Martha cranes her neck up to the sky. Her first home, a transcendent ocean overhead, had been pillaged, leaving only the barren air that now taunts her. She stretches out her wings but even the urge to fly feels meaningless these days. She wouldn’t get far, not trapped in this cage. For a moment, she almost begins to wallow in self-pity. Plagued with the looming dread of what could we have done to deserve this?

Although Martha had always existed in captivity, her grandmother would tell her tales of a time when their ancestors owned the skies. Their united wings would stop gunmen in their tracks as they blackened the open air above them like a midnight sky. The uprights gawked at them, unnerved by their beauty and the eruption of pigeon wings flapping down on them, which would cause even the biggest, burliest of men to cower. Martha was particularly fond of the stories where the flock, just passing through, would leave behind a gift for the uprights— a blanket of snow-white shit— which would send her roaring into a fit of laughter.

Any pride Martha felt about this story is now smothered out by her deep, unending loneliness. The once populous Passenger Pigeon had slowly disappeared since their land had been stripped away from them, her own family now just a distant memory. Back when Martha was still a squab, her grandmother had been plucked from a tree like a ripe apple and the irony left a scar— she could still hear her singing of strange fruit in the back of her mind.

Martha’s father was shot down during a grand migration, likely made into a pie to fill the greedy bellies of the uprights, and her mother had been used for trap shooting practice. Her last, and most beloved brother, became a stool pigeon, an ending so obscene that Martha could rarely bring herself to think of it. His eyes were sewn shut, his feet fixed to a perch where he’d then been used to lure hundreds more of his own kind to their deaths.

 Time went on, the flocks dwindled. In the vanishing act of her species, the uprights found themselves affected and suddenly, there was a growing interest from the more progressive uprights to preserve the species. She’d been given a name as well as a lover and was tasked with the duty of repopulating. Together, they were George and Martha, which her husband took great pride in. He was a strong bird with a quiet charm who adored Martha endlessly and who felt a staunch loyalty to his country. George donned this name with pride, but Martha took this as an insult and found it repulsive to wear a name that sang praise of her oppressors. How arrogant to brand her in this way, to turn her into a living monument in their leader’s honor when it had been her kind who had nurtured the very land the uprights farmed on. It was her species who were the weavers, creating patchwork ecosystems that thrived for generations— even their snow-white shit had been a benefit to the upright’s crops.

If Martha could go back, she’d warn her ancestors of the genocide that awaited them not even a century later. She’d tell them to pluck out the upright’s eyes or die trying. To fight back. She’d scream it is us versus them, and they win if you don’t do something now!

She said this once to her husband, who only laughed.

“My sweet little bird, so full of rage,” George cooed, “They kill because that is their nature, not ours.”

Always the contrarian, Martha opposed this idea fiercely. She didn’t find it honorable to lie down, take it, and hope history would remember her as a great victim. She dreamt only of soaring in a river made of birds throughout the North Americas.

George did what he could to satiate her. Their job was to repopulate, which seemed easy at first with their natural attraction to one another. He promised her she would fly one day, that they’d have children, then grandchildren, and God willing, more generations after that, but despite their countless attempts, this proved fruitless. George was struck much harder than Martha— who had already given up before they began— feeling as though he had failed not only his ancestors but his country. When his hope emptied, so did his will to live. It was four years ago that he transitioned, leaving Martha with a torturous title.

The Last Passenger Pigeon.

Now, she sits in her cage as the uprights gawk. She’d grown accustomed to their stares, occasionally even enjoying them. Martha learned to pose when the cameras showed up, partially for vanity, but also to honor the lives of every bird that had come before her. With a powerful strut, she toed the line between entertainment and masochism; the closest to numbing the dull ache of desperation that she was able to find. Oh, and how the uprights adored her, unaware of her burning enmity towards them. They would throw her peanuts and coo at her in attempts to draw her from her perch towards their greedy, outstretched hands. A bald-headed man once boasted to his son that, “When I was a boy, we spent hours just plucking those feathers out to get the birds right for eating. Piles and piles of them.”

Like any good woman, she knew the power of allusivity. How to keep them wanting, how that wanting may be the only thing that could keep her alive. There was one upright, a proper and well-groomed man called Everett, who had earned Martha’s affection. He was the only one who showed her respect and who knew her as more than some bird. He had been the one to bring her and George together and would often fall asleep below her enclosure after late nights observing her in her natural state. They even talked. In fact, it was he who told Martha she was, in fact, the last of her kind.

 “An Endling,” He called her.

As Martha sat, her mind floating through memories both comforting and debilitating, Everett approached as he always did at that time. When she saw him, despite the gravity of her agony, her wings protesting, she swooped down to perch on the man’s finger, her weariness visible.

“My sweet girl,” Everett stroked her head softly, “Please don’t tell me you’ve given up.”

He looks her over as if she were a precious gem, studying and admiring her, “I wouldn’t blame you. We’ve done all that we can do, and hope is a tired thing,” he releases a fractured sigh, “some days it seems there aren’t enough miracles to go around.” Everett pulls his hand back through the cage, taking the last of her hope with him.

Alone once more, Martha let the truth bear down on her, unable to lift her head from its oppressive weight. In the drowsy grief, a blurred memory pulls to the forefront of her mind, hazy but tangible. She sees a summer from her youth where she and her brother practiced nosedives from the highest branch of a tree. They used to play chicken with the hard ground, back before they knew anything of loss, and would swoop at the last second then up, up, up into the sky once more. Martha always dove further and flew higher; each round became a demonstration of her and her species’ excellence.

As she recalls the warmth of freedom, she lifts her head to find her brother sitting on the highest perch of her enclosure with a mischievous look. A manic joy bubbles within her and Martha channels the strength to ascend, ignited by the distant whisper of flapping wings and her grandmother’s hum crying out. Martha reaches the perch only to find her brother has evaporated, but still, she can feel his presence; still, there is a light finally illuminated within her. Martha looks around to follow his ghost when she hears him call to her from 20 feet below. Then, they all do; her mother coos, her grandmother sings, her father, and his father, and his father— all of them, there, calling, crying, beckoning her home as she looks down at the pavement with fondness. She casts down her eyes before she leaps, looking onto the pavement with fondness. Without a second thought, Martha expands her wings. She feels the cool evening breeze rustle through her feathers, a taste of what she imagines might be freedom.

This piece was selected as part of the Top Ten in the Mainstream/Literary Short Story category for the 2023 Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition.

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Andrés Di Bernardo (he/they) is Great Plains writer whose fiction and poetry often explores themes regarding the beauty and horrors of the physical world. As a transgender man, his lived experience profoundly influences his work and has emboldened him to prioritize diverse perspectives through his medium. Andrés was awarded 9th Place in the Mainstream/Literary Short Story category of the 92nd Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition and he has worked as editor for The Metropolitan literary magazine. He is currently pursuing his BFA in Creative Writing at The University of Nebraska Omaha. You can follow his creative journey on instagram @andres.db17.