“Take up your feathers; leave your bones behind.”
That was what my mother used to sing. When I first picked myself up off the roadside, the thunder of the tram already fading, I didn't know words like 'feather' and 'bone'. Those I plucked from the skull of a naturalist I found crawling the grounds of the museum. My voice I took from the Earl of Arundel who lies coiled around the feet of his own statue – even in death, human beings cling to the earth. But I remember my mother's song and I know the truth; that everything is sky.
Author bio: Douglas Jensen is originally from Fife in Scotland and currently lives in Sheffield. He writes short stories and poems, and his story 'When Last We Spoke' was highly commended in the TSS Flash 400 Autumn competition. He has also written and drawn a number of self-published comics and zines. He can be found on twitter @thatdougjensen
Pigeon is part of 101 Fiction issue 21.
This haunts, in several ways.
ReplyDelete