short story
Bernard Halibut and the Bird of Prey by Peter Abram Edited by A.E. Schwartz
Part 1
on crystal-clear lakes or wandering through glacial-carved valleys and over rolling hills and forests, where the bison, mountain lions, March 2020 It’s midnight and I’m backing away from a bobcats, grizzly bears and wolverines roam free to hunt or be hunted in a never-ending decapitated corpse. engagement where only the strongest survive. * My role on this planet is solitary and purely 8 hours earlier voyeuristic. I prowl, I stalk, I pay witness and a kind of homage to the avian world above. My plane touched down on the runway at I exited the airport and headed for the taxi Phnom Penh airport. Bit of a bumpy landing rank. Someone had his eyes on me. A scrawny but we made it. My intention had been to continue holidaying for another fortnight before local. The weasel type. He had a slight hump on his back, wore wraparound sunglasses and a taking up a six-month post with the World grubby shirt. Bank in Hong Kong. Birding is my life. Based primarily in northern Cambodia in a forest “Tuk-tuk, sir? My name Trig and I only charge cabin and living off the grid, I’d been successful four dollars to city center.” in my quest to photograph the endangered The going rate was ten dollars, so I nodded Giant Ibis and abundant woodpeckers of and handed him my bag. “I need a hotel near the the dry dipterocarp forest. To my delight I river. Reasonably cheap and very quiet.” experienced the entire forest simultaneously blooming, producing a profusion of exotic Typically the tuk-tuk ride from the airport flowers and winged fruits. My plans were, once is a jarring passage through busy highways in Phnom Penh, to take a riverboat ride up the and cluttered little thoroughfares. It’s all dust, Tonlé Sap to the Vietnamese border. zigzagging, sharp turns, beeps and honks. I’d enjoyed the brief and peaceful flight On this occasion, however, the peculiar across the country. Strolling through the airport, reality of my environment put a crease in my I found that the contrast between the empty forehead. I sat up, slipped my glasses on and, plane cabin and the terminal couldn’t have been greater. A thousand scurrying Westerners. glancing over Trig’s sweat-stained shoulder, studied the streets and buildings. Something I shrugged it off though. After going off the was different. Something had changed since my grid for a few months, as I routinely do, it’s last visit in 2019. The metropolis had vaporized. not unusual to find disconcertion in something No people, no cars, no hum of traffic or scent of as simple as the crossing of a busy street. The nature of my work as a financial analyst allows gasoline. No heaving markets, textile vendors, spice sellers and fried fish hawkers. me to avoid humanity and work primarily Phnom Penh was a ghost town. alone and Online. Even that would be unbearable if I didn’t * get to spend six months of the year birding in Police barricades were everywhere. We lush grasslands or alpine meadows, boating 8
