The God of the Mockingbirds

In February the mockingbird had to start singing. He woke up the whole neighborhood.

When the sunlight was long enough a part of his brain grew. It made him listen to other birds’ songs around him. He’d memorize them. Then perch up as high as he could go. Yell them as loudly as he could. He wanted to do this like he wanted to breathe. There were about five kinds of birds that sang in the neighborhood. Sparrows. He’d sing their five songs over and over.

If he sang well enough, a female would come to hear his voice. Perhaps stay. They’d build a nest, mate, have children. In eight months the male children would be compelled to go yell from a high place. The female children would be compelled to listen for the loudest one they could find.

He sang through February, our mockingbird. Through March, April. He started just after midnight, finished just after noon. A few prospects came.

No one stayed.

Out on the edges of his territory he heard his fellows. In March they too started at midnight. Ended at noon. Now occasional silence. Their mates had come. They’d take breaks to gather twigs for their nests. To eat and grow strong. Their songs were still like the sparrows. But now a different tone. Before: come see me. Now: stay out. The new songs were about him.

Still, at midnight he sang. At noon he stopped, exhausted. May came and he was growing thinner.

May passed and June and the mates at the edge of his voice were less and finally none at all. They’d found others, paired off. They were getting fat and ready. The men sang still less; they were fixated on dive bombing people and cats who passed too close to the trees. Pestering crows.

Their hormones had changed. The bits of their brains that had grown to learn the sparrows’ songs went back to sleep. They had new purpose. They spoke to their brides in true voices. Mockingbird language, not the sparrows’ high lonesome notes. It was a croak, but to the one they loved it contained multitudes.

But not him.

Every day at midnight his longing woke him up. Made him sit in the high tree on the high hill and scream come see me. He knew it was over but couldn’t stop. The feeling kicked in on a clock whether needed or not. Starving, lovelorn and lonely, raggedly screaming from his branch, it occurred to him that this might never end. Soon the other birds would have chicks. Next spring their better genes would be out on the phone poles. Just a hair louder than him. Every year the fight harder. No one had any choice in the matter.

Once upon a time an ancient mockingbird needed songs to keep sparrows away. To guard his trees and seeds and bugs. Now songs only warded off other mockingbirds. This while there was one male per female. Many chicks were born, many too fell on their heads. Got snapped up by a cat. The race sustained itself perfectly by accident. The genes of every living mockingbird were adequate to eat, nest, sing and reproduce. There was nothing to fight over. No need for anyone to suffer alone. We can stop this, thought the mockingbird. I just have to tell them.

He prayed to the God of the mockingbirds for strength. Opened his beak to sing. His song, like the song of the sparrows. But it said: we can all be at peace, my brothers.

The God of the mockingbirds was with him. His voice so strong that he felt himself falling back and back. The music coming out of him like light itself. They heard him for miles. They had no idea what he was talking about. Their song brains were asleep. I’ve done it, he thought, as the lawnmower roared over him. His bones barely made the blades stutter.

Tags: mockingbirds