Birds With Wet Wings

My Uncle Mani once told me a story about the boatmen (who weren’t men) who live on The Lake of Tennant two miles out. All they do, all day, every day, is go rafting and catch cod; they’re afraid of leaving their village on the water, their floating village. But my Uncle Mani tells me they used to fly, like they were afraid of the wheat fields beneath their wingspans. Like they were fond of flying. Like the sky wasn’t the limit and they reckoned they’d prove it and not return. Like many of my Uncle Mani’s stories, it ain’t finished.

Mani told me, outside, the sky was empty and bleak. The boatmen (who were birds back then) landed on the lakeside where he kept his cottage. They weren’t known to land. Not in a firestorm. Not in a hail.

“What’re you doing on Earth?” he asked them.

“It is freezing,” said one of the birds. “I am here preening the icicles off of my chest. Today is too cold to fly.”

“We are cannibals, remember?” said another of the birds. “One of us came down, so another of us came down. Soon enough, there weren’t any birds up in the sky to feed from.”

Mani nodded.

A third bird clapped him on the shoulder. “It is temporary. We will take to flight bright and early tomorrow.”

Uncle kept them company after the sun fell. He offered them a place to nest for the night. They cozied up by the fireplace and ducked their beaks into their chests, and they cooed as they slept. A couple dozen crammed into his living room, snoring like baboons.

In the morning he’d expected a cock-a-doodle-do with all of them lying about. Perhaps they were too lazy to make the sound. They got up. They emphasized to him how comfortable the cottage was. He told them, “Don’t get too comfy. I let you stay this once.”

“We will leave and build our own cottages, then,” one of them said.

Mani thought he was joking. They must’ve thought it over and thought it was a darned idea. They cut down a couple of maples and built their cottages around the shore of the lake then built nests in the cottages and nestled in the nests all night and day for a week and a half. It infuriated him. They wouldn’t hunt in the sky so they were catching the fish out of his lake. They’d pass by with fish flailing between their beak, till finally, he demanded, “You birds take to flight tomorrow. Return to the sky. You’re no longer welcome at the Lake of Tennant.”

One of them squawked. “We could not leave if we wanted to. We have been rafting all evening. The water is splashed over my feathers. The wind runs cold on them. The thing that you must know about birds with wet wings is that they cannot fly.”

“You can fly,” Mani growled, pointing at the bird. “But you don’t want to fly because there’s nothing to feed from. You choose not to dry your wings or fly your wings. You are no longer wingéd.”

None of them would leave the lake—The Uusi Village—they referred to it. Mani left them and settled in the wheat fields. Time lapse, two years, and he told me of their story.

“They were too busy in the sky to land here,” he told me. “They are too lazy in the lake to visit.”

“Uncle, shush,” I told him. “Tell me what happens next.”

He said to me, “I was angry. But I was angry because they’d repeated the same mistake I made before them. We lived the life of the normal man when we were wingéd creatures. Six years I’ve been removed from Lake Tennant. In those years I’ve dried my feathers and I am ready to return to the sky.”

Uncle stood, knocking his maple chair to the floor, then left. I caught him outside at the fields. Silver wings were exposed from his backside, and outstretched like long blossoming petals.

“Uncle,” I begged him, “do not leave. You are a cannibal, remember?”

“Yes.

“It means I can feed myself.”

* * *

Us two remember,
Birds used to soar.
Overlook the ozone,
Draw in the wind's roar.

Come one December,
Birds took to shore.
Her cold wind was blown,
Their new wings were oars.