When We Were Birds

by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo

“The living look on in horror to see the devouring of the dead. They don’t understand how the birds they once knew could do something so terrible. But the chattering parrots they knew were gone. They turn into something else entirely now. When they shed their green and change their form, they take on a sacred duty—to stand at the border between the living and the dead. So they wait for the dying and watch over the carcasses and consume the flesh. And no one but the corbeaux know that inside their bodies the souls of the dead transform and release.”

And maybe this is what it mean to be a man. Doing the things you never think you would have to do, making a hard choice when the only thing in front you is hard choices.

“The hardest thing in the world is to be a good man. You always end up failing somebody.”