Malaika

The moon was shining straight through the window. There was a waft-through smell like smoked rain. Outside, the wind was at its lowest growl. She lay on her back on top of the bed, with the net rolled back, in the very centre of the room, pointing a line like a compass needle, straight from the window to the fire. The embers in the fireplace were still smoking. The candle on the mantelpiece scrubbed a grubby pattern into the air. Her eyes were flicking fast and tight-rhythmed in her sleep, motes of dust rising away from her eyelashes with each flick.

The birds flew in from everywhere, everywhere but the open window, a new creature appearing with each blink: they flew in particle by particle, materialised from every square inch of wall, floor and ceiling, particle by particle squeezing into a feather, feather by feather squeezing into a bird, and each bird then part of a mass assimilation into a flaunting of white feathers that was as frenzied and controlled as a bee-swarm, sticking and merging into itself, constantly burying and re-emerging, but eventually sucked down and losing its identity and becoming absorbed into a figure that was all shadow yet gave no shadow.

So now the angel was there, like a glued-together feather scarecrow released to the wind, its body fluttering, yet giving no indication that there was anything there beneath it as it remained close to the bed, head slightly bowed, nervy and unsettled, like something standing on stilts, trying to stay in the same place.

A curl of the wind tore the candle smoke upwards. Her eyes flickered again, and opened. She said, "Angel, were I not defeated by the lack of good fortune, I would marry you." The angel did not reply: she knew that he could not. A brief cloud passed across the moon, and the visibility was blanched away. The wind seemed to whisper, "Wish what you wish for, but do not regret what happens."

And within the room, within the dark, things fell, things fell in separate metallic collisions of things unknown onto something unseen, until the moonlight bled through again and she was beneath a counterpane of outsize coins sewn together that started to clank when she moved until they were too many for her and she could no longer move her body and she could feel her breath being squeezed back into her.

She screamed, silently. The angel stood, silent also, the wind riffling its feathers. Each scream was like a dry retch from her soul and for each of these screams that was uttered but not heard, a coin materialised itself into a bird and the birds flung themselves against the walls, to form framed images of her life, edged out in feathers, that were hung around her room, progressively larger then progressively smaller, feather-waving in the breeze until the last one, which was still.

And there were six pictures displayed that showed things that had already happened. And they were all from her point of view, so she did not appear in any of them. And these are what they were:

1. Her birth. Gazing up at worried and happy faces.
2. Her initiation. The blurring of the feathers matching the remembered blur of the vision through her pain-clenched eyes.
3. The first malaria war and the killing of her parents.
4. The boy in the cave.
5. The baby being born and the insect settling on his face.
6. The faces of the soldiers who were to bring her to this room.

And there was one picture displayed that showed her now in the room, and showed all she could see in her temporary paralysis: the bottom of the bed; the fire; the single candlestick on the mantelpiece; the angel.

And there were six more pictures displayed and these were the pictures of the events that were yet to happen and they were all of shapes so confused and so abstract that no meaning could be discerned from them and the further round the room they stretched, the more scorched and tangled they became, until finally there was a charred mass of feathers signifying nothing and signifying everything. And this blank picture was duplicated above the six, larger, but just as charred as the last one below it, like a choice, a dance with a deferred destiny.

She closed her eyes. She could still see shapes darkening round the room.

She opened her eyes. She said, "Angel, were I not defeated by the lack of good fortune, I would marry you." The angel did not reply: again, she knew that he could not.

The wind outside hurled the bats and moths and loose leaves up over the roofline, clacking the splintered shutters, and this time it seemed to grumble rather than whisper, and what it grumbled was: "There is nothing left to wish for."

The angel shifted position. Surprisingly, the floorboards creaked. Minute particles of dust flew up. The angel sneezed. Feathers ruffled up and resettled on the angel's skin. The angel sneezed again. This time his sneezes shivered parts of himself back into birds. And again, with more released until they were everywhere and he was nowhere. They flew through the window and returned, but her eyes remained open and it seemed so long it felt like a migration, as if seasons had fizzed through her body then settled again. They were above her. They died. Together. They fell, instantly denuded, their feathers staying lodged in the air. They settled on her, joined: a bare body constructed from bare bodies.

The embers in the fireplace had died down.

Now the plucked remains of the angel were on her, slithering down and merging. And the meat easing through meat. And the grind-through-grind of the skin-through-skin and the skin-bite against skin-bite and a mutual smirking and the scratch against scratch and the moan-groan against moan-groan and the open-eyed surprise that shrugged them against each other, and the gasp against gasp and the shared astonishment as they went through each other and out the other side. And all the while feathers dropping. And the spill against each other in the blisters and the grit and the scalding until they were a confused and scraped-apart mixture of everything. And the moon lurching parts of itself into the room: bits of hot rock searing through them, white heat and white light until they were burnt and dazzled. And all the while the feathers dropping. Until two were one. Until two were two again, shaking together beneath the counterpane of feathers. Until there was only one and the other one no longer there, shivered into escaped birds and away. And almost half the feather-pictures gone also, evaporated back to feathers that didn't settle, feathers polluting the atmosphere, feathers unable to renege back to birds. And only the past and the present remained.

Until finally they were settled. And then everything was still, everything but the jostling of feathers, fighting against each other in an echo of the recent skirmish and fighting against the wind in a spurt of growth as the moon bled light through the ice and dust of the windows and the wind died away and hung heavy in the silence.

There was still a body lying on the bed. It was still composed of the plucked birds, fused from the discarded pimpled carcasses.

And there was a feathering around and a mingling and an assimilation. And tiny stitch pains knitted against her skin. And something was there. And it was called angel. And this time the angel was composed of the feathers of the dead birds.

It was apparent that he could not move. He opened his eyes. He said, "Angel, were I not defeated by the lack of good fortune, I would marry you." The angel did not reply: she knew that she could not. All she could do was wait, serenaded by the hanging heaviness of his words. And a full cloud obscured the moon, and the room grew dark again. And she felt herself unravelling, back into birds, back into feathers, back into particles, back through the open window, back to the waking world, back to the soldiers, back to the next interrogation, leaving him alone on her bed, with the net still rolled back, pointing a line like a compass needle, straight from the window to the fire, as the wind retreated and the stench of singed feathers started to subside, and the room began to smell of nothing but uncovered meat.