Flowers and Feathers

The courthouse clock boomed twelve times, scattering the birds perched on its bricks. I joined the flapping mass of wings and allowed my gray and white feathers to blend in with the rest. The sun beat down from its arc in the sky, throwing rays of light that glistened on my companions’ coats. If I was able to smile, I would. 

It was noon, and that meant it was time. 

I let the others fly ahead of me, falling back in the ranks and eventually falling out of line completely. They didn’t spare me a second glance, knowing I had been disappearing at this time of day for the past several months. There was somewhere I needed to be. 

The flight to the cemetery had grown more colorful every day. The trees were shedding their leaves, creating a storm of orange and yellow particles to fly through. The branches seemed to shiver in their absence, anticipating the cold front that would move in any day now.

I spotted my target for the day and swooped down to retrieve it. It was becoming harder and harder to find colorful flowers at this time of year. Everything was wilting and dying, preparing for months of slumber, but there was no time to rest for the job at hand. 

A white rose sagged on its stem, the last blossom left alive on its naked bush. I put my beak to work, cutting through the green vine while trying to avoid the worst of the thorns. It was quick work, and I resumed my journey to the spot in the cemetery, our spot, the rose clutched firmly in my beak. 

She was waiting for me there, as I knew she would be. 

She sat on the lonely stone bench in the middle of the graveyard, her legs dangling off the edge of the concrete cooled by shadowing trees. Her gray hair blew around her face in the early fall breeze and I saw her eyes searching the sky, looking for me. At last, her watering green eyes found mine as I began my descent. 

My human smiled at me. 

“White today, eh?” She chuckled as I dropped the rose beside her on the bench and hopped the last foot, closing the distance between us.

She stroked my feathers, made warm from the midday sun, and I couldn’t help noticing how cold her hands were. She should really wear those things I saw humans wearing so often, the cloth that wrapped around their fingers and protected their hands from the cold. My human seemed to forget that she lacked a coat of feathers like me, and she needed a layer of protection more than anyone. 

“You never disappoint me, Starla.” 

I nuzzled her hand at the mention of the name she had bestowed on me. I rubbed my head back and forth across her palm, trying to radiate some warmth back into her chilling bones. She patted me a few times before reaching for the flower to complete our ritual. 

Ever so slowly, she made her way across the grass to the lonesome tombstone. This was not the burial ground of a large family, and the single marker stood as evidence to the fact. Space was reserved on either side, awaiting the day another soul would join the slumberers in the ground. 

My human grasped the tombstone in her shaking fingers, bracing her frail body against the wind. Her knees shook as she dropped the rose on the ground, a penance that had to be paid. 

I could not decipher the markings on the stone, the lines that flowed and looped and read the identity of the life that was represented below the earth. It could have been her lover, her child, her friend, but I never knew. She never shared this information with me, and I had no means to ask.

Even if I’d been able to, I wouldn’t have invoked her to tell me. My purpose wasn’t in knowing the person who required her daily offerings. My purpose was to find a gift she determined to be suitable and deliver it to the submission site. 

I had performed this feat for the last three months. I took pride in my ability to supply her with the perfect flowers, never the same but always in pristine condition. I loved the smiles she honored me with, and the stroking of her hands on my feathers as she whispered my name, Starla. 

My heart ached with the knowledge that I must soon leave her behind. 

My human’s hands weren’t the only things quickly turning cold. The air had begun to turn brisk, and even with my flock’s nestling warmth the nights would be unbearable before too long. We needed to fly south, to follow nature’s destined path for us, but even as I thought of it I shuddered at what it meant. 

Bread crumbs flew out of her hand as my human spread the payment before me. I couldn’t remember who strung up the bargain in the first place. Did I notice her flower-less grave and respond by providing her the roses, petunias, and lilies? Or did she begin our relationship by feeding me crumbs, and I returned her gifts with flowers?

Regardless of how our fellowship began, there was no question of why I continued to uphold it. I didn't really need the bread crumbs, after all; I was perfectly capable of dredging up my own meals. 

No, the reason I continued to hunt for flowers and fly across town at the same time each day was because I loved her. I loved my human and her quiet demeanor, and the way she accepted me as her own. 

She was becoming slower in her movements, more cautious, but she still made the trek out to the same spot day after day. I didn’t know who would be so deserving of such devotion, but I couldn’t help developing immense respect for the love she held for them. She deserved someone that would show her love just as strong in return, that would bring her flowers and ease her burden in the only way they knew how. 

What on earth was she going to do without me?

As I flew back to my home, back to my kind, I tried to imagine what it would be like to leave her behind. She would think I had abandoned her. She might believe I no longer cared. How would she find flowers for her sleeping soul without my eyes to detect them from above? She could barely get around on her own, let alone walk the distance required to collect her offerings.

I could stay with her. I didn’t really need to follow my flock south, did I? Perhaps nature would spare my life, give me the tools necessary to survive a winter never intended for my breed. I gazed around at the sleeping figures, wings wrapped around tiny breathing bodies, and knew that I didn’t belong in their midst. I had always been the lone wolf until I found my human and learned I wasn’t alone. 

Winter would just have to wait.

The next day I was in much higher spirits. I had decided to desert my flock when they departed on the long journey that would carry me away from my human. I would accept the consequences of my actions, even if it meant freezing and dying like the rest of the flowering plants a month from now. My fate was up to the mercy of nature and her seasonal grace, and I was okay with that.

When the clock tower reverberated its dozen counts, I sped off in the direction of the cemetery to tell my human the good news. I had a feeling she would understand what my chirping meant. I found a beautiful pink Aster in a garden bed along the way, and just missed the broom swung in my direction by the tenant after I relieved it of its home.

It was a cloudy day, but the air was clear of any precipitation as I zeroed in on our spot and stopped dead in the air at what I saw. My human wasn’t there.

I landed on the bench and looked in each direction to see if she was simply walking more slowly today, but I didn’t see her anywhere. Clutching the flower more tightly in my beak, I took off into the air and circled the cemetery for good measure. 

It was completely deserted. Not a single individual could be seen walking the paths around the gravesites or kneeling at various stones, and the gray hair of my human was certainly nowhere to be found.

Confused on what to do, I returned to our spot and waited. And waited. The flower’s petals ruffled in the wind before being thrown from the bench by a strong gust that almost made me lose my own balance. I stared at the flower on the ground as the shadows grew taller around me. 

My human wasn’t coming.

I brushed the incident off and returned to my coop. She had merely not felt well enough to come out today. Or maybe she was out buying clothes to keep her hands warm. I had hoped my message on that matter had gotten through to her, after all. Regardless of what it was, I told myself she was doing something to better her well-being. 

She just simply couldn’t have forgotten about me. 

My resolve on the matter began to waver when she failed to appear the next day as well. I began to work myself into a frenzy, fueled by my confusion and insecurities. Were my flowers no longer good enough for her? Had she found someone else to devote her time to? 

My flock was preparing for the migration, stocking up on the last resources available to them and strengthening their bodies for the long journey ahead. Any day now, possibly even tomorrow, they would leave this place behind. I had already settled on the idea of remaining behind with my human, but now? 

Now I didn’t know what to do.

My instincts told me to forget about her. She had clearly forgotten about me. I should be focusing all of my energy on preparing my body like the rest, not stressing over the loss of a woman whose name I still hadn’t learned.

But I couldn’t just forget about her. She meant more to me than that.

The next day marked the flock’s departure. I waved good-bye as they all flew south then turned in the opposite direction to wait at our spot, even though noon was still hours away.

Someone was already waiting there for me.

It was multiple someones, actually. A small crowd was gathered around the spot that I had considered my new home up until the last couple days. A new stone sat beside the one covered in my flowers. There was a fresh hole cut into the ground, and they were lowering a rich wooden coffin down into it.

Black dresses and suits and ties were all I could see, and tears on the children’s faces and sad little smiles as their parents hugged them close. This was the family I never had the opportunity to meet, and they were laying my human to rest.

Birds do not shed tears, not out of emotion or loss anyway, but I was not a bird that day. I was another piece of the family laid out before me, and I allowed my eyes to drip along with the rest of them. I let a caw pierce the air as sharp as the pain I felt piercing my own broken heart. 

The little girl looked up at my cry. She wiped her eyes and regarded me in silence, perhaps wondering what a migrating bird was doing at her grandmother’s funeral. I held her gaze for only a moment before swooping down and dropping my gift on top of the coffin now snuggled deep in the earth. 

I heard a gasp as she watched me make my ascent, and I flapped in place until I had shed all that I had left. A single gray feather floated to the ground, drifting back and forth over the cool autumn air until it settled gracefully beside the rose. A flower and a feather, that was all I had left to give.

Wasting no more time, I turned and searched the skies for the mass of wings in the distance. They were not so far ahead of me, and it would take me no time at all to insert myself back into their ranks.

I soared over colorful forests and fields, and they took on a clarity I had never been able to appreciate before. The air felt brisk, but it could not harm me. I was warmed by something within, a ball of light that had settled into the hole in my heart.

As I caught up with others, I heard a voice whisper to me over the wind.

Fly high, Starla. Fly high.