Written by BC. Dissonance.

Dissonance He flies over the Rowan and Birch trees that scatter the slopes of the cow-park. This isn’t his best hunting ground, especially after so much rain, when the burns in spate make it hard for him to pick out the tiny scurry-sounds below. However, it’s on his flight path back to the barn, and back to the owlets, and his hen-owl, and he’s taking his chances. He levels out over flatter ground where the trees dwindle into grassland and grazing ponies. Ahead of him, in the West, the moonless night sky is brightened with thin layers of yesterday’s leftover light. The owl stalls, mid air, as a bank of sound judders through his fine-boned skull. Below him the ponies scatter into a seven pointed star, their damp backs lit-up by the fury of flashes in the sky. The owl turns sharply on their updraft of fright, and veers away from this catastrophe of noise and light. He flies East now, following the pewter-stroke of the single track road below. He can see, running along this road, a small sand-coloured dog – its hocks stepping higher and faster with each new firework that explodes behind it. The two creatures are headed downhill in the direction of the village, and beyond the thin scatter of lights the loch stretches out, dark and smooth. Down by the salty shore the owl rests on a fence post. He is caught in the sound-web of echolocation spun by feeding pipistrelles. They appear unaffected by this night’s madness. Bats, it seems, are made of feistier fibre than his soft-fringed self. Soon the sky in the West lies quiet and his heart settles. The water’s edge glows now with the soft silver of dawn, and his talons begin to itch with the hunger of his young. He sees a mouse shimmy in the rushes between him and the kelp-drawn tideline. He launches himself, then, with the yield of still-living flesh against his sharp toes, he flies uphill and homeward. He flies South of the village lights, and then follows the contours of the glen up towards the hazelnut woods, where the squirrels are curled round and red in their drays. He skirts the edge of the cow-park, and passes directly over the house with the wide wooden barn. Another few wingbeats and he can see the cluster of farm buildings; the new Bell Tower and the Farmhouse in their midst. Just beyond, on the other side of the winding road, he sees the cream-coloured tin cottage, small and lightless. He drops down over the top of The Bell Tower – its new slates shining like fish scales – and glides in through the open doorway of the barn. To reach his two young he has to fly over the heads of the dancers, their limbs and dresses playing out in tangles of colour beneath him. The air is redolent of roses and peat-stung whisky. He can see four eyelets shining in the dark high corner of the barn, and the larger eyes of his partner. He knows that one last wing stroke, up through the rising beat of box and fiddle, will see him back at the nest. A bottle smashes amidst a chorus of cheers below, and in that split second of confusion he drops the swinging mouse into the blitz of bodies below. * * * The girl, named after a mountain, laughs out loud as she spins around next to a young man who holds her with his eyes, but whose grip on the reel is weak. Casting off from him she looks up in the very moment that the owl passes overhead. She sees it as something beautiful and significant on this night of joint celebration – her twenty-first and her brother’s eighteenth. She sees the mouse fall and knows it must have landed near her. In sheer delight she scans the faces around her for a fellow witness, but it seems nobody else has seen it. It’s a gift just for her. Her mother, who died when she was three, smiles down from every wall, along with other stilled faces. It seemed to the girl that when the owl skimmed past the photographs, his velvety wingtips had invited the missing faces to meet on the dance floor; to take their partners amongst the living, their flesh and blood – for this night only – as the dancers formed the St Andrew’s Cross in the Reel of the 51st Division. Amongst the guests – the shoals of family, and family friends, and school friends, and university friends – there’s an uncle missing, and the uncle’s girlfriend. The police have advised them to stay away, after a certain act of vandalism. These two are together in The Pink Tin House 200 yards further up the glen. The house isn’t actually pink anymore, but it had been once. It had been the colour of lightly poached sea-trout, of a cat’s tongue, of the four moons in the middle of the common jellyfish. It seems that no amount of respectable cream can cover these fleshy memories. * * * Iona feels her cat warm in the curve of her neck. It is mostly bones this 22 year old cat. The purr vibrates through it’s thin form. It has recovered from the fright of the fireworks the night before. As Iona feels the purr pass into her own throat she is aware of something pressing against the base of her back. She moves away from it. She’s not in the mood. Surely Christopher understands that. She wants a baby. Not sex. Definitely not sex. But the one needs the other. She’d been pregnant – for a brief, blissful, spell – and now she wasn’t. She couldn’t get away from that hellish night, how she’d felt the baby leave her, drop by warm drop. How she’d sat on the loo – shivering and cold – and a gush had fallen heavily. She’d flushed, too scared to look. And all through that night the bell had mocked her as each slow painful hour rolled into another. A heavy arm reaches across her now, feeling for a breast. She flinches. If they make love then she’ll have to feel him slip out of her again. And then, when she stands up, she’ll feel him leave her all over again, and it will remind her of things; the slippage, the wet loss of it all. Sometimes she wonders if she even likes this man anymore. Her jaw tightens. Then she hears it . The fucking bell. So it must be 7 am already. Rage and helplessness propel her out of bed. The cat, and Christopher, disturbed for a moment, merely murmur, and then absorb the extra space. She drinks two cups of tea, strong and black. She tries to read, but the words fall emptily inside her. She listens to the cockerels calling outside and feels the familiar rage. It starts between her legs, and then rises up to her chest; a band pressing and tightening around her. She wants to ring the cockerels’ necks. She goes to the computer. FUCKING CUNT she writes. Her Facebook status of late has shrunk to profanities. She’s been obsessing since the bell first started ringing two weeks ago. Obsessing about the landlord – Christopher’s brother-in-law – who is rarely here, and yet has a bell tolling out the hours. A noise which he sees as some sort of ‘gift for the small community here’, and a homage to his dead wife. How come the police don’t give him a restraining order for his sonic-attack, yet her so-called vandalism – self-expression with a spray can – had the police at the door within twenty minutes? ‘I’d advise you strongly not to go anywhere near the Farmhouse and The Bell Tower,’ the police lady had said, not looking her in the eye. Hot tears splash onto the keyboard. She hates this place, and everyone in it: the Bellend and the Baby Bells. All the stifling expanse of this smug bastard family. Their forked tongues and fat-fucker larders and Sunday show-ups at church. They don’t know what it’s like. They don’t know what bells mean to her, its donging again now, 8 am. The heat spreads up from her toes, searing her with memories: bells and school, cold and cruelty, and an uncle whose word her parents took over her own. All the fucking cunts of her life. And all she wants is for the fucking cunt through there in the bedroom to fucking stand up for her, to make everything alright, to make her feel safe for once in her life. If something doesn’t change soon she’ll murder someone, or she’ll slit her wrists on the bell and let the blood drip down. To feed the stones. To stain all the fucking perfection around here. And then maybe people would understand the torture of the donging. Dong...dong...DONG. The dong in middle C: fucking middle alright, middle for mediocrity, middle for middle class, middle for the Middle fucking Ages. Major C though, major fucking cunt. She’s sobbing hard now. Then she feels his arms around her and she beats against his back with her small hard-balled fists. But he restrains her, and somewhere through the panic she hears his voice rumble reassurances. She can’t hear the words – his thick arms are over her ears – but she feels the vibrations deep in his chest, and the tremor of love, and she can’t fight him anymore. Just when she knows – when she really knows – she relaxes, for a brief moment, in the knowledge – the blissful perfect knowledge – that he is strong enough. * * * He stands outside and listens to the bell chime midday. The caterer’s van has just left. The party-goers have had a full cooked breakfast. A party of about fifteen, spear-headed by his son, drift past him. They’re heading to the loch for a swim. He hopes someone will take photographs. It’s wonderful that so many of their friends have made the effort to come up. He draws on his pipe, the familiar scent of vanilla giving him a rare moment of pleasure. His right hand shakes a little as he presses down some escaping tobacco with the pipe tamper. It’s not surprising, he thinks to himself, that he’s got the shakes with the persecution he’s suffered recently. All he wants is for everyone to get on. It’s a damned shame the party preparations were over-shadowed by the nasty business with Christopher and his girlfriend. What should have been a joyous family celebration has been tainted. Couldn’t Christopher have put his nephew and niece first? They’ve been through such a lot, losing their mother so young. His wife is dead and he’s done the best he can for his two children. And now his wife’s family are griping at him, well griping is the least of it. Yes, they’re persecuting him. The injustice of it. He bought the farm that would surely otherwise have had to be sold out of the family. He’s providing housing and employment – he’s even bought the village shop. Some appreciation would be welcome. Do they ever stop for a moment and ask themselves what it’s been like for him, the responsibility of it all, the crippling loneliness, the never-ending grief? ‘If John Major could go into Northern Ireland and have a go at sorting things out, surely you can try to find a peaceful solution to this. Try and talk to Christopher and Iona, find a compromise that you’re all happy with’. That’s what his other brother-in-law had said, trying, no doubt, to be helpful. ‘Nobody will tell me what to do’, he’d answered. No, he will not be told what to do, certainly not by Christopher, and that woman. Things have gone too far. He’s been told to stand firm, he’s had a lot of support, people coming to tell him that it’s his farm to do with what he will. They are applauding his rights; all the more important to exercise them in these dangerous times of land reform. By God, he will stand firm. By God, he will not be bullied. Perhaps building the Bell Tower was a folly, but his intentions were good. Does it really matter that the bell wasn’t on the original drawing, that the community wasn’t consulted? He’d wanted it to be a pleasant surprise for everyone. And, what’s more, the council has backed him; they’ve been out to listen to it and see no cause for concern. Even the barn owls don’t seem to mind – they’re successfully rearing two young this year – so why the hell all the fuss? * * * The owlets are ready to fledge now, and the barn is once again filled with the cows’ sweet breath and long licks. The photographs have been taken down off the walls, and the wooden dance-floor has been stacked away for the next big family occasion. Today the hen-owl flies low over the cow-park. The berries on the Rowan trees are brighter and redder by the day. The burns are quiet. The owl hears a shrew, she swoops under the blushing spread of one of the Rowan’s. She puts her head back and thrusts her feet forwards, and she has him, the tiny body almost completely enclosed in her talons. She looks around her. The ground underfoot is trampled, but not by sheep; the strands of sheeps’ wool caught on the tree trunk are not this year’s. There are things on the ground, laid out in a circle, like some sort of nest. She blinks slowly. No matter, she has her shrew. * * * In a few days’ time the woman, who lives in the house by the wide wooden barn, will go to check on the horses in the cow-park. Her small sand-coloured terrier will stand rooted under a Rowan tree. She will bark and bark amongst the long shadows until the woman goes to her and sees what she’s barking at – a circle of objects: a bowl with what looks like dried blood caked inside; a plastic shampoo bottle with the lid of an aerosol can placed on top, both sprayed prosthetic pink; a bicycle chain, coiled like a snake, articulated and chunky; what looks like a musical score, sealed in a jam jar; small leather falcon jesses; and a dog-lead. A little distance away from these objects lies a single feather, cream on the underside, a sandy blush on the topside, and with taupe bars smudged across it. All around are constellations of fallen berries, glowing orange at the edges as they melt towards decay. She will bend to pick up the feather, and unthinkingly run it across the top of her lip. It will send a silky shiver down through her body. She won’t know that the feather hasn’t been placed there by a human hand. She’ll wonder whose bower this is. She’ll ask herself if Iona is going underground with her artistic expression, or if Christopher is asking the faeries for help. Or maybe this is the labour of the landowner – turning to the dark side for help; anything to help silence these lunatics living on the left side of the glen. As she stands there the bell will ring in the distance, five chimes. The woman will pause, take a breath, tell herself it’s not worth getting in a sweat over. She’ll tell herself to just let it go, but she’ll acknowledge to herself, that, yes, fuck, that noise could get to you if you let it. It will also have alerted her to the time, and remind her that she’ll need to take the boys to their guitar lessons soon. As she heads back up the field she’ll see a barn owl perched on the top gate, and she’ll wonder what it’s doing out in daylight. She’ll stop to watch it. It will tilt it’s head, drinking in sound first from the left, and then from the right, and somewhere, just behind the middle of the beautiful heart of its face, the sounds will resolve.