Image description: Silhouette of a flock of birds flying across an orange sky with a bright sun behind them.
BY SWATI SUDARSAN
Siya had been holding a tornado in her gums for so long that it was more startling than relieving when the thrumming finally stopped. The tension in her mouth had released when she saw the predator’s jaw snap over a scarlet bird on her screen. She grew lamplit and silky beneath it, allowing her soup to splatter over herself and the floor. It was her first night alone in her old house. Her apartment was gutted -- the only things left inside were a desk, a mattress, and of course, the screen. It was a behemoth that took up almost an entire wall. Shawn had purchased it, despite her finding it stifling. Now its insularity allowed her to tread deep into the recesses of her thoughts.
The bird had landed cleanly without flinching. She had watched the scene frame by frame, comprehending the bird’s temerity. The camera panned to the cliffside where birds brooded along the rocks. Their home was a gate between the river and the clouds from which blueness peeked out, as if mirroring the water helped it materialize. The birds dove from their roosts, throbbing through the sky like ink splattered by a vortexing plate. They flew in abstract shapes, occasionally hewing off a bird or two. The flock didn’t look for them. Those birds were as gone to them as ashen stars on a cloudy night.
Siya paused the show. Her calves glowed blue beneath the screen, blending out her bruises. They were fading to a soft yellow that hardly showed anymore beneath the brownness of her skin. A few weeks ago her legs had been streams, her skin flowing over shades of peat moss and algae. After Shawn hit her, she had held herself up like a discarded carcass. A fragment of a shell.
The frozen screen showed the murky foam of the river’s edge where waves kissed onto the shore. This was where the predator lived. Still the birds dove down toward the shore to unbury seeds and crab remnants. Siya decided she did not feel sorry for the bird in the jaw. Instead she mourned the birds in the sand. They ingested whatever they uncovered, never seeking a life beyond the mercy of the beach. They could not understand the bird in the jaws, who left behind insistent purrs from the cliffside to finally experience its heartbeat in its throat.
Siya knew there were other birds like that one. Birds who pummeled chest-first into splintered rocks. They knew how to turn the entire flock like the fold in a banner. And birds snatched mid-air into an eagle’s claw. They knew the relief of being carried by the beating of someone else’s wings.
Siya played the show again. As the scene rolled forward, she forgot the ripples on her legs. She noticed between the flying birds were their blood red feathers, floating upwards. They floated slowly and unpredictably toward the clarity of the sky’s untouched blue.
Swati Sudarsan is based in Oakland, CA (Ohlone Land). She has received support from the Tin House, Kenyon Review, and more. She was the runner-up of the 2022 So to Speak Contest Issue, and has work in McSweeney's, The Adroit Journal, Maudlin House and more. She can be found on social media as @booksnailmail