The unborn robins

April heat, the robin's nest and baby ghosts

4 min. read

“You know what happens when you feed the birds? They forget to fly south and freeze to death.”
Amy Koppelman

On a wobbly wooden stool, held steady and down by your sister, you carefully twisted the copper wire around the grill above the main door, by which the birdhouse hung. It is a wooden house that your birder dad had bought on one of his nature trips — its slanting roofs painted a blue between teal and cyan and its large orifice shaped like the houses kids drew on white pieces of paper. Two mornings after its installation, you sat out on the green-striped foldable chair with your giant writing pad balanced on its long arms — the chair your parents had gotten you when you had been preparing for college admissions. Your journal lay open on the pad and as you began writing, a tiny bird scooped its way, right from under your nose, into the birdhouse. You looked up, startled and noticed the straw it carried in its tiny beak and excitedly spread the news at home that the birdhouse you set up was now brimming with life and you may well be looking at a nest being built. Over time, Dad took a look as well and educated you about the black and white plume that the male sported and the slate grey of the female, pushing you to observe that the one doing most of the nest-building was twitchy — probably a new mother. “We are looking at Oriental Magpie Robins,” he said, standing tall and proud. He is a walking bird guide, that man. “Beauuutiful little birds,” he added. 

Almost everyone in the household slowly started noticing more rigorous nest-building behaviour from the robins and when you tried to get close (despite the warnings from the bird man of the house), they’d swish away into flight and alight on the electric pole wire, far away from your house, as if drawing up terms and conditions, “You stay away or we’re out”. You were perfectly happy pretending to ignore them, much to their comfort and your childlike delight.

-

A few days passed. On one particularly bright morning with the sun already shining in her hot glory at half past seven in the AM, you noticed the robins again and inspired to do a bit of nature journaling, sat down with your amateur watercolours and started. Soon, the weather turned uncomfortably prickly, the April heat in Tirupati ushering in the dread for the upcoming summers. “Oh! this summer is going to be absolutely brutal. The A/C is leaking again, we must fix it soon or it’s going to be the end of us.” 

Heading downstairs for lunch, you tried to sneak a peek inside the birdhouse, knowing full well that the robins were cooling off elsewhere. A sloppy jump and a brilliant reflection of light puzzled your eyes, urging you to grab something to get higher and—lo and behold—the nest: a pad of grass, rootlets, hair, scraps of cloth and other assemblage and sitting inside it were two beautiful emerald green eggs speckled with brown — the size of your thumb up to the first crease or perhaps slightly bigger; alien, majestic and royal. They commanded your respect like no unborn life had ever done before. You were joyous, brimming with fulfilment.

But little did you know that at the monkey temple, one too many parched and hungry throats were gathering…

-

Then they came—the entire troop like locusts descending upon a crop driving it to destruction. Some with tiny babies of their own latched onto their motherly undersides, the big ones with cheek pouches overflowing from the greedy raid chasing anything that looked like food and wreaking havoc on anything that didn't. A barrel sneered at the one woman on the desolate street, walking home in the scorching heat, the kind of heat that was poised to kill. 

All of you were inside, engaged in a myriad of activities, in one room, with the air conditioner blasting. The news channel on the TV reported another death due to sunstroke. “The planet’s getting too hot”, someone remarked and turned the news off.

They whooped and screeched outside, filling the new silence in the room and Mom exhorted you to rush and drive them away, “Close the doors after.” You darted. 

You were out, quickened pulse and all, and they had already been hanging by the door frame, by the little blue birdhouse and seeing you, tore off in a hell-for-leather manner, chattering like irritated oldsters.

And at your feet lay the splattered remains of the brilliant gems, their once-glistening shells fallen, broken on the bitter white marble floor…

-

You took down the birdhouse that day.

Most might have heard stories of houses haunted by anthropomorphic ghosts, but in your house, in the dusty attic of a rarely used bedroom lies, along with tonnes of old school books, a once-happy-little-blue-bird-house where the eerie chirps of the unborn magpie robins can still be heard on boiling, deathly-quiet summer afternoons…

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Note from Naya:

This story is inspired by true events from my life and

Chloe Hope

’s hauntingly wonderful niche of writing. Chloe: if you’re reading, thank you for encouraging me, over our email exchanges, to bring this piece to life.

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