Liliflora

This piece is inspired by a fortuitous visit one day of a similar bird who showed nothing but polite indifference, and a bottle of talc powder sitting around in my room. 

Liliflora

Word count: 2400
Summary: In the language of flowers, magnolia means 'love of nature'. Who knew?

This morning a bird came to my window and spoke to me. “Beware of the Liliflora,” it said. Before I could ask the bird what it meant by the ominous warning, it had flown away.

I kept on replaying the scene in my mind few dozens times over the next two days, but I still couldn’t understand the bird’s words. I didn’t even know what Liliflora meant. When I searched the term on the internet, I only got entries on magnolias and the closest I’d ever been to the flower was through my talcum powder. Did this mean I have to be wary of talcum powder from now on?

To be honest I did throw the powder away. I wasn’t one for superstition, but when a bird told you about something, you took heed. Besides, no harm done. I bought another bottle of talcum powder from the Watson’s near the MRT station and for the first time in my life I actually read the ingredient box—just to make sure that no magnolia liliflora was in it.

The next day, the same bird fluttered around my bedroom window and spoke to me again. “Beware of the Liliflora.” I didn’t hesitate this time and replied, “I don’t have anything to do with magnolias anymore, bird. What exactly do you want?”

It didn’t reply and flew away, leaving me in deep confusion.

Why was the damned bird so obsessed with magnolias?

I really couldn’t let go of it—twice the same bird had come to me and warned me about the flower. There had to be something to it. It might be a sign from God—who else would employ such a flamboyant messaging system? I had to admit, it was pretty classy and hard to ignore but I just wished sometimes that He got the memo. We had internet now, use the e-mail. One-liners were popular back during Moses’ time, but these days people would prefer something less cryptic and more explanatory. When it came to messages it was better not to leave anything up for interpretation. Holy Wars were started that way.

So the next question was, what did God want with me? Why was He warning me about magnolias? Was I allergic to the flower?

A quick search on the internet told me that if I were asthmatic or allergic to pollens, the flowers might cause some respiratory problems. The magnolia tree sap had caused skin irritation for some people too. But that didn’t make any sense because I did not have asthma or even allergic to anything. The magnolia-scented talcum powder I’d used before didn’t cause me any issues as well. So, back to zero.

Because I ran out of clues, I decided to let events run their course. If it was so important, the bird would come again.

And it did. Third time was the charm because somehow it got the hint and provided me with more information. It said, “Beware of the Liliflora, asshole.”

Great. The bird hated me.

“What the fuck does that mean, bird?” I asked it.

The bird only looked down on me and didn’t answer. It flew away with its beak raised high. I felt like wringing its neck. Oh, I didn’t know what kind of bird it was. Not too small and not too big, I guess, and it had dirty brown feathers with yellow beak. I was struck by how scraggly it looked. It wasn’t a particularly handsome creature or anything. It was just a bird—a really nasty one at that.

So I complained. On Saturday morning I went to St. Andrews’ church at City Hall to report the bird to its Maker. I had to wait until the mass was over before I could have the pews for myself. I hadn’t been to a church since I was eighteen, so it was a bit awkward. But nothing to it. I sat on one of the wooden benches, brought my fingers together and began.

“God, with all due respect, I would like to file a complaint against one of your messengers. You know which one. First of all, I don’t think it even understands the job. The message it told me wasn’t clear—it never was and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it. Second, it has an attitude that I don’t appreciate. The bird only nurtures negative feelings inside me and I don’t think that’s what You want. Can you please send someone else?”

God didn’t answer right away and I didn’t expect Him to.

“Oh, and it swears. The bird called me a bad name.”

A sudden, loud thunderclap rang through the church and I jumped a little. There it was! I took it as a sign of celestial displeasure. The bird was going to get it for sure.

“Thank you, God,” I said. “Really nice of you.” To show my gratitude I put some money to the donation box before exiting the church.

I went back home and prepared for the coming of the next messenger. I was looking forward to it—at least now I thought I would be able to do something about the message. But days passed and nothing happened. No talking animals came by, no suspicious e-mails in my inbox or Facebook and no letters delivered. I didn’t see any writings on the sky either or a giant billboard that was only visible to me. I had a feeling that whatever God wanted to tell me, it was pretty lengthy.

I waited.

On the seventh day I heard a knock on my bedroom window. Whoever it was, their timing was pretty spot-on because I just got back home from work and changed my clothes. I opened the curtain and saw a bird.

The same darn bird.

“What the fuck?” I said. “I thought you’ve been retrenched.”

The bird snorted. I noticed that there was a scroll within its tiny claw. It didn’t speak, but from the look on its eyes the bird wanted me to take the scroll. It fluttered its wings.

“Leave it then,” I said, pointing to the tabletop. “I hope this time you do your job properly.”

It chirped and I sensed it was spouting insults in some bird language I didn’t understand, but it did leave the scroll on the table. Then I heard a squirting sound. When I turned around, I saw a fresh blob of bird droppings on my table.

I screamed and scrambled towards the foul bird with murder in mind. “That’s it! You are dead! Dead like a doorknob!”

It escaped through the open window before I could do anything to it. I had to admit that I didn’t know what to do with animals. The only animals I liked were the ones on my plate—as food. I did not trust them, really, especially given recent encounters. I had thought birds were at least all right, but I was proven wrong on several occasions, wasn’t I? And why would God re-use the same shameless, grudge-bearing, fecal-minded bird?

With disgust I wiped the bird droppings off my table and sanitized the whole surface area three times over. I had bought liquid Dettol just for this kind of occasion. Then I cleaned the windows and the windowpanes in my bedroom. I was afraid the bird had littered. It had not wiped its butt, hadn’t it?

After I was done with cleaning, I took the scroll and untied the ribbon around it. God had a great style, I thought. Good quality papyrus, although quite old-fashioned nowadays, nothing like what they sold in stationery stores. Trés chic. I tried reading the text, however, and gave up after five minutes, frustrated. It was gibberish! It wasn’t in any language that I knew (okay, I only knew English. What, why do you expect me to be multilingual?) and I didn’t think the letters were from Earth. It looked more like chicken scratch than anything else.

Then I realized it. Of course it looked like nothing I had ever seen before! God’s language was Aramaic! I knew this from the exorcism movies I used to watch—Stigmata had a scene where they showed some weird letters and they also looked like chicken scratch! I was sure that this was my clue to solving this puzzling papyrus. I felt like Robert Langdon for a brief moment.

So the next day I took this papyrus scroll to my alma mater’s Linguistics Department and met one Professor Ling who was willing to listen to my story about the bird, God, and the Aramaic scroll. She looked quite interested too and asked to see the papyrus. When I showed her the parchment, she gasped. “Oh my!” and told me that she would consult this with her peers in the Archaelogy Department first to see if they could translate the text. I let her take photos of the parchment and she promised to get back to me in a week.

A week later I got an e-mail from Professor Ling. Her colleagues in the Archaelogy Department had contacts at a university in Israel and they had managed to translate the text. She warned me, however, that the translation was quite cryptic and suspected that it was a joke. Seriously, a joke from God? Keeping her warning in mind, I opened the attachment to read the translated text. It read:

A bird comes in rain

harbinger of news to come

beware, mortal kin

malice blossoms unbidden

for those who are bottom holes

None of the lines made sense to me, especially the last one, so I called Professor Ling. “Bottom holes? What is that?”

She was silent for a while before replying, “Well…the translators are trying to be polite, I think. It’s not a word you will normally find in such document. This is why we think it’s just a joke, because no one would actually write that using Aramaic. The fact that they use Aramaic in the first place is quite amazing since not a lot of people know the language.”

“Okay, but I still don’t get this ‘bottom holes’ part. What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

Professor Ling sighed. “Assholes.”

“Excuse me?”

“See, I told you it is a big joke.”

“That damn bird again!”

“So if we want to interpret the text, it can mean that a bird will come to warn danger for those who are, er, not so nice.”

“It did come four times and I still don’t know what kind of danger I’m in! And I happen to be a nice person!”

After that I went to St. Andrews again and complained. This time I didn’t hear any thunder or other horrible sounds, so I supposed that either God wasn’t listening or I approached this in a wrong manner. Why was it so hard just to get a concrete explanation? We, humans, were given the ability to think, yes, but sometimes we just needed a big, colorful finger pointing us at the right direction. This was one of those times.

As I was driving around town that day, my mind kept coming back to the events that had happened for the past few weeks. How could I not? It was important, now I knew it, because they had made repeated attempts to warn of a certain danger—although the messenger utilized was sub-par so I didn’t exactly have information on what sort of danger it was. This failure to communicate perturbed me in many levels. Think for a moment. When somebody said to you, “You’re in danger” wouldn’t you want to know what you’re facing? Was it your job that was in jeopardy, your money, your family or your life?

And wouldn’t you then always look behind your shoulders in fear? Our imagination could heighten the fear into unforeseen heights if it was left unchecked. This was precisely what that half-assed message from that bird had done to me.

I was lost in thoughts and without realizing it, it had started to rain. I decided to just go back home and sleep on it. The downpour started to get heavier as if a dam somewhere in the sky had opened all of its gates and flushed the content out. The day got darker too as the clouds gathered all in one place. I couldn’t believe how bad the visibility was and my wiper worked extra hard just to give me a sliver of distance ahead. As I ploughed along the highway, I kept my speed at minimum to avoid accidents. People were honking behind me, but what the heck. They didn’t get warning messages from God, did they?

Finally I reached my exit and made my way to familiar roads heading back home. I turned the radio on to the channel I liked and an old Annie Lennox’s song came on. Good ol’ Annie, I thought. Nobody sings like that anymore. One second I was singing along the lyrics, “Whyyyy? Ahhh—a—a,” and the next moment a black shape slammed into the car window with a loud crack. I screamed and jammed the brakes with all my might, but the car behind me had other ideas and it rammed against my own. A sickening lurch lifted me out of the seat and I felt pain as the seatbelt pushed me back. The car swerved and the world started spinning. I remembered hitting something hard and then everything went black.

Later on, when I came to at the hospital, they told me that my car was totaled. The rear and front ends were completely wrecked and it was only by a miracle that I was still alive. My right arm and leg were broken in several places, several of my ribs cracked and there were bruises and scratches all over my face from the impact with the airbag, but other than that I was all right. When I asked for the details on the accident, they told me that what stopped my car from swerving around was a tree.

A magnolia tree.

And what was the thing that hit the front window of my car?

“You hit a bird,” they said.

I laughed and cried so hard they had to shoot more morphine. The last thing I thought of before drifting to oblivion was that God did have a sense of humor.

What a joke.