The hummingbirds disappeared first. So dainty and fragile like the system that was interrupted in their parting. It was just the extinction of an entire rudimentary species that was heavily involved in agriculture and about a billion other sensitive and vital ecosystems. Not that big of a deal. Humans had perfected their own society, they could fix other things too. Solving an ecological issue would doubtless be easier, and it was. Advances in genetic hybridization that had been developed decades past provided a simple solution. As I said, if humans could fix society they could fix pretty much everything else, resources weren’t really an issue.
But then other species died off. Sparrows, robins, blue jays, nearly every domesticated species… every beautiful flighty thing fell from the sky in one of the most terrifying downpours you could imagine. But what did we need them for? There was little purpose singular to them that another creature could not fulfill. Perhaps it would be a little rougher, but we are menders and we healed where we saw fit. The global unity that had begun at the greatest age of humanity proved an indomitable force of reparation. No one was worried, and no one felt any reason to be.
I could not help but bite my lip as a regular anxiety accompanied the prospects of the morning news. There were a few days I didn’t watch, when I couldn’t watch, but I missed so much when I couldn’t bear the bad news. So I became accustomed to forcing myself to watch. The first reports of the morning weather were accompanied by a piece reviewing a study on the declining populations of birds of prey in European countries. I didn’t doubt that the very same channel would be broadcasting a much bleaker story of the same subject matter in subsequent days. It had been a while since the last extinction, so the next was far overdue. No one would stop it from happening, I doubt anyone could stop it from happening, but we would try to fix it afterwards… with the same mild success. Other people, but not me. I would do what I did every morning and sit alone in my apartment and think about the job I would wait to head to. One of the many things I waited for. I would stare out the one window in my apartment that didn’t face a bleak and lifeless wall, and I would look for whatever feathered creatures remained. Pigeons and crows mostly. Once every so often a pigeon would land on the small ledge just beyond the glass and I would stare at it, marvel at the survivability of something so simple. I would not let my fascination distract me though, I had other things to do than stare at birds all day. I had to leave every day, and I imagine that so do the pigeons, to work and lose myself in the monotony of labor.
As I worked at my desk I would think of what the pigeon had left to do. It had flown off, free to go anywhere, probably to search for food. Free to feed off of whatever we may have left for it to feast on. I would think of this as I gave the salad I worked so hard for a dazed glare. Nine or ten hours every day, for seven days a week; I was allowed the luxury of real green vegetables. Most people ate genetically modified foods to save money, but I couldn’t stomach the stuff. Real vegetables are one of the few pleasures I have left. Despite the anticipation of the meal, more than once the time designated to enjoy it had passed while my mind was elsewhere. Flying off where I couldn’t follow.
At the end of my break though, I would go back to work. Hungry. Not for food, but for that feeling of being away from what I was doing. The feeling of flying, or at the very least what I imagined it felt like. I would complete my daily tasks with feathers in my head, clean my workspace where it was needed, and take myself back home. To wait.
“Welcome back home, love!” The open door of my apartment greets me excitedly. This was the price I paid for not locking it.
“You should have called first, Violet.” I sigh as I enter what has once again become our apartment. Once again it is draped in the collections of her various travels that I had put away. Once again she is sitting on her spot on the sofa. Waiting for me. “I would have cleaned up.”
“You know I don’t care, I haven’t cleaned this place in so long I figured it was my turn anyways.” She indicated to the once again vibrant surroundings. “This is pretty much how I left things. I’m glad you didn’t just outright get rid of my stuff.”
“Speaking of leaving.” I groaned as I sat down in my spot next to her. “Why are you here this time?”
“That burns.” She laughed, the sound just as bright as everything looked. My bluntness never bothered her.
“So I can assume you came here to make sure we were still legally married? Or are you hiding from the police again?” I recalled the last time I had come back home to find her hiding in what had again become our bedroom. I wasn’t surprised at the discovery after getting an earful from the police that had been stationed at the entrance to the building, though I still don’t quite know how she convinced me to lie to them when they got around to our door.
“I told you, that was a misunderstanding. They weren’t looking for me, just something that I happened to… have… at the time.” She sighed. “Look, I’m here because I want to be. I miss you.”
“Forgive me if I find that hard to believe.” I often questioned why she had ever agreed to marry me if she had intended to leave the second I wasn’t paying attention. “Isn’t there some canvas you need to stare at in some other part of the world, or a typewriter you could gawk at?”
           “I can do that here.” She paused as if only just realizing how things would play out, but she continued. “My days of traveling the world are over. No more with white banners fly beneath brilliant blue expanses.”
“Don’t you dare.” I hissed. “Don’t you dare throw that back at me.” How could she in good conscience repeat to me that pathetic poem? If she thought it would calm me down, then she didn’t know me as well as she thought she did.
“We made a sky so pure, it lacks purity. It lack’s natural touch. No more clouds, no more feathers.” Violet sighed as she finished off the short poem. Somehow I found myself dropping my head against her shoulder. “You always had the better ear for these things Lucy.”
“I only ever wrote the one. That doesn’t make me a poet.” I hadn’t realized how tense I had gotten until I finally let myself relax. “And I only wrote it to try and show you that I wasn’t some uptight stick in the mud.”
“What, did you think I wouldn’t marry you even if you were?” Violet chuckled as she began to run her fingers through my hair. “Like we had a choice.”
“This is still all your own fault, Vi. If you’d acted a little more tame…”
“Then we would never have been paired?” Now her chuckling developed into more sarcastic laughter. “You would have wound up with some other wild-child. I would just be with someone a little less uptight.” She was right.
“You know, that poem had a different ending line the first time I wrote it down.” I sighed looking my partner in the eyes.
“Yeah?” Violet pulled her notebook out from under me, ready to write it down and recommit to memory like the eager bookworm she was.
“No more birds, no more romances.” I recalled the line easily, I had thought about it frequently when I waited for her to come home. Although lately it had meant a little something different.
“And they thought I was a rebel.”
