One and the Same

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They tied the dead seagull around my neck with a bit of fishing line they’d found floating in the harbour. This was a serious offence, they told me. They were two men from the city council, in yellow reflective vests. The one with rubber gloves held the bird, the other held paperwork.

Back home, seagulls aren’t worshipped exactly, but they do have a certain reverence. When pioneers first settled in the desert, crickets threatened their crops. Our guardians, the seagulls, feasted on the crickets and saved the budding colony from starvation. This was our history. For as long as I’ve lived, they’ve been protected. They are obnoxious little scavengers, but we love them. Of course, as with any loved thing, I stayed well away, scared I’d hurt one, even by proximity.

Here though, along the harbour, these birds are often ignored – just part of the scenery. Fauna of public indifference. They are also harbingers of death. The neighbour’s son Harry calls them murder birds and it’s common for him to return from school or the whippy truck to find a woodpigeon ripped open or pieces of a collared dove scattered across the garden pavement. I’ve faced the aftermath myself, and have shovelled the feathered dead into the bottom of a bin bag more than once. Their violence is an understood thing. No one seems to mind.

This morning, I was on the south side of our terrace, staring down an overstuffed bin of rubbish, another fly-tip along the wharf. I reported it to the council, then got to work. I cleaned up gooey bits of takeaway, discarded groceries, and soiled kitchen paper containing God-knows-what. And the entire time, a flock of these birds dove and nipped at me, squawking and mocking me with their ha-ha taunts. I waved. I shooed. I stayed vigilant. One of them, a grey juvenile, ignored my waving and my shooing, and kept pulling the garbage out of the bag I’d been filling up.

I sighed. You’re killing me, mate. The seagull didn’t give a shit. How could it. ‘Go on, you cheeky bastard,’ I said, trying to move it off.

And – look, I’m not proud of this, but I was curious. Curiosity is the best way I can explain it. It was the closest I’d ever been to one of them. There was a jar of pasta sauce lying in the rubbish. So, I popped it open. The bird was actually in the bag now, struggling with something. And as the little guy struggled, I poured the sauce all over it.

I told this to the councilmen at my door. The one with the notebook wrote it all down while the one with the gloves wrestled with the bird. They listened to my story, documented my confession. They asked me why I pick up rubbish in the first place.

‘Oh, it’s just my morning routine,’ I told them. ‘It gets me out of the house.’ I held up my little litter picker, squeezed the handle for effect. ‘It’s a hobby. A way to meet people.’

‘So, there were others with you?’

‘No. No one was with me.’

‘You really shouldn’t be out here, doing our job.’

They shared a glance. Then the one holding the bird took it by its neck – SNAP!

And the bird stopped moving.

‘Jesus! I wasn’t trying to cause trouble! I was trying to help.’

‘Same thing, as far as we’re concerned,’ they said while they tied its legs with the fishing line. ‘It’s one and the same.’

Then they hung the bird around my neck.

‘Don’t take this off,’ one said. ‘We’re watching,’ said the other.

I hurried to the office with enough time to make the ten o’clock huddle, but left my security fob at the house and had to take the stairs. The stiffened bird, with its wrung, folded neck, bounced against my sternum with every laboured step. Four floors later I jogged towards the conference room. My boss stood there, waiting to intercept.

‘Even though you told me what happened,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t have pictured this.’

She sent me home.

‘Just ride it out,’ she said, ‘it’ll blow over by Monday.’

But the news coverage quickly took over, online magazines and the local outlets mainly, a couple regional radio broadcasts reached out. The chatter soon spilled into the pubs:

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Bin birds under attack // Immigrant circumvents our rule of law // This country is going to hell, I tell you. // Experts confirm: pigeon and dove populations are not at risk // He’s a quiet little weirdo, isn’t he? // Fly-tip bans or gulls’ rights? We discuss it at nine // Never talks to us. He ever talk to you? // Out of respect, the public is being asked to avoid any articles of red clothing… // You don’t come here and just do as you please, you just don’t. // …as the colour could cause agitation // Yes, madam, the council is out here doing everything we can for our community // I mean, let’s face it. Seagulls are a problem. // Do not feed doves or pigeons. Do not give the seagulls the wrong impression. Do not take matters into your own hands // Too soon, mate, too soon…

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I haven’t left my flat in a week. For the first few days, I just shuffled between my bed and the toilet, braved the occasional trek to the front door for food deliveries. The dead bird still hanging, weighing me down. They’re watching – always watching.

I spend a lot of time in my kitchen, hunched over the basin, scrolling through neverending clips of nothing, with the bulk of the dead bird in the sink to give my battered neck a fucking break – but I won’t remove it. And so, we rest. The fishing line aggravates my skin, always present, always there.

I’m out of leave. I stink. I can’t avoid a shower any longer. I return to work tomorrow. I close the blinds and lock the bathroom door. Only then do I remove the gull.

I shower, dress, and wipe dried tomato sauce off the toe of my boots. I grab my litter picker and an empty bag.

Around my neck goes the bird.

Sundays are ideal for picking litter. It’s blissfully quiet along the waterfront, still water in the cut, and the brightening air wraps around my face like a damp cloth. Morning greets the shuttered pubs, the yellow and orange leaves, the mooring houseboats, all of these bathed in autumnal angles of horizontal light. Council towers washed with perpendicular sunshine. I ramble along my usual route, pluck debris from the paved paths of my housing block. Build a rhythm. Squeeze the handle, pluck the rubbish, drop it in the bag.

The seagull thumps like an irregular heartbeat.

The pub patio at The Grace Alone still hums with the residual vibration of a Saturday night – its steady flow of young, beautiful patrons drinking well into the evening, laughing, leaning, dropping pints of cider on the cobblestone, giggling at the shattered glass lost to mortar cracks, shards swallowed up by the opportune grass.

At this hour, the gulls should be chatting, waking us up with their brutal cawing, their ha-ha-ha-ing, mocking us earthbound bipeds as we scurry from place to place. Oh, look at this child with his scone. Ha-ha-ha. Swoop. Pluck! My scone! Ha-ha-ha. But it’s quiet. Or different. Not silence, but a shift in sound. The song of a robin, chirps from little tits in the hedges, the coo of a pigeon. Life, reprioritised. I’ve filled most of my bag before the morning runners and the café-seekers busy the pavement and signal my cue to retreat.

‘I saw you on the telly.’

It’s Harry, on a walk with his nanny.

‘Oh really,’ I say, patting the dead bird. ‘What were they talking about?’

He shrugs. He’s eight years old and his conversation skills fluctuate with the sugar intake and the screen time he’s been allowed. He won’t take his eyes off the bird.

‘I’m so sorry about what happened,’ his nanny says. ‘Are you alright?’

‘It’s taking some getting used to,’ I say. ‘It’s been – strange.’

‘The whole thing is ridiculous,’ she says.

‘Dad says you’re a proper cunt.’

‘Harry!‘

‘What? It doesn’t matter.’

‘Well, he sounds like a guy I’d want to hang out with, Harry.’

‘I’m sure they’d be happy for you to stop by,’ she says.

‘C’mon, c’mon,’ he says, tugging at her sleeve.

‘Right,’ she says, ‘we’re off to the café.’

‘Banana bread and babycinos, is it Harry?’

He nods in excitement, smiles with new teeth too big for his mouth. He reaches and runs his finger down the bird’s beak.

‘Why are they so mean?’

The office approved a week of remote work. Just until things settle down. The video calls and the status reports fly by and I realise I haven’t felt fresh air on my face in forty-eight hours. My coworkers won’t leave me alone and ask me to join them at the pub.

‘No,’ I say.

They ask again.

I don’t know if I’m ready to go to a pub – ‘Okay, fine. What time?’

I am, in fact, not ready for the pub. The free drinks come in faster than I can handle them, and so do the questions. Really, I didn’t kill the seagull, the council did. Yes, it’s really dead. What do you mean, why don’t I just take it off? No, I don’t have any prior convictions. I am here legally, yes, my name is really Sam. His name? Sure, you can call him Steven, if you really want to. Pardon? The council is banning what? Why?

Before I know it, I am sick in the bushes, arms wrapped around the seagull to avoid coating it in vomit. An argument breaks out between a few lads crediting me with running the country into the ground, and a dozen others telling them off. Back and forth they go, my silly act turning proud Englishmen into simple little beasts.

To the flat, I retreat.

Strange things take hold. The council began issuing fines for what they call indiscriminate communal management. They were taped to windshields and storefronts and gate posts. Fifty

pounds for unapproved bin clean-up, fifty pounds for wearing or displaying red and white, with the exception of the St. George’s Cross.

‘Is this a joke?’ That was the initial response of a politician on last night’s televised topical debate program. I’ve made the big time.

Well, it’s clear this all began because an immigrant attacked a bird. // Are you the president of the RSPCA, now, Councillor? // I don’t give two shakes about the bird. This man, this – stranger, took matters into his own hands. He should be ashamed. // A woman was recently arrested for holding a sign that said ‘Breaking a bird’s neck to prove a point is wrong.’ Shouldn’t we be discussing the erosion of our democracy? // He should leave. // That is not what this town is about. // Whose island is this, anyway? // Again, I ask you –

Is this a joke?

There came a phase. A sea change – overnight, it feels like. Walking within three meters of seagulls is now prohibited. The city cordoned off the centre after agitators threw cups of strawberry Ribena on some lads guarding an overstuffed bin. A few pensioners were even arrested for feeding pigeons and chasing away seagulls.

Mom phoned. Asked me when I’m coming home.

‘This is home,’ I told her.

‘Worth a shot,’ she said. ‘Can I still visit? My doctor told me to go live my life.’

We agreed she better visit before April. I doubt my visa will be renewed, all things considered.

‘Go live your life,’ she said.

Harry’s dad stopped by this morning.

‘Mate, I just wanted to let you know we’re here if you need anything.’

‘Yeah, thanks, Jonah.’

‘Y’know, this is not the country I grew up in. It’s mad right now. Just wanted to let you know we’re here, y’know, if you don’t feel like going to the shops or anything. We can pick things up.’

‘I appreciate that. I was just about to go for a lap and planned to grab some olives at the Spanish market later. Thanks, though.’

‘No worries.’

‘Would you all like to come over for dinner sometime? I can make whatever it is that Harry eats these days.’

‘Yes – I mean yeah, absolutely. That’d be lovely.’

‘Or order pizza, even?’

‘I’ll talk to Molly about dates. Ah, I gotta be on a Teams meeting in five. Take care, Sam.’

I grab my picker and take to the street.

What a mess.

It’s not like this in every city, but it’s made its way here. Our seagulls are more aggressive than ever. They’ve multiplied overnight it seems, louder and less concerned with humanity. The pavement is littered with butchered birds; bins pushed over in scavenger stockpiles. Men in facemasks stand by mounds of rubbish they dumped on park grass, threatening anyone who tries to clean it up. Every fibre of me aches to confront them, to beg and plead, please, stand aside and let civility prevail. But I don’t. I can’t. I keep to my side of the street. This can’t last forever. My dear dead gull bounces as I walk, sways when I stop. I pinch the broken glass, pinch the cigarette butts, pinch the empty gin-in-tins.

And the fishing line breaks.

Shit.

I pick up the bird and pull it close. Did they see? There’s a rumble up ahead. The bin lorry is on its way to our street. It’s Friday. I sprint with the dead bird tight against my chest and by the time I get my bins to the curb, there are reddened dead bird feathers stuck to my hands. I run to the garden, pull the soil back with a spade, and lower the gull.

Out front, there’s Harry’s dad, now in his pants, pulling their bins back in. He sees me, stands straight up, waves and retreats. He has a white shirt with a wide red mark painted across it. It’s a simple doodle, just a flattened M-shape. Handmade. Little bubbled waves.

Wait.

It was a bird in flight, like we learn to draw as kids.

Above the front door is Harry’s bedroom with drawings taped to the window panes. There’s a house. A nest. Birds of every shape, for anyone to see. Any authority.

Anyone could see.

There’s a yellow sun floating in the white space. And there, in the cloudless sky, loads of them. A flock, a squabble, a colony. Whatever you call them, they are everywhere.

Dozens of red seagulls suspended in flight.

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