Jim Onteoras — 1985 Survivors and Outcasts

Jim wakes in the sharp bright unforgiving light of dawn. In his cool, damp tunnel, the mole cricket is still asleep, dreaming of love. Outside, it is warm and bright. Jim looks out the window. He watches songbirds and sparrows scraping for seed. He marvels that they can be so chipper without caffeine? Perhaps seeds contain caffeine? After all, coffee is a kind of seed. Stretching, he walks to the stove, brews a cup and sips it hot and black. Then he wanders out to the barn.

Once inside, he welds the new old coins onto a chain, he fastens them around his wrist. He feels their heat against his pulse, comforting as a lover’s kiss, reassuring as a promise. He begins to bend screws, nails, sprockets, broken watches and forks into claws. He imagines new crows, but the metal has another plan. Beneath his hands, warm in the coolness, scrap metal wings sprout from silver barn doves … or are they pigeons?