But despite the book’s frightening logline, it isn’t dystopian.
“We ate them.
We wanted their feathers to bud from our flesh.
Credit: Flatiron Books
We wanted to be one with them.”
There is silence in the enormous hall.
He is small, down there behind his lectern.
And big enough to fill the space.
Loud enough, powerful enough.
These extraordinary creatures were undoubtedly the most successful on earth, because they courageously learned to exist anywhere."
The professor moves out from behind his lectern and spreads his hands beseechingly.
“The only true threat to birds that has ever existed is us.
Until, in 1951, by sheer accident they were found again, only eighteen pairs of them.
They were hiding, nesting in the cliffs of small islands.
I imagine that day a great deal.”
He goes on, and his voice is hard now, demanding.
“They did not survive our second attack.
This one was crueler, far more pervasive.
With the burning of fossil fuels we changed the world, we’ve killed it.
That is one species of a very great many.
And it’s not only birds that sufferas I’ve said, birds tend to be the most resilient.
Lions perished in never-ending droughts, rhinos were lost to poaching.
And on it goes.
Thousands of species are dying right now, and being ignored.
We are wiping them out.
Creatures that have learned to survive anything,everything, except us.”
He walks back to his lectern and turns on his projector.
Despite his strange appearance he is the darling of the university staff.
Adored by his students.
Almost young enough to be one of them.
There is a table with a covering over it, its image projected large onto the wall.
He slides the calico off with a magician-esque flourish to reveal a bird.
A gull, white and gray and too much.
Like that, I am no longer with him; I have fallen behind.
His voice follows me.
I run, sandals slapping the lino.
Out into the sunshine, down the steps to where I’ve locked my bike.
Here is the sky.
The salty weightless sky.
Here I can fly.
FromMigrations, by Charlotte McConaghy.
Copyright (c) 2020 by the author and reprinted by permission of Flatiron Books.
