Chapter 11

XI

The Thing with Feathers

When Cubi leaves his apartment building, a small black bird is sitting on a nearby post box. It looks every bit like the one that alighted next to him the day before, and he can't help but do a double take.

"Good morning, little bird," he says.

The bird turns its head to fix one of its eyes on Cubi, and says nothing.

"You're a different bird, aren't you?"

The bird just keeps staring at him.

Cubi starts to walk down the road. Occasionally he glances over his shoulder to see if the bird is still there. It keeps its shiny black eye fixed on him. When Cubi rounds the corner, he hears a fluttering of wings, but when he looks around, he can't see the bird anywhere.

He must be going crazy. There are plenty of small black birds in the city. Seeing two in as many days is hardly a mind-blowing coincidence.

Halfway to the tube station, Cubi stops to look at the papers on a newsstand. Contrary to his fears, the headlines aren't concerned with murderous, fanatical humans, but rather with aardvarks worrying the aphid farms outside the city and threatening honeydew production.

A small, sharp scrabbling makes Cubi look up sharply, to see the bird - a bird on top of the newsstand, looking down at him. Cubi glances at the neurop running the stand, who raises a feeler. Cubi smiles and keeps walking.

On his way to the hospital, whenever Cubi looks around, he sees a small black bird sitting somewhere, looking at him intently with one eye.