Little Bird

By Seth Chambers

There was always something different about Sun Song Shia, but like most little girls she just wanted to be loved. Strangely, it wasn't until the Chinese government stuck her in a research facility that she found the love and acceptance she craved. Song Shia returned to her parents only to be met with wariness and even fear. She craved her Baba's love most of all, but that love came at a terrible price.

 

Song fled to Chicago, a Safe Zone for her kind, and there she fell in love with a museum curator named Alex. She warned Alex from the beginning that he should run like hell, but he didn't listen. Then all hell broke loose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seth Chambers
• Release date: Jun 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223760665

Seth Chambers

Seth Chambers is writer of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. His work has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, and the 2015 Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novellas. He is now making a foray into screenplay writing, with the aim of seeing his visions blazed across the silver screen. Seth served in the army as an infantry medic, labored on a multitude of farms, and worked as a bike messenger in Chicago for twelve years. He currently lives in Florida with PJ Chambers (his wonderful wife), Grey Kitty (his perfect cat), and Babé (his adorable pit bull). Seth can be contacted at [e-mail].

Book preview

1

Even before she had words for heart and blood, she sensed the fluttery bird pushing life water throughout her body. She felt the blood pulse and flow through tiny tubes in her limbs and even sensed the one-way valves that kept it from backing up into her heart. Long before she had words, she knew her organs and what they did. She sent her consciousness through her body: watching, listening, learning.

A man placed a cold, round piece of metal on her chest and she knew he was listening to that fluttery little bird within. She sped it up so that its individual beats blurred together so fast they no longer pushed the fluid through the tubes. Then she slowed it way, way down so the beats came only at long intervals. A commotion arose. The man with the round piece of metal seemed upset. She didn't mean to upset him. She let the little bird in her chest beat as it normally did. The man smiled at her and she smiled back.

She liked the man. She felt her pupils open wide to let in more of this man's face. She grabbed two of his fingers in her tiny hand and held tight. The man tried to pull away but could not. Not until she let him.

The man turned toward her Baba and made sounds: She's strong.

She didn't know what the sounds meant. She just knew she liked the man and she loved her Baba. She felt the muscles in her face move in response to him.

And very cute, added the man.

Her Baba looked down at her.

She's still a girl.

She didn't know what the sound meant but she didn't like the feel of them in her ears. Then her Baba turned away and walked out of the room. Song Shia cried but Baba stayed gone. She knew that someday she would learn to make the right sounds, the sounds that would make Baba come back.

2

I didn't know it when I met her, but a woman like Song Shia could have any man she wanted. I suppose it was inevitable that we would meet at a museum. I work at the Field and haunt the other museums in my spare time: the Art Institute, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Chicago History Museum, the Children's Museum, you name it. Everything except the Museum of Modern Art. A man must retain his standards, after all.

I spend my days cataloging and authenticating exhibits as they come in. It is dry, dull, painstaking work. I love it, always have. I like to take things very slow, look at everything from every angle before making an evaluation. In college, I went on an archaeological dig and was perfectly content to spend entire days brushing sediment, layer by layer and mote by mote, from tiny slivers of bone.

Song Shia and I met on an April Monday at the Field a few minutes after my shift. It was something about the way she gazed at the gargantuan sauropod skeleton that first intrigued me. I could relate. Her eyes gleamed and it is so rare for me to notice a woman's eyes before anything else. I am a man, after all. Ah, but her eyes were blue and clear and deep.

The rest of her wasn't so attractive. She looked lopsided, as if one leg was slightly shorter than the other. She was plump, but not in the right places; her dark skin was blotched with psoriasis, and crooked teeth jutted from behind thin lips.

Her eyes, so pretty and deep and sad, did not go with the rest of her.

I walked up to her. Slowly, because that's the way I do things. I have never been smooth with women. I said: Paleontologists used to call it brontosaurus. Now they dub it apatosaurus.

She didn't turn toward me, just kept staring at the skeleton.

Fuckers, she said. They should have left the name alone. Everything has to change, change, change, doesn't it?

Now she faced me. Dry hair framed a homely face with an oversized nose. A drab dress hung from her body like a sack.

My name is Song Shia. Sometimes I go by Sing Song. But you can just me Song.

Alex. It's nice to meet you.

It's Chinese. I'm from Shanghai. Do you want to get shanghaied?

If she had been a little hottie, I might have batted the flirtatious repartee right back at her, but I didn't. I'm shallow. I smiled politely and shook her outstretched, crooked hand. I wanted to pull away. I never wanted to let go. A woman like Song Shia can have any man she wants. But I didn't know that. Not then.

A petty thought flashed through my mind: She's awfully confident for an ugly girl.

I looked into her beautiful eyes.

Come with me. I'll show you something that doesn't change.

Really.

Yes. Really. If you're interested.

I'm tingling with excitement, Alex. Lead on.

She took my hand and I led her through the exhibits and key-carded us into the vast storehouse in back, the museum-within-a-museum where I spend my days doing wonderful, tedious work.

Her hand was warm in mine.

Here, I said. It goes on display tomorrow.

Song looked upon the slab of bone.

It's an armor plate from an ankylosaur. Real, not a replica. This piece of bone has not changed for sixty-five million years, Song.

As I said, I'm awkward with women. But this time, with this woman, I got it right. Her beautiful eyes glistened.

Can I touch it?

Yes.

She gave my hand a squeeze before letting go. She knelt and placed her palms on the bone and it was like a dam broke open. Song wept. At the time I had no clue why.

3

When she was six years old she wanted to be a bird.

Baba had taken her to their favorite park.

Soon this will all be gone, he told her. Enjoy it now. Next year there will be magnificent buildings everywhere you look.

They looked off in the distance at all the construction going on: massive machines and the skeletons of new buildings.

Look there, Baba! she called. There's a sparrowhawk in that tree.

Her Baba looked and his face lit up. She had a talent for finding feathers and it always delighted her Baba.

Song Shia, I don't know how you do it! I never would have seen him without you.

Look there, Baba. Quick!

Now he looked off in the direction she pointed and his eyes grew bigger than ever. It was a white egret in mid flight, there one second and gone the next. After the bird had passed, her Baba looked down at Song Shia with wonder still on his face.

Her Baba loved birds. Sometimes his most somber moods were broken by the passing of a certain bird and then he'd talk with delight about all the fowl he'd seen around Shanghai and in his travels to America.

They are so free, Baba!

Oh, no, Song Shia. Birds are anything but free. They must eat constantly because their hearts are always beating so fast. They must be forever alert and always ready to take flight.

Oh. I didn't know.

But they are fascinating, aren't they? So many different kinds, all around the world, everywhere you go. They're not free, but nothing can keep them down.

They looked around at the birds in the park, then again at the construction going on not far away.

I don't want them to tear down my park, Baba.

It's not your park, Song Shia.

Where will all the birds go?

They will find a place. Nothing can keep them down.

They're going to tear down all my trees.

It is necessary. Shanghai is growing. The world is growing. Everything changes.

I wish things didn't have to change, Baba.

Her Baba didn't say anything. He was busy watching a small flock of turtledoves.

What if I were a bird? Wouldn't Baba just love me then?

She went over to her favorite tree and gave it a big hug. She began to climb while Baba was still watching the birds. She had feathers in her pocket. When she reached the first branch, she took the feathers out and stuck the quills into the sleeves of her shirt. She tied some into her hair. She looked over at Baba but he wasn't watching.

Song Shia climbed higher. It was easy for her. Nobody could ever believe how strong she was. She kept going.

Look at me, Baba!

Now he looked. At first the sun blinded him, but then he saw her. She looked down at him, smiling. She really was a long ways up, but that was okay. She had lots of feathers, just like a bird.

Song Shia, climb down!

I don't want to climb down. I want to fly!

No!

Look at me, Baba!

Song Shia, no! Hold on, I'm coming up after you.

Her Baba started to climb the tree, but he was too big for the higher branches and he wasn't dressed for climbing trees. His dress shoes slipped against the side of the tree.

Stay there! he shouted.

She knew she shouldn't be disobedient, but she really wanted to fly.

Her Baba called out to her again, pleading now. Other parents had started to gather around and point at her. She was bringing shame to her Baba and it was stupid to think she could fly.

She stood on the branch. She'd climb down. That was the thing to do. Yes. Or maybe it would be better to fly down, fly down now before Baba got too high. She'd show Baba that--

She didn't know whether she had jumped or tripped, but suddenly she was falling. The wind rippled through the feathers and for one moment the feathers caught the wind. For one moment she was flying. She was sure of it!

The moment passed in a flash. She tried flapping her arms like wings but it did no good. She plunged toward the ground, screaming.

4

I am not a saint. Looks matter. A woman doesn't have to be a beauty queen for me to be attracted to her, but she has to have something to entice me.

I make no claims of being particularly good looking. I keep in shape, running a bit and lifting weights a couple times a week. I'm not exactly movie-star handsome but I'm fit and healthy. Given a choice, I date women who are better looking than myself. Yes, they are usually a bit more troublesome but hey, I admit it: I'm shallow.

With Song, her only physically attractive feature was her eyes. I was drawn to her in spite of her bland face, dumpy body, and blotchy skin. A certain charge crackled in the air between us. And yet, when she threw out that flirtatious comment about being shanghaied, I let it slide. It flashed across my mind in a nanosecond: how would it look if I presented her to my friends and coworkers as my new girlfriend? They would be polite but unimpressed.

As I said: I'm shallow.

I put Song in the friends category. Nothing wrong with that, right? Women do it to me all the time. I liked her. As a friend. When I called her the next day and suggested we get some supper downtown then hit an art museum, I did it casually. Like two friends getting together.

Just so long as it's not modern art, Song said. Modern art sucks dick. And not in any good way.

Over the phone, listening to her voice and thinking about her eyes, I could almost have fallen in love. What a delicious mixture of culture and crudeness!

Let's do German, she said. I'm in the mood for German. Can you deal with that?

I said German was fine so we decided to go to The Berghoff, then walk to the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue. Just as we met up, a mob of protesters came marching along Adams Street.

Oh, look at this! Song all but squealed.

I shrugged. It seemed everybody had something to protest. Throngs were always marching, chanting, bearing signs and shouting. This group waved placards reading: NO MORPHLINGS IN CHICAGO! They shouted: Morphlings are an abomination! No Safe Zone in Chicago!

I pulled Song aside while the group passed by. A couple of the protesters tried to hand us fliers. I glared and Song smiled like a lunatic, but neither of us took the propaganda.

Inside The Berghoff, we ordered two servings of stuffed-mushroom appetizers and she wolfed most of them down before I could get started. Then, over our main course, I became acquainted with what I would later come to dub Sing Song Moments. The first Sing Song Moment came after our conversation got rolling along. We were talking and laughing and I flippantly said something like, Oh, I see how you are. At that, Song closed down and spat, "Alex, you don't know any damn thing about me. Not. One. Thing."

That led to a bit of awkward silence. I picked at my gnocchi and fumbled with an apology, but we moved past it. The second Sing Song Moment almost ruined the evening. We got our conversation back on track and things were going pretty well when I asked what she did for a living. This is always a hit-or-miss kind of question, but her previous comment had been correct: I didn't know anything about her, except that she enjoyed great works of art and had one hell of a mouth on her. Song had a way of sidestepping questions about her past and her family and what the hell she did all day besides frequent museums.

Who says I do anything for a living? she said, again with that edge to her voice.

Well.

The government gives me money, Alex.

Okay.

They give me money and these big bricks of cheese. Is that what you want to know? Any other questions about what I do for a living?

I had no response. Fortunately, our waiter came by with the dessert menu and Song squealed with delight, and our evening rolled over its second speed bump. Song ordered herself two slices of black forest cake and assured me, Don't worry, I'm paying my portion. This is just a 'friends date,' right? I mean, you don't want to fuck me or anything. If you do, then you can pick up the check. Still cheaper than a whore, right?

Song dug into her cake while I gaped, dumbfounded and at a loss for anything to say.

We split the check.

I considered bailing on the second half of our 'friends date.' Did I really want to socialize with a crass, unattractive, foul-mouthed, and mentally unstable welfare queen? And yet, despite it all, or maybe because of it all, I liked her. We continued our evening.

I don't know whether to classify what happened at the Art Institute another Sing Song Moment or not. We were in the Grand Hall in front of the