Nightingale Fog

A little bit of odd

My name is Nightingale Fog. There. Now I’ve remembered myself, I can get back to work. Ain’t no one else to do it, is there? Can’t help but think it would be nice to have myself a bit of rest, if only I could remember what ‘rest’ was – pretty certain they used to sell it in shimmer-shammer boxes tied with rattle-ribbons and stamped with numbers too high to count in shops with windows so high and bright I fancied they’d trapped the moons. I asked Grandpappy if the shops stole the moons, but he shook his head at me. He shook his head so much I feared it would fall off. ‘Sonny,’ he said, ‘when they got the moons all the ways down here, they didn’t have a drab of light ‘bout them, awful things, grey as grey. So they smashed em up, and everybody who wanted had a go. I got a few kicks in myself. Now – no more talk of the moons, the only bit of light comes from here, from the Nestery, Sonny. Them shops is crammy with birds – rich folks always gets more than their shares.’ He always called me Sonny. Don’t know if it was cos he mistook me for my father, wings carry his soul, or just cos he hated us sharing names with the birds from the before. Course the likes of us weren’t gonna get to choose our own names. What even was a nightingale, anyway? The birds from before didn’t even shine. They had no light. It makes me shuddery just to think of it. Course that was long ago and elsewhere.

That’s five eggs today. Not too bad. I couldn’t help but get a bit silly when Shinana lifted her bright beak and looked past me all mournful-like. ‘Grandpappy ain’t here, Shinana,’ I said. ‘It’s only me.’ And she hung her bright head and I hung my grey head. All them years, and she still looks for Grandpappy. I fancied I saw him just yesterday. I had a pocket full of eggs that shone right through my jacket. And it was just as well cos I was trekking in the dinge. Grandpappy used to shake his fist at the sun. ‘What’s the use of it – so far away, all we get here is second hand slops? It ain’t even left over light. Don’t you hate the sun, Sonny?’ he’d say. And I’d shake my fist, so we were hating together.

Anyways, yesterday, I was trundling, my feet all shuffle-shaffle in them streets where the lamps are empty, not a bird in any of them. I opened one of them lamps and I put a shining egg inside and closed it proper. Couldn’t help but smile to myself then. Felt a good bit of pride cos I was bringing light to the city. That’s a sacred job, you know. Even when there ain’t nobody else to see it. Well, I glanced over, and I saw Grandpappy past the joamk tower where the flags hang in icicles, under the kolan bridge where the windows blink black, between the freeze trees – there he was with a shine all over him like syrup. Well, I waved and he waved back. And I hurried and he hurried. Then I saw him more proper and it wasn’t Grandpappy at all, but an old fella with misery in his shoulders. And when I got real close, I saw it was just my reflection. I couldn’t help but get a bit silly then. Grandpappy would’ve told me to pull myself together, so I did. I’d better get a move on. Gotta shut the door to the Nestery proper careful. Nicely does it. Out into the streets. Now what have I got to remember to myself here. Oh yes. My name is Nightingale Fog.

Art by John Atkinson Grimshaw.