Written on several pieces of A4 printer paper, almost illegible, as if by a pen held in a claw, found stowed in a bush in Platt Fields Park, surrounded by feathers and blood.


Transcript

I’d always joked about it, been transfixed by it. Sometimes you make a single joke a few too many times and your friends stop laughing at it, but you know it can still get a laugh from strangers so you save it for flirting with people at parties. After the lockdown everyone had been to the park for hope of a moment’s respite so everybody knew about the island when you mentioned, and everyone had seen all the ducks, the geese, the moorhens.

I still go and stand by the edge of the pond, not on the side with the playground where the kids get in the way of everything and the old men drive their model boats, but on the other, quieter side of it, sitting on a bench, looking over the ‘no swimming’ sign, where maybe one of the two swans is wandering back and forth, stealing what it declares the most valuable bread from the ducks.

And at night they all go back there, to the island in the middle, with trees as high as the rest of the park, calm amongst the storm of the city. I can never get too far away from the thought of these hundreds of birds all resting together on a single small island, only twenty or so metres across. It felt like its own nation, away from the turmoil and the bigotry and the looming fascism. There’s no fascist birds. Even eagles don’t know that they’re taken for symbols, they just float in the sky and are beautiful..

Getting in was easy, nobody pays attention here, except for maybe a brief whisper about the nose, the stubble, but they move onto the next girl soon enough. My friend had lent me a light sleeping bag and a roll mat. The fence was barely a problem, so I crept along the paths to the pond. The night was cold and quiet and still; there were a couple of people talking on the other side of a line of trees, but they were drunk, and I knew what to do. The leap into the pond took some gritted teeth, but was bearable. After wading through, holding the backpack above my head like some deranged commando, I was on the island, the glorious patch of land I had been longing for for years.

There was a rustle of feathers from above, and I stepped around sleeping ducks, looking for a spot to join them. I couldn’t sleep, the stench was almost unbearable, but I was ready to get through anything for this, for the revelation of what I knew was coming, what fate had dragged me to this city to rebirth myself at the leyline of my heart.

Alone in the dark I was ready to accept wisdom, and it came in sleep. My suspicions had been true, this was a deeply sacred place. Flight is heaven. To be free from human toil, as I can just leap into the sky, leave all my cares and whims behind, my annoying boyfriend, my boring friends, my awful awful job! It is a world unreachable by this human tongue, but I was awakened to a consciousness that I had previously only hoped was possible.

My wings beat like lawnmowers and ice skates, I am impeccable in the sky! I am diving into a pool of fractal beaks, I am being pecked to death and, back to life again, I awake in the shell of an egg amongst my new home, the nest of creation. I am surrounded by wings, feathers of all stripes everywhere around me, it is deafening and it is home.


[Diagram of Duck-God Theology - incomprehensible]


I woke with the sun a changed woman. I woke in communication with the world, and left through the sky, up over the trees and up towards the university, but there was a swell of agony in my chest. Corpses of my compatriots littered the aisles of the supermarket and I yelled and I screamed from the skies as I could hear them call out from Sainsbury’s.

I was able to stand across the street, staring at the sign above the door, Chicken Palace, lying empty, but I could feel it, the ache from the slaughter. I had been a vegetarian since I was a kid but now it burned, I couldn’t stand anything, just becoming steadily more aware of the house of corpses the world was built around.

I tried to convince my fellows to band with me, that their pigeon cousins were being eaten across the countryside, and their brethren were massacred near-constantly, but they talked only of seeds and bread. I was stricken. I found myself lurking on window ledges trying to catch the attention of caged budgies, but they’re too dumb to ever make sense of what I am, what I’ve become.

Life is hell now. I can’t fall asleep now, they’re so loud, I think it’s been two days, maybe three. I am convinced I have been cursed by those damn ducks, shackling me to my hubris of life surrounded by this knowledge. I had to go there, confront them. Flying back to the island was easy enough, and people didn’t tend to pay too much attention to me when I was in the sky, just the occasional child ignored by their mother.

I could see the others paddling around, the island is mostly clear, they’ve got bread to catch, and so I knew I needed to lie in wait, I could hear them, hear every screech and call, until I caught the eye of the swan approaching. In that eye I saw everything from that fateful night, I glimpsed once again the nest of creation, and there I was again, floating in the endless sky, knowing at once what this all meant. They were waiting for me. They always were.

So help me, we must do something. I am writing this to get somebody to meet me, outside the chicken shop, at 8pm. I have a plan.