Icarus

The birds had given him the idea. After all, they were his only visitors. He couldn’t recall when the idea first took root, but amid the fog of days, it began to grow into something magnificent.

Most were too quick to dismiss birds, thinking them simple creatures. He too had given them little attention, but as the isolation dragged on, he studied them more closely. Soon, he realised they studied him too. One long night, the glint of a distant aircraft flashed in a hundred, beady eyes on the opposite roof.

He resolved to win them over, and so began his nightly habit of squirrelling away his meagre lunch and presenting the crumbs on the ledge. They were cautious, but after several days, if he remained very still, they would deign to claim his offering. And so he watched.

He watched how they would strut and fuss among themselves, as though the rest of the world was trivial. He watched them croon and stretch and caw and roost. Most importantly, he watched them fly, unfurling their wings like switchblades to cut through the air. Even a short drop to the story below was an act of aerial grace. Soon, he struggled to focus on anything else.

When he first pocketed the stray feathers, he assumed it was sentimentality, simple gratitude for the little souvenirs they left behind. But, though he did not wish to acknowledge it, he could feel the realisation slowly squirm its way to the surface.

Months slouched on, but by March, he had only amassed several dozen. It would not be enough. As he watched them scrape at the window, hopping eagerly from foot to foot, he knew he would have to change tact. That night, he gave them all he had.

And so it was that one overcast morning, the council were called following a deluge of complaints. People did not know where the carcasses were coming from, but the now sizable heap of naked, little bodies had begun to fester. A team was dispatched, and with them a small retinue of supervisors, managers and anyone with the appropriate air of superiority.

And so it was that the small crowd of onlookers were perfectly placed to spot what could only be compared to an angel. They all watched in awe, as it heaved its way onto the tower block ledge, unfurled its vast wings, and hopped off with angelic indifference.

Their wonder continued all the way to the very moment the body hit the concrete.

The clean up didn’t take long, in twenty minutes there wasn’t a trace. While the sanitation team had little difficulty scraping him from the pavement, the coroners and mortician could not separate man from bird.