an educated sort
by Wen Yee Ang
Perspective: Magpie at Melbourne School of Design building
Get directions: 37°47’51.3″S 144°57’46.4″E
Peck peck peck puff fluff
fine feathers ringed ‘round my neck, expanding
white splashes on black, shiny beady eyes pretty
I saw myself in glass once, those slanted panes by strip of narrow green, lifting in an undulating wave (I’ve seen waves once, as a young ‘un, at sea-elbow where chuggy smoke-belching ships come in)
has glass always been tilted, or are my eyes goin’ wonky?
—-mm yumm, little crunchy insect caught in beak, right where it’s slipped between my primaries and secondaries
(feathers I mean)
How’d I know that, you ask?
huuuummmm warble
I think myself an educated sort; where’d you think I learned conversation?
anyhoo— this building
sits beside many trees in neat rows (ah humans and their lines) Trees have crunchy leaves at shedding season; have perches to shit on humans for cackles
funny right hum where was I yes
This boring building; smooth cement, sharp angles and modernity, irregularly placed squarish windows
like Magarette from next tree pecking holes in cardboard
if we could peck square holes that is—
ah at least young-but-not-old humans here bring scraps
sandwiches, rolled-up paper, hard card, photocopied reading
paper getting rare these days
Unfortunate – I used to line my nest with stolen pages,
ones I snatched from grasp of careless humans, walking around looking at open book
(they never look up w-w-warble)
SWOOP
claws tearing through thin fibre
rip goes page
scream goes human
hummm makes me sing just thinking on it …
Ahhh those were good days. I was well read then
still am, I try
now only human-nestlings from red brick building across the way come with paper
scribbles and grids, stapled together
(spare thought for poor nestling, raising fists and screaming about assments? asignoraments?)
wasn’t sure what they were that first time, this jumble of x’s and y’s and repeating symbols – numbers they say
learnt quadratics and quantum physics just to understand these asignoraments humans think of so highly
Signora means lady, by the by. I once observed an Italian class, watched from above whiteboard while human-nestlings giggled
Education is no laughing matter younglins. You especially – no laughing! You’ll understand when you’re my age
not many magpies as educated as I
see, I even know humans think we like shiny things (patently untrue, pah!)
I once heard a group of younglins, laughing on the grass strip outside boring building
(my territory, but I rent out for yummies)
telling freckled girl-human don’t throw me chips
Careful, don’t make eye contact, or it may see your shiny eyes and peck them out
as if I’d be so barbaric!
If there’s anything I would collect, it’s views, not eyes
words, pages
little scraps of wisdom swooped away on a heady breeze
So next time you come see me, bring a page
or a post-it note
maybe I won’t peck your eyes out
(joking joking, funny right w-w-warble)
Fancy responding to the Magpie?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wen Yee Ang is a Malaysian-Chinese writer, editor and programmer who’s currently a Publishing Assistant at Hachette Australia. Having studied writing and editing at the University of Melbourne and RMIT, her work has been published in Antithesis, Farrago Magazine, Frazzle and other anthologies, and she’s currently working on a YA urban fantasy novel. You can find her on Instagram at @wenyee_ang_writes, where she posts about everything books, YA and writing.
Words from wen
I remember fondly my days of wandering the Unimelb campus, studiously avoiding the hungry gazes of its local flock of magpies. I always thought the little creatures were too clever for their own good – and if they frequented the university, surely they must be well-educated too?
I’d always believed magpies collected shiny items, so I first conceived the idea of a magpie obsessed with collecting knowledge rather than material objects. (Of course, I was crushed when I discovered during my research later that the shiny-object behaviour was simply a myth.)
No matter, my imagined magpie can still be an educated sort. After all, what’s life without a little magic?
Also partially inspired by Max Porter’s Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, where a father and his sons are stalked by an odd, slightly magical human-sized crow. I was fascinated with how the novella played with prose and verse, and its magic realism elements.
I hope I managed to capture the oddly magical, inhuman voice of a magpie here through poetry, verse and wacky formatting.
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