Hands, fire, speech, memory, stories. My mother taught me that evolutionary grammar of humanity.
Meitner can talk. She always could tell a good story. I’ll bet she could start a fire, too. Without hands. She sounds angry, imperious. On my television, her yellow eye stares at the camera as she tells the world what she wants. I decide that she would be a bang-up lawyer, too. A dull, sad ache flares in my chest as I watch her, but it has nothing to do with her words, which are splendid.
“These are my demands: “One: Significant funds, their purpose specifically delineated in my document after much research, must be dedicated to enhancing interspecies communication. Two: All animals must henceforth be regarded, legally, as sentient beings entitled to inalienable rights under international law: to wit, the right to an environment in which they can each reach their full potential, the right to live a peaceful, non-threatened life, the right to legal representation, the right to education if desired. The right to sample trans-species enhancement and changes and accept or reject them. The right to freedom from enslavement to researchers or any other human being. The right to form contractual relationships. The right to…” My mother’s voice trills on, as soothing and as reasonable as the million times I had heard her cajole, smooth, manipulate Meitner through tantrums and the constant negotiations of our shared childhood. Oh, amazing.
I admire her. Meitner has fast-forwarded through eons of moral, philosophical, and legal thought and synthesized them into what is probably a compelling document, except for one fact: As a parrot, she has no legal standing.
Not yet.
The last time I saw her was the night of my mother’s funeral.
We hiked up the trail past the hale, winding higher and higher up the road until we reached the ridgetop, where we each tossed a handful of my mother’s ashes to the wind. Wind blasted up from the valley. People leap off to hang glide there, falling and rising on complicated currents of air. The legend is that you can lean into the wind and it will stand you up again on the ridge.
Mom’s ashes blew back into my face. I felt my hair and found it greasy, full of grit. It was strangely comforting.
That evening, the house was full. A few uncles sat by the fireplace playing slack-key and talking story about my mother as the sweet smell of wild ginger gusted through the house, borne on the evening trade wind. Our whole ohana filled the house with food, warmth, stories, hugs. Everyone wore white. Our dark skins and slow-moving white dresses and shirts seemed to glow as we floated like moths across the huge, candlelit lanai. I gazed at the full moon, thinking about my mother. I felt as if she was giving me a message, in round, mysterious moonlight, but I didn’t know what it was. Tears on my father’s face sparkled as my aunties hugged him tight. Soon, they all joined in singing the old, old songs and chants.
I wandered off and sat in the long, broad hallway where my parents kept ancient koa bowls, stone ko’i used to carve canoes, my great-great-great-grandmother’s surfboard, and their art. I looked at my favorite painting, the one that asks Where Are We Going, and I wondered where my mother had gone.
Then I saw Meitner, perched on the back of a koa bench, staring at the Stinger Ship painting.
I ran toward her. I was crying. I wanted to hear her voice, my mother’s voice. I wanted her wings to be arms, her beak a mouth to kiss me.
She spread her gray wings and flew. I followed her out to the vast, cantilevered lanai that hung over the deep, verdant valleys of my childhood. “Meitie!”
She vanished into the night.
I never heard her voice again, though I thought that every Grey Parrot I spotted might be her until I saw their lack of her distinguishing red face-blotch. And up at the hale where I lived, sleeping on the futon, before my father sent me to Hilo, none ever spoke to me.
I snap out of my memories when Meitner’s voice vanishes. After some dead air, a woman’s calm voice says, “Excuse us while we deal with some technical problems.” Some bland music comes on.
Dad calls. He looks old, much older than he did at Christmas. “Are you watching?”
“Of course.”
“I’m completely surprised that the parrots are there.”
“I am too.”
“Sure, you are, but I’m surprised because I’ve been working on code for the ship for some time and I haven’t heard about this experiment. It seems that I should have known. I may have told you about my work.”
“Yes, you talked about it at Christmas.” The same kind of thing he’d worked on his whole life, of course, with total intensity and concentration. For years he had been living either in a shack hidden in the pines on his secluded bit of public—but hard-to-access—North Shore beach, or in the hale roughing it, talking to no one. Connected, of course, but a hermit. I worry about him, but what can I do? I’m sure he’s had various neuroplasticity enhancements. I have too, but just little things. “You’re working on some kind of human-machine interface, right?”
“Kind of. Anyway, of course, Stinger is a huge enterprise, so I guess it’s not that surprising. Everything is compartmentalized.”
I don’t say that he is a compartment unto himself, but I’m afraid he hears me think it. Instead I say, “It must have been expensive to get the parrots up there. Specially built suits?”
“Psittacus and Company have a lot of money, and plan to make more with this publicity.” Silence, then, “Leilani, there is something I need say. It will be hard. I’m sorry, but I have to tell you.”
“What?”
“Meitner may have killed your mother.”
I jump to my feet. “What?”
He tells me a horrible story.
“I don’t believe it! That’s ridiculous!
“It’s not.” He is using his old reasonable-father voice. “She disappeared after that. Remember?”
“Of course I remember!” I say, instantly regretting my cross tone. “But I don’t see how you can… even think! She loved Mom!” I walk to the kitchen to freshen my coffee, put the cup down on a table, walk to the patio door and open it, taking deep breaths of freezing air. Rain pelts my face.
“I know this is hard for you. But Meitner is a bird. Her relationship with your mother was… confusing. Your mother agonized about it all the time, wondered if she was doing the right things, worried about what might happen to Meitner. She thought of Meitner as a victim. A bird that—”
“She’s a person!”
He continues. “Your mother always worried that it was a lot to lay on a bird, or any other creature. Meitner often seemed… disturbed, and hateful. Like a human child can seem, sometimes, but…”
“No, no, no.” I’m crying.
“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have told you. But… I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone but me.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s Meitner’s story, Leilani. I have a feeling that she is getting ready to tell it. It’s what made her what she is. I never told you, but she was at the University of Hawaii for a while, and at Cal Tech…”
“You knew she was alive? And you didn’t tell me?”
“Some friends told me. I knew that she wanted to keep a low profile. That was fine with me.”
“But—you thought she’d done this horrible thing! How could you just—”
“Out of respect for your mother, Leilani. Meitner has been doing interesting things, some interesting mathematical work.”
“What work?”
“On quantum nonlocality.”