Birds of Paradise by Oliver Langmead (read any book .TXT) 📗

Adam’s thoughts are coming slow; he knows he must keep his concentration on maintaining his grip. Hands are reaching out to him as well as the tree, smearing his skin with glitter; and there are faces, as well, lips pressed to his arms and his back and leaving lipstick stains, as if the crowds might urge him along with the tenderness of kisses. And it’s working, Adam knows. Better than all the hands helping him carry the tree are those who choose to cheer him, lending him strength with every yell and touch.

The float approaches slowly, and Adam is drawn to it.

There are muscular men waiting aboard the float, and the worst of the weight of the tree is lifted from Adam’s shoulder as, together, they haul it upwards. Blossom whirls around Adam as the tree rises, and he glimpses the brightly dressed bodies helping from below, the girls and boys and women and men and so many others dripping with glitter, blowing on whistles and dancing as they pass the roots of the tree up. The bright sun is behind the branches now, glinting as the last of the weight is lifted from Adam, leaving him numb and helpless, all his strength put into carrying the tree this far. Now, he stumbles. Bustled about by the crowd, he falls to one knee, his blood pounding in his ears. Adam breathes deep of the damp air, the stink of all the bodies and thick perfumes and fumes from the floats making him dizzy.

There are people above on the float, locking the tree down; passing great straps through its tangled roots to keep it anchored.

Then there are people helping to lift Adam instead. They come to him, strong and weak together, and raise him just like they raised the tree, and suddenly he is above the crowds, on his back, with all their hands beneath him. He can feel them trembling with the weight of him, but he feels weightless, with only the blue sky above him and the tree beside him, as if he is back in Eden and floating in the river. The hands pass him along, not far, only to the float, where he is placed gently down among the roots of the tree.

They pass him bottled water, and a man in a high-visibility jacket asks him if he’s okay, and then he is left alone, exhausted and sat among the roots of Eden’s cherry tree, watching the crowds in a kind of stunned stupor. People blow him kisses as the float passes by. Some climb aboard and dance around the tree, and the streets of London are so bright, with rainbow flags and rainbow people, hands joined, celebrating themselves.

As Adam’s heart slows, and feeling gradually returns to his limbs, he clambers to his feet and, clinging hold of the tree, waves at those below. He feels the slow smile across his face as it emerges, like a hesitant sun from behind thick clouds.

When the parade comes to a junction, Adam notices that it’s Magpie driving the float; he leans out from the cab, and his sequinned jacket sparkles in the sunlight. He waves up at Adam, and honks the horn with a rhythm that the crowds clap along to. Adam isn’t sure what kind of destination Magpie has in mind, but he thinks that it doesn’t matter yet: they are being borne along by the parade, and there’s no escaping it for a while. The police at the cordons are paying the tree no particular attention, so he decides to relax.

Reaching up into the branches of Eden’s cherry tree, Adam plucks a fruit. With delicacy, he places it into his mouth and tastes it. The flavour is brilliant: every bit as brilliant as he expected it to be, as if every morsel he’s tasted since Eden has been ashes on his tongue by comparison. Adam wipes the tears from his cheeks with the back of a hand, and notices the way that they mingle with the glitter staining his skin. Then he spits the cherry’s stone into his palm, and considers it. The stone has a weight to it, he thinks – a weight not found on Earth.

Once, maybe, Adam would have gorged himself on cherries. He would have snatched them down from the branches of the tree and spat stone after stone onto the hard earth, consumed by greed. But today one cherry is enough. The gift of this tree is something that the people here deserve, for all their help, as unwitting as it might have been. So, he takes handfuls of cherries – plucking them carefully so that their departure does not damage the tree – and scatters them among the crowds.

Bright red jewels, glinting as they fly.

Hands reach out to grab them, and there are cheers. Blossom falls, and cherries rain, and faces are raised to the sun, laughing. The crowds spit stones across the pavements and streets, but some throw their stones over walls and into gardens, finding bare patches of hard, grassy earth. And maybe, Adam thinks, just maybe there will be an epidemic of mortal cherry trees in years to come, along the route the parade took today. Adam is not greedy, he does not deplete the tree of its current crop; there are enough handfuls for plenty to have a taste, and he feels as if he’s sowing the cherries like seeds across a field of brightly dressed bodies.

When he has thrown enough cherries, Adam sits back against the trunk, exhausted. This would be a good time to die, he thinks. Not being shot at, or drowning, but here, beneath Eden’s cherry tree, surrounded by his children, joined together in celebration. And with that thought comes a realisation: that he has been waiting to die for a long time. For entire lifetimes, in fact. Centuries, wandering the Earth in search of a good place to die. Adam closes his eyes, feeling