Little Lilly

(Fiction originally Posted at joecsmolen.com 8/16/22)

Lilly looked languidly out the window of her mother’s car. Lilly liked lounging in her mom’s back seat, where she was now, especially when it was snowy out – like now. She liked the chocolate-covered raisins she was eating. She loved it – sitting and looking out the window and eating and eating – especially chocolate-covered raisins. Lilly’s mom had asked her what she wanted for lunch. Lilly said, “Chocolate-covered raisins.” At the store over in the valley, from the bulk bin, Lilly’s mom let her fill her own lunch sack. So her lunch sack wouldn’t burst, Lilly pulled an insurance sack around her chocolate-covered raisins.

 Even though there wasn’t any leg room because her mom had to put the driver’s seat all the way back, Lilly liked it best sitting behind her mom – where it was harder for her mom to make eye contact and scold through the rear-view mirror. Now, out her back seat window, close on her left, Lilly was watching two birds.

“Mom,” she remarked. “These seagulls look like brother and sister.”

Lilly’s mom was chewing cheese pizza. She was busy. She couldn’t look up from her phone.

“They’re just seagulls, hon. They all look the same.”

It was true. Lilly’s seagulls looked the same.

Lilly’s mom had a doctor appointment – with an endocrine specialist – over in the valley, so they grocery shopped while they were over there. Back out on the coast, Lilly’s mom stopped along Highway 101 at a park over-looking the ocean, where they were sitting in the car now. Lilly’s grandmother never got out. Lilly’s mom grew up along the coast. Lilly’s mom didn’t like getting out either. Even in the beautiful sunshine, Lilly stayed put in her mom’s back seat.

Lilly used to want a brother or sister. But now, she just chewed and wondered if the two birds out on the edge of the grass beside the parking lot pavement looked alike because they were brother and sister. They sure looked it.

Lilly didn’t know it, but both her seagulls were this year’s fledglings – all-over mottled grey with black, staring, cruel eyes. One of them was standing up. The other one was tipped over on its back. Lilly watched the live one reach low through the beautiful sunshine and shove the tip of its beak deep into the chest of the other, then pull out bloody. Nothing, no one bothered him. But it bothered Lilly plenty.

“Mom!” awed Lilly remarked, “You should see what this bird is eating!”

“Not now, hon.”

In his erect posture, you could read the live fledging’s mind – his sense that his strength was coming back. He stood up, his – or was it the sister’s - head high and you could see her facing boldly into the warm sun and wondering if she wanted more – of her brother. She did. Lilly’s own mouth crammed with a mash of chocolate-covered raisins, she stopped chewing. She felt her face and neck flush – same color as the live bird’s crimson beak. Lilly couldn’t swallow. She couldn’t stop watching the living bird just eat and eat her dead brother’s heart out.

Lilly didn’t feel it coming. She urped. Her insides convulsed, forcing her to lurch forward. Panicking, she covered her mouth with her hand. She tried to stop it. Harder, she urped again. Just in time, she leaned to her right. Just missing her mother’s open purse, little Lilly puked up about a pound of her chocolate-covered raisins down onto the passenger-side back seat floor of her mother’s car.

 For not getting out of the car, she got smacked.