An Unwelcome Return
November 21, 2036
9:32 am
The birds that disappeared into the egg on June 10 were ducks, geese, sparrows, robins, hawks, and even a few bald eagles. Birds that a Michigan resident would recognize if they had lived in the state any length of time. All beautiful in their own unique ways. This was why, when they suddenly became absent from the landscape and the skies above, lured away into some mystery of an alien contraption by a promise only they could hear, a growing sense of dread began to exhale itself across the city of Detroit like a poison cloud. Always thought of and referred to as intensely and strictly ‘urban’, as if those were the only definitions that could possibly fit a location so less-than-white, the undisputed beauty of Belle Isle and its native wildlife insisted how much more there was to Detroit’s chronically misunderstood mythology.
But then the birds were gone. Whatever called to them from inside the egg promised better than their time spent this side of reality, so when given the opportunity to choose, they chose somewhere else. It wasn’t long before the slim, bony fingers of self-doubt began to resume their chokehold around the throat of a city that needed nothing less than it needed this. After everything had finally begun to go right, after the corner was finally being turned.
Why would the birds leave us now? Was the question no one asked out loud, but that was etched onto grim and pained faces drawn tight, working to resist the temptation and familiarity of failure.
But when the birds returned, sounding like the clarions of an undiscovered hell, their grotesque and twisted forms defining the winged shadows of a rage long-suppressed, that was no longer the question. Now the question was simple:
Why?