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He did not understand much of the world around him; the colours were too bright, the shapes were too confusing. But he’d grown to know if not understand several aspects of his life: firstly, there were the people.
He’d gained a clever knack for telling them apart despite their big, fleshy faces and their strange tufts of down that made them all look quite similar. One of the people — the largest one, with brick red down — was around most. He was pretty sure they shared a nest, somehow. There were two others; one with noticeably curled down on her head and the other with strange black objects in front of her eyes, but they seemed to only come to visit. He did not know much of human behaviour, but they seemed to be very social creatures. His nestmate got very sad when the other two were away, even he could tell what the human’s body language meant.
Secondly, there were the emotions. Piggybacking off the other truth, he’d come to understand the emotions of the humans to a small extent. He could tell in their strange vocalizations the intention of their words. They spoke to him with sadness, he could tell, but in the few moments that they were not sad, they seemed to hold affection for him, which he tried to reciprocate. They were already all so down, he tried his best to make them feel better because he cared for the people. His nestmate made sure he was comfortable, kept him fed and safe, and provided him with entertainment and company. Somehow, when he tried to communicate his gratitude, it only seemed to make his nestmate sad.
Third, he’d come to the conclusion that he was not supposed to be. At least, not the way he existed. For a while, at the edges of his memories, there had been terrible and constant pain. Now, still, the confines of his body felt slightly alien to him, like he’d stepped back into the shell of the egg he hatched out far too long ago. It was too small for him and he often found himself confused by the arrangement of his limbs. The feeling was horrible and unpleasant, especially since he couldn’t fathom a world in which his body wasn’t his own.
Which led to the final conclusion: the world itself was horribly broken. Something had gone wrong, at some point. His nestmate rarely left the nest, he had the curtains drawn almost constantly and got noticeably stressed when the door was open. When the humans spoke with each other, it was with solemn tones and restless limbs. He had perched in front of the invisible barrier to the outside several times and examined what he saw in the world until his nestmate grabbed him in a panic and moved him away. Outside looked nothing like the way he’d remembered it: there was not a single bird in the streets, no nests on the corners of buildings or perched in trees. The world seemed to have been abandoned by all avian life, and there were a lot fewer people out than he would’ve expected. It worried him.
He stayed with his nestmate a lot. He quite liked the human’s presence, despite their differences. They’d spent enough time together for him to learn to trust the person, and he often followed him around as he busied himself with his strange human rituals. He could never even begin to understand the purpose of some of it.
His presence seemed to make the human sad and happy at the same time: his strange fleshy face contorted into a look he recognized as grief, but his noises carried the intonation that came with joy. It was deeply confusing, but, like with all things, he adapted to it as quickly as possible. This human carried stories in his mournful eyes and shaking featherless extremities.
The greatest expressions of emotion he’d ever been privy to had started with strange noises.
He’d been eating when he heard a sound he’d never encountered before coming from the human’s nest. He flew over and landed on the soft nest. The human was hunched over, with water on his face that seemed to have no source. He hopped over to get a closer look — curiosity being his ever fatal flaw — and noticed the water was actually stemming from the human’s eyes. He identified this one as being extreme sadness, and the only thing he could do about it was be nearby and try and communicate with the strange, leaky creature.
The other one, much rarer, had occurred when the three people he recognized as well as several he couldn’t identify were in their nest together. He had a lot of comfortable spaces in the nest, and had chosen one close to the humans, to try and understand their behaviours a bit better. His nestmate did what could only be the reverse of the watery sadness he’d seen several times before; his beakless mouth opened and he made a sound of such joy that even he — despite being of a different species — knew what it meant. It made something in him happy as well, and he flew over to be closer to his nestmate.
The first time he was allowed outside was an event that came with much fuss from the humans. They attached a small green thing to one of his legs, which he didn’t much appreciate, and then went on to tie and untie strings around him until they found a configuration they were happy with.
Flying outside was nice, even if the rope held firmly by his nestmate wasn’t long enough for him to get far. He could clearly tell, however, that he’d been right in saying the world had lost its birds. Being outside made it even clearer to him, and that paired with the absence of any of the strange human inventions that made such terrible noises cut his excursion short. He was quite proud of himself for having built such a connection with his nestmate that he could tell when he wanted to return to the safe confines of their little world, separated from the lonely silence of what had once been the world.
Domestic pigeons lived fifteen years, on average. Martin had looked it up one night, in a fit of terror and sadness. He stared at Jon, who was sunning by the window, and his heart lurched. He remembered the first and only time he’d seen Jon do that, back in Scotland. They’d both been very different people back then, neither of them had any idea what was to come.
He knew that he was likely to idealise things in retrospect, make the life they’d shared before seem all the more picturesque, but he couldn’t help the flood of rose-tinted nostalgia that came every time he remembered their time in Daisy’s cabin. It was swiftly followed, however, with memories of how Jon had acted for most of their working relationship, and all those months he’d spent mourning him only for him to suddenly return to life and beg for the attention Martin had no desire to give him. He’d hated Jon for a few weeks after they ended the apocalypse, resented him for everything he’d put Martin and their friends and the whole world through, and he’d had nowhere to put that anger, since all that was left of Jon – the love of his life, the man he’d devoted so much time and energy to – was a bird. He couldn’t very well start yelling at a pigeon, so Martin had taken to yelling at himself, which had only made him more miserable. Every time his anger at Jon and the Eye and the whole damn world and how unfair it had all been rose, it was quickly swallowed by a tide of abject misery. He’d never wanted to fight with Jon, not really, he just wanted to get all his conflicting emotions off his chest and have the stupid man understand, for once.
Martin had spent sixteen months in the post-apocalypse world, and he’d yet to have a single good day. Every day was a slog, he was just going through the motions until he collapse into bed and pretend none of it was real. Until he’d wake up after dreaming of Jon, of course, and the day would start again.
There was no doubt about the source of his problems. It left feathers around his tiny apartment, and cooed at him for his attention. He couldn’t get on its case about doing the dishes or eating properly, because it was a bird. A bird that bore a resemblance to Jon, of course. A bird that had once been Jon, but no more. Every time he laid eyes on the creature, he wanted to cry. Their walks around London were some of the most miserable moments of Martin’s life, and he wasn’t sure why he pretended they weren’t. He was keeping up appearances for an animal that could hardly communicate with him, because he was worried he’d hurt its feelings.
If the pigeon had ever retained some of Jon in it, it was gone. He’d hoped he’d get his boyfriend back if he was just patient, if he just waited it out and toiled through the days. He’d already waited six months for him to come back from the apparent dead, what was six more? But then six more became eight more, and then a year had passed and there were no changes in the pigeon. Martin had lost hope months ago, but he kept going through the motions because there was nothing else he could do. He couldn’t start over, not when Jon was still alive, to some extent, and he couldn’t pretend the bird he kept around the house wasn’t the ruined version of his boyfriend.
Martin stepped out of the apartment, locking the door behind him with the pigeon firmly inside, and stood on the welcome mat for as long as his legs could bear. When he got too tired, he sat down. Basira was supposed to come visit eventually, he could wait for her outside. Maybe he could convince her to go for a walk with him, so he wouldn’t have to pretend to be alright for two people.
“Get up,” Basira said, standing in front of him with her hands in her pockets. She was still wearing her uniform, a simple heavy-duty jacket from her own closet with recognisable blue and orange circles stitched onto either shoulder: a first aider. She’d passed the training with flying colours three months after the apocalypse was reversed and had been working almost constantly ever since. “We’re getting out of this building.”
Martin followed her wordlessly down the stairs and out onto the road. London had never been so quiet, back when the world was still okay. Cars and most other forms of transportation had been all but forgotten, since few people left their homes in the first place, so the streets were quiet and empty. It always sent a chill down Martin’s spine, but Basira didn’t seem to mind. She shoved her hands into her pockets and walked a few paces in front of him, yet to speak another word.
If he’d been paying any attention, Martin would have noticed that they’d just walked in a huge circle, ending up right back at his front door, but he’d been too busy convincing himself to keep moving instead of just lying down on the pavement so he’d never have to return to his flat.
Basira put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him outside the door to the complex, and started him in the eye. She’d always scared him a little with how intense she was, and that was one of the few things that hadn’t changed after the apocalypse. She was clearly much happier though, having a job that helped people. It would inspire Martin to search for something similar, if he didn’t worry about leaving Jon the bird alone for that long.
“You have to let him go,” Basira said. There was no question as to who she was referring to. “He’s not himself anymore, and he hasn’t been for a very long time.”
“I can’t.” He’d tried a few times. Taken the bird outside and waited until it had flown to the end of its rope, prepared to let go of it and watch it fly away. But the colour of those wings, the scarred patches dotted across its tiny body were too familiar for him to ever abandon.
“I know,” Basira said. She really did know, and she was the only one of his friends who did. Georgie and Melanie came over often, but he never really looked forward to their visits like he did Basira’s. With Georgie and Melanie, he’d have to talk about Jon and how the bird was doing, would have to pretend he still felt any affection towards the damned creature and that he still held hope Jon would come back to him. With Basira, it was all unspoken. All the misery, and the fear, and the unshakeable devotion was acknowledged with a nod, and then they wouldn’t speak of it. Basira would tell him how the world was doing, succinctly thank him for whatever food he’d prepared with the foolish hope of eating it, and leave when they both knew the interaction was over.
“It’s been over a year, and he’s gone, and I know he is, but I still can’t get rid of him.”
“I know,” she repeated, but softer. “But sometimes you have to do things you aren’t prepared to do.”
She was being kind. They both knew he was prepared to get rid of the bird, he was itching to do it, but he couldn’t let himself acknowledge it or it would feel like a final defeat. He’d put off properly grieving Jon because Jon was still with him, in some way. If he let go, he’d have to accept that his love had not made it. That Martin had been the one to kill him.
“Right.”
“Do you want me to come around tomorrow?” The ’After you’ve done it?’ was unspoken. Martin nodded.
He turned, and opened his door, and walked into his building, not saying goodbye. He’d see her again, after all. Just the next day, even.
The pigeon that had once been the love of his life but was, sixteen months later, just a pigeon stared at him when he stepped into the flat. He grabbed the rope he used to offer the bird some exercise and it immediately flew to him, beetle-green wings shimmering under the artificial lights.
He never tied the rope around the bird, because why would he. Once outside the building, it would fly away, and that was what he wanted. It was what he’d wanted for almost a year at that point, because that pigeon was not Jonathan Sims. Jonathan Sims was dead, and that bird was preventing him from grieving properly.
Claws dug into his shoulder lightly, the pigeon steadying itself for flight.
“Goodbye,” Martin said softly, and the bird cooed in response, though it couldn’t possibly know what he meant. “I loved you.”
Then it was gone with a few cracks of the air as it took flight. Green and bronze plumage shone in the sunlight as Martin watched the last thing holding him together vanish above the wrecked skyline of what once was London. He returned to his flat and lay down at the door, unsure whether it was wrong that he couldn’t seem to cry.
Basira came by the next day, as she’d promised, and didn’t say anything on the subject. She told him about her day at work, and updated him on the state of the world, and left him a pamphlet on how to volunteer to help people. And then she left, with an empathetic squeeze of his arm that communicated more than either of them would ever have been able to put into words.
Finally, after sixteen months, Martin grieved.