By Delaney Kelly

Where his brain and eyes should be, the man just has his birds. They don’t see for him, they don’t think for him, they just want breadcrumbs and a place to stretch their wings. Today, they’re hungry. They poke at the lining of his skull and emit loud caws that echo in the cavern where his ear canal begins. The man feels his head slick with birth. There are young ones to feed.

His crooked shoulders rise, bent as knuckles connecting with pavement. This is how they do it: beaks pluck at nerves like jumper cables to a corpse. To the park they go, the man’s limbs piloted by forty birds on a mission. Caw caw, they say. The park is getting closer. The air smells of wet hot dogs sliding into buns, the scrape of cheese onto mats of meat. The birds rattle in their bone cage. They’re here! White excrement squeaks out, slides around his cranium like raw egg on a frying pan. Their primal longing is palpable. The man craves a hot dog. Instead his hand reaches for the ground, feeling for crumbs. He has been overruled.

Babushka sits further down the bench, nursing a Tupperware packed with kielbasa and sauerkraut. The man’s mouth, untethered by birds, waters. The sweet aroma of flesh fills his nostrils, reminds him of a time before there were feathers in his frontal lobe. Babushka shakes free a plastic baggy from her purse. Squawk, the birds say, which the man knows means over here! They perch and wait for the promise of something sprinkled at the feet that do not belong to them.

The sound of crumbs fall free and patter against the sidewalk. Squawk squawk, the birds cry, vocal cords flapping like taut rubber bands. The man’s hand reaches for the fallen gold, but is met with a territorial yawp. A squirrel chitters over the horde. It grasps for the stale bread in furry fistfuls. The birds leap from their stoop so suddenly the man’s head wobbles on its stem. Baby birds shake free their slimy membranes, their beaks wide and angry.

CAW! CAW! CAW!

The combined force of their jumping propels the man forward, off the bench, face to the gravel. The squirrel skirts away. Babushka shuts tight her tupper. CAW, the birds command. The man complies. His teeth scrape against concrete, sweeping up crumbs as if panning for gold. The crunch of bones is muffled by the flap of starving birds.

He rises. Feels a little…lighter. The birds are silent. He moves to exit the park. Mission accomplished. The man wonders where he parked his car, wonders about the last time he drove a car. He still wants that hot dog. The birds, bellies full, sit heavier in his head. They make no move to commandeer his limbs. He feels the lump of the car keys in his pocket. Presses the alarm. His car is just around the corner! The man savors the steadiness of his stride. Pays no mind when the birds have risen from their roost, hovering at the roof of his skull, the euphoric flutter of satiated beaks. Doesn’t feel the tip of his rubber soles dragging on the gravel, heels to the sky.

Finally, he has learned how to fly.