The top world is shiny. So many colours of aqua, blue and violet. It sparkles and flashes and calls to me to come and fly. It has a giant hot bird that flies slow across each day and each dark time. When the giant bird goes to its nest so do I. The heat falls down onto my back today as I run and run and pretend I am flying. I am flying in the top world just like Ma and Da. Ma and Da spend most of the light time looking for food for me. I call loudest but sometimes they give some of my food to my brother Kah. This makes me mad as I am ravenous and I peck Kah good. When I get the food first Kah gives me a peck, so that’s alright. The food comes from the below world. The below world has so much food that featherless birds do not need to fly to get it. The featherless must also like shiny things and that’s why they nests that are made of physodellic colours. They climb in and out of the nests and the nests move sometimes real fast and sometimes, when there are a lot of them together, real slow. I watch them all from the very edge of my world and Ma says. ‘Careful don’t fall down you can’t fly yet stupid.’ There are no eggs in the featherless’ nests but sometimes they have the chicks of the featherless and sometimes they have food in there. The featherless do not fly because they have not grown up properly, not like me. I have lovely brown feathers and my Ma says the feathers on my wings are getting bigger everyday and when they are big enough I can fly and get my own food. I hope that that happens real soon as Ma never brings me enough although I am way hungrier than Kah. Where is Ma and Da and my food. I stand on the very tip of the world both to be near the top world where Ma and Da are calling from and to see most of the bottom world where the featherless and the food comes from. Kah yells at me to let him up and we start to fight again, then the light and shiny is gone. It’s black and no light and my body says you are going down, down, down and put your wings up quick. So I do and my right wing bangs, a feathers pull the wrong way and I am not going down, but it hurts and I cry for Ma to help me and I hear Da say ‘where are you son?’ I am crying ‘hurts, hurts, hurts’ and ‘dark’. My Ma and Da are both crying ‘where are you?’ I can hear them and I can hear the featherless make there strange sounds very near me. Have they managed to fly into my dark nest? Maybe it’ dark time and I should go to sleep. There is stuff falling into my beak that tastes bad. I can’t breathe. ‘Dada,’ I cry, going back to baby speech in my panic. Some of my feathers pull out, I bring my poor wing in and now I am falling again. Bang, it’s bright again. My eyes hurt and I cannot see.
I have skipped lunch as is quite typical at month end. The seagulls’ cacophony is competing with the incessant road works and I am getting a headache. There is a knock on my office door, I look up from my accounts which are refusing to balance. The cleaner looks in. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Mark sent me, there is a bird stuck in the Chimney and it’s making a terrible racket. He’s had to move meeting rooms.’ Donna looks pale she’s deadly afraid of birds I know this but feel no sympathy only mild irritation. Donna is afraid of her own shadow and refuses to work in the basement alone as she swears it’s haunted. Actually in fairness it is reputed to be haunted and I will bloody kill whichever member of staff that has told Donna this. ‘It really is making a terrible noise, I think it’s dying,’ she says in a quavering voice. I am silent in my vexation. For some reason people believe that mundane jobs such as eliminating birds fall to me. My mind searches for quick ways to remove a bird from a chimney, the DSPCA? Dublin City Council pest control? This is going to take time and I have to get the accounts to the Board today for heavens sake. My stomach growls my anger; it’s had no food and too much coffee. In a foul temper, letting everyone know it, I fling open my office door. Nearly tripping over several levels arch files on the way, I head towards the stairs with a growl. The ground and first floors of the house make a striking contrast to the 1970s brown carpeted, fluorescent-lit offices above. The landing today is splendid with early afternoon sunlight falling onto its Rococo plasterwork featuring of all things fanciful birds playing amongst vine leaves and flowers and violins. For two hundred and sixty years these birds have watched the comings and goings of the house. Ladies, gentlemen, school teachers, priests, office workers, children, yes lots and lots of children and more than one bird from the outside world. They are unconcerned and do not care much about the mortals that come and go below their stare and care less for our petty dramas. I am suddenly sure that the house has seen this all before and is laughing at me. I keep my back to them as I walk down the staircase to the ground floor meeting room we call the Library. I find Donna standing with her back to the closed door looking pale. ‘it got out of the chimney, it’s running loose inside’.
Where am I? Wow it’s bright! This is not the nest, the top world or the bottom worl The ground is soft. Am I going to fall through it? I don't like this. Maybe I should run incase I fall again. I want hard ground that is cold at night and warm in the day. I can hear my Ma and Da calling, far, far, far away but I am too scared to say anything. I runs and runs but can’t find my Ma, Da, Kah, the top or the bottom worlds. I can’t find anything I have seen before. I keeps running into things and banging my beak. The poop keeps coming out and I am still too scared to call for Ma and Da. There’s a featherless but it’s big like one hundred times bigger than the ones that live on bottom world. It makes a noise that is worse than a crows, how ugly it is and it has no food. It goes away, where am I? There is no blue shiny top world above me and I cannot find the edge to see the bottom world. Instead I keep hitting my beak against where the edge should be. This does not make sense.
With a sigh I pull the large Georgian door towards me. It drags a little over the carpet, I must get that seen to. Inside there is a fledgling gull, replete with brown spotted feathers, running about and looking bewildered. It keeps crashing into tables and chairs but it is not doing too much harm. Well except for the excrement and soot it has left in it’s wake. To young to fly yet I guess. I look around, the bird will need to be removed so that Lucy can clean up its mess in time for the next meeting. The carpet should clean okay it’s hotel standard after all. A fledgling can’t fly but can be shoed, so this shouldn’t take too long and then I can get back to the balance sheet. ‘Close the door to the back staircase’ I instruct Donna. She does as I ask and then hides herself behind the reception desk as she realises what I am about to do. I open the front door and then enter the meeting room once again. Another featherless is here. It’s not making that bad crow sound but sounds like the featherless normally do in the below world except much much louder. It keeps coming towards me, so I run away but then there is an edge that is not an edge, so I run the other way but that is where the featherless is so I run another way but that is where the edge that is not an edge is. This keeps happening over and over. Then I am in another place, there is a featherless there too and bright light and noise. The edge keeps pushing me into the light and noise and I do not want to run into the light but there is nowhere left to go. It’s too bright and light and when I get there; I stop.
The bird safely out the door, I chuckle a little as it seems so startled to be outside. I can hear the gulls crying and see them circle the house roof. ‘Call for your Mammy little one,‘ I say, ‘She’ll come look after you.’ I shut the door and I leave Lucy busy filling a bucket murmuring something about trapped birds being portents of death. I return to the upstairs world of deadlines, and irritating errors divisible by 9. It’s the bottom world and so much shiny and bright. The featherless are giants here and their shiny coloured nests make bad noises and I think I can smell something but I am not sure. I can hear Ma calling, she is in the nest with Kah. ‘Ma I’m here I call back, I can’t find the food and I’m starving.’ A strange featherless approaches. It has something like feathers but not feather and it walks on its wings and I think it must be broken. It makes a schnuff sound and the wind makes funny noises in and out its beak. In its beak are shiny and white, it makes the funny sound again and I runs away. Then its black and red and pain and…………………
The food comes from the below world. The below world has so much food that featherless birds do not need to fly to get it. The featherless must also like shiny things and that’s why they nests that are made of physodellic colours. They climb in and out of the nests and the nests move sometimes real fast and sometimes, when there are a lot of them together, real slow. I watch them all from the very edge of my world and Ma says.
‘Careful don’t fall down you can’t fly yet stupid.’ There are no eggs in the featherless’ nests but sometimes they have the chicks of the featherless and sometimes they have food in there. The featherless do not fly because they have not grown up properly, not like me. I have lovely brown feathers and my Ma says the feathers on my wings are getting bigger everyday and when they are big enough I can fly and get my own food. I hope that that happens real soon as Ma never brings me enough although I am way hungrier than Kah.
Where is Ma and Da and my food. I stand on the very tip of the world both to be near the top world where Ma and Da are calling from and to see most of the bottom world where the featherless and the food comes from. Kah yells at me to let him up and we start to fight again, then the light and shiny is gone.
It’s black and no light and my body says you are going down, down, down and put your wings up quick. So I do and my right wing bangs, a feathers pull the wrong way and I am not going down, but it hurts and I cry for Ma to help me and I hear Da say ‘where are you son?’ I am crying ‘hurts, hurts, hurts’ and ‘dark’. My Ma and Da are both crying ‘where are you?’ I can hear them and I can hear the featherless make there strange sounds very near me. Have they managed to fly into my dark nest? Maybe it’ dark time and I should go to sleep. There is stuff falling into my beak that tastes bad. I can’t breathe. ‘Dada,’ I cry, going back to baby speech in my panic. Some of my feathers pull out, I bring my poor wing in and now I am falling again. Bang, it’s bright again. My eyes hurt and I cannot see.
I have skipped lunch as is quite typical at month end. The seagulls’ cacophony is competing with the incessant road works and I am getting a headache. There is a knock on my office door, I look up from my accounts which are refusing to balance. The cleaner looks in.
‘Sorry to disturb you, Mark sent me, there is a bird stuck in the Chimney and it’s making a terrible racket. He’s had to move meeting rooms.’ Donna looks pale she’s deadly afraid of birds I know this but feel no sympathy only mild irritation. Donna is afraid of her own shadow and refuses to work in the basement alone as she swears it’s haunted. Actually in fairness it is reputed to be haunted and I will bloody kill whichever member of staff that has told Donna this.
‘It really is making a terrible noise, I think it’s dying,’ she says in a quavering voice. I am silent in my vexation. For some reason people believe that mundane jobs such as eliminating birds fall to me. My mind searches for quick ways to remove a bird from a chimney, the DSPCA? Dublin City Council pest control? This is going to take time and I have to get the accounts to the Board today for heavens sake. My stomach growls my anger; it’s had no food and too much coffee. In a foul temper, letting everyone know it, I fling open my office door. Nearly tripping over several levels arch files on the way, I head towards the stairs with a growl.
The ground and first floors of the house make a striking contrast to the 1970s brown carpeted, fluorescent-lit offices above. The landing today is splendid with early afternoon sunlight falling onto its Rococo plasterwork featuring of all things fanciful birds playing amongst vine leaves and flowers and violins. For two hundred and sixty years these birds have watched the comings and goings of the house. Ladies, gentlemen, school teachers, priests, office workers, children, yes lots and lots of children and more than one bird from the outside world. They are unconcerned and do not care much about the mortals that come and go below their stare and care less for our petty dramas. I am suddenly sure that the house has seen this all before and is laughing at me. I keep my back to them as I walk down the staircase to the ground floor meeting room we call the Library. I find Donna standing with her back to the closed door looking pale.
‘it got out of the chimney, it’s running loose inside’.
Where am I? Wow it’s bright! This is not the nest, the top world or the bottom worl The ground is soft. Am I going to fall through it? I don't like this. Maybe I should run incase I fall again. I want hard ground that is cold at night and warm in the day. I can hear my Ma and Da calling, far, far, far away but I am too scared to say anything. I runs and runs but can’t find my Ma, Da, Kah, the top or the bottom worlds. I can’t find anything I have seen before. I keeps running into things and banging my beak. The poop keeps coming out and I am still too scared to call for Ma and Da. There’s a featherless but it’s big like one hundred times bigger than the ones that live on bottom world. It makes a noise that is worse than a crows, how ugly it is and it has no food. It goes away, where am I? There is no blue shiny top world above me and I cannot find the edge to see the bottom world. Instead I keep hitting my beak against where the edge should be. This does not make sense.
With a sigh I pull the large Georgian door towards me. It drags a little over the carpet, I must get that seen to. Inside there is a fledgling gull, replete with brown spotted feathers, running about and looking bewildered. It keeps crashing into tables and chairs but it is not doing too much harm. Well except for the excrement and soot it has left in it’s wake. To young to fly yet I guess. I look around, the bird will need to be removed so that Lucy can clean up its mess in time for the next meeting. The carpet should clean okay it’s hotel standard after all. A fledgling can’t fly but can be shoed, so this shouldn’t take too long and then I can get back to the balance sheet.
‘Close the door to the back staircase’ I instruct Donna. She does as I ask and then hides herself behind the reception desk as she realises what I am about to do. I open the front door and then enter the meeting room once again.
Another featherless is here. It’s not making that bad crow sound but sounds like the featherless normally do in the below world except much much louder. It keeps coming towards me, so I run away but then there is an edge that is not an edge, so I run the other way but that is where the featherless is so I run another way but that is where the edge that is not an edge is. This keeps happening over and over. Then I am in another place, there is a featherless there too and bright light and noise. The edge keeps pushing me into the light and noise and I do not want to run into the light but there is nowhere left to go. It’s too bright and light and when I get there; I stop.
The bird safely out the door, I chuckle a little as it seems so startled to be outside. I can hear the gulls crying and see them circle the house roof.
‘Call for your Mammy little one,‘ I say, ‘She’ll come look after you.’ I shut the door and I leave Lucy busy filling a bucket murmuring something about trapped birds being portents of death. I return to the upstairs world of deadlines, and irritating errors divisible by 9.
It’s the bottom world and so much shiny and bright. The featherless are giants here and their shiny coloured nests make bad noises and I think I can smell something but I am not sure. I can hear Ma calling, she is in the nest with Kah. ‘Ma I’m here I call back, I can’t find the food and I’m starving.’ A strange featherless approaches. It has something like feathers but not feather and it walks on its wings and I think it must be broken. It makes a schnuff sound and the wind makes funny noises in and out its beak. In its beak are shiny and white, it makes the funny sound again and I runs away. Then its black and red and pain and…………………