I cannot stop singing. Even now, as I write this, my song flows from chapped lips. My throat aches, dry as the landscape around me, but I have no choice.
Sailors used to dash their ships against the shores of my island. The sea spray washed over their bodies, broken and strewn across the beach. I sang a dirge for them as I watched the wretched gulls pick clean their bones.
That dirge only brought more ships.
So I spread my wings and turned away from the salt air. If I could not stop singing, I could at least leave the coast. I settled inland on a broad peninsula, away from the sea, away from rivers. I saw no more flapping sails, no more hulls cracked on jagged stone.
For a time, I lived in peace, though never solitude. People came wandering when they heard my song. My voice remained beautiful to them, no matter how my throat rasped, no matter how I wanted to fall on my knees and bury my head in the earth.
I attempted this once, and for my efforts won a mouthful of soil.
Still, without the smashing of ships all around me, I found contentment in the vineyards and hills. Until one day a new form of ship came, rocking on four wheels, but pulled by no horse. Its pilot turned toward me, moving faster than I could have imagined.
When it smashed into a tree, the sound drowned out my song, louder than a thunderclap. The man hurtled from the ship and landed, moaning, on the ground. By the time I bent over to brush my feathers across his cheek, the light in his eyes had extinguished.
More and more of these new ships appeared. Again, I let the wind fill my wings, and searched until I found a desert, a place where few men passed, where I could live alone with my song.
The blowing sand stung my face. The heat seared my skin. I settled beside an oasis and found solace in knowing no sails would ever arrive in its waters.
For many years I lived free of death, save for small animals snapped up by snakes.
Then came the flying machines. Not content with what they possessed, people had constructed vessels to soar through the air. The first time I saw one, I did not believe its pilots could hear my voice over its roar.
They did.
The machine plummeted from the sky and crashed to the earth in a great storm of fire and noise. It needed no rocks to dash against, for it had tumbled so far that it fell to pieces anyway.
My tears tasted of the sea as I sang their lament, stepping over wreckage to search the bodies for any sign of life. I found no survivors among the sailors, more than one hundred in all. Never had so many died at once because of me.
The smoke burned my nose and clawed at my eyes. I flew away from that place and did not turn back. With nowhere else to go, I made for the stars.
Winds threw me like a leaf as I rose higher. I passed through clouds wet and chill, then burst forth in sunlight, looking down on a world of many colors, full of the people I sought to avoid. I continued upward until the earth no longer pulled me toward its heart.
In the sea of blackness, surrounded by pearls of light, I encountered something wonderful and terrible. Silence. Though I went on singing, I could not hear myself. I heard nothing.
The quiet felt like something I could touch, like fine-grained sand. Oh, how I wanted to stay there. But what sort of life would that be, drifting like flotsam? No, I could not remain in the empty place. I kept going, looking for a home.
I found a new land, red and stony with scarce water and no people. For years beyond counting I sang there, alone. I began to enjoy my own music, now that it posed no danger to anyone.
One day, I saw a flash on the horizon. When I approached, I found something on wheels, like the ships I’d seen crash long ago. My heart cried out an alarm, but the thing did not approach me. No one sat inside it.
I knew people must have sent it, just the same. Why could I not escape them? Even here, among the stars?
I flew to the far side of my new home. For years, I saw no more signs of people. Perhaps they had lost interest in this red land, so much like a desert, but colder, much colder. I’d grown a thick layer of down to protect me from the nights here.
I forgot the songs of my birthplace, made up new ones for this new world. I wondered if I would ever die, for I had already lived longer than I ever thought I would.
While I pondered this one afternoon, something appeared in the sky. Though it resembled no ship or machine I had witnessed before, I knew there must be people inside. They had found me, whether they meant to or not.
I had to act quickly, before they drew close enough to hear. I spread my wings and flew in the other direction, on into the empty space among the stars again, into the silence.
I’ve found another place to settle, farther away than the last. I know that people will go on building ships, faster and bigger, will go on exploring as far as they can. When they come near, I’ll move again. As many times as I need to.
They’ll go on pushing forward, coming closer, oblivious. Or maybe not so unaware. Perhaps they hear my call no matter how far, no matter the danger.
Perhaps they choose to pursue it anyway.
 |
Megan Branning is a youth services librarian living in Pittsburgh with her husband. Her writing has been published by Asimov’s, Space & Time, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and others. You can find her fiction, poetry, and webcomic at literarymice.com. |