Rogier is a hardworking man. Not a single day goes by in which I do not see him working on something. This summer, his ambition led him to something he had never done before; Rogier decided to raise quails.
The idea seemed to have sprouted out of nowhere as he simply informed me of it in one of our brief neighborly meetings. He leaned on his crooked letter box, in his excessively straight posture, scratching his mustache.
“My family had a farm when I was little and I always took care of the chicken coop. They were my favorites, never caused too much trouble. Besides, quail eggs are a delicacy.”
“That’s nice. It seems like a fun project.” I said politely, in disinterest.
“I can’t wait to see them hatch! They are so tiny when they get out of the egg.” he said, letting out an embarrassingly loud laugh, the one you use when you are too eager.
“Say, I probably won’t be keeping the males when I can find out which ones are which. Would you like one?”
“Oh, no. No. I don’t know if I would have time to take care of it. Thanks for the offer though.”
When I was younger, I never owned a “real” pet. My family lived in a small apartment and they never expressed the need to have one. I remember begging them to buy a dog but they always refused. “It’s too much of a hassle” they said. Eventually I brought home a fish I had won in a festival; it was handed to me in a plastic bag tied tightly. The thing died two weeks later and all the replacements died at an even shorter time. I can’t even remember their names. I didn’t want the conversation to end just yet, so I blurted out whatever I could think about.
“Do you know how you’ll raise them?”
So, he told me of his plan. Of how he had already ordered an incubator, how he knew exactly how many eggs would be good for it, and of the best and most appropriate rations to give to them. Afterwards we exchanged goodbyes and headed to our respective homes. That’s where it would have ended. Rogier and I barely talk and I have never been the kind of person to want to know more about my neighbors, but this was different.
A couple days later, while getting ready to go to bed, I looked down from my window to his house; at the small hole that was his garage window. There he was, standing still, observing an incubator already turned on. I kept watching, waiting for anything interesting to happen, but he just stood there, for thirty minutes, merely watching the spinning object and its foggy surface.
He would do the same in the subsequent days, coming back from work drenched in sweat, in his mud-riddled jeans and yellow stained blue dress shirt, changing to colorless pajamas and watching the eggs. The observation could sometimes last more than an hour and some days he would even have more than one. He kept the habit until the quails finally hatched.
“Do you want to see them?” He said as we talked by the sidewalk.
And that was how I finally got to see the view that had been entrancing him for all this time. The motion of the incubator was hypnotic. The vapor and humidity made the plastic, artificial walls of the thing foggy. Watching it was dizzying, and I strained to make out anything happening inside, only seeing an egg or another from time to time.
“Oh–” he said dejectedly with clear familiarization to the fog, being able to see much better than I. “One of them died.”
That quail, the first to die, had apparently slithered out of the egg while Rogier was at work. It crawled to the underside of the incubator and ended up drowning inside of it. Its tiny body, huddled and lifeless, was quickly placed on a paper towel a few inches away from the incubator by Rogier.
“What are we going to do with it? Will you bury it?” I asked worriedly, regressing to how I felt as a small child, seeing the dead fish floating flatly inside of the miniscule aquarium, unable to even think about what the appropriate action would be.
“It’s best to just throw it away. Burying is too much of a hassle.” He sighed. He barely heard my words, looking straight at the frail body. “Can you toss it while I get their food ready?”
“O-Okay.” I said hurriedly.
He did not even give me time to think or reject his request, shoving the body in my hands. I felt it. The body, still warm and wet, the levity of it, and the frailty of it all. It looked like it was sleeping. Still alive in my hands, resting peacefully. I moved it carefully as if it would run away from my hand, and slowly opened the trash bin, the inside was full of crumpled paper and plastic bags. As I threw the body in a quick motion, I decided not to even look at the bin, hurrying back to Rogier, who was feeding the quails.
“Eight have already hatched” His eyes were concentrated on the small paper box in which they were kept. He hadn’t even laid some shaving on the floor but there was a grow light, a feeder, and a water bowl. The bare minimum, I thought. Noticing my silence and my eyes fixed on the box, he blurted out some words. “I have bought a cage; it just hasn’t arrived yet. Pretty annoying right?”
“Oh yeah. Annoying.” I said detachedly. My mind kept going back to the trash bin.
“I don’t think many more will hatch, so these are about all of them. Wanna hold one?” He said, proudly staring at the quails.
I approached my head to the box, and they quickly started running and chirping. The eight frantically moved about, still learning with every step, taken carelessly and wildly. They ran awkwardly and desperately, terrified of the giants watching them. I quickly moved my head back, thinking about the quail I had just thrown away, about its still frail body struggling to get up beneath the white plastic grate keeping it underwater, how it might have wished that it had more control over its body, how it flailed hoping not to die when it had just been born.
“Sorry but I have to go. Maybe some other time.”
The total number of quails born was twelve. About half the eggs didn’t hatch but Rogier said that was to be expected. He grew to like them very much. One of them, the fastest one, was Pelé but he didn’t bother naming the others. He thought it was too hard to keep track. Rogier started to watch them even more, bringing a folding chair to look down at the box and the little things. Sometimes he would even bring one or two to the backyard, and just watch them run around. They looked lost and barely moved but his smile was always wide as he looked at them. Sitting on my balcony, I would often see him bragging about them to our neighbors or telling tales to his wife, who seemed as fed up with it as always. That made sense to me. Rogier would always be working on his next big project, be it repairing an old car, tediously maintaining his lawn, or his vegetable garden. This was merely his new focus and he was enjoying it thoroughly. That was, until they started hurting each other.
“They’ve been more violent recently. I’m still thinking about what to do.” He said as I entered his garage. I was hesitant to enter. I had been hearing all about what was happening from his talks with others but I hadn’t looked yet. “It doesn’t seem like the food is helping very much.” His first idea for dealing with the violence was to feed them with certain nutrients they might have been missing.
The quails had now been placed in a cage. When I first saw it, I was surprised by the size, smaller than the box. The quails, already jumping on top of each other inside the disheveled cardboard box, looked even more cramped inside the cage. Rogier was proud though. The cage had automatic water stations and made feeding much easier.
Inside of it, there were eleven quails. Most of them huddled to each other, with feathers plucked out of their heads and backs alongside a couple scratched on these spots. Some of them still bled. Apparently, they got worse every night, attacking and mounting on top of each other. As I approached, their chirps turned frantic, so I kept a distance. A lone chirp came from the box, tucked in a corner next to the cage. My gaze immediately turned in that direction.
“That’s who I thought the culprit was.” Rogier said, moving towards the box. Inside, was a lone quail, quiet and sullen. Its head moved up and looked at me as I approached. “It was the only one with no scars, so I decided to see what would happen if I kept it away.”
“And they are still hurting each other?” We sat in silence for a while. Sometimes the quail in the box would jump up, tall jumps. Unfortunately, despite the effort, the box was much too big for it. I sighed and was about to say something, as Rogier interrupted.
“I think it’s the males. They can do that sometimes; get too excited and jump on top of each other trying to find a suitable mate.” His eyes fixed at a pair of gardening scissors set out by a table. He said the phrase mechanically and quickly, it felt like it had barely come out of his mouth.
“I’ll try to sort out the quails and find the males. My wife was telling me that they should spend some more time outside so I’ll probably let them stay there for now and see if the behavior improves.”
“Will you kill them?”
“I don’t know.”
So, that same night, he picked out two quails and let them sit outside. The two of them, shivering and agitated, ran to the bushes and remained hidden until the next day, when one of them was completely gone. The only remnants being a couple of feathers and drops of blood by the grass which he promptly cleaned up.
Surprisingly, he did not put the other quail back inside, instead having even more on the backyard for the next nights, some still alive but heavily injured by scratches and clawing like one of the smaller ones, the beloved Pelé, now left with a big gash in its neck, and some just vanishing, like the first one.
In the end seven out of the twelve quails were put in the backyard. Two were preyed on by the scratcher, one he claimed to have escaped, and many others were left injured. All the while I wondered why he kept them there, left to die in that backyard.
It was on a Saturday that I saw the hunter. I was sitting by my window grading some papers, keeping an eye on Rogier’s yard. It all started with a small movement, a shaded blur jumping over the fence. Suddenly, everything became clearer. A cat, fat and grey, stealthily approached the bushes in which one of the quail stood by. All it took was a single jump. The feline pounced on the quail, who barely resisted, giving out a short run before being bitten and carried off. I wasn’t the only one who saw the scene.
Rogier slammed the door of the backyard, running to the scene in a weak attempt to stop it. The cat quickly ran away. Rogier stood still, looking at the bushes. The remaining quails were completely hidden. His gaze was firm as he slowly turned his head to the ground, gripping his fists and heading back inside. I pushed my ears to the walls of the house, trying to listen for anything coming from inside. The first thing I heard was his wife’s voice.
“The poor thing. Do you think that’s what happened with the other ones?”
“Yeah–”
“So, stop, you know they won’t survive out there.”
“Well, what can I do? It’s not like we can just give them away, right? They are quick to attack. No one would take them. They might even report me, and you know I haven’t done anything wrong.” He paused. A long silence ensued. “At least now the ones in the cage are safe. Besides, they seem to be on their last legs. I have been trying my best since I got them, but there really wasn’t anything to be done.” By that point, he had already run out of breath, talking quick and fast, grasping for hair so he could end that conversation.
“I can’t see them go out slowly like this. Tomorrow, I’ll get rid of them.”
And there he was, on the following noon, standing by three buckets. Laid out on the floor, a pair of gardening scissors sat next to his folding chair. The sun shone, like a furnace, making his forehead drip sweat. The sky was dusty, the whole town was tainted by a burnt smell. One of our neighbor’s houses loudly played Mexican music but Rogier, Rogier was in complete silence.
For some time, he simply stared at the quails. There were no casualties that night, but no food was eaten either. The quails outside had stopped eating for a while now. Whenever he saw one, he quickly diverted his gaze and stared at the sun, which despite the dust, shone brightly. It was then that Rogier moved towards one of the quails, one of the black ones.
The quail let out two chirps but remained still, watching its owner approach. He crouched and as soon as he caught it with his hand, it became silent. Rogier moved towards the buckets, sat down and held the thing on top of the empty one. Even then, it did not move or squeak.
Letting out a sigh, Rogier took the scissors, the blunt scissors he would often use to cut branches and open letters, put them next to its head and cut. His gaze all the while was concentrated at the backyard’s ground, at the green patch of grass, the overly well-kept patch of grass he would always trim during the weekend. Rogier did not dare to look at the quail.
With precise but mechanical movements, he lowered the body with his hands, letting the rest of the skin tissue connecting the head to the rest of the body separate by itself. After hearing a small and silent thud at the bottom of the bucket, he finally turned his gaze to the body, now headless and devoid of life. The rest happened easily.
He put it in the bucket with boiling water. Then, picked up the boiling corpse and held it by the empty bucket, rubbing his hands all over the body, plucking all its feathers. The process was slow. It took an eternity for him to get rid of all of them, which now covered the severed head in the bucket.
Then the last step came. He took the scissors, and cut open the belly, letting the organs slowly fall out. “Yep. That’s a male.” He grumbled as soon as the thing’s testicles slid down from the gash. He removed everything with the scissors, letting the organs fall one by one. At the end, he had a product not unlike any chicken he could find at a supermarket. He grabbed it detachedly and let it sit by the bucket of ice. Three quails remained and it was time for the next one.
Rogier got up, wiping the sweat off his forehead and walking with no direction, taking slow and unconfident steps. In the end he came by another quail among the ones hiding, Pelé, still scarred with a gash by the neck. His hands visibly trembled as they reached to grab him, who gave a start, tried to run and jump, but was easily caught.
Rogier lifted him as his legs tried to free themselves from his grasp. He held Pelé right up to his face, observing the open gash and the uneven, confused eyes looking at him. He took one more step toward the buckets and stopped, abruptly turning around to the other quails. In that turn, his face completely changed, now desperate and tired. His body seemed to move automatically, as he frantically ran to the other quails hiding by the bushes. Rushing to them, he grabbed each one quickly and undecidedly. Sweat drenched his body as he ran to the exit door of the house yelling, “Run! Get out of here! Run or I’ll kill you!”
His hands, still heavily trembling, took time to unlock the door but as soon as he did, he pushed the three survivors outside of the house. The bang of the door being the last thing I heard before getting up from my chair watching him crouch exhaustedly and jumping down the stairs trying to get down as fast as possible.
My mind returned to my fish, to the countless fish I had as I child, all inside of a round aquarium that they could barely swim in. Then, I remembered the turtle. I was in boy scouts cleaning up the local river when I found it, swimming against the current. Another scout found aquarium pebbles closer to the bridge and we concluded that it was abandoned. We instantly began to talk about how it should be our mascot, how it would stay at another kid’s house every other week. It stayed at my house first because I had an aquarium already, it died that same weekend.
I had reached the front door, unlocking it swiftly and turning to his house. In front of me I could see the three of them moving toward the road. I ran as fast as I could trying to reach them before they got too far. Two of them, the healthier ones rushed out of my view, getting further and further away as I approached. The tiny one, Pelé, hurt and scarred, bloody and hungry, he was still within my reach. I hastened my step, trying to get to him as fast as possible, jumping onto the street and spreading my hands out until a loud noise deafened my ears. A loud beep from a car in front of me, doing its best to not hit me as it rushed through the street.
As I lifted myself from stumbling down, I quickly found him, Pelé, the quail I had been running to all this time. His body, crushed by the tires, spread out on the floor as his legs quivered.
I took him home slowly. There was no point in being fast anymore. Despite how much he had grown, the weight was not too different from the one I had held in the past.
As I reached my house, I grabbed a gardening shovel and headed to the backyard, settling down in a little corner. I gently placed the body by the grass and started to dig. Now facing the brunt of the day’s heat myself. It had been a while since I last put physical effort into anything. The dirt was heavy and I could barely lift it as the shovel started reaching rock and my arms hurt.
I sighed as I set the shovel down, grabbing the body and giving it one last look. The wounds were terrible and half of the body was covered in blood but underneath it all, it was just like the baby I had thrown away. The same eyes, clueless and innocent, the same lack of weight and frailty, and the same ugliness. Damn these things were ugly. I thought about whether he lived a good life, about whether anything he did would ever be remembered by anyone, but that was beside the point. I grabbed him with my two hands trying to give him the respect any living thing deserves and placed him inside of the hole. Then, I sat down and spent the rest of that day there, looking at the newly dug grave.
It was on the next day that the female quails had finally laid their first egg. Afterwards, Rogier never mentioned or even thought much about the males. He proudly bragged about the eggs and the quails that were still alive, bringing up the topic to me, his wife, or frankly, anyone he could find in his path. He would often offer them to me but I never took any. It was around that same time that he stopped dedicating as much time to the things. He changed the water and food once a day, while picking up the eggs produced. That was the extent of the effort he now put into them. He never sat by the cage or dealt with problems anymore. These were things of the past. Now all he had to do was pick eggs and that was good for him, because he could move on to bigger and, most importantly, newer projects.
On the other hand, I never stopped thinking about the quails. How could I? Every day, when I look out to my backyard, I can see the little patch of dirt standing by its lonesome. A daily reminder of the things which everyone else has already forgotten about. And when I see it, I think about the fish circling the toilet, I think about the turtle poisoned by the river, and I think about how no one really knows how to deal with that.