Bird of Paradise - Laura Pike

She almost missed it. It lay hidden beneath a crimson oak leaf, a brittle casualty of the approaching winter. A person less observant than she, less sensitive to her surroundings, she reasoned, would have walked right by it. But not Lainie Bell. Recognizing all things avian was built into her very DNA. Both her parents had been ornithologists and had nurtured her love of birds and, in particular, a passion for their beautiful plumage.

Lainie scanned the park grounds for potential naysayers, then knelt and slipped the Blue Jay feather into a small plastic bag she kept for such occasions. The park police had warned her, not two days ago, that taking feathers without a permit was against the law. This made no more sense to her than forbidding the warmth of the sun upon one’s face, or denying oneself the tactile pleasure of playing one’s fingers over the timeworn smoothness of a river rock.

With her lovely contraband tucked safely away, she headed for Singh’s Market. Not only was it convenient, as it occupied the first floor of her apartment building, it gave her an excuse to visit Kali. As she pushed open the door, Lainie was met with her loud and insistent screech. The hyacinth macaw was perched atop her cage in the rear of the store, watching intently as Lainie drew near. Every time Lainie saw her was a revelation. It bothered her to hear others liken her color to the intense blue of a summer sky, or to that of a plump blueberry, or a brilliant sapphire. Even the rarest of gems can’t soar above the trees, or nurture its young, or humble us in the face of its exquisite animated beauty. No. She knew comparisons would always fail where nature conspired to render us mute.

Lainie stood an arm’s length away and said, “Hello, pretty girl.” Kali bobbed her head, then bent it at an inquisitive angle, but withheld her usual greeting. “No hello today? That’s alright. Sometimes, I don’t want to say hello to anyone, either.”

The bottom of Kali’s cage was covered in broken nutshells, wood chips, and bird droppings, and was prime hunting ground for feathers. There was a smattering of semiplumes and contour feathers, and although they were beautiful in their own right, they were useless to Lainie. They were too small. She would have preferred a wing or tail feather.

Disappointed, she finished her shopping and brought her few items up to the register.

“Good evening, Mr. Singh. Have you anything for me today?”

“Not today, Mrs. Bell. But don’t worry. She’ll drop another tail feather soon.”

“I hope so. Symmetry is absolutely crucial for flight, Mr. Singh. Without it, we would never get off the ground.”

*

The apartment was silent. Lainie paused on the threshold, momentarily uncertain if she had opened her door or a neighbor’s. The usual chorus of chirps, whistles, and trills did not welcome her, and the unsettling reality of her solitude made her question decisions made and actions already taken. But these doubts passed as quickly as a chattering of starlings. She had found new homes for the last of her birds a week ago.

She set her mail amid the growing pile of bills on the dining table, then went to the kitchen and emptied the contents of her grocery bag. The casserole dish she used to sanitize her feathers had a permanent place on her counter top, with an unending cycle of feathers in and feathers out. She laid the newest batch across the bottom and added a fresh mixture of flour, cornmeal, and Borax. Clean feathers were categorized by size and color and lay in a tray by her favorite chair.

The wingback chair had been her mother’s. It was covered in a rich teal brocade with silk embroidered swallows worn smooth by three generations of Bells. Lainie had spent many happy afternoons sitting on her mother’s lap in that chair, enthralled by the brightly colored lithographs in the ornithology books her mother and father collected. The volumes occupied every shelf and tabletop, their spines cracked and frayed from constant handling. Her parents had a tacit agreement to leave a certain amount of open real estate next to every chair for the inevitable book pile that would grow beside it. Lainie’s favorite volumes were Richard Bowdler Sharpe’s Monograph of the Paradiseidae, or Birds of Paradise, and Ptilonorhynchidae, or Bower Birds. The blues, greens, yellows and reds were so vibrant on the page, she had believed if she were

ever to touch a real Bird of Paradise, the colors would surely stain her fingertips.

When Lainie became a mother, she too would sit with her child in that very chair with one of Sharpe’s monographs opened wide across her lap. She reveled in her son Jeffrey’s fascination with the birds’ fantastical beards and bonnets, filigree tails and glossy chest plates. Neither she nor her son ever grew tired of looking at them.

“Is it true Birds of Paradise never touch the ground?” Jeffrey would ask her.

“It is, my dear. They live suspended between heaven and earth, flying both day and night; surviving on nothing but the morning dew.”

“Until they die and go to heaven?”

“Yes, my dear. Until they die and go to heaven.”

And they both would giggle at the absurdity of it.

Lainie settled into her chair and draped the cape she had been working on across her lap. She pulled the threaded needle out of the cloth, and made her selection from the tray: a deep red cardinal feather with a sturdy quill. As she sewed, she studied the framed photos that sat on the table by the window. They were of her son, then grown, on his many adventures around the world. There he was paragliding in upstate New York, skydiving high above Lee Point Beach in Australia, and zip lining through the jungles of Costa Rica. Her favorite photo was of Jeffrey and her next to his Piper Cub. She held him tightly around the waist and rested her head against his shoulder. Their smiles were joyful. He had often told his mother if he couldn’t be a bird, he would fly with them as best he could.

She selected another cardinal feather of the same size, and attached it to the opposite side of the cape, mirroring the location of the first. Working from the bottom up, she was mindful of how the feathers lay, smoothing them as she went. She debated whether to affix the one tail feather she had, or wait until she had two. The macaw plume wasn’t in her feather tray. It was far too long. It lay wrapped in tissue paper and was secreted on a high shelf, as her mother had done with her coveted finds.

Though filled with an impatience that comes from nearing the completion of an arduous task, she thought it best to wait. Securing the last of the tail feathers in one fell swoop would be both an ending and a beginning, and deserved a certain solemnity of purpose.

*

Three nights later, Lainie watched the first snowfall of the season from her window. Waterlogged flakes fell in menacing gangs, knocking the last of autumn’s leaves from their branches. The snow was early that year, giving Lainie the sense that time had grown restless, casting off days, even weeks, in its rush to meet winter. This false urgency made her fingers twitch in search of needle and thread. She moved from the window to her chair and picked up the cape that was draped over one of its arms. The glow from the table lamp played on the iridescent blues of the grackle feathers scattered throughout the garment, and she spent several seconds turning it this way and that to enjoy the shifting colors. She smiled at the meticulousness of her handiwork and whispered, “Almost done, my dear.”

The knock on the door startled her. Lainie hadn’t had any uninvited guests in nearly a year, and the interruption brought a reflexive feeling of dread. The last stranger she had opened her door to had laid a cold stone of grief at her feet. Too heavy to move, it sat there still.

But it was only Mr. Singh. He stood with one of Kali’s tail feathers pinched between two fingers, as if it were the catch of the day. And of course, for Lainie, it was. “Hello, Mrs. Bell. I’m sorry to bother you, but I knew you would want this.”

She was blind to his expectant smile. Instead, she saw birds in flight and trailing tail feathers; all sky and no earth. “Finally,” she said. She took the feather from his outstretched hand and closed the door, oblivious to the fact she hadn’t thanked him.

She retrieved the other macaw plume and set it on the table next to her chair, then went into her bedroom closet and pulled out an old-fashioned hatbox. It was wrapped in flowered wallpaper, and the pinks and soft greens of the cabbage roses were as bright and lively as the day her mother had bought it. The box had been purchased decades ago for one reason only: to keep a small piece of paradise safe. Curled inside were two feathers from the ribbon-tailed astrapia. White with black tips and nearly three feet long, the plumes were meant to flutter like streamers behind a bird when flying. Their only function was to look beautiful and attract the discerning eye of a mate. Lainie knew what a treasure they were and what her parents had risked to bring them home. They had smuggled them out during their last excursion to New Guinea. Tightly coiled, the feathers made their way to the United States hidden inside her mother’s high and full bouffant.

Lainie now had everything she needed. She poured herself a cup of Earl Gray and settled into the well-worn comfort of her chair. The citrusy smell of the tea energized her, and cradling the cup in both hands warmed her fingers, priming them for the important work that lay ahead. As always, her gaze gravitated to the framed photos. Earlier in the day, she had placed her favorite picture, the one of Jeffrey and her next to his plane, in front of the others because it evoked so many memories and memories were all she had now. Conversations about life and love and dreams for the future happened more frequently in Jeffrey’s piper cub. Maybe it was the close confines of the cockpit, or the feeling of not being tied to earthbound conventions, but difficult words flowed more easily between them amidst the clouds.

“When are you going to give me some little Bells?” Lainie remembered asking.

Jeffrey had given her a sidelong glance meant to silence her. “Mother, I’m not even married. I think I’m supposed to find a woman, first.”

“You could if you chose to.”

“I choose not to. For now, flying is my only love.” He must have seen the sadness in her face because he leaned over and patted her hand. “There’s plenty of time for me to be a daddy and for you to be a grandma. Don’t worry.”

“You have to alight sometime, my dear.”

And weeks later he did alight, swiftly and violently, as the sky relinquished its hold on him and sent him spiraling home.

*

Lainie gave the four tail feathers a perfunctory tug to ensure they were securely fastened to the cape. She had no doubt they would be. She set the needle down and allowed herself a moment to delight in her accomplishment. It had taken nearly a year to attach the hundreds of feathers necessary to cover the entire garment and it was beautiful; so beautiful, in fact, she imagined there was nothing quite as fine anywhere else in the world. She rose from her chair and carried the cape into the bedroom where she could admire it in the full-length mirror. When she twirled, she heard the rustle of feathers and swore she felt a slight lift as they caught the air. As much as this thrilled her, she was dismayed to see the astrapia plumes brushing the floor, but knew in flight they would float magnificently.

Exhausted, she decided to rest until morning. She laid the cape at the foot of her bed, then fell into a deep sleep.

*

When she got out of bed, the room was cloaked in grey. Dawn was not far off. She bathed, pinned up her long hair and put on her best dress. Before slipping into her cape, she drew back the curtains and looked out the window. It had snowed most of the night, and the ground undulated with hidden things. There was no sound and no movement. No wind rattling bare branches. No distant sirens. No barking dogs. Even the birds were silent.

Days earlier, Lainie had felt as if time were in too great a hurry. Now it felt as if time had stopped completely. Would it be possible to slip away before the world started turning again, to disappear in the space between one heartbeat and the next?

Before leaving the apartment, she stood quietly for several minutes looking for anything she may have missed, anything with the power to draw her back in. She breathed deeply through her nose to catch any scent of the life she used to live, but there was nothing. Satisfied, she closed the door behind her and climbed the five flights of stairs to the roof.

The snow from the night before had drifted against the door, and Lainie had to push it open with both hands. Before stepping onto the rooftop, she gathered up the long tail feathers to keep them clean and dry. The outside air was surprisingly cool against her face and she suspected that if the sun battled its way through the cloud cover, most of the snow would be gone by dusk. The snow was deep and heavy, sinking in spots under its own sodden weight. It numbed her toes and soaked her stockings, but she hardly noticed. Her focus was to the west and the parapet that faced the street.

A sense of excitement grew as she waded through the final thirty feet. Everything was fresh and unblemished, and everything that came before was already dead and forgotten.

She scraped enough snow from the parapet to ensure firm footing, then stepped up, allowing the astrapia feathers to fall from her hand. Their black tips lay stark against all that white. She looked out over the street, and then to the adjacent rooftops and then beyond as far as she could see. It was all so limiting, this life tethered to the ground.

With closed eyes and a tranquil heart she spread her wings and took flight, and for one glorious moment she lived suspended between heaven and earth, living on nothing but the morning dew.

Originally published by Profane Literary Journal 2016

Laura Pike is an administrative assistant who lives in Tampa, Florida, with her two rescue cats, Naya and Priya. Compelled to explore the darker recesses of the human psyche, Laura dives in deep and comes up dirty because, ultimately, writing is about the ongoing search for self. Find her on Twitter here: @lauraapike