Collector of Lost Things (43 page)

They are my phoenix birds. I have saved them from a sea of flames.

Sometimes I close my eyes and listen as they murmur to themselves. I like the way they preen each other in a small social group, their necks rising and rubbing each other in new-formed greetings, several times an hour. They have a tendency to face out to sea, gazing at the waves and the horizon beyond. Weather does not concern them. Neither do the calls and shrieks of the other bird species from the cliffs above. They have taught me a great deal. Sometimes they allow me to approach. I may sit on the rocks near their feet and reach forward to stroke them. They are wild and they have no friendship with me, but I am accepted as I never believed I could be. I am considered a part of the family that lives in this hidden cove. When a chick is hatched, I am allowed to hold it, and in the slate-grey reflection of its eye I know that I am the total protector of this fragile strand of life, and beyond me there lies only one thing: extinction.

It is summer now. Each year, at this time, they follow some unknown signal and swim out to sea. They are gone for several months, and there is no one on earth who knows where they go. I imagine them in the rolling dark slopes of the North Atlantic, where they have been for thousands of years, their plumage the same colour as the blackened waves. I imagine them out there, beyond my protection, and know that I have played my part in saving them. I imagine them fishing with one another, paddling across the surface and diving into a shadow that is complete and enveloping. I shall never know, until I see them again, whether they will return.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Jeremy Page

978-1-4804-4826-1

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This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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