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

there on the sodden ground before him, with burbled crackling emanating from it, and he has no more strength left to pick it up. He has no more strength for anything. Even the glass cutting into his palm seems distant now, and even his pained breaths are unable to startle him back into focus. The world outside the phone box darkens, then the phone box itself, until there is only the vague glow of the stained brown lamp overhead.

Then there is only the faint beating of Eve’s heart, getting weaker.

There, in the broken phone box, the first man lets himself fade away.

XI

Eden’s ants were like droplets of sap come to life. Adam would spend days at a time following them, and studying them, and enjoying the way that sunlight passed through their tiny, amber bodies. He would peer as closely as he could into the entrances of their nest, trying to discover the hidden hierarchy inside the underground architecture, and he would admire the way they carefully cut into leaves with their strong jaws, and easily carried sections that seemed far too large for them to move, always with purpose, and often walking in strictly organised lines. Sometimes, Adam would copy the ants, and usher his children into queues, and they would stride across Eden, cutting down huge palm leaves, and marching triumphantly with them held over their heads to present them to Eve, their queen, by laying them at her feet. And sometimes, Adam would lie perfectly still near the ants’ nest, with his arm outstretched across the forest floor, just to feel the tickle of their tiny feet as they crawled across him.

In Cologne, Adam helped build the cathedral. The first few years involved a lot of digging, for the foundations, and Adam stole as much displaced foliage as he could to replant in the forests. The forests were wonderful, providing shade in the hot summers, and shelter in the mild winters, and Adam would spend a lot of his time when not at work watching the ants that inhabited it. They were a long way removed from Eden’s ants, but they were still fascinating to Adam, especially when it came to the politics between the different nests and species. Eve, meanwhile, served at the cathedral’s construction, providing food to the builders, and stonecutters, and labourers. And in that way, she learned architecture. This cathedral was to be special, she told Adam; its spires would scratch the sky. And at night, she would show him the sketches she had copied: marvellous cross-sections of the enormous structure. Adam especially enjoyed the way she would liken the design to the human body. The pillars and arches were like ribs, she told him; the transepts like outstretched arms.

One day a year, every year, the ants in Cologne’s forests would fly. Their backs would split to reveal delicate wings, and they would fill the rich space between the roots and branches of the trees with their clumsy flights. Adam and Eve would take the day off from their work, and together they would walk the forest paths and enjoy the feeling of the bright sunshine and all the flitting, tiny bodies bringing such joyful movement to the place. There was a glade not far from their home where they would stop, and Eve would dance in the sunshine there, and laugh as they crawled up her legs and ribs and launched themselves from her outstretched arms, and Adam would lie back among the grasses and admire her. The ants were her congregation, he thought, and her body was their cathedral.

Adam wakes to the sight of machines and flowers.

The machines surround his bed on every side. Some of them beep, and some of them hum, and some of them flash. They are tethered to various parts of him using brightly coloured cables and clear tubes dripping liquids of various hues. Adam has no idea what any of the machines are for, so he doesn’t detach himself in case they are doing something important. Instead, he turns his wrists over and inspects the cannulas feeding him the fluids. His skin is slightly scratched from the multiple attempts they must have made to penetrate it, and he briefly entertains the idea that they might have ended up using a hammer and chisel to puncture him.

The flowers are balanced on the machines. There are bunches of every species imaginable, held in plastic vases and paper cups and rolls of newspaper. Some of them look store bought, and some of them look freshly picked, and the thick perfume of them masks any possible medicinal scent. Adam spends a while simply lying there, waiting to fully awaken and admiring all the flowers. There are curtains, so that the machines and flowers are all he can see, but that’s okay. He feels as if he has spent a very long time trying to walk along a tightrope, and he needs a few moments to regain his balance.

There is a rattling as the curtains part, and a woman wearing a white coat enters, flicking through a thick clipboard of medical charts. “Awake at last,” she says, when she notices that Adam’s eyes are open. “Our miracle man. You were in surgery for a full day, which is a new record for this facility. Congratulations.” She checks some of the machines. “You also set what we believe to be the country-wide record for the amount of shrapnel pulled from a man. We were digging metal out of you for a few hours, and some of it was quite old. You must have a lot of fun going through metal detectors.” Adjusting two of the drips, she turns to him. “Don’t move too much. Your chest is currently being held together with a whole reel of wire, and from what I’m told it was an absolute nightmare threading it through you. Apparently, your bones are as tough as ivory, and your skin is like hard leather. Apart from