by Joshua Lobb
We haven’t missed anything. A lively conversation is taking place between our team leader and the big boss, a flustered colleague shelved on the sidelines. The big boss is evangelising about breaking through the clutter, about focus, about consolidation and maximum impact, about attention to detail. He’s telling us that without attention to detail we can’t drill down to the real problems, we can’t take it up to the next level, we can’t get to the bleeding edge.
Our leader concurs, absolutely, unequivocally. Nobody, it seems, knows how to follow procedure. Nobody knows how to leverage an opportunity. She’s licking her lips. Despite her desire to impress, she’s making a bit of a mess with her lunch. She’s hooked the end of the chicken wing and has snapped the sticky bone at the join. She turns it upside down and the marinade drips. The big boss notices. He snorts and tells her that she needs a serviette, no, several serviettes. He laughs at the splotch of sauce she’s got on her blouse.
Her lips tighten.
‘Peter?’ she hackles. ‘Isn’t your report ready?’
Peter looks up from his notepad and gives one of his grotty good-natured smiles. He dithers out stapled photocopies of a gritty spreadsheet, one for each member of the team. He’s sorry he didn’t have time to submit it earlier.
Our leader snatches and pokes at the report as Peter commences a zigzagging account of budget analytics and potential streamlining models.
We’re not listening. We’re waiting, our eyes fixed.
‘Peter,’ she piques, with a Taxi Driver tilt of the head, ‘look at the error in the third column.’
Peter contemplates the splotchy ink. He doesn’t think … he could be …?
She maintains her binocular gaze, her smooth head thrown back, her chest expanded. She’s steely and still. We all duck and cover. It’s much worse than her usual attack. This is what she means about procedure, this is what the big boss means when he’s talking about clutter, attention to detail, updating systems.
She whirls in her chair. ‘I mean honestly, Peter, this is ridiculous. How could you make such a fundamental fuck-up?’
Yes, yes, Peter says, his head down, the cowlick exposed. Yes, yes, he knows.
‘Well, if you know—if you know—then why did you do it?’
We don’t say anything. Peter faces away from the team. His head isn’t bowed, but he’s not making eye contact with anyone. His nose is pointed at the glass walls. For the rest of the meeting, you can sense him trying not to shudder.
A colleague passes my office en route to the weekly round-up. I delete some send-all emails and follow. We haven’t had a chance to debrief about the Peter incident—we all left the meeting shell-shocked and silent—but now isn’t the time or the place to raise the topic. Only a moment later we’re at our team leader’s door.
She waves us into her office. It’s a vast room, trimly furnished: a white desk, neat bookcases, a small cleared table for intimate conferences. There’s a strip of windows along one wall and they’re open today, letting in late afternoon sun and airy sounds. She’s recounting a story the big boss told her about someone in another department. It’s not an unfunny story, and she’s telling it expertly. At the punchline, she lifts her head and laughs. I catch a glance of her pristine-white blouse.
She doesn’t mention Peter. He’s meant to be at the meeting.
We discuss the action items for next week. We follow a routine of points. There are a few moments when we encounter a task in Peter’s domain: we skirt around it, hoping our team leader won’t notice. She notices.
‘I think I should say—’ she begins.
And, absolutely, unequivocally on cue, there’s the sound of breaking glass. A cry from a colleague, confused, rattled, using Peter’s name and words like ‘Don’t—’ and ‘What are you—?’ A whoosh and a scream. A kerfuffle of feet. One of my colleagues is in the doorway, saying, ‘I think—I think—’. Through the open windows, there are other voices rumbling, calling from the cavernous space below.
I think Peter may have—the voice is saying.
I don’t know much about magpies. Peter did, though. I joined him on his journey up the stairwell once. I was coming from the carpark; he was slowly trudging through his regimen. I don’t know what made us get onto the topic of birds. He’s an ornithologist, he told me. Well, an amateur ornithologist. A twitcher. He went on to tell me how he always goes bushwalking on the weekend, binoculars at the ready. But he doesn’t have to venture far to watch his favourite bird. The magpie is a much-maligned creature, he said. Everyone harps on about their aggression, their steely beaks, their yellow eyes. They’re not aggressive. Their swooping behaviour is limited to four to six weeks in the year, and they’re always only defending their hatchlings. We think of the attacks as unprovoked, but, for them, we’re invading their territory. There are statistics to show that magpie attacks count for something like 0.01 percent of human injuries from animals. Magpies are beautiful. Did you know they’re one of the few birds—in the world—to engage in play? Did you know they have facial expressions? They can fluff the feathers below or above their beak to show fear or anger or surprise. They’re capable of binocular vision, so they can look you in the eye. They sunbake! They lie on their back, wings outstretched, and it looks like they’re dead. But one eye is always in shade under the beak, keeping watch. They have a complex social structure with a tight hierarchy, but they also work cooperatively. They forage side by side and, if there’s a predator, one bird will warn the others. Their calls are a warning for other animals in the wild. They’re the police of the bush. Magpies can even forge close connections with humans. Peter told me how he’d cared for an injured magpie once. He thinks a cat had got her. He gathered her up and fed her droplets of water. When her wing was healed, Peter released her into the wild. But she didn’t go far: in fact, she built her nest in his backyard. Peter loves to watch her fretting the grass, plunging her smooth beak into the ground.
Look, I’ve been playing with a metaphor here, but, like most metaphors, it doesn’t always stay still. I’ve never been very good with analogies. I started writing this story with a simple correlation: magpie-attacks-human-equals-workplace-bullying. Thanks to the conversation with Peter on the stairs, though, I’ve moved from a simple metaphor to one where the analogy shifts, mid-swoop. Peter is sometimes the small boy, walking between the poplars, howling when the beak-knife pierces the top of his head. Then he becomes the magpie, expertly fashioning an elegant nest: the outer layer rough with plastic, rope and hessian bags; the inner layer ordered and scrupulously cared for, insulated against the wind. Sometimes he’s a marginal member of the magpie clan, ostracised, not permitted to eat or drink. Crouching for hours in front of a tree, beak touching the bark. Sometimes we’re all magpies.
In a book I read, a scientist describes an experiment in which she placed a stuffed eagle carcass in the bushes. One magpie spotted it and called the alarm. Then all the magpies mobbed the stuffed eagle, picking it apart, beaks clapping and wings flapping furiously. We’ve all been there.
And as for our team leader—
We’ve all stumbled down the corridor, seen the shattered glass in the stationery cupboard, the two black scuff-marks on the shelf. We’ve all flown down the stairwell and splayed into the courtyard. Security has got there before us and is attempting to cordon off the area, but we can all see the carcass. It’s mangled, splintered, frayed. I’ve seen something like that before. I’m paralysed, staring at another broken body. We’re all paralysed. Except for our team leader. She swoops towards Peter. Security tries to warn her away but she persists. ‘It’s my job,’ she cries. ‘It’s my responsibility.’ She peels away her black jacket and folds it over him. She’s careful not to move him. She knows exactly what to do. She’s the one who went to the first aid course last year when we all deleted the email. She tells everyone to stand back. She whispers into his grazed ear. She listens. ‘He’s alive!’ she calls. ‘Get the ambulance here!’ She feels along his rib cage, his pe
lvis, the open edge of his thigh bone. All the time she’s warbling to Peter, soothingly, a sub-song, a song a bird might sing when he is sitting on his own. She glances at one of us and a colleague offers her a water bottle. She sprinkles droplets of water over Peter’s forehead, making sure to keep them away from his mouth.
When the ambulance arrives she lets them do their job. We watch as the paramedics shuffle Peter onto the stretcher. I don’t want to look as they carry him towards the ambulance. His blood-splattered eyes twitch. One eye is open under a broken nose. Teeth are barbed through his bottom lip.
Our team leader is watching, too. There’s blood on her white blouse.
I step forward. As the courtyard darkens and the siren fades, I have to comfort her.
And No Birds Sing
Alaotra grebe Tachybaptus rufolavatus
Atitlán grebe Podilymbus gigas
Aldabra brush-warbler Nesillas aldabrana
Colombian grebe Podiceps andinus
Like a whisper in the feathers there, in the wings’
Great wind, like a whirring of words, but I could not
Say the shape of them.
W.S. Merwin, ‘The Annunciation’
It’s a silence that overrides all others. It’s as if the whole room is on mute; no, the opposite: as if the volume is up so high that you can no longer hear it, it’s become a bone-splitting unfathomable fuzz. He’s not sure if he’s in a dream; he’s fairly sure he isn’t. There’s a dull ache separating his body from the rest of the room. He’s not sure, yet, what the room is. It could be a scrubbed-clean kitchen with a white table in the centre. Or it could be a sparsely furnished, chalky-walled granny flat. It could be the void of a courtyard in the centre of an office block. It could even be an empty school quadrangle, a chip packet wafting over the asphalt, or a silent ravine on the journey home from work. He knows it isn’t any of those places. He knows where he is; it’s on the tip of his mind, but there’s a smooth surface between himself and that knowledge.
Mariana mallard Anas oustaleti
Kauai akialoa Hemignathus obscurus
Stead’s bushwren Xenicus longipes variabilis Stead
South Island piopio Turnagra capensis
Kākāwahie Paroreomyza flammea
Long-tailed triller Lalage leucopyga
Sunda teal Anas gibberifrons remissa
Glaucous macaw Anodorhynchus glaucus
North Island piopio Turnagra tanagra
Niceforo’s pintail Anas georgica niceforoi
San Benedicto rock wren Salpinctes obsoletus exsul
Laughing owl Sceloglaux albifacies
Wake rail Hypotaenidia wakensis
Laysan rail Porzana palmeri
Cyprus dipper Cinclus cinclus olympicus
Maré Island thrush Turdus poliocephalus mareensis
Grand Cayman thrush Turdus ravidus
Daito varied tit Sittiparus varius orii
Mcgregor’s house finch Carpodacus mexicanus mcgregori
Grand Cayman Jamaican oriole Icterus leucopteryx bairdi
Assumption Island white-throated rail Canirallus cuvieri abbotti
Ryukyu wood pigeon Columba jouyi
Pink-headed duck Rhodonessa caryophyllacea
Isle of Pines solitaire Myadestes elisabeth retrusus
Hawai‘i ‘ō‘o Moho nobilis
Canarian oystercatcher Haematopus meadewaldoi
Paradise parrot Psephotus pulcherrimus
San Clemente wren Thryomanes bewickii leucophrys
Iwo Jima white-browed crake Poliolimnas cinereus brevipes
There are bodies in the room with him. In the other beds, he can sense a series of broken-winged humans. Other figures float past, coming in and out of focus. Their mouths open and close, but what they’re saying can’t be heard over the humming silence. They tuck and untuck the starchy white sheets that pin him to the bed. Once, one of the figures moves to the edge of the room and lets in a sudden flood of light. It cuts across the face of the man in the bed opposite him. He’s sleeping; he has a grotesque, frightened expression, a twisted frown. For the next stretch of time (An afternoon? A lifetime?) he watches the light deaden over the frightened man’s face.
A woman and a girl appear. He knows who they are. The woman’s face is flat, like she’s wearing a veil. The girl is scared. He wants to comfort her but he can’t work out how to get out of the bed. The woman and the girl sit on two porcelain chairs that are next to the bed. There is some half-hearted opening and closing of mouths. He knows he’s supposed to do something. The girl has a large book on her lap: her hands are like mittens, or paws, resting on top. Between her paws the cover image of the book comes into focus: a black bird flying over a white sky. The woman’s mouth moves. The girl doesn’t speak.
Or maybe he isn’t in the bed. Maybe he’s under the pale light of a desk lamp, looking at his computer screen, swivelling in his chair. It’s a windy night. A gush of air shakes the window frame; through the window he can see the leaves of the eucalypt in the backyard glinting as the air reverberates through them.
He’s transcribing a list he’s taken from the internet. He has a stack of paper to write on. It’s that kind of paper they used to use (Fifteen years ago? Twenty years ago?) for printers, the type bordered by strips of perforated circles. Each page is attached to the last; the ream comes out of the box in one long zigzagging ribbon. He’s writing the words on the paper in black texta. He doesn’t know why he’s doing this; he knows exactly why he’s doing this.
He writes:
The Alaotra grebe (Tachybaptus rufolavatus), a duck-like bird with a yellow face and black cowl, was formerly found in Lake Alaotra in central Madagascar. The introduction of predatory fish and human poaching are believed to be the primary causes of its extinction. It was officially declared extinct in 2010.
He writes:
The Atitlán grebe (Podilymbus gigas) was declared extinct in 1989. Endemic to Lago de Atitlan in Guatemala, it was similar to the pied-billed grebe (Podilymbus podiceps) but with a reduced wingspan and flightless. Extinction was due to a variety of factors: introduced fish, reed-cutting, tourism development, lowered lake levels after the 1976 earthquake and even political unrest. The murder of the park ranger during the coup of 1982 significantly hampered conservation efforts.
He writes:
The Aldabra brush-warbler (Nesillas aldabrana) had pale feathers on its slender frame, with short wings and a long, pointed tail. It was threatened by habitat alteration by introduced species, such as rats, cats and goats. It was last sighted in 1983, and searches in 1986 confirmed its extinction.
Running his finger down the long list on the screen, there are some names he doesn’t recognise: the Niceforo brown pintail (Anas georgica niceforoi), the Laysan honeycreeper (Himatione sanguinea), the slender-billed grackle (Quiscalus palustris). Others are more familiar: the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), the great auk (Alca impennis), the slender moa (Dinornis torosus). The last name on the list is the dodo (Raphus cucullatus), but he knows that there were birds before this. And, of course, there will always be birds to come.
He doesn’t know what to do with this list of vanished birds. He has a desire to shred his ream of outdated paper or to scrunch it up and shove it into the recycling bin. He also has a desire to read it all out aloud, like a mantra or a eulogy. The Latin words form in his mouth. There’s a certain rhythm to the incantation; he can feel the tap of it thrumming against his leg. He continues to write down the information: the San Benedicto rock wren (Salpinctes obsoletus exsul), declared extinct in 1952; the laughing owl (Sceloglaux albifacies), 1950; the wake rail (Rallus wakensis), 1945. He chants out their stories; dots of his spit pixelate the computer screen. Outside the room, the wind has picked up; the eucalypt thrashes from side to side. The black mamo (Drepanis funereal), 1907; the huia (Heteralocha acutirostris), 1906; the Auckland Island merganser (Mergus australis), 1905. The air is rasping. The Bonin woodpigeon (Columba versicolor), 1889. Something is cal
ling him on the wind. His chanting increases in volume. The O‘ahu ‘ō‘ō (Moho apicalis), 1837; the mysterious starling (Aplonis mavornata), 1774. He’s using his voice to drown out the bawling wind.
Norfolk starling Aplonis fusca
Laysan honeycreeper Hiimatione fraithii
Laysan millerbird Acrocephalus familiaris familiaris
