Life with birds in the fifty-second world
A short story to celebrate Earth Day | A future of nature writing collaboration
Dearest readers,
Happy Earth Day!
To celebrate I’m sharing a short fiction story in a Substack Event “The Future of Nature”.
The Future of Nature is an Earth Day community writing project for fiction writers to explore the human-nature relationship in a short story or poem. It was organized by and , and supported with brilliant advice from scientists and . The story you’re about to read is from this project. You can find all the stories as a special Disruption edition, with thanks to publisher Erica Drayton of .
Here’s the full list
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |(Writers - let me know if I have missed anyone).
I loved being part of this collaboration, researching and thinking about the future of nature, and connecting with other writers who also share a passion for this place we all share. We are in this together!
Happy reading,
Kate x
Birds Listen. It is humans who forget — in the beginning there was a song, the most beautiful song in the world. Some say it was the heartbeat of the Earth. Others say it was my mother’s voice murmuring against my shell. All I know is — everything you need to survive is written into air and I have been singing it my whole life.
2170
Beyond the acid lick oceans and the fever burn plains, on an island at the bottom of the world, a forest grows. Fat regal trees shoot their canopies into the strangled sky. And beautiful birds open their throats and sing. There are other creatures here too, strange things with small bodies, gentle ears, and pointed mouths — adaptations to survive in this place of heat and wet. And humans too, sometimes.
This is the last great forest of the fifty-second world and it is my home.
I, black bullet, slick arrow of the sky, dark sonar on the drift, egg yolk for an eye. I, keeper of forest and ridges of wind, of ice-charred rock and gullies of green. I, rider of mountain breath, levitator of sun; I am dawn, I am currawong.
I hear chorus spread in the forest: tremolo lilt crescendo.
What is it brothers?
Dark clouds gathering and below the canopy, humans. I descend slide coast to old sheoak crest. I quiet hush watch.
Humans, always the same. Wingless ugly things, wandering from where we dare not go: the killing fields of fire and fever and ash and foam. It is not easy for them, this sticky air and burning light. And come the wicked heat, they must slip and hide where the sun cannot reach. They never last.
Today it is boy and girl. That much I know. Boy is flat nose short beak. Girl is narrow eyes of sky. The girl sits by old eucalyptus, picking scratching feeling bark. Grubs in fingers, grasping mouth. The boy is tapping ground, tilting face towards leaves and sticks of curled mustard brown. What is it they seek?
I fly low. Prowl hook creep sneak. Hopping, dancing, bending eye to eye, closer closer. Trick of mine: I speak.
Where is your mother?
Boy turns, opens mouth. It is always a shock to hear a bird speak. I hop closer and ask again, Mother? For I am wise and small things need heartbeat and feather and nest. And I pity them.
Boy speaks: one trembling note, a sigh hush hiss. It ripples the feathers on my breast and I think, I feel, I know, the bright shape of this: it is the imprint of wing crest kiss.
I say, Oldest song in the world, loss. But they would not remember the before times, the Earth wailing under the noise of their machines and the disappearing things crying into the night: slipping gone goodbye.
Girl is watching us now as clouds speed overhead. Water? she asks, blue eye to yellow.
And I think before I speak, because there are many ways to get there. And I would not, do not, should not. But I do.
North, I tell them. You will have to travel north.
But now the afternoon warmth is creeping smoking sneaking through the trees and everything shimmers gold and north is east is west is lost. And I wonder what I am doing, talking to humans. Naughty me. I should know better.
How will we know the way, the girl asks as breeze rips leaves branches sway.
Your mother’s voice, I say. Renew your mother’s song of pulse thrum blood. But their scruffy heads are shaking and boys hands are crawling his eyes and girl is weeping dripping falling, because they do not remember. They do not know that song is the thing that shapes and dissolves, that everything they need to survive is written into air.
So I sing —
Insects pollen blood seeds
leaves crest canopy
rain stars moon
sun soil
flow.
Everything I know of the forest, its hidden secrets, it dark mysteries. And because I am bolder now, braver swifter brazen, I lift my wings and land on the boy’s shoulder. And I am surprised, for there is a sound below his thin pale skin, and it is rushing my body like a violet blur, sinking through feather and fat and muscle. And it is frightening, this sameness of boy and bird and me.
But now the day is cooking and the heat is rising and I know, as all birds of the forest do: it is time to fly.
So I say, Goodbye and ascend through canopy.
Later, when the great heat has passed and I return to the forest, I see them. Boy and girl, beside the stream where my brothers sisters I, hunt moths of tiger black and snow. I call, circle once twice, commence descent, but no voice lifts into the haze to greet me. Others come, and all about fills with black and white, and a loud melodious speak. We gather at their feet, raise our beaks in grief, then feast.
Birds listen. It is humans who forget.1
Story sparks — where it all began
When I started exploring a future of nature fiction story I was drawn into the world of birds by a book — Where Song Began by Tim Lowe. The book’s premise is that Australia has the oldest songbird lineage in the world and that more than half the world’s birds — including its songbirds and parrots, many pigeons, and even the dodo — can be traced back to Australia.
This lead me down a research line of bird song and AI and adaptions of survival in the avian world. I was fascinated by the scientific understanding that birds are the only lineage of dinosaurs to have survived the mass extinction that wiped out their kin. And that many birds are open learners, capable of learning song while still in their egg and then for the rest of their lives.
Song too has incredible possibilities — I just loved the idea that song is not just sound but ‘memory, identity, and survival written into air’, as David Rothenberg writes. Song is mysterious and powerful and it connects the space between reason and emotion. Could it also connect the space between species? To this end there are a number of developments in the AI space — apps that seek to understand the songs and sounds of animals and even communicate with them.
*
I wanted to write a story where humans were no longer at the centre of things. Where the world had suffered a collapse, and had recovered. But now there were other creatures thriving: birds, perhaps? What would that world be like?
This quote from Tasmanian writer Jane Rawson of
in her book Human / Nature was pivotal in my thinking about humans no longer being centre stage —‘We are a mundane thing. Sooner or later we will be gone, either because we have evolved into something wise or because we can’t adapt our way out of the changes we face. The same is true of every other life form on Earth’.
And this quote by David George Haskell, The Songs of trees
We’re all — trees, humans, insects, birds, bacteria — pluralities. Life is embodied network. The earth doesn’t distinguish between life, it gives to all.
My story is also inspired by the writing of Tasmanian and Australian authors, in particular,
’s The Hummingbird Effect and her futuristic Forest/Inlet/Island world set in Australia in 2181.And poetry, it is always sparks my imagination —
Joy O Haro’s poem, A map to the next world
‘You will have to navigate by your mother’s voice, renew the song
she is singing.’
And Janet Upcher’s poem, Discord
“Birds are the first to sense the upheaval.
Turning and wheeling in the darkening sky,
[…]
What have they sensed?
Beyond bush, the sea is rising,
Waves are dancing and leaping.
Somewhere, invisibly,
Earth heaves a sigh.”
And you?
What do you imagine the future of nature will look like?
Kate x
A play on the gorgeous line ‘Water remembers. It is humans who forget. From the novel There are Rivers in the Sky by
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Finally, I could sit down 'relaxed' and enjoy your wonderful story, Kate! You're a fiction natural :)
I loved your imagining so much. And the poetic voice of the currawong was brilliant. Currawongs singing their morning song as I lay in my cot is my earliest memory (I wrote about it in one of my early posts here, too). They're my bird. Everything about them is special to me, so it's a joy to see you write about them. I'm glad they'll be thriving on that little southern island in 2170 :)
Australia does have an abundance of songbirds, which is fascinating. I always took it for granted until a tourist once mentioned many years ago how enjoyably noisy our birds were. They really do love a chat.
What a story, Kate! I adore this. I especially love the voice of it, and both the urgent flow of the language and the slight disconnect created by the lack of punctuation, reminding us it is a nonhuman voice speaking. Such a brilliant piece!!!