Grief Is the Thing with Feathers

by Max Porter

I remember the night I got home and told her I’d finished the book proposal, and she said, ‘God help us all,’ and we drank Prosecco and she said I could have my birthday present early. It was the plastic crow. We made love and I kissed her shoulder blades and reminded her of the story of my parents lying to me about children growing wings and she said, ‘My body is not bird-like.’ We were smack bang in the middle, years from the finish, taking nothing for granted. I want to be there again. Again, and again. I want to be held, I wanted to hold. It was the plastic crow. We made love. The wing story. My body is not bird-like. Again. The wings. The love. Bird-like. Again. I beg everything again.

I missed her so much that I wanted to build a hundred-foot memorial to her with my bare hands. I wanted to see her sitting in a vast stone chair in Hyde Park, enjoying her view. Everybody passing could comprehend how much I miss her. How physical my missing is. I miss her so much it is a vast golden prince, a concert hall, a thousand trees, a lake, nine thousand buses, a million cars, twenty million birds and more. The whole city is my missing her. Eugh, said Crow, you sound like a fridge magnet.

Moving on, as a concept, is for stupid people, because any sensible person knows grief is a long-term project. I refuse to rush. The pain that is thrust upon us let no man slow or speed or fix.

MAN How do you know when you’ve found something worth picking at? BIRD Well much of it has to do with a state of readiness, which is both instinctual (the hungers, the vices etc.) and pragmatic (nice-looking crisp packet, nice-looking widower). You’ll remember with some of my early work with you, that what appeared to be primal corvid vulgarity was in fact a highly articulated care programme, designed to respond to the nuances of your recovery.

MAN Did I respond as well as you’d hoped? BIRD Better. But the credit should go to the boys, and to the deadline. I knew that by the time you sent your publisher your final draft of the Crow essay my work would be done. MAN I would be done grieving? BIRD No, not at all. You were done being hopeless. Grieving is something you’re still doing, and something you don’t need a crow for. MAN I agree. It changes all the time. BIRD Grief? MAN Yes. BIRD It is everything. It is the fabric of selfhood, and beautifully chaotic. It shares mathematical characteristics with many natural forms. MAN Like? BIRD Where to begin. Oh, feathers. Turds? Waves? Honeycomb? String? Intestines? Bones? Feathers, said that, cat-flaps, wait, no, wait, hats, maps, traps, books, rooks, creeks, peek in my beaks in my … MAN This is ridiculous. I feel that if my wife’s ghost had ever haunted me, now would be the time she’d start whispering, ‘You need to ask Crow to leave.’