Advance Across the Lawn

When I open the front door they are there, line upon line of black-coated soldiers, advancing across my neighbor’s lawn, moving north into mine. Looking south I can see no end to their ranks. Their numbers seem endless, their forward movement unencumbered by the dips in the ground, the trees, the gas light. They are searching, heads tilted toward the ground then to the right, now left. Occasionally one looks up, another turns and faces me as I stand there watching in a confused silence as they march. Sharp faces, bright eyes, sleek uniforms all.

It takes a moment for me to realize that even the house is no obstacle to their mission. Scouting parties scramble along the steep incline, tossing debris from the gutters. It snows twigs and leaves and dust past my door.

I’ve hidden nothing, I think. There’s nothing up there to find. Nothing anyone would want. Nothing of value.

One of them stops and stares at me, looks hard with his sharp eyes while his comrades shower my front step with more gutter litter. I close my open mouth, swallow and hope it doesn't make me look guilty. A mercenary, his uniform a drab brown and beige camouflage, stops and regards me, regards my innocence. He glances at the soldier in black and then continues on, as if to say – “Leave the questioning of civilians to the officers; I’ve other stones to turn”.

The officer glances skyward, receives some sort of communication from the soldiers on the roof. He gives me no second glance after that, but turns north and resumes his march. The relief I feel in my stomach is enough to make me feel I really have hidden something from them. I’m no criminal. There’s nothing here for me to hide. It’s all legal and mine.

I start to count them, the soldiers and mercenaries pushing the frontline north through my yard. Twenty. Thirty. Six on the roof. Now I see ten in the tree. How did that happen? Slowly I step back from the storm door, slide my left foot behind the heavy oak front door and begin to ease it shut. Every time one of them snaps his gaze on me I stiffen, freeze, wait until he looks away.

I’m no criminal! There’s nothing hidden here! I want to shout, but I don’t. Instead I slowly close the door and then I run. I run for the sitting room and the box tucked in the back of the closet. I jerk it carelessly out from under the blankets piled on top to save it from casual notice. I work the latch with frenzied fingers.

Hurry! Get it out! Now!

The latch gives and I am in. I snatch the camera out, pull it tight to my chest and run to the living room window. The soldiers are still marching. There seems to be no end to their ranks, their continuous forward motion. I pinch the edges of the lens cover and remove it, press the power button, and raise the camera to my eye. The soldiers look so small in the viewfinder and I cannot decide which area to photograph first, swinging my head from side to side, turning the camera on end and then back. I take too long and the battery powers down. I press the shutter release, regain the electric image, and see the ranks pull their shoulders in, gather themselves and leap, as a single unit, as one organism, into the air and fly. All of them. Even the mercenaries. Someone across the street has slammed a car door, the sound like a gunshot in the early morning, and has sent them fleeing.

Branches bob from the power of their departure; dead leaves and dust float down from my gutters. All I can do is stare, open mouthed, out my window and scan my side of the street. They are gone. Not a single one is left behind. Not on the ground, nor in the trees, nor on my roof. Except for the camera in my hand and the image seared into my mind’s eye of one hundred grackles and starlings marching north across my lawn, it is a normal early morning.