The Migration of Birds Through the City of Glass

By Priya Chand

Ask anyone in the world to think of the city of glass and, immediately, the image would appear: the barely-visible planes of its skyscrapers brightening to brilliant orange at sunrise and sunset, casting light for kilometers, a sharp-edged shimmer on the surface of the Earth. In those moments even the tourists could tell themselves they were part of something greater, like the lakh of people fortunate enough to call the buildings home, antlike shadows that only emphasized the luminosity of the city itself.

We residents were not bound to always be on display. Every pane of glass was a triumph, strong enough to soar a hundred stories, and electrochromic, to be darkened at one’s leisure. Yet, knowing privacy awaited only a brush of our fingers, we never bothered. No civilized person minded nudity or the body’s natural functions. If someone were so inclined to spy on my particular section of glass, they would see nothing new, except perhaps the pride suffusing my backbone, to be part of the world’s greatest wonder, knowing my grandparents’ hands, which had held me, had also helped build it. The invention was special; its engineers had known the proof of concept must be spectacular.

Of course, the city existed because other wonders had made space for it, in particular the animals which came through the old city before the winds and wildly swinging weather drove them away, which would have swarmed our gleaming edges and the long silver diffusions of moonlight. I heard, occasionally, about distant flights of butterflies and had once visited a holozoo, admiring its simulations of near-vanished wildlife. I did not miss the real thing. Animals are unpredictable; the city of glass is ever-present. My eyes were filled with wonder and my days with washing, maintaining the transparency of those great façades.

It was on a day when my thoughts were drifting further afield than usual —today’s building was my own, and I knew the glass so well I barely needed a glance to document any coordinates where I saw visible pitting— when I felt the brush of something more than wind across my face and a feathery bundle bumped my feet.

It was moving. Thank the skies, it was moving. I could barely believe how fast I’d jumped, letting my brush clatter to the platform, hands cupping that brown speckled body. I cradled it in the crook of one arm and slammed the emergency release with the other.

My platform froze and began to descend, gears whining, not so rapidly the air burned my skin or, worse, jostled the stunned bird loose. My brush rattled on the floor, a strange counterpoint to the bird’s heaving warmth. I had never been so close to a wild intelligence, and now, knowing it might die, my eyes were drawn to its bright pupils, the slightly parted beak, the layers of feathers and fluff so carefully cultivated over millions of years— culminating with a crash into something that had existed for less than fifty. I had held my friends’ pets before. This bird did not settle into my grasp, nor could anyone tell me how to placate it.

I was relieved when the platform stopped and the emergency staff on duty ran towards me. Sunset-orange jumpsuit, familiar spray of hair.

“What is it, Zy?” Cedo said, eyes wide, breath hitching.

“I’m fine.” I shook my head and nodded at the slight body, which though it had stopped fluttering so much was still reassuringly warm, “Look.”

Cedo’s eyes went as wide as mine must have. “Oh….”

“We need a vet,” I said, cutting myself off as soon as Cedo began dialing. I was remembering, now, the ancient stories of flocks. There would be more. Living in a house of glass, thinking ahead is inevitable: considering when the light will hit this angle at that time of day before you set up your chicory grinder so your half-asleep eyes aren’t watering every morning.

Cedo fussed over the bird while we waited, although neither of us dared make a move. We were as likely to hurt the bird as we were to help.

It had never occurred to me that there was something wondrous, too, in unpredictability.

A minute later the vet arrived, frowned over the bird, said yes, there was a recent transplant —a rare lucky applicant— who had seen birds in their youth and thus might have ideas for its care, and spirited off my rescue. I gave her my number. Even if the outcome was not good, I wanted to know.

I had just woken up when my phone buzzed. It was the vet. I answered, steadying my hands against the tremble in my heart. “Yes?”

The bird was fine, better than fine. It —she— had lain an egg.

There were, and would be, more birds. We had to do something. I called Cedo over a steaming cup of chicory.

We are the city of glass, we have a reputation to uphold, and that reputation will not be served if our million visitors one day find themselves waist-deep in feathers, swerving between the distressed heaving bodies of birds caught in the glare that was our city’s signature.

I knew my city, my people. I knew what to say and Cedo knew who to say it to, and in turn— people who were not both thoughtful and quick to act did not stay in the city of glass for long.

With the atmospheric carbon dropping so rapidly, we might encounter only this stray, or a full irruption— none of our scientists could be sure. We readied ourselves, dusting off and repurposing every detector and long-range camera we had. As soon as the first cluster of dots was spotted, the city’s broadcast system went off and we became a balletic sequence of bodies brushing each wall of our homes, waiting until the change from transparent to dark was complete, that not even a single pane should be missed. I had changed my walls earlier than required so I could beat the rush downstairs. The streets were cooler than usual, though not for long as they filled with the curious— all of us.

And the cloudless sky was dotted first with specks and then with a hundred thousand birds, as many of them as us, swooping high and low, dancing across the thermals. The flock passed by in barely a minute, but I kept my head tilted upward, fixing the sight into my memory, squinting for stragglers. From the quiet around me, the others were doing the same.

And I was proud to be a resident of the city where migrating birds had once passed through, and might again.

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The Migration of Birds Through the City of Glass © 2024 Priya Chand
Reprint published in the April 2023 issue of Julia Rios’ Worlds of Possibility