Ostrich: A Novel by Matt Greene Read Free Book Online

his nose), the tether snaps back his neck, and David laughs. As he wheezes and strains against his leash I can see the first tears of rain making Venn diagrams of the hosepipe puddle. (The first drop is
Butterflies
(hairless, diurnal, chrysalis), the second is
Moths
(furry, nocturnal, cocoon). They hit the surface in a photo finish and burst and sprawl and intersect(antennae, six legs, Pterygota (which is a subclass for insects who are winged hexapods)). The third drop is
Bees
(hairy legs, feeds on pollen), the fourth is
Wasps
(smooth legs, feeds on parasites). They meet in the middle (stings, yellow, Hymenoptera (which is the biggest order of insects)) and then become indistinct. In seconds there is an ecosystem falling from the sky (set by set), and by now it’s impossible to spot the differences. (Everything intersects. (One thing becomes another.)))
    Wet gel lacquers David’s brow.
    His hair will dry in stalactites, which are the ones that point down.
    He pushes past me and slams shut the door.
    “Help me get the washing in!”
    I don’t move. I know what’s coming, but right now I’m mesmerized by the dog. He’s trying furiously to catch the rain, which I don’t remember noticing on my first time round.
    (“Oi! Gaybot! Washing!”)
    He is good at it, but success brings him no satisfaction. Whenever he plucks a drop from midair it turns to water on his tongue, which is not what he wanted at all. He wanted to take them alive.
    “What the …”
    Now it’s David’s turn to be spellbound. When I turn round he’s stiller than a bowl of fruit (or a violin). The rest of the sentence has frozen on his lips. He’s standing in front of the open slide door, staring out at a washing line that sags across the back patio like a maths problem.
    The sun is shining.
    There’s not a cloud in the sky.
    David speaks with double question marks. Wonder slackens his jaw.
    “What the
fuck
 …”
    Above our heads, the downpour plays arpeggios on the bungalow’s roof, and in front of our eyes the drought falls in sheets from an open sky. It takes a moment for us to realize what should not even need realizing (what is too obvious to even say). It is raining in the front garden and not in the back garden.
    The carpet feels like sand between my toes. When I look down I am in only my Y-fronts. But this isn’t an anxiety dream, because no one else is in school uniform. David is stripped to the waist. The sores on his back spell out a constellation. He is singing.
    It’s raining, it’s pouring
.
    The old man is snoring!
    (This carpet will bear witness to what happens here today. With bare feet we will trample in mud from the front garden and dirt from the back like we’re signing a treaty between two separate planets. (For one day only, David Driscoll’s house is a portal between worlds, and as we run shuttles from slide door to porch we are in both simultaneously. (This is Greenwich to the power of infinity. (We are at the center of the Universe. (Today we can win any argument because the Earth
does
revolve around us.)))))
    He went to bed and bumped his head
    And he couldn’t get up in the morning!
    A duckbilled platypus lays eggs and has a beak, but it is a mammal and not a bird. I do not know where Bolognese stops and Ragú begins. Once I was riding up an escalator when it stopped working, and then I was walking up a staircase. (Mood swings are one of the symptoms of my illness. Last year when Mum refused to write me an Off Games note I told her that I wished she was dead and I didn’t get into trouble. “It’s not you saying it,” she told me. Which scared me, because I don’t always know what is me and what is the illness. (I really do think I wanted her dead.))
    There are so many things I don’t understand.
    But me and David Driscoll know where the rain starts. And for now, at least, that means we understand everything.
    For the first time in my life I know I will remember something until the day I die.
    (Which I