Flamingo Dance (Flash Fiction)

Flamingo Dance (Flash Fiction)

The only good thing about having long COVID was that Fay could work with the flamingoes in the summertime. They were her favorite animal in the whole zoo with their pipe-cleaner necks and soap opera drama. Their squabbling was at an all time high now that it was nesting season: mated pairs defending their dirt nests with squawks and nips. Thanks to her newly lost sense of smell, Fay wasn’t troubled by the funk that rose from dozens of bodies shitting in stagnant water. As an added bonus, the smell kept most visitors from lingering long at the enclosure, so she wouldn’t actually have to do her job and talk to strangers. She was too hungover to be a good zoo educator that day.

The morning before over their weekly Sunday pancakes, her best friend Lexi had ruined everything. “Javi and I are trying for a baby,” she said.

Fay looked down at her plate. It was streaked with red and blue, garish colors of the ginger berry sauce she had cooked. It didn’t make any sense. Lexi had an IUD, just like Fay. They’d gone to Planned Parenthood together three years ago. It was supposed to be good for at least two more years. They both loved their IUDs: pregnancy prevention that required no upkeep, no daily pill, no latex to remain intact. Fay no longer needed her supply of Plan B she had stocked up on in Mexico. Lexi and Fay went out together every Friday and Saturday night to dance: funk at the Middle East, bluegrass at the Can Tab, salsa at Club Caribé. They’d start the night dancing together then inevitably hook up with a stranger, only after each made sure the other’s choice was not too sketchy. They had rules, they kept each other safe. Guarded each other’s drinks. Made sure to go to their hookup’s apartment so that they couldn’t be stalked at their own. They’d use location sharing on Google Maps to make sure the other didn’t end up in the Charles River. And they would meet up every Sunday morning to laugh and talk about their conquests.

Then Lexi met Javi. Short and dumpy, with no taste in music, he wasn’t good enough for her friend. Fay had expected the relationship to fizzle out fast. But then there was the fucking pandemic. Lockdown only drew them closer.

Lexi touched her shoulder. “Fay, what do you think? I’ll be a good mother, right?”

Amid the squawking of all the adult flamingoes, Fay heard a tiny chirp. The mother stood up from her nest to reveal a chubby gray fuzzball. Fay’s hands clenched into fists. The baby was just too damn cute, wobbling around on her toothpick pink legs. She was the picture of innocence. Did she know that she was a prisoner? That her flight feathers would be clipped before they could grow, that she would never paint the sky pink with her flying family?

But what would her life have been like in the wild? Even if she could fly back to Chile, she’d only discover that her brine pools were now toxic lithium mines for Tesla batteries.

To be wild is to suffer. To be human is to be guilty.

Word spread at the zoo of the babies and the next day there were dozens of visitors at the enclosure, their oohs and aahs sounding funny behind noses pinched against the stink. Fay did her job. Answered questions. No you cannot eat flamingos, they are protected by the Migratory Bird Act (a species deserving of that protection, in Fay’s opinion, unlike jerk Canada geese. It seemed to Fay that all the species that thrived in human habitats were bullies.) Yes, they do look funny when they eat: they hold their head upside down and shake out the water through ridges in their beaks until they are left with nothing but brine shrimp and diatoms. Yes, the babies will turn pink when they get older, once they have absorbed enough pigment from their food.

“Did you know that flamingos are excellent dancers?” Fay asked a group of pint-sized day campers. Fay demonstrated the nine distinct moves of the flamingo courtship dance. Kids giggled as they stood on one leg and flapped their arms. In the wild, huge flocks of male and female flamingos did their elaborate dance to find a new mate every year. Fay had to keep this fact to herself. Visitors expected birds to mate for life. They wanted fairy tales behind bars.

 On Friday, all the chicks were gone. The adult flamingos seemed somber, quieter than usual. A worker was repairing torn mesh at the top of the enclosure.

“They were all eaten by raccoons,” said the bird keeper, sniffing back tears.

The racoons with their humanlike paws had broken in. Eaten every single baby with their humanlike teeth. Fay didn’t blame the racoons. Their habitat had been destroyed by humans. With their omnivorous diet and sharp intelligence they adapted to human ways, honed their dexterity on dumpsters and trash bags. Fay felt sure the racoons had learned to be evil from the humans. People were the planet’s worst invasive species. Only 4% of the biomass of mammals one earth were wild anymore, the rest, 96% were humans and domestic. A full two thirds of the birds on earth were domesticated poultry. There were just too many damn humans.

Fay didn’t go out dancing that night, nor the next one. She had a plan. On Sunday, she made a special batch of pancakes with a special ingredient all the way from Mexico, just for Lexi. She loved her best friend too much to allow her to be culpable.

Last Girls Club published this piece in their Fall Equinox Issue Number 11.