Edited by David Nevin
The sun illuminated the silver
clouds, which tapered throughout the chill, periwinkle morning sky. The little
fledging cringed her eyes from the sharp light, and then opened them, huddling closer
to the rim of the nest, only then realizing how cold she was. She wearily
looked around her, and realized she was alone. The tiny fledgling jumped as her
sister swooped down from a nearby tree, landing clumsily on the ledge of the
roof.
“Weeee!” her sister howled. “I can
fly!”
The fledgling yawned and her sister
hopped into the nest, smacking the fledgling’s bottom with her increasingly
strong wings. The tiny pigeon tried to mimic her sister by flapping her wings
up and down a few times, all to no avail.
Just then, the fledgling’s brother
dove back down onto the roof. She bat her wings again, trying to impress him,
and managed to perch herself on the edge of the nest. She heard her mother call
from behind.
“This is it,” mama pigeon somberly
said. “The last day I can keep you here. My next batch of eggs are due
tomorrow. You have to fly.”
The feeble fledgling watched the
last two of her siblings, her brother and sister, prepare to leave the nest
once and for all. They exercised their wings from branch to branch of the
nearby trees. Enviously, the fledgling looked at the drop below her. Four
storeys. How would she survive it if she fell?
She bat her wings, testing herself
to see how high she could take flight. Barely 10 centimeters. How could she
manage to soar like the others? She tried again.
“You can do it,” her mother
murmured, numbing herself to the departure of all of her offspring.
“I’m afraid,” the fledgling replied
back, trembling.
She took a deep breath and
approached the roof ledge. I can do it. I can do it. She launched herself with
her feet, and flapped with all her might. But it wasn’t enough. She panicked,
flapping, flapping, feeling herself fall through thin air and only able to
lessen the speed with her under-feathered wings. Falling, falling, falling. It
wasn’t working! Her wild flapping sounded like the roar of a vicious wind.
Before she knew it, she was stuck between two bars of metal.
“Help!” she cried up to her mother
and siblings. “Help me!”
Her mother circled a few times above
her in despair. “Flap your wings!” she cried. “Flap your wings!”
The fledgling did as she was told,
trying to unlodge herself from the sewer drain. Voila! Wait! I’m falling even
further! She then realized.
The little pigeon whipped her wings
back and forth again in madness, feeling herself slow the fall down the pit of
darkness. And then her feet reached a surface. She blinked her eyes a few
times. I’m alive! She assured herself.
She looked around at the dim
greyness, the stench of mildew and rot staunching her breath. It appeared she
was standing on a balcony, only lit by the daylight streaming through the sewer
drain above. The fledgling poked her head about, trying to figure out whether
she should stay put or try to launch herself back towards the above-world.
Where was she? What was this place? She’d heard of trees, parks, buildings, and
houses where cooks let their food cool on ledges, but nothing of a city below
ground.
The wooden French doors creaked, so
deformed from decay that it took several efforts for them to open. The
fledgling tweeted and jumped as a young woman strode out onto the balcony with
a rug in one hand and a lantern in the other. Her burgundy bodice was loosely
laced and tattered at the seams, covering a beige underdress that was soiled
with dirt and sweat.
“Oh!” the girl exclaimed, seeing the
little bird. “Where did you come from?” She looked above her towards the
streams of light from the sewer, again regretting that it was too high above
the house for anyone to reach and take a peek out.
Shifting her gaze back to the little
silvery angel that had fallen from the heavens, the girl excitedly walked
forward, and the fledgling backed herself to the corner nervously. The girl
crouched down.
“There, there, don’t be afraid,” she
playfully said, holding her finger out to gently pet the bird’s grey feathers,
and the yellow downs of infantile hair that were left on its head and back.
“Wh—where am I?” the bird stuttered.
“What? You can talk too!” the girl
gleamed, giggling.
“How can I get out of here?” the
bird beseeched. “I fell down the drain. My family is on the roof.”
“Well, honestly,” the girl said,
while standing up, “I don’t know the way out. But I’m going to find out today.”
She whipped the wool rug a dozen
times in the air, her brick-colored hair bouncing in unison, as the dust and
dirt from the rug floated to the cement ground below.
“Hey you, watch it!” Reina, standing
below, angrily grumbled with a pipe between her shiny lips. The strings of her poorly-bleached
hair, lightened only with medical peroxide, framed her painted face and a
tightly laced crimson corset divulged her cleavage.
“Argh,” was all the young girl could
utter frustratedly in response, viciously throwing the rug back into the bedroom
and rolling it across the filthy wooden floor. She untied her apron and
crouched down to approach the fledgling again.
“Come on, sweetie,” she gently said
after a sigh of calm, wrapping the fledgling’s shivering body in the cotton
apron. “It’s chilly here. I’ll give you something to eat.” The bird said
nothing, wondering if this big creature were perhaps her new mother?
The girl collected her lantern and
carefully closed the worn French doors. Suddenly, she was set aback as the
bedroom door flew open and Sirena, one of the veterans of the house as she
neared her early-30s, pulled her slovenly client closer in a sloppy kiss. The
two threw themselves onto the floor mattress, which was adorned by a neatly
fitted sheet and blanket and two freshly fluffed pillows.
The fledgling tweeted in shock at
the clamor and movement. The girl, still holding her protectively in her apron,
quickly abandoned the room and exhaustedly shut the door behind her. She
stopped in her tracks and sighed again.
“That’s how it always goes,” she
grumbled to her new pet. “Right after I wash the linens and make the bed, and
they’re at it again.”
“What is this place?” the fledgling
asked, looking around, half afraid, half intrigued at seeing the mysterious
world. “I’ve never seen anything below the roof.”
“I ask myself the same question,”
the girl replied. “And I’ve spent every day of my life here.”
The young woman hurried to her
bedroom and shut the door. The cement walls were chill and damp, and she slept
on a layer of blankets and a flimsy pillow that leaked feathers. The fledgling
looked at the spill of white goose feathers next to the bed and swallowed. Uh
oh. Where did those come from?
The girl carefully let the bird free
to walk around the cold floor. She took out a piece of stale bread from a
basket next to her bed, and crumpled part of it. The young pigeon pecked at the
crumbs, realizing it was edible, and took them up into her beak.
“What’s your name?” the girl asked
the bird. “A name?” the bird questioned. “What’s that?”
“It’s what others call you,” she
replied.
“My name is Sombra. It means
‘shadow.’ My mother named me that because I was born in the shadows. I was born
in this house, underground. It’s as if she cursed me to the shadows forever,
but that’s actually not so. She told me to leave, and to look for the sun.”
Sombra broke a few more crumbs from the bread, remembering her last day with
her mother. It was only days ago.
At eight years old, Sombra had seen her
mother engulf the beauty of Aphrodite. Clear cream-colored skin, and thick,
brick-red hair like her daughter’s. All the while ,her clothes got tattered
over time, her health remained intact. All of the sudden, and perhaps it was
only in the consciousness of an adolescent, that Sombra watched her mother
degenerate month after month.
First, red rashes on her neck and
palms. Then all of her skin became sanguine, bumpy, and scaly, like a leper.
She couldn’t work anymore. She confined herself to her bedroom, her once soft
figure reduced to a depleted form, her hair falling out. Years passed, she lost
her ability to walk, and the other women watched her fade away, knowing it was
only contagious from the wrong man, and wondering if that would be their fate
as well. But none of them left. They needed the money. What other options did
they have?
Her mother told her to take to
cleaning the brothel, washing the clothes and managing the tanks of water that
came once a month from merchants of the upper-world. That way, the veterans of
the house wouldn’t force her into working like they did, as they too easily
could enslave her for the high profit that a young woman was worth there.
Sombra’s mother took her daughter’s delicate hand into her blistered, thin fingers. “You have to leave,” she coughed out.
Sombra’s mother took her daughter’s delicate hand into her blistered, thin fingers. “You have to leave,” she coughed out.
“To where?”
“Anywhere,” her mother gasped out.
“You need the sun and clean air. This place is ridden with diseases.”
Not yet forty, she looked as if
eighty. She hacked a dry cough and her daughter caressed her mother’s forehead.
“Luis Lujo,” she choked out.
“Who is that?”
“He is your father. I never forgot
his name. I never forget their names. Because…you never know.”
For the first time in her life,
Sombra registered that she had more than one parent. For all she had seen that
act of mating in that house, she had forgotten the prospect of procreation.
“Can I live with him?” Sombra asked.
“I don’t know. He doesn’t know you
exist. He was a married aristocrat. If he refuses you, don’t cry and don’t beg.
You will find your way.”
The fledgling looked up curiously as
Sombra finished narrating her tale. “But isn’t crying and begging the only way
that your mother knew to feed you?” the bird asked.
Sombra smiled. “I figured you were
hungry, even though you didn’t say so,” she remarked, and broke some more
crumbs for her bird to eat.
“My mother never gave me a name,”
the fledgling remarked.
“Well then. I’ll call you Paloma,”
Sombra said.
“What does ‘Paloma’ mean?” the
fledgling asked.
“It means ‘pigeon,’ just like you.” Sombra
giggled and Paloma didn’t know why. This species of unwinged giants was a
mystery to her. Sombra affectionately caressed the bird as it pecked up the
crumbs one by one.
Suddenly, the door swung open and
Paloma tweeted in distress. Sombra sped to the entrance protectively, finding
nothing more than a man covered in grey and black hairs, wrapped in a sheet
waist-down.
“Sorry, sorry, wrong room,” he
excused, roaming the hallway for who-knows-what-reason, Sombra thought to
herself. He proceeded to leave, and then looked back.
“By the way, how much are ya,
pretty?” he asked under his breath.
Sombra grumbled and slammed the door
in his face. “You see what I mean?” she asked Paloma. “I’m leaving today.”
Just then, Sombra caught sight of
three white and brown pools trailing the bird on the floor. “Oh,” she said
surprised. “Are you ok? Can I potty-train you?”
“What?” the bird questioned
innocently.
“Your…poop.”
“Isn’t that what everyone does?
Especially when you get alarmed?” Paloma asked meekly, wondering if she should
be ashamed.
Sombra sighed warmly at the
innocuous question, and gently pet the bird as a silent apology. “Come on,” she
finally said. “We need to get out of here.”
* * *
Sombra tried to slide through the dusty
salon as inconspicuously as possible, wrapped in a heavy, grey, wool cape that
she had inherited from her mother. Paloma poked her head out of the basket,
looking around to see where they were going. A lutist strummed an off-tune
chord and his raspy-voiced chorus was joined with those of the three ladies
around him. Reina howled a laugh, losing her balance sitting on the musician’s
lap next to his instrument. All of them quieted and looked up from their
revelry to see who had entered.
“While you’re out, bring back Rojo,”
Reina ordered, asking to see the local pub owner and substance dealer. “I’m out
of white gold.” She pointed to her pipe where she mixed tobacco and opium.
Dressed in her red velvet corset, she looked like a beaming aristocrat from neck
down.
But her sallow face showed the creases of wear from the
underworld, like makeup painted on raw dough.
“I’m not coming back,” Sombra
declared.
“What’s that you’ve got with you?”
Guapa squealed, laughing as she downed her whiskey diluted with water. “A
pigeon that you’d like to share with us for dinner?” Now only in her 20s, some
years ago Guapa’s mother had sent her out to the streets to sell handkerchiefs.
One night, after sleeping in the alleyway, she woke up to find herself robbed.
The man, Rojo, a gruff but handsome character, waved her goods mockingly and
convinced her to come with him to the infamous Pits. She had heard about
it, but deemed it perhaps only urban legend. Now it was her home, childhood
curiosity having taken the best of her.
“Come on,” Sombra said dubiously. “I
want to be free. Don’t you ever want to leave this place?”
“Leave this place? Be free?” Reina
howled in ridicule. “Where do you come up with these ideas, little girl?”
Sombra grit her teeth angrily. She
was tired of being treated like a child because she hadn’t taken to destroying
herself like the others had.
“We are the freest women in the
world,” Sirena declared. “Look at us. We have money. We have parties. We have
men, and lots of rich ones too. Would you rather be on the street up there?
Kicked around like a sick dog?”
“I’ll never know until I try,”
Sombra attested. With that, she flipped her hood over her head, and walked out
of the brothel without looking back.
“Well, stop her, won’t you!” Guapa
howled to Reina. “Who’s going to bring us water?”
“She won’t be able to stand it,” Reina assured. “She probably won’t even find her way out.
“She won’t be able to stand it,” Reina assured. “She probably won’t even find her way out.
She’ll be back.”
* * *
Paloma looked around her at the
narrow street, and the worn stone buildings connected by a cord of hanging
laundry. A chorus of children shouting, singing, or crying rang from the
windows above, as lone mothers and older siblings cooed in efforts to calm
them. It was the same sight and sound every day, Sombra remarked to herself.
But today was the last.
She pushed open the creaky pub door.
A couple of men turned around to behold the visitor, seeing it was the same
girl who tended the brothel and who came in every day to collect provisions.
Sombra slid onto the stool and pulled off her hood, preparing herself for a
serious conversation with Rojo, the owner. At his 40-something years, he was
still ruggedly attractive with his disheveled dirty blond hair, stubbled chin,
and—so they said—a fading, red sailor’s tattoo all across his back. It was no
wonder so many of the local children in the Pits resembled him, Sombra had
mused. He had been around.
The men sipped their drinks, staring
curiously as the little pigeon peeked her head out from the basket.
Sombra slid a few coins onto the
table. “A block of cheese and a baguette,” she asked. “And some water for my
bird.”
“What’s that you’ve got there?” Rojo
asked with a chuckle. “I found her on my balcony,” Sombra replied. “She’s a
baby.”
“Not in bird years!” Paloma
exclaimed defensively, a natural reaction being surrounded by these enormous,
hairy yet featherless beasts.
“Wohohoho,” Rojo howled, amused,
along with the other men. “And she talks?” Sombra sighed. “Look,” she began,
collecting the food that he slid onto the table. “Where’s the exit to this
place?”
“The exit! I haven’t been out in two
years!” he replied. Sombra squinted dubiously. “So?”
“Why leave?” he asked. “You have
everything here. And no rent to pay!” Sombra simply shook her head. No use in
arguing. She’d figure it out by herself.
She set the glass of water in front
of the basket. Paloma tweeted and after a few desperate flaps, perched herself
on the edge of the yellow weave. She jumped down and waddled over to the water, taking a few sips into
her beak. One of the men sitting on his stool heaved out a roarous burp, and
Paloma jumped in fear.
Sombra scowled at him angrily, and
gently placed the bird back in the basket.
“So,” she said to Rojo, collecting
the bread and cheese in a fabric sack. She realized that after eighteen years
in the Pits, and having befriended him for many of those years, she’d probably
never see him again. “Thank you. And—well—good luck.”
“Good luck to you, missy,” Rojo
replied, part in affection, part in pride, and part in lust. He watched the
grey figure with her basket walk out the door, and slid his arms onto the
counter, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Watch out!” one of the men
exclaimed, as Rojo lifted up his elbow to find Paloma’s signature white and
brown droppings staining his shirt.
“Damn it,” Rojo cursed. He shook his
head again. “I even gave her free drinks. Why’d she want to leave this place?”
* * *
Her basket hanging from her elbow
and a lantern in hand, Sombra went on her way down the end of the alley, and
found a passageway to the right that she had never before visited. Not unlike
the rest of her neighborhood, it was dark, damp, and wreaked of dirty rain
water. She meandered, following the narrow stone walls until a loud squeak
stopped her in her tracks. Paloma tweeted a nervous retort.
Two tiny, menacing yellow eyes
glared at the girl and bird in the darkness. “This is my house,” Sombra heard a
voice declare.
“Huh?” she said in confusion,
squinting her eyes to make out what kind of creature was standing in her way.
Trying to maneuver all the cargo in her hands, Sombra lowered the lantern. Only
then did she see four tiny pink paws scramble towards her feet, and the
sneering snout of the rat.
“That’s right,” the rat asserted.
“This is my house. You’re not allowed here.”
“What?” Sombra said in ridicule.
“We all share the Pits. None of it is anyone’s private
property.”
Paloma heaved another nervous tweet,
and caught off guard, the rat cowered.
“Is this the way out?” Sombra finally asked, pointing down the musty passageway.
“Are you going out? And never coming back?” the rat demanded.
“Is this the way out?” Sombra finally asked, pointing down the musty passageway.
“Are you going out? And never coming back?” the rat demanded.
“Well, indeed little sir, that’s my
intention,” Sombra replied with a chuckle.
The rat felt he was being mocked,
and nibbled on Sombra’s shoe to remind her of his power. Sombra shook it and
threw him aback.
“Then go!” the rat shouted. “But
stay out of my house.” He pointed his nose towards the end of passageway.
“How much further is the exit?”
Sombra asked.
“Turn at the next corridor, and the
next, and the next…but beware, it might be someone’s house too.”
* * *
At last, the moist, putrid pavement
reached an incline. Bars of sunlight glistened from the sealing, extending down
the inclined floor like a trailing carpet of welcome. Sombra set down her
lantern, mesmerized by the prospect it meant. Her wooden heels clanked like a
horse’s hooves as she eagerly approached the grating.
“Look at this, Paloma,” she beamed.
“The door that nobody has bothered to seek.”
“I fell down one of those,” Paloma remarked. “It seems dangerous.”
“I fell down one of those,” Paloma remarked. “It seems dangerous.”
Sombra simply tittered, and placed
down the basket gently in preparation for opening the window to paradise, or so
it seemed. She slid her fingers through the grates, and pushed as hard as she
could. The drain loosened, but refused to open. She shook it back and forth,
and saw a glossy, russet oval drop onto the collar of her cape.
“Ack!” she cried, throwing her arms
down and stepping back.
“Wait!” the creature cried, waving its two antennae before Sombra could smack it aside. “Don’t kill me!”
“Wait!” the creature cried, waving its two antennae before Sombra could smack it aside. “Don’t kill me!”
“I’m not going to kill you,” Sombra
assured. “But you’re an ugly thing.”
“Beauty is relative. To me, you’re
an under-legged colossus,” the cockroach replied.
Dubious, but empathetic, Sombra set
down her hand so the creature could climb on top of it, and she held it in
front of her to get a better view. She extended her arm so the articulate
creepy-crawly could climb onto the wall, and he courteously abided.
“You’re trying to open it, aren’t
you?” The cockroach asked.
“Yes. Is it possible?” Sombra asked.
Paloma raised her beak into the air
and let out a squeak. The cockroach jumped in place.
“What’s that?” he cried.
“Your friend will eat me.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Sombra replied.
“Well, hairy giant, all I can say is
that nobody has opened this grate in 25 years. So that’s why it won’t budge.”
“Then what shall I do?” Sombra
asked, realizing her own despondency after her absolute resolution of the day.
“I think your beaked friend can help
you,” the wise cockroach suggested. “But he—or she? —is going up there without
me. I’ve heard some scary stories about those creatures.”
Sombra thought for a moment. The
cockroach nodded as an indication that it was his final word, and quickly
tottered away, proud that he could be of some use after what felt like years of
meaningless existence. Sombra picked up the basket.
“Did you hear that?” she asked,
looking at the fledgling’s beady black eyes that blinked a few times, wide-set
on her tiny grey head.
“Yes,” Paloma replied. “But I didn’t
understand.”
“I think you can peck our way out,”
Sombra replied. “Let me help you up there and you can take a look.”
“I’m afraid,” Paloma peeped.
“Don’t be,” Sombra said, caressing Paloma’s
feathers. “That’s where you came from.”
Paloma hesitantly perched herself on
the back of Sombra’s hand, still wobbly in her young
age. Sombra raised the bird up through the widest gap in the
grating, and Paloma hobbled onto the pavement next to the drain. She moved her
head about, hopping to and fro, examining what was blocking the grating.
Suddenly, a four-legged monster zoomed past her with a roar, but luckily didn’t
seem to take notice of the small bird. Paloma gasped, and then sighed.
“Any luck?” she heard from below the
grating.
“I’m trying,” Paloma replied. She
pecked what she found of crusted dirt, cement, grass, and cakes of food bits
surrounding the metal. She pecked and pecked, until her neck hurt, and then
pecked some more. She saw Sombra’s bright hazel eyes peer through the gap from
below, examining the happenings as much as she could.
“Let me try again,” Sombra declared.
“Stay clear, darling.” She maneuvered the grating back and forth, and then
pushed, feeling it suddenly pop open with relative ease. Paloma tweeted in joy,
and hopped onto the edge of the sidewalk. Sombra unbuttoned the collar of her
cape, and threw it through the drain hole onto
the side of the street, across from Paloma. Oblivious to the skinning of her
elbows, she laboriously pulled herself up through the narrow hole.
Sombra dusted herself off, and
recovered the grating from where it had come, the corners of her lips
gloriously curling up. She bent down and held out her hand to pick up Paloma,
and the two beheld the luminous world around them.
Another monster zoomed by.
“What’s that?” Sombra exclaimed, her
smile sinking.
She had been so overwhelmed with the
momentary euphoria of freedom, that only then did she closer scrutinize her
surroundings. Sleek, gargantuan cyclops in silver, white, red, and blue, with
circular legs and one massive eye for vision. Towering buildings in which
people sorted in and out through…rolling pins. Humans enslaved to dogs through
metal chains.
Pedestrians bound to their leather
picnic baskets with thin black cords. What was this place? It definitely wasn’t
the 18th century Europe she’d heard of. Sombra suddenly felt as naïve as her
beloved fledgling companion who had lamely fallen from the sky.
She pulled out from the corner of
her shoe a small piece of linen, bleeding black ink from a name scribbled on
it: “Luis Lujo.” Indeed, now was the opportunity to seek her father’s
whereabouts. Sombra decided to inquire a townsperson, Eager to inquire a
townsperson about her father’s whereabouts, and waved to a shiny beige cyclops,
hoping it was the friendly type like the tiny creatures of the Pits. It ran
past her without even a flinch. How rude! Sombra said to herself. Just when
she’d thought she’d known far too much about the decadence of humanity, enough
to rip away a young woman’s innocence before her time, she realized that she
knew absolutely nothing.
