I hated myself for it, but I ran after him and blurted, “What have you heard?”

He turned and leaned toward me, “You know that crazy Wells book you were so moony over last summer?”

“The Time Machine? ”

“That’s the one. I heard in town that it’s real. In St. Paul.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

He shrugged, “Someone said that someone said that even though it didn’t look like the illustration in your book, there’s a time traveler there who talked to the governor for days and days, then disappeared.”

“The picture you saw was from a children’s book!”

He grunted, “Anyway, they said they heard that someone heard that the time traveler wanted to know everything about the birds, only he called ‘em ‘passenger pigeons’.”

“What are those? Pigeons are pigeons.”

Danforth shrugged and went back to work. Mother called me to help her wash dishes.

July 19, 1895

I’ve been thinking about what a time traveler could possibly want with pigeons. They’re monsters. Preachers ’round these parts think that they’re a curse placed on mankind. I heard one said it was “for the hubris of thinking he was better than nature.” When I was doing dishes I asked Pa about pigeons eating people. Pa says that the pigeons don’t eat human meat—’cept for the eyes. Mother hushed him up real fast and asked me if I’d heard what he said. I turned around and said, “What?”

Mother managed a pained smile and a glance at Pa that would have peeled paint from the outhouse—if there’d been any paint left on it.

Later that day, a pigeon flock passed over our town and it was dark enough to have to light the lanterns. The sound was horrible and we could hear the birds relieve themselves on our house and the ground outside. Their relief was poison to the ground.

Mother shouted at the roof as if she was trying to scare them away. She scared the littles so much, I finally had to hold the youngest and let the others lean on me.

It took fifteen hours for the flock to pass. Mother said, “Our time is over and this is the end of humanity. We will die surrounded by meat we can’t eat any more; they’ve eaten the food we’ve grown; our waters have been poisoned by pigeons that drop a deadly rain as they pass over us…”

Pa said nothing, but hung his head. Danforth and me looked at each other until finally he couldn’t hold my eyes no more and looked away. He looked so much like Pa, it made my heart clench tight.

Time passed, and the deafening shriek of the passing flock faded into complete silence. Even so, no one moved. Didn’t seem like it was worth it. Whatever we’d had yesterday was gone now. Seemed like given time, pigeons would rule the world and humanity would be extinct.

……………………………………………

Guy Stewart has lived in the state of Minnesota in the US since birth; been to Nigeria, Cameroon, Liberia, Haiti, Canada, Britain, and Belgium; been writing the whole time. He’s also a husband, father, father-in-law, foster father, and grandfather and has been a science teacher for 35 years.

The Great Golden Fish

Dee Raspin

Angus sat on a rough stone, overlooking the glen where his croft lay. Propping his crook by his side, he raised his eyes to the shifting storm clouds, and sighed. The croft had lost its heart since Mary died. He couldn’t bear to sit at the big table alone, with nothing but the crackle of logs on the fire to break the silence.

With Mary there was never silence, rest, or peace. There was always something needing doing. Dying wool, carding it, spinning it, knitting it, making him wear it—though it never fit. Or she’d be out in the fields, tilling the earth with all the pull of a barrel-backed pony. She was a strong lass, Mary.

The first time they’d met at old Campbell’s cèilidh, that’s what he’d noticed: her strength. It shone in her broad, fearless smile, in the red of her cheeks, in the dark glitter of her eyes. When she danced, there was something wild in her movements.

Angus had been fine-looking in his youth, and all the lassies blushed and giggled when he walked by.

All but one—and she was hurling the menfolk about like hayricks, as she raced through the dance.

There was a woman who could work! Angus wasn’t for wanting a fireside decoration. He wasn’t for cow-like docility, good manners and old-fashioned respect. He propped himself against the barn wall, waiting to catch her eye. One by one, she left her partners exhausted. Even Rob Mackay, the big miller’s son, was starting to slow. But not Mary—the more she spun, stomped and reeled, the brighter her eyes grew and the redder her cheeks.

She looked up, and locked eyes with Angus.

It wasn’t an invitation to dance, it was a challenge to battle—and he knew it. Throwing back her head, black ringlets falling around her neck and shoulders, she took him by the hand and pulled him to the floor. The men roared with laughter, the women rolled their eyes.

Surely bonny Angus wasn’t after big Mary?

The rest of the night he and she danced every dance together. They twisted each other’s arms, trampled each other’s feet and laughed loud enough to drown out the band.

Hours later, when the dance ended, they headed out into the hills in search of the sunrise. Their breath fell heavy on the chill air, and the little clouds of mist they made mingled together. When they reached the big cairn, they sat down—gazing into the distance. There the world stretched out before them—golden, bathed in the first light of morning. Everything fresh, and new.

Angus turned to Mary, and she met his glance with a steady eye and firm smile.

‘Mary.’ he said, and she knew what he was about. ‘If yer as brutal with my cows as yer are wi’ me, ye’ll be my ruin.’

And that was that. They married the following month.

Not long after, Angus saw a new side to the wild lass. With animals, she was calm—yet stern. There was a depth in her that seemed to soothe them. Even the stags in season would cease their bellowing for Mary. The years Angus shared with her were happy and quick.

But then, one winter, sad news came drifting down into the glen. They heard of folk turned out of their crofts, without a stitch, forced to make way for sheep. The sheep made more money than the crofters paid rent, they said. It was called ‘The Clearances.’

But what of the people? They were sent to the coast, to fish.

To fish! Men and women that’d never seen the sea.

Angus shivered.

But there was more to come. Mary’s father was ill. He’d had news of a close friend’s death, and taken it badly. Mary’s father and Hamish Mackenzie had been friends for years. Even when Mary’s father moved down into the glen, Hamish would send messages by travelling men with news and talk.

It was a dark afternoon when the messenger came knocking. His face was grave, his eyes downcast. The men had come, chasing folks out their houses. But old Hamish was stubborn—he’d refused to leave. More than that, he’d grown frail. How could he, at his age, make a journey to the coast and start afresh? How could he learn to fish; a man who’d worked the fields all his life?

When they threatened him, he laughed in their faces. Better die here, in his boyhood home, than some godforsaken coast.

And die, he did.

That night they came and set his croft alight—with Hamish inside. His screams echoed through the hills, but there was no help to be had: the place went up so fast.

Mary tried to console her father, but it was useless—he lay in bed, unresponsive. His eyes were clouded with thoughts of another place, and he saw and heard nothing. Day after day, he grew thinner. A week later, he died. The grief had been too much.

And as is often the case with sorrow, it spread like disease.

Mary, the woman who’d never known illness, started to grow pale.