Fiction

Is it for sale, the bird?

I came across the painting of the eagle by chance. It was hanging in the display window of this gallery I sometimes visit and a small group of children were standing on the footpath pointing at it.

It’s like it’s going to die, one of them said. It is falling.

We are all falling, one of the children said. But no one takes the bait.

It’s like it’s going to end up in a million pieces. Kaboom, the first child said, slapping his palms together and exploding them for effect.

It’s not a cartoon, another boy said. You’re such a dumb fuck. It’s like a real eagle except upside down.

But it’s not real.

Yes, it is. It’s a pirouetting eagle. It’s a dancing eagle.

It’s not dancing. Eagles don’t dance, stupid.

And they don’t fly upside down.

Yes, they do. Eagles can do that, another said. They snap their prey from the sky
upside down and tear it to smithereens.

You are all wrong. It’s a figurative representation of democracy’s fall, said the smallest of the children standing to the side.

What are you talking about, a burly boy said slapping the tiniest child around the head. Who told you that? Whose parrot are you?

Nobody, it’s just obvious, that’s all.

Nothing is obvious, twerp.

Don’t call me that.

Twerp, twerp.

Whatever it actually meant was obviously up for grabs, but I did feel reasonably certain, taking in the colours and the bird’s general disposition, that it wasn’t a happy bird. Also, I was relatively sure unhappy birds were nothing new in the art world so it wasn’t, at the outset, necessarily unusual. When I tried to think of paintings of happy birds, I drew a blank.

I could dredge up birds hanging from their necks, being shot, being plucked or by a table in terrible Victorian light waiting to be plucked. This bird was somehow just like all those other birds and in its capture by the artist was clinging to nothing.

As if oblivious to me standing there, the children still babbled on with unbridled enthusiasm about how it looked like a finger painting, and a churlish kid, sitting on the curb chewing like a cow eating grass, declared he could have painted the bird himself.

Go on then, a girl said, throwing the churlish boy a pack of crayons. Draw it on the pavement. And the boy did. He painted the exact eagle.

See.

There was a lull in the chatter and hullabaloo and so I felt the presence of another adult beside me. I did not know how long he had been there. I suspected for some time.

It’s really quite good, the man said. Don’t you think?

It is. A replica of the fall of democracy, I said, attempting to elicit a rise.

The what, the man asked.

Democracy hanging by a thread, I said.

It’s an eagle, the man said, frowning. What do you mean democracy?

Oh, nothing, I said. Is it for sale, the bird, then?

Oh, no, the man said. Oh, no, no, no.

Can’t put a price on it, I said.

Not exactly, the man said with a wink. And I could have sworn the eagle winked also.

I told my friend Adler about the encounter over dinner that evening and was surprised to discover he knew about this particular painting. On several occasions he had walked past the gallery and he too could have sworn the bird winked at him. He had dismissed it immediately, putting it down to sleep deprivation or too much wine. It also happened, he said, at a time when he was at a loose end, his work was frustrating him and the woman he had been seeing for several years decided it was time to see other people.

Frankly, I was rattled. I was feeling pretty low. I thought I’d imagined it, really, Adler said.

But you didn’t?

No, seemingly not. The curator accosted me next time I walked by and told me if I was ever feeling dreadfully low again to swing by. He said the eagle would be there for me.

There for you.

Exact words.

And.

The eagle wanted me to know everything was a matter of perspective.

On account of it being upside down and all.

Yes, but it felt like it was something else. Couldn’t put my finger on it to tell you the truth.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on September 20, 2025 as "Is it for sale, the bird?".

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