LAST WEEK: River is attacked by werewolf, Wang Lijin, and kills him with Pam’s silver bullet. He is taken to the police department by Jackson. Huck insists on going too. Amimi tells Jim the story of her tribe, the Lenape. Gabriel dreams in color.
Read last week’s installment here. See all installments here. Read the next installment here.
Chapter 73
Jim
Greene — 1985
In The Time of Many Pigeons
When Jim returns to Greene, he doesn’t carry totems with him, only curiosity. He walks unseeing through the historic square, heading directly to the research room at the library. He pulls out a book on pigeons and begins to read.
“Passenger Pigeons: In the 1700s, Indigenous peoples competed with pigeons for food, controlling their numbers. When entire native populations vanished, the pigeon population soared. In the early 1800’s, at least one in every four birds in North America was a passenger pigeon.”
As Jim reads, the white pages turn a bluish gray. Flocks of birds cloud the paper sky. They cut through the air with the speed and grace of blue meteors. They sing to each other in sweet, clear voices.
“European settlement led to mass deforestation,” Jim reads, “and the population plummeted. Pigeon meat was commercialized as food for slaves and the poor.”
Jim sees large men, red-faced and bearded, tossing out handfuls of grain. His eyes water from the scent of alcohol rising off the page. Rainbow-gray birds circle toward the ground, gobbling the grain with abandon. As they totter unsteadily, falling onto the ground, the page flashes with explosions of gun fire.
In other parts of the forest, the men are building fires and dampening them with cloth. Smoke rises, clouding the trees. Jim hears the thud of birds hitting the ground.
“In 1878,” Jim reads, “50,000 birds were killed every day for five months.” He watches a few birds weave their way through the smoke from fire and guns.
They fly, only a few blue meteors winging their ways to new trees, bobbing and weaving their heads in a curtailed mating dance. Gathering twigs, they weave them into simple nests, but before they settle, Jim hears the blast of guns and sees their bodies plummet.
“The species went from being one of the most abundant birds in the world during the 19th century to extinction early in the 20th century.”
Jim sees a single bird huddling in a cage so small she cannot even stretch her wings.
“The last known passenger pigeon, Martha, named after Martha Washington, died in captivity on September 1, 1914.” Jim buries his head in his hands. He knows what it is like to be alone and caged.
Outside, a pigeon bobs and struts in a mating dance. He puffs up his neck feathers, which gleam like jewels in the sunlight. He swaggers toward the pigeon-of-his-dreams, cooing sweet nothings in the general direction of her ear. The pigeon-of-his-dreams coyly flies two feet away. He follows, continuing the dance of love. Finally, she stops. The male bows and pirouettes. Their beaks lock in the avian equivalent of a French kiss. The mating is brief, but they have bonded for life.
The male has picked out a hidden nesting site on top of the grand Greek pillars of the library. He finds the perfect stick. It is smooth, delicate as a whisper, soft as a kiss. He lays it in front of his lady. She takes it, sealing their love. He brings more sticks, placing them gently beneath her.
Theirs is an equal relationship. He would never ask her to do what he will not. When the eggs hatch, both incubate them. Both make crop milk for their babies. It is an old family recipe, semi-solid, like pale yellow cottage cheese, though much higher in proteins, fats, antioxidants, and immune-enhancing factors than cow or human milk.
The pigeons pause in their domestic planning to admire their reflection in the window.
Jim sits staring at the book. On the other side of the glass, so close that if he turned his head, he would see them, so near that if he tapped the glass they might jump, the birds are drawing blueprints for their new home.
“Pigeons recognize themselves in mirrors,” Jim reads, relieved that the book is once more black and white. “They can recognize the alphabet and can pick out defective items off an assembly line with more accuracy than humans.”
Jim smiles, imagining an assembly line staffed with pigeons. Those on break are carefully perusing the classifieds, newspapers clutched in their claws.
“Pigeons have amazing vision. Within the range of colors visible to humans, they perceive shades we do not. They can see ultraviolet light.”
If pigeons were artists, what might they design? Jim wonders.
Outside, the pigeons interlock twigs, fastening them with spider webs that glitter like rainbows in the light.
“They can hear frequencies above and below human range: wind blowing across buildings and through mountain passes, distant thunderstorms, and far-away volcanoes. They can fly up to forty or fifty miles per hour, as far as six hundred miles a day. Their brain is laced with tiny magnetic particles, which help them navigate using the earth’s magnetic field.
“Although pigeons are considered by many to be dirty and disease-ridden, there is no evidence linking pigeons to infections in humans.
“They are one of the few animals that will tolerate the inner city.”
Jim wonders if caged pigeons read the newspapers that lined their coops. After all, if they could recognize the alphabet….
Outside the window, the pigeons continue decorating their new home.
Chapter 74
Gabriel
San Francisco — 1985
Green
Gabriel is dreaming. He is wandering in a forest of greens. Though still divided, new shades, tints, and hues are coloring his world.
Through viridian leaves, an azure sky is lightened by a lemon-yellow sun. Gabriel feels more alive and more fragile than he ever has. He feels smaller, yet more connected. Somewhere out of sight, a bird is singing. The music is different than any Gabriel has ever heard. He does not know why. He only knows the sound feels lighter. It is the sound of life, not requiring an answer. It is free. It is the first time Gabriel has heard birdsong. Usually, birds drop lifeless at his feet. Hearing the song, Gabriel is warmed by an invincible summer. He stretches his arms toward the light.
But the sky is growing dark with ash, embers rain down upon him. The man cries, the woman screams, and he can see their faces, although he does not know them.
Gabriel wakes, but the dreams stay with him, altering the color of his mind.
Chapter 75
River
San Francisco — 1985
Love and Fulfillment
It’s already dark when River leaves the jail. Into the sky, like a feathered star, Huck rises. He circles briefly, stretching his wings against the night before plummeting back onto River’s shoulder.
“Hey,” River says, gently ruffling the bird’s sleek plumage. Huck caws, delicately nibbling his ear.
“Sorry, fella. I sure make you keep odd hours for a crow. You should be asleep. You…”
“River,” says a soft voice behind him. River whirls around. Sharp talons pierce his shoulder. He gasps, “Ow! Huck!” Huck loosens his grip.
Out of the darkness, into the soft glow of a misty streetlamp, Pam emerges, glowing like a night sun.
“Pamela.” River breaths.
“Oh River, I’m so sorry. I-I-I was there…”
“You?”
“Yes, but I was frightened to go to the police. I… I don’t like policemen.”
“Who does? Did you see anything?” He shudders at the memory of Lijun’s wolf face. “Do you know who …?”
“Thanatos was in Bert’s with me. We heard a noise, a howl. We looked outside and saw, well, I don’t know what we saw.” Pam shakes her head as if to clear the image from her mind.
“But we recognized you. Thanatos had a gun. He went outside. He fired and fired…. but nothing seemed to affect the…” She shudders. “I- I don’t know what that thing was… but it seemed not to feel the gun. I had a silver bullet. It was a keepsake. Given to me by.… I always carried it with me. I don’t even know why I thought of it, but anything seemed worth a try. And it worked.
“Then we heard the sirens. The police. We didn’t know what to do. How to get rid of the gun… We figured you couldn’t get blamed…. After all, you were attacked, so we put it in your hand and… I’m sorry.” Pam’s voice cracks.
“Wh…” River begins, but Pam doesn’t even hear him. She is looking into the night as if she could see beyond the darkness into the past. She is looking at River as if he is an answer to the future.
“Thanatos left before the police arrived. I just stayed inside Bert’s. No one else was there. Later, Jackson came back. He asked me if I’d seen or heard anything. I said I’d heard something, something that sounded like a gunshot, but I never went outside. I said I was scared. I guess he believed me.”
“Bu…” River tries again. This story seems incomplete, as fragile as glass, as insubstantial as love.
Pamela puts her finger to his lips. River takes her hand, she tries to pull away, but he holds her fast. Her hands are surprisingly cold. River feels his heat draining away.
“Pamela, you’re freezing.”
“I’m always cold,” she murmurs.
River wraps her in his arms. Huck gives an indignant caw and flutters up to a lamppost. Pamela tips her head back and laughs. River is irresistibly drawn to kiss the white flawless arch of her neck. It is as fresh and unspoiled as new snow.
Their eyes meet. Lips open. Tongues caress. Body presses against body. Hands are urgent. Pamela gasps. River fumbles with her clothes.
“Come home with me,” he murmurs.
A few taxis, yellow smudges in the fog, wait, parked at the street’s end. Pamela and River tumble into one. River gives his address to the driver. The silent fog whirls like ghosts around each streetlamp, but they do not notice, they are not watching. They are kissing, deeply, urgently.
River thrusts his tongue into Pamela’s mouth. It is cool and sweet as spearmint. She whimpers softly.
Once inside his apartment, clothes dissolve like dreams in daylight. They fall onto his bed. Pamela’s body is white, alabaster, perfect.
Afterward, they fall asleep in each other’s arms, as if the night could bring nothing more than sweet dreams.
Chapter 76
Gabriel
San Francisco — 1985
A Little Night Music
When Gabriel plays his Chopin and Debussy to the orchids, it sounds wrong. It is what he has always played, the identical composers and pieces, but now the music seems flat and slow. He doesn’t know why.
“It’s flat,” Ryo says. “One of the little-known benefits of being dead. We all have perfect pitch.” But as usual, perfect or not, Gabriel cannot hear him.
The bird song from the night haunts Gabriel’s waking hours; the clear sweet unremembered melody clouds his mind. His world, simple and uncluttered, is becoming murky. A swimming pool, left un-chlorinated, grows algae, mosquito larvae, eventually attracting frogs and perhaps even fish that flash like crystals beneath murky water. It is alive and sometimes beautiful, but never, never clean.
Watch the author read this week’s installment in the video below:
NEXT WEEK: Ever since River first saw the small white baby, cold and beautiful as a moonbeam, he has felt apart, marked, alone. That is why it never surprised him to hear ghosts in the wind. That is why it is no surprise now, to find himself alone again with only Huck for company. Huck, and the fragrance of Pamela that clings to the bedding, sweet as love, enduring as memory.
Edited by Mitchelle Lumumba and Sophie Gorjance.
E.E. King is cohost of the MetaStellar YouTube channel's Long Lost Friends segment. She is also a painter, performer, writer, and naturalist. She’ll do anything that won’t pay the bills, especially if it involves animals. Ray Bradbury called her stories “marvelously inventive, wildly funny and deeply thought-provoking. I cannot recommend them highly enough.” She’s been published widely, including Clarkesworld and Flametree. She also co-hosts The Long Lost Friends Show on MetaStellar's YouTube channel. Check out paintings, writing, musings, and books at ElizabethEveKing.com and visit her author page on Amazon.