THE wind buffets my feathers as I glide. I make a mental note to congratulate myself on the use of the word “buffet” when I get back to the nest. Just because I can’t speak isn’t a reason not to expand my mind, regardless of whether or not it’s the size of a walnut.
At the thought of walnuts my stomach growls. It growls so hard I cringe and my right wing retracts involuntarily and I yaw towards the side of a building. I’m about to be another bird-smack against a window, on the other side of which humans blink and ponder the infinite with their hamburger-bun-sized brain. Thanks to the dark recesses of my walnut brain, however, my tail feathers flick and my body stretches and leans and my wing goes out and I swoop away from the building, its windows, and its lonely people.
I don’t mind telling you it was a close one. I do mind telling you that I cursed my walnut for not being smaller, say, the size of a wad of gum. Then maybe it would’ve been slow enough to let me whack against the building. I’d have fallen to the ground and then at least something would eat today.
Shameful, though, thoughts like that. If life wasn’t meant to be lived, then how’d I get this far? And for that matter, what was it that made me react in time to save myself? There must be something deeper, more profound at play—a mysterious insight, glowing deep inside my walnut, telling me to hold on, it is coming, that I will not be disappoint—
Is that bread?
Blobby white lump in the scrubbed dark grass between pavement and concrete. Just a blink in my eye so I circle back to confirm. Yep. Bread. As I’m circling there’s another blink, dark wings beating against the white sky. Cousins, all-black to my mostly-white, moving at the speed of starvation. I have to be quick. Quicker. The insight will be mine. I will not be robbed of its glowing, uh, its glowing whatever-it-is.
I let down on the concrete at the same time as one of the crows, a small one, hopping, angling its head to see the bread and me at the same time. I get the slice in my beak but the crow takes a bold peck at the crust. What an asshole. The others will be here any moment and you do this? The bread doesn’t give to its beak, and I’m still too strong to be overpowered, so of course the crow has to drop it. Good. I’m glad, appreciative, even. Thank you, crow. Even though you acted like an asshole, who of us wouldn’t have—you know what? Don’t over think it. The bread awaits. The insight will be bread times a million.
I hear calls—no, warnings—no, threats. I look up and they’re coming in fast, the other crows and, behind them, one of my seagull brethren. Motley crew.
Mental note: what does “motley” mean? “Mixed up,” “ugly,” “about to kill me”? All three?
I stab my beak as far into the bread as I can, twist my body, wings out, and lift off. I’m slow; the bread is wet and heavy. And of course the asshole crow is back, being an asshole. It pecks at the bread and pulls me back to earth. The motley crew is nearly on us when I pour the last of my strength into my wings and lift off, only a mercifully small piece of the bread lost to the crow. The lightened load helps, and as I rise I narrowly avoid the other seagull, its beak glancing just under my wing.
Mental note: glancing, use of.
Asshole. My walnut, now, is the asshole. Stopping to make a mental note as my left wing gets clipped by a sharp sting. My vision registers a rush of black wind over the sting. The pain’s enough to activate my walnut and suddenly my wings are in and I dive. There’s a crow on top of me—the same one? Assholes, all—and it drops to match my move. I cant my left wing up, right wing down, tail feathers tucked. My impulsive swoop leaves my attacker facing a hurtling city bus.
The sharp smack against the windshield brings back all the memories of birds hitting glass, of lives stopped by a trick of the eye, that time air turned solid. Here’s a fresh one to stuff in there: the crow’s little black body, landing in the grass just below. As I gain height, its identical brothers and sisters descend on it like a feast. Honestly I can’t tell them apart, which sounds bad I know but maybe the size of my brain just doesn’t have room for that kind of nuance. And how would I know what I don’t know, anyway? Sorry. I digress when I’m hungry, panicked, and looking at a dead crow having its eyes and grape-sized brain pecked out by another crow. That crumb of bread he fought so for hard is long gone. These are challenging times for everything.
I glance back and there’s only the seagull left tailing me. It’s playing the long game, trailing me at a distance. It’s not gaining, just pacing me and waiting. When I stop or completely give out, it will move in and eat my bread for dinner, walnut for dessert. That it has time for this strategy tells me it hasn’t eaten in ages. It’s not panicking or attacking. It’s past the muscle spasm, the wild brain. It just sees food. It feels the insight.
So much strength is lost to the wind with each beat of my wings, and with this awareness comes a shameful thought. That thought is: I should stop. Before my strength is gone completely, just drop my body with the bread and let the follower have at me. The insight is a sham. Worse: it is a trap with no hunter. It is desperation, struggle, death, and more death. So why bother? For the chance to rub up against some uninterested mate for a few fleeing moments? For the prospect of another few days of hunger and then the scraps of a Vietnamese sub? For my walnut? I die and another fool struggles on, perhaps the only shade of honour that’s ever been cast on this earth.
Then I think: Fuck that. And fuck that bird following me. A wave of rebuffs and rejections swells at the meaninglessness, breaking into a flood of anger and indignation.
Mental note: Every word I’ve ever thought.
I want it for myself. This bread, the insight, everything. It’s just as much mine as anyone else’s. I haven’t dodged windows and pellet guns and other birds to lie down and have my eyes and brains pecked apart by some idiot who probably doesn’t make any mental notes, wouldn’t even recognize the insight if it flew by squawking its beak off.
So I keep flapping and dismiss thoughts of strength or weakness, lift or drag, quick or slow, heavy or light, bread and whatever the lack of bread is called. And after about a country and a half, past rain, snow, sun, wind, thunder and hail, after ocean, desert, forest, tundra, mountains and valleys, after famine and feast and war and plague and peace after day and after night—I look back, and the bird is gone. I am alone. I keep flying until I can only glide, and down and down I go into total darkness. I don’t feel the weight of the bread as separate from myself, and we both drop together at the same pace, like an oyster let go accidentally into the seething ocean at night.
I’m supposed to do something now.
I hit the ocean and from the point of impact a light spreads, like when I opened my eyes for the first time. The light envelops me. It’s so bright that it consumes rather than illuminates.
And then my walnut brain clues in. I get it. This is it. I close my eyes but it doesn’t make a difference. The light fills me completely and I can’t remember what I used to feel like, if anything. Then I recognize something: bread. The best bread ever. Soggy, wet, and torn to pieces. The only bread. A virtual buffet of bread. Buffet.
Mental note:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kevin Lee is a writer and comedian from Vancouver, BC, where he performed as a member of the Canadian Comedy Award-winning improv troupe The Sunday Service and helped launch ShitHarperDid.com. He now lives in Wellington, New Zealand with his partner. This is his first publication."
LF #061 © Kevin Lee. Published by Little Fiction | Big Truths, April 2014.
Guest editor: Jay Hosking. Image from The Noun Project.
