Alston Scott
7 March 2008
Love in the Time of Cholera: Disease Doesn’t Choose, But People Do
One day, a man went for a stroll along the streets of his town when he happened upon a store selling birds, feathered beings of every shape, size, and color. He walked into the shop to admire the beautiful animals, for just being among their beauty made his world a little bit brighter. They were the colors of the rainbow and every color in between, even colors that could only be named by the emotion or event that they reminded you of: the first warm day of spring, a perfect day at the beach, the worst day of your life. The sound of the bird calls and the shimmering hues left the man confused and unaware for several minutes, until he saw her. Her tail was a rippling ocean of yellows, blues, greens, reds, purples, oranges, happiness, loneliness, tragedy, surprise, love, betrayal, and temptation. A bright blue body, a purple crown above her head, and the man was staring into the most beautiful and intelligent eyes he had ever encountered. As he stood watching her, the aging shopkeeper approached.
“Sir, can you please tell me how much I can purchase this bird for?” the man asked with a breathless voice.
“I’m sorry, she’s not for sale,” the shopkeeper replied. “Fermina is my pet, my pride and joy, I could never sell her. But there are many incredible birds around the store; can I interest you in any others?”
“No, but thank you very much.”
The man left the store, distraught at his failure to gain the bird for his own. That night, he tossed and turned, thinking of the different ways he could kill the shopkeeper or steal the bird away, but his usually genteel nature was scared by these thoughts, so he resigned himself to life without Fermina or any other bird.
But fate would not allow him to move on. The next day, as the man was taking his daily walk, a bright red bird perched in a tree caught his eye. The man approached the bird, little by little, in order to better admire its beauty, but, just as he was close enough to appreciate the bird’s plumage, it flew away! The man ran after the bird, crashing through the streets, through trees and brush, ignoring the quizzical looks of his neighbors. The bird would fly to another tree, perch on the branch until the man got close enough again, then flew away, for almost an hour, until the man lost the bird all together. It was then that he knew he had to own on of these magnificent creatures. So, that afternoon, he returned to the bird shop and, although wishing with all his heart only to have the shopkeeper’s incredible specimen, he purchased a Great Blue Toraco. The bird was beautiful but sad, seeming to have been abandoned at some point earlier in life. He treated her with all of the tenderness that he could muster, and the bird responded well to him, but continued to seem sad, no matter what was happening in the life that she and the man shared together.
From that moment on, the man was addicted to the birds, and he bought them whenever he had an inclination. He had a Palm Cockatoo who was passionate towards her owner, but also very forceful and almost violent, not hesitating to peck her master’s hand if he did not feed her exactly what she wanted or did not pet her in the right way. Another of his birds was a Scarlet Macaw who talked to him about anything and everything, constantly communicating disjointed phrases with no meaning as if its existence was only measured by the amount of words it could say in a certain period of time. He also possessed a Lesser Bird of Paradise who was very loving towards her owner but quick to show the same amount of love towards any of the visitors that came to the man’s house. His Sacred White Dove took many months to gain the trust of but, once she felt comfortable, she hated to be any distance away from him. One of his favorites was a mockingbird who sang the most incredible songs he had ever heard, usually reflecting whatever he was feeling. Unfortunately, she flew away not long after coming to live in the man’s house,
His birds became his life, and a peculiar one at that. Each bird was kept in a separate room, because he noticed that most of the birds were jealous of the others in the house and would not respond to him as well if they knew that another bird was part of his life. Also, he usually did not keep the birds for long periods of time. Some he kept for months, some even years and decades, but most he would sell back to the bird shop after a few weeks, and sometimes even days, depending on how much the bird meant to him. Sometimes, he sold these birds back because they discovered about another bird or two and would not longer respond to the man as they used to, other times because of living circumstances, but most of the time because he just did not enjoy the bird like he used to. On the other hand, some left him of their own will. Some escaped when their cage was left loose or flew away when a window was open, and others simply died. The man’s life was full of birds.
He could have been somewhat happy, or at least content, with many of the birds in his possession. There were birds who held a great deal of promise for his life, birds that lived to give him all the love that he desired, birds that could not stand to see him unhappy. There were many that cherished him, and that he cherished in return, but kept himself from loving. He chose to have these birds that left him wanting more, left his neighbors whispering, so that he could be free continue to devote his heart to the one bird that he truly cared for and hoped to one day have for himself. None of the birds, no matter how fond he was of them or how much he could have tried to be completely happy with one of them, could ever fill the void he felt in not having the bird Fermina.
One day, 12 years after the beginning of the man’s bird addiction, the shopkeeper died and his possessions were given to his closest living relative, his nephew. In the days after the shopkeeper was buried, the man went by the shopkeeper’s nephew’s house to make an attempt to gain the possession of the beautiful bird he had coveted for so long. After expressing his condolences for his uncle’s death, the man bluntly asked if he could buy the bird from the nephew.
“I have no care for such a bird,” the nephew replied after a few moments’ consideration. “But I know she meant a great deal to my uncle, so I will make you a deal: if you can get the bird to voluntarily follow you home, she is yours.”
The man was excited by this, for he had come to know the ways of winning a bird’s trust over the years. Approaching the bird, who had appeared in the room in which they had been speaking, he softly poured out his heart, his feelings of love for her, flowery words of great passion. Of course, the bird refused to listen, and left the room.
“I’m sorry, sir, I guess she cannot be won over,” the nephew said.
“Please, just give me more time,” the man pleaded. “I will pay you any amount of money for more time.”
“You can take as long as you want, but I think it will not be an easy task, maybe an impossible one,” the nephew answered.
“I will wait as long as I have to,” the man answered, and left with a determined air.
He returned every day from then on, bringing treats and gifts for the beautiful but stubborn bird. The first few days, she left the room as she had done before without any consideration for the man’s attempts. But, after a while, she began to stay in the room with him. Then, she would let him give her gifts. Months and months after that, she let him touch her for the first time. And then, two years after he had begun his attempts, she followed the man home, and it was the best day of his life. Once there, he released every bird he currently had into the wild and the man lived with only Fermina until they both died a few years later. Florentino, the man, was buried with Fermina and the tombstone read like this: “Our lives are defined by the relationships we have and the choices we make to form them”.