A Season of Clear Voices

The first one to notice was Daniel Pike, who lived alone and spoke to no one unless it was necessary.

He paused halfway through buttering his toast, the knife hovering in midair, as the magpie outside his kitchen window cleared its throat and said, quite distinctly, “Bit early to be worrying about cholesterol, isn’t it?”
Daniel didn’t answer. He finished buttering the toast. He ate it. Only then did he look up.

The magpie tilted its head, one bright eye fixed on him. “Rude,” it said.

By mid-morning, the neighbourhood had begun to hum with it. Sparrows argued over property lines in clipped, efficient bursts. A pair of lorikeets hurled obscenities with inventive enthusiasm. Somewhere down the street, a pigeon apologized over and over, though no one seemed quite sure what for.

Daniel walked to the park to confirm it wasn’t just him.

It wasn’t.

A small crowd had gathered beneath the jacaranda, listening as a cluster of cockatoos debated municipal zoning laws with unsettling precision.

“They’re not wrong,” someone muttered.

“They’re birds,” another replied, as if that should settle it.

A child stepped forward and asked one of them what it was like to fly.

The cockatoo considered the question for a moment. “Efficient,” it said at last. “You people have made it unnecessarily complicated.”

By the afternoon, the news had caught up. Experts speculated. Officials urged calm. The birds, for the most part, ignored them.

Daniel returned home just before dusk. The magpie was still there.

“You’re taking this well,” it said.

“I don’t see the point in panicking,” Daniel replied.

“Good,” said the magpie. It shifted slightly on the sill. “We’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

Daniel hesitated. “About what?”

The magpie glanced toward the darkening sky, where silhouettes circled in widening arcs.

“Your kind,” it said, “has been very loud for a very long time.”

“And now?” Daniel asked.

“Now,” said the magpie, “we thought we’d try being understood.”
For a while, neither of them spoke. The evening filled in around them: birdsong layered with something new, something quieter; fragments of thought, half-formed sentences, laughter that didn’t quite belong in beaks.

Daniel leaned against the counter. “And after that?”

The magpie watched him carefully, as if measuring something he couldn’t see.
“Well,” it said at last, “that depends entirely on how the conversation goes.”