The Complete Collection. William Wharton

the beginning egg is inside her waiting for my seed. I want to put my seed into her, to know it is buried warmly in her egg.

      ‘Birdy, what are you afraid of? Do you want to have a nest with me? I feel we could have such wonderful babies, that we would be together in them, that for the first time, my eggs would be filled with life; with our life. Why are you afraid?’

      I look at her. I love her so. What she is saying is what I’ve been thinking, dreaming, singing. It is more than flying.

      ‘Perta, there are things I must tell you first.’

      ‘Do you have another female, another nest, somewhere?’

      ‘No. Nothing so simple as that, Perta.’

      ‘That is not so simple.’

      ‘Listen carefully, Perta. Listen to the way I tell this as much as to what I tell. I want you to know I speak the truth. I want you to know what I am, so we can truly be together.’

      ‘Say it, Birdy. Tell me.’

      ‘Perta, all this we have together is not real.’

      Perta shifts from her left to her right eye but remains quiet.

      ‘In reality, I am the boy out there.’

      I point to myself as boy in the aviary. I’m out there filling feed dishes, changing water.

      ‘This, here, that we have together, is just a dream. I dreamed you in my dream. I wanted you to be, so I dreamed you.’

      I wait. Perta says nothing. She shifts eyes twice more; flips her wings once. Can she possibly understand?

      ‘Perta, I went out, as boy, in the real world and you were given to me. I carried you here to the cage.’

      I wait for some sign that she is with me, that she understands. If I only understood it better myself, I could explain it better. Perta looks at me closely.

      ‘Go on, Birdy. I’m listening.’

      ‘You see, Perta, we are here together because of two things, the dream I dreamed in my dream and then the bird I carried back with me, who flies alone here in the cage during the day. You are the bird in my dream-dream and you are the bird I love as a boy but cannot know. You are here in the dream between those two. I am here in my dream because I want to be here. I want to be with you and so it is so.’

      I stop. I can’t understand what I’m saying myself. I’m too much of a bird to understand. My boy brain makes up the ideas, the words, but my bird brain can’t understand them. I’m seeing Perta not as a bird but as another creature like myself with whom I’m in love. What I’m saying sounds like crazy talk. How can I expect Perta to understand, to believe, when I cannot do so myself? I stop.

      ‘Go on, Birdy. Tell me more.’

      ‘That’s the most of it, Perta. As a boy out there, in reality, when the dream is over, I own all the birds. I bought Birdie, Alfonso. I raised all of them in my bedroom in another place. I built this cage where we fly now. I go places when I am a boy that you cannot see from here. I live with other beings like myself, as a boy. I am but a young creature in that world, not capable of taking care of myself. I have a mother and father with whom I live. My house is out there, out of the cage. If I do not come here, take care, feed all the birds, this whole life would stop, it would all end. Do you understand?’

      ‘Of course not, Birdy. You know I cannot. I am a bird; those things mean nothing to me.’

      ‘But do you believe me, Perta? Do you think I lie when I tell all this?’

      ‘No, Birdy. You are telling me your truth.’

      ‘Can’t it be your truth, too, Perta? I want it to be your truth. I want you to know me truly.’

      Perta looks at me straight on, very unbirdlike.

      ‘No, Birdy. I am a bird. Your truth cannot be mine.’

      I don’t know why I want her to know. Is it because I think that if she knows, believes, then the dream will be more real. But how can a dream be more real? It is like making a zero more zero by writing zero ten thousand times in a line. It is still zero.

      ‘Perta, do you realize that what I am saying is that you do not exist at all; that you are only a part of my dream?’

      ‘What is a dream, Birdy?’

      I’m stopped. I hadn’t thought of that. If birds do not dream, there’s no way. Still, this is my dream. I can have birds dream or not in my dream, as I want. I can make it to fit my dream.

      ‘Perta, when you sleep, do you not have thoughts, images, visions, feelings that are not true, that come from inside you, that you only imagine?’

      ‘No. When I sleep I am giving myself strength. I give myself force to fly, to have babies. It is the great unbeing. It is when we build our feathers, harden our beaks, unbecome.’

      This is beyond me. I cannot make birds dream, even in my own dream. I know then that the boy does not really want Perta to know. I must live my bird life as a bird only. I must surrender myself. It is a relief, a wonderful feeling to know this.

      A great peace comes into me. I feel my strength as a bird spreading through me. The blood is circulated in warmth out to the tips of my feathers, to the ends of my toenails.

      Perta is watching me. She is telling me that I am a bird; that I am to forget all this nonsense of the boy. She wants me as her mate. These things I have been telling her are only the ravings of a maniac, a fever. It is clear to her I am a bird. If I can see myself with her eyes, then I am a bird in her world. I let go. I settle deeply into the life I’ve always wanted. I become, rebecome, a bird in this world of the dream.

      I start to sing. Perta is alive to me. There is a transfer of feeling, knowing, one to the other from us that I have never known, never dreamed of dreaming. Perta starts to fly in a complex dance. I fly after her, singing. She flies, dances to my song and I sing, dance, to her dance. It’s not a chase but mutual following. We speak in language beyond words. Our every movement magnifies the tension of our merging identity. Then, Perta stops, waits for me. I approach, in deepest passion, maximum awareness, to her. She waits, cups herself to receive me. I hover, then lower myself into her. My penetration is engulfed by her whole being. For just that moment I am not alone, not separate. I pass through the illusion of identity into a depth of shared reality.

      When I wake that morning, I’ve done it again. I’m covered with jit, my sheets, my pajamas. I wash everything so my mother won’t find out. I’ve got to do something.

      I go down to Cobb’s Creek with a long stick. They’re floating by in that creek all the time. There must be toilets flushing into the creek, there just couldn’t be that many lovers along the banks. I get one in good shape, wash it out in the creek first, then take it home and wash it again. I turn it inside out. I slip it on and when it’s on, I can hardly feel it. After that, I sleep with that condom on. I fill it almost every night during those first mad weeks when Perta and I are so deeply involved with each other, when all the dreams are devoted to passionate flight, singing, dancing, and overwhelming culminations.

      Now, I’m separating the dream from the day better. Especially in the dream, I hardly remember that I am a boy. I am almost completely bird. As boy I’ve wired a nest into the cage with Perta the daytime bird. In the night, Perta and I are building our nest. Strangely enough, Perta, alone, in the days shows interest in the nest also. I give her burlap and she starts building. This isn’t uncommon. Sometimes a female without a male will build a nest during the nesting season.

      In the dream it is such fun building the nest. Perta does most of the work and she’s a fine engineer. It’s a combination of weaving or knitting and construction work. Mostly I’m bringing up materials. Perta is meticulous and ingenious with her nest building. I admire it even more as bird than I did as a boy.

      Every day when I go out to feed and take care of the birds, I check on the nest Perta is building in the flight cage. It’s