Adriana by F N Karmatz

Adriana rolled her wheelchair into her back patio, amid the perches hanging down from the overhead. She was a little later than usual, the sun having cracked the Eastern horizon. It was her debilitating MS that made it more and more difficult to dress herself. Her fingers fumbled with buttons and snaps, or would barely grasp the wheel spokes hard enough to direct and propel her chair. She knew she would soon have to give in and ask for a carer. Still, birds in the nearby trees saw her and descended as soon as she appeared.

Three days Adriana had waited. But the one bird she had hoped would appear, never came. She thought of it as her bird, even though it was wild and uncaged. In almost a decade, the kookaburra had never missed more than a day or two before turning up. The one-eyed bird was special to her and she thought she was special to it. It had never chosen a mate. Instead, it had bonded with her.

When other kookaburras came, he flew off to a nearby red gum tree. She would toss the others strips of beef. After she fed them and they flew off, he would descend. Mostly, he would sit on the foot stand next to her inert feet. Sometimes he would sit on the arm of her chair. Her fingers would gently stroke the kookaburra's neck and it would lift its beak so she could reach the pin feathers under the beak itself. She would talk to it and sometimes the bird would make a soft croaking sound from deep within its throat. She would tell it stories about her happy childhood, some forty years before, about places where she had been, about her friends and family, even about her teenage crushes. The bird would sit near motionless, entranced, for as long as she talked. Then she would say "I'm tired now, bird", and raise her hand. The kookaburra would hunch, pull its wings back and launch itself in the air, circle her, then dip its wingtip so that it just touched the top of her head.

She knew it would return in the evening, wait for her to feed the other birds, then alight next to her. She would hand feed it until the bird wanted no more. It simply turned its head away, but would made no effort to fly off as the others did when they had their fill. They would have their conversation until the sun dropped below the horizon and the long shadows disappeared into the dusk. They mutually knew their time had gone and the bird would touch her hair with its wingtip, before it disappeared in the twilight.

While she hand-fed many of the birds-drongos, miners, lorikeets, mudlarks, butcher birds, cuckoo shrikes, ibis, plovers and magpies--none of the other visiting birds would allow themselves to be touched. She knew it wasn't in their nature. The wild birds knew and trusted her, showed no fear or even caution as she wheeled herself out the back patio. Even after feeding time, many of the birds followed her as she wheeled herself around the grass along the back garden.

The birds were a large part of her world. And they and their families visited her, day after day, year after year. The migratory birds would simply show up in the spring, after having disappeared for six months. But his year when her mobility was so limited that she was unable to toss mince, seed or bread to them. They allowed for it. They dived or nibbled at the food she dropped on the grass around her. A pair of butcher birds would fly into her kitchen if she were late the door was open. They would make a loud melodic call and await her wheeling herself over to her bar fridge and take out their mince. The mudlarks would walk in her kitchen door any time it was open. The oldest male would seek her out, no matter which room she was in. It did a fly-by then waited by the bar fridge.

She loved their antics, their calls and their individual characteristics. She loved how the birds respected each other's space, how they would queue up on the perches when their meals awaited. She would call the butcher birds naughty when they intimidated the other birds with their fly-bys. But they were quite peaceful once their beaks were full. Occasionally, an impatient pigeon or lorikeet would land clumsily on her head, peering over to see what bowls or boxes were on her lap. Quite often she would see her kookaburra sitting on a tree bough, paying little attention, then wheel down when she held up a beef strip called it. Sometimes it landed on her shoe, which was always upright on the foot chair's footrest. She would lean over to feed it, then coax it onto the arm of her chair to continue its feeding. When she stroked the bird between its eyes, it stared, its eye, unfocused, mesmerised.

She discovered that when she wore a hat in wet weather, the kookaburras were frightened away. Even her one-eyed friend. He refused to come down from his tree. She backed her chair back under the cover of the patio, removed her hat and called. He immediately flew down. She put the hat back on and they had their morning dialog. The next time she wore the hat, her one-eyed bird ignored it.

She continued to muse about her one-eyed friend. But its time had gone. Only a pink line remained along the western horizon. Darkness was setting in. She would try again, tomorrow. She had to.

The next morning, Adriana gathered her food bowls with great effort, barely managing to feed the different birds. They last few arrived, hovered and flew off. Her arms had dropped to her sides. She stared into the sky. A bird slowly circled and, gliding to within arms reach. The one-eyed kookaburra uttered a deep-throated wail, its wing tip just brushing the woman's hair as it flapped its wings, leaving its companion frozen in time.

FNK 1000