm and carpeted. She can barely hear the rain snapping.
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