To Kill A Mockingbird – From a Mockingbird's Perspective
It was the end of summer. The sun slipped beneath the horizon, leaving behind warmth and a dusky, dusty twilight. On the top branch of an oak tree, a mockingbird sat, singing. A gate creaked on its hinges, swinging in the slight breeze. If you glanced down the street, you would see doors, standing open, a welcome to the cool night air and any visitor that happened to come by. But one house was different. It stood tall, seeming somehow drawn into itself, stern, as if it were glaring down the street and daring anyone to come in. No breezes were playing tag in that house; the air inside was still and stale, for all the doors and windows stood closed. None of the townsfolk knew what went on in that house; the only creature who knew was the mockingbird who lived in the oak tree.
Four people lived in that house: a man, a tall, stern man who, when he came out, never talked to anyone; a woman, a thin woman with a sharp nose and eyes like a hawk; and two boys, the older of which was just like his father. The younger boy was different, the mockingbird knew. He seemed a prisoner in that house. His eyes were grey and deep, but they weren't sharp and stabbing like his mother's, or hard and filled with hatred like his father's and brother's; they were intense, piercing eyes, eyes that told of a soul that longed for freedom, longed to do something instead of just staying locked in a house.
The mockingbird soared over the winter landscape – the trees were bare, the air slightly chilly. A boy was sneaking out of the dark house, climbing out the window, landing, feather-light on the porch roof, sliding to the ground. He tiptoed out the gate, lifting it carefully so it wouldn't squeak. From the window, a man stood watching, but the boy didn't notice.
Once again, the sun was setting. The stars stood out sharply against the winter sky as ten boys, laughing loudly, raucously, backed around the town square in an automobile. A man rushed out of a building. The mockingbird alighted on the rooftop and looked on as the man attempted to handcuff the boys, who only laughed louder. They wrestled the handcuffs from his grasp, handcuffed him, and dragged him across the ground. They threw him in the courthouse outhouse and nailed the door shut. But one boy hung back. To an outsider, he may have seemed part of the group, but the mockingbird, watching from the rooftop, could see his hesitation, could sense that he knew this wasn't the life he wanted. Anything, though, was better than being locked in that house.
The next morning, the mockingbird was up early. He had spent the night on the courthouse roof, and watched as townsfolk, alerted by the man's yells, let him out of the outhouse. The man's anger was tangible, even to the mockingbird. He watched the man seek out each boy and bring him before a judge. Nine of those boys left town the next day, but one was dragged home, walking between his father and brother. The nine boys who left went to a good school and grew up to be successful, or so the mockingbird heard, but the boy who went home was met by the stinging lash of a whip and was not seen again by the town for many years.
Though the town didn't know what went on in that house those many years, the mockingbird did. Every day, his sharp ears caught the sounds of pleading, a boy pleading to be let go, to be able to go outside, to do something with his life, a young man pleading for forgiveness. He heard the stinging answers, the abusive words, occasionally, the crack of a whip, the slap of a hand.
Slowly, over the years, the pleas became less frequent, less insistent. The boy, a man now, seemed subdued, accepting that his life would never change, that he would always live in the dark house. The house, too, changed. It drooped sickly with age and disrepair.
But one day was different. It was a hot summer day, and the mockingbird slept in the cool shade of the oak tree. Suddenly, a piercing scream awakened him. He heard the sounds of a struggle, of punches. He heard a man's rough voice telling someone to sit down and stay there. A woman ran screaming out of the house.
That evening, a man came and took the young man away. The mockingbird followed them to the courthouse, where the young man was locked in the basement. The basement had only one window, about one foot square, just barely above the ground, and striped with iron bars. The mockingbird sat on the window ledge and watched the man, who lay, crying softly on the ground.
The man stayed in that jail for over a year. The mockingbird befriended him and often sat on his shoulder, singing for him. The man began to enjoy his time there, with the companionship of the mockingbird. He dreamed of being somewhere else, but where? The only house he knew was that house from which he had come, and anywhere, even the solitary basement was better than that house.
It was his worst nightmare come true. His father came back. They took him away from the basement and back to the house. He spent most of his time in his room now, gazing out the window, watching the town. The mockingbird returned to his oak tree, and often visited the man in his room. He was always welcome. The man never talked now, only sat and thought. Years passed, and the mockingbird (was it still the same mockingbird?) continued to come.
One day, the man was watching out his window as three children wandered toward the house. They stopped at the gate, and one of them ran up to touch the house then ran back as fast as his legs could carry him. And in the man's mind, an idea began to form.
Later that month, a girl walked by on the way home from school. A shimmer in the mockingbird's oak tree caught her eye. She reached up into a knothole and pulled out two sticks of chewing gum. Then she ran home. The man looked on from the window with pleasure.
A boy slipped through the fence, climbing up and peeking in a downstairs window. Suddenly, the front door opened. The boy fell backwards off the window and ran through the garden, rustling as he went. A shot was fired just as the boy dove through the fence. His pants stuck on the barbed wire, and he went on without them. Again, the man was watching from the window, but this time he wasn't happy. Later, once his brother was asleep, he slipped out the window, the way he had when he was a boy. He took the boy's pants and carefully stitched the rips as best as he could, then hung them on the fence.
The boy and girl walked home from school past the dark house, and almost every day, they found something in the knothole. But the man was in trouble. His brother was beginning to suspect something, and the man often saw him checking the knothole. The mockingbird was the man's lookout, though, and his brother never caught him putting anything in the knothole.
One day, the boy and girl slipped a piece of paper into the knothole. They didn't notice, but, from two windows of that house, they were being watched. One kindly man looked down on them lovingly from upstairs, and one man glared out at them from downstairs.
Before the man had a chance to go look at the piece of paper, his brother was outside. He read the paper, then ripped it to shreds. The next morning, he was up early, mixing cement and filling the knothole. The man watched from upstairs, silent tears running down his cheeks. The mockingbird perched on his shoulder and chirped in his ear, trying to cheer him up.
That winter, the man was awakened by the mockingbird. He looked out the window and saw two children standing on the sidewalk, silhouetted against a burning house – not their house, but their neighbors. The girl was shivering with cold and fear. He grabbed a blanket, sneaked out of the house, and slipped it over her shoulders. She was so scared, she didn't even notice him or the blanket.
It was almost a year before the man had contact with the children again. Once again, the mockingbird, whose sharp ears had heard screams outside, awakened him. He jumped to his feet and glanced out the window. What he saw made his heart stop. A man was attacking two children, one of them in a ham costume, the other lying on the ground, his arm twisted crazily, unconscious. The man ran down the stairs, grabbed a kitchen knife, and rushed out the door.
He pulled the attacker off the girl and stabbed him with the knife. The attacker fell to the ground, dead. He picked up the boy and began to carry him home. The girl followed, stumbling in her wire costume.
The rest of that night was all a blur to him, as the boy was taken from him and laid on a bed, the sheriff was telling the boy's father that the attacker had fallen on his knife, the doctor said that the boy would be fine, the children's father thanking him, the girl insisting on walking him home. The mockingbird watched as the girl walked the man home, and he knew, as did the man, that even though the man may never leave that house, he had made his life worth living.
The End =)