A feather, a fly, a fish

I’m swimming blind in the ocean, but I’m not scared. My eyes are open, but there is only darkness for the time being. I float on my back like a barrel. I can hear the waves close to me lapping over my torso, the distant ones crash faintly on a shore I know I’m gradually drifting further from. I feel my body go weightless, lift out of the water. I don’t drip, I’m dry as soon as I exit, I’m warm. It’s perfect. I hear words, but they’re not mine.

“You’re were perfect Granda, champion of the world, and when I was with you, I felt like I was too.”

I’m being pulled upwards, there’s a chance to get back, not permanently, just briefly, I know it’ll be fleeting. I just need to find a door or a tunnel, some kind of passage.

I’m in the British countryside, in the brush alongside the gravel walking path. Even from down here, with the bare bones of the sycamore trees towering above me, I recognize it. The path I walked daily. Where I took my grandsons when they came to visit. We sucked on Polo Mints until the rings were fragile, seeing who could keep theirs intact the longest. My head bows to the damp earth with its jagged leaves and fallen twigs, crusted over with frost. Leaves that were always so small are now giant pastry flakes in their own right. They shuffle out of my way as my bony feet plow through. It’s still winter; it can’t have been long since I left.

I feel the colors on me, streaking and laddering browns pushing from my chest back to my tail. I feel my red cheeks glow brightly, my navy blue neck, and white collar as if this were a formal occasion. I was never one for dressing up, but I feel brand new. My belly is the brown of my favorite ginger biscuits, getting darker like it’s been dipped in tea. I have a job to do. Somewhere to be. But for a moment I feel out my new frame and features. My feathers ruffle in the brisk morning air. I’m sleek, shiny, and streamlined. I’m a pheasant, they’ll know it’s me. My grandson’s favorite story, it’s all about pheasants. We spoke about it while walking this path last year, I told him about poaching them with raisins. It took almost 30 years for us to have that conversation. For us to realize I’d been the character of his favorite story all along. I have a mild sense of guilt for poaching the bird I have now returned as.

I walk on. The trees appear dead, but I know they’re only sleeping. The base of the trunks are at eye level. I see them splay and spread out as their roots burrow into the ground. I can hear them humming and murmuring to each other down there in the soil. Seeing who needs more and who can go without. Even in winter they talk in their sleep, it's muted and gentle. Spring must be gossip and laughter, summer just quiet proud smiles, sunning their long stretches of bark. There are thickets of brittle brambles. They have grown, fruited, and been allowed to die in reward for their hard work. Their roots will remain unseen underground, ready to grow new branches to continue their generous cycle. The seagull cries I heard through my window yesterday are now free in the open air. Rhythmic caws of far-off crows urge me to move along. Soon I’ll be returned to the dark and lovely ocean.

I’m on the move. I hear my feet pattering fast like rain on concrete. I skirt the brambles and head for the path. I reach the long stretch, walled by Sycamores, Birch, and Hawthorn trees. It’s early, no one else is here. There’s a warm vibration from my beak to the tip of my longest tail feather, extending back, thanking the ground I’m covering at such speed. A pigeon scatters, beating its wings, disturbed by my presence. I beat my own wings and push upwards into the sky. I’m in flight again. My wings spread, I’m soon high up, looking down on the path I’ve only ever experienced at ground level. There’s an absence of the sounds I’m used to, no crunching of gravel underfoot as I travel from way up here. Air wooshes at the sides of my head, I feel it pushing up under my wings. They’re strong and young, they push down, taking me higher. There’s a tickle in the long feathers of my tail.

Concentrate, there isn’t much time. I pass the wiry bare tops of the trees, I’m past the forest. Everything opens up, there’s empty patchwork fields resting below me. I wonder how the farmer’s machines would look from way up here. I imagine powerful ships, ploughing through brown frozen waters to create their own perfect waves. I swoop lower. I see a patch of sunflowers that have been left standing and stiffened, like the tin man in the Wizard of Oz. They’ve dried, some with leaves curled and untouched. They look crispy, like you could crumble them with your fingers. I soar over the last field. There’s sunlight pouring out of the clouds like a waterfall of soft yellow honey, bursting out of a cotton wool hive.

I see the top of a car skirting the hedge row of the field. There’s a cluster of houses beyond it. I push on till I reach the fringe. I’m drawn downwards; I don’t need to think about where to go, it’s like a traction beam. I fly over the road and land on the corner of the cluster of houses. I fold up my wings, my feet press into the frosted grass like I’m crushing grapes for wine.

I meet the cold pavement and trot onwards until I reach the third house. This is the one. Lavender in the driveway that would normally have brushed at my knees is now tall flutes, their buds purple-gray and hollow. A perfumed memory of rubbing it in my palms, crumbling and layering its aroma onto my skin. I’m in the small front garden, I approach the wide windows of the front room. Someone will be there, they will see me.

In that moment, she steps forward upto the window, our eyes lock. Mine the small yellow beady eyes of this beautiful bird that I am, hers tired but still wide, and bright. Her lips move. From this side of the glass, there’s no noise; that’s ok.

“What are you doing here?” she asks

The way she says ‘here,’ tells me she knows. It’s not just that I’m a pheasant that would have had to leave the safety of the countryside, cross a main road, and come precisely three houses down to see her. It’s that she knows it’s me, how could I be ‘here’, looking like this, when I just left her in the night, in our bedroom, hours ago.

That’s all we need, we know we’ll be ok, I just needed one more look with good eyes. I turn and run for the white van I’ve driven to France and back every year for the last decade, I’m behind it, on the otherside.

The inky ocean washes over my legs, they’re strong again, not like when I left. They float at the surface. The blackness is like a warm blanket wrapped all over, but with plenty of space between me and its layers. A cocoon, and I’m floating at the center. Despite the dark, it’s warm, like early sun pressing itself at the walls of your tent on a family camping trip. Your eyes are shut, but you feel them warm, getting brighter. A rush of possibility, adventure carried only by our feet and legs that can never seem to stay still.

I’m a pheasant feather. The long tail feather, no more body, wings, or legs. I’m one of a twin pair. He’s holding me between his fingers, running his other hand up the quill. He puts the other back in his fly fishing box; he keeps me. He wraps a letter around me and keeps it secure with a wooden ring. He said we were in his wedding ring, that he took us into his marriage, our loving example. I feel him in this wooden ring he’s made in a faraway place. He and his wife are in there, he’s giving the pieces to me to take on my journey.

He walks into the front room with me in hand. The curtains are drawn, so I can’t see the garden, but the soft light of morning sun pushes through. There’s the murmur of voices from other rooms in the house pushed into the background. This room is quiet and empty, except for my shell lying in the casket. He’s asked for this time. He unfurls the letter and reads it to the shell of myself, but I hear it as the feather in his hand. He’s crying. These are the words he wanted to say before I left, but he was too worried about upsetting me. He still needs to say them, he knows I’m listening. I know the words, whether he says them or not. Somewhere inside himself, he knows this too.

The door opens, an interruption, an apology, the door shuts, he continues.

He puts the letter back around the feather I am. I’m laid on the chest of the shell of myself.

“There’s nothing sad about empty shells, right Granda?”

A crescendo. People reenter, a thrum of conversation, stories and whiskey shared. They all filter out except for her. It’s quiet. She stays to share some final words, stroking my white beard lovingly. The lid closes. Muffled quiet. A poem is read about going fishing. A flash.

My silvery hair spreads itself out in the water like a crown around my head. It’s white and bright, I’m the moon’s reflection on the ocean's surface.

Still dark, I hear footsteps. A short scrape, the box I’m in is picked up. It’s set carefully down on a hard surface with a staccato thud. The lid opens, light again. I’m the other pheasant tail feather, the twin, I’m lifted out of his fly fishing box. He runs his hands up the quill, softly pinches off some strands, and places me delicately at the shaft of a fishing hook. He takes olive thread and carefully wraps me again and again, keeping me snugly in place. Although I’m just a few strands of this feather, I’m also the wings of this fly, this lure. I will bring him a fish.

He steps to the water's edge. He pulls me out of his fly box, where I sit among the great colors and patterns, imitations of insects at different stages of their life cycles. He ties me to his line, brings me to his mouth for a brief kiss, an exhale.

“Champion of the world Granda,” he whispers.

He lets me swing outward over the water like a pendulum; I’m a child on a rope swing. He jerks the rod upwards and sends the line flying back and forth overhead with deliberate movements. I’m high up in the air, looking down on his figure, small but sturdy in the water; he’s like a rock with water rippling past him. I see his arm extend forward. I’m soaring out in front of him, the whizzing sound of his reel feeding out the line quickly fades behind me. The world turns into an impressionist painting, blurs and smudges of a hundred shades of green, blotches of color from the wild flowers, and shimmering water racing below. I’m flying again. I slow, lose momentum, gravity takes hold. I land on the river’s surface with a graceful kiss.

I float down the river, my wings open, the barb of the hook submerged. There’s birdsong in the air, the breeze makes a high rushing sound through the trees. I reach a rock downstream, the current pulls me around like a carousel, I dip under the surface. Silence under the surface, I’m untouchable. I’m going to bring him a fish.

I see it swimming there lazily in the slow swirl of water past the rock. I tumble and dance, the fish repositions itself to meet my path, it swims forward a little to make sure it doesn’t miss me. I’m sprinting towards its mouth, cheering, whooping, I’m bringing him this fish. We are catching this fish!

I disappear down into the blackness of the fish’s mouth. There’s a fight, but my hook is well and truly buried. There’s a dance between the fisherman and the fish. Whilst the fish is strong he is weak, when the fish grows weak he is strong. He pulls it out. The sun hits the side of the great fish making the walls glow like they’re made of embers. I’m in that tent again, ready for a day of adventure. I hear him cheering and whooping. “Champion of the world Granda, champion of the world!”

The tunnel of the mouth opens, light pours in, he pulls me out with care and triumph. Kisses me again. Cuts the line, and places me back in his fly box. Forever a story, but never again to be cast onto the water. Too precious. He let me go once; that was enough.

The inky waves lap at my limbs like the side of a boat ready to set sail on a wonderful adventure.

He’s at home, standing at the sink, washing up. Many days have passed. His eyes are tired, his movements habitual and practiced. I float down, swaying back and forth, like the pendulum of an old clock that will soon need winding, a clock sinking into a marsh. I reach him, lay like a blanket over his consciousness, and melt inwards. I swim down past the tide of his thoughts, coming and going, till I reach the shore. I stand on his beach, the forefront of his mind, as an idea. An idea to write this. So he knows I heard it all. So he knows I’m ok, just waiting. Just gone fishing.