t is for tino

by Eirene Gentle

When Tino called in the sharks they were ready. They’d practiced so many times. The circle, the dip. Synchronized finning to the music of Bolero. Everyone watched the sharks so no one watched Tino. That’s how he released the swans who never stayed in order no matter how much they practiced. They flapped and snapped at whatever was closest so people scuttled like roaches and Tino was invisible as always.

‘How can I be seen’ Tino wondered, patting his smeared heart back together. He’d choreographed aardvarks to gazelles, lemmings to swans with music, lights and painstaking attention. Maximum effort, maximum effect. The hours he put in. Of course there were broadcasts and videos of his Events all over the internet but never a Tino. He should be used to it but hope was a weed that grew no matter how much he hacked it.

He shrunk into a small man with thinning hair, a stranger even to Tino who avoided mirrors. When did he get so thin, when did his skin loosen over the small bones of his face? Tino looked like his father at the end. His father who wielded his whip like a king until even the animals turned on him and he died frail and quivering, his insides collapsed under all his damage. Tino waited outside the funeral, the animals circling him like aura. They’d all been through so much. Is this freedom, they wondered in that shivering huddle but dropped lofty thoughts to scavenge for food. They ate and slept together. They kept to the fringes of the city so no one paid them attention outside of Events.

Tamarins were up next, with toucans to follow. Sixteen yammering practically flying monkeys. With uncharacteristic listlessness Tino let them bound about in their usual way, barely bothering to choreograph the melee. The tiny beasts followed him into his dreams, clinging, bristling lumps pushing him toward something. He couldn’t see what. For three nights they ambushed him. But on the fourth he understood.

Tino wore a sun yellow suit on the day of the Event, picked and licked to a gloss by the tamarins. When the first chord struck they exploded as rehearsed, fur blurs vaulting off people’s heads and shoulders into a tumbling sky. Two dozen toucans trained in beak strengthening and wing propulsion warmed up in the wings. When the music braked to a suspenseful pause they plucked Tino’s baggy yellow shell and heaved. A man even as withered as Tino is no small thing for birds but they carried him as high as they could above the crowd and let go. Wind rushed as he beamed ever closer to the crowd. All eyes on him, mouths wide with awe.

Photo of Eirene Gentle

BIO: Eirene Gentle writes lit, mostly little, usually from Toronto, Canada. Happy to be published in some great journals. Was told to pound salt and is seriously considering it.