The Jay

A uniquely New Mexican parable that brewed in my mind for a few weeks before I put it all to paper in one go.

Way, way back, before the foolish humans even dared to dream of their global dominion, we were there. We lived to the rhythm of sun and moon, unconcerned by their great geometric truths and wholly accepting of who they are as they appear. All life did so, back then, and in their own way. We saw the sun as a friend and spent our days with him, leaving gentle moon to keep watch at night. Others like owl saw sun as a spoilsport and instead grew to love the moon as their constant companion.

We were the jays, our small, blue bodies matched perfectly to azure skies that stretched endlessly, with no towers or roads in sight. Each day we woke to scavenge and to feed, giving gratitude that moon had protected us and sun was here to greet us once more. That’s how it had been done for generations, or at least it has been told that way for generations.

I was born to this family of rigorous expectation and ritual. Each jay was destined to contribute or turn away, regardless of circumstance. Each day, the greatest Jay would lead us in prayers, desperate that the precious piñon might return and satiate our tribe for months. Since my birth, I’m told, the trees had not borne the precious fruit we grew so fond of. While other foods could fill our bellies, they were hard work for our beaks, or bore little food for the effort. Only those desperate to stay alive would dare to gather inferior food, and the greatest Jay would turn them out accordingly for violating our bond with the piñon.

I saw no purpose for such arbitrary cruelty. The piñon were present, but weren’t dependable �" their crops were sporadic and often failed to bring food even when all things fell into place. In my youth my fearful parents instilled in me the drive to get the piñon, to prize it, admire it, and�"dare I say�"worship it. They hushed me when I dare question why this seed had such a hold on us all, something I was never to talk about again.

I paid close attention to each tree we picked from, noting exactly how old it looked, what time of year it was, and how worthwhile it was to pursue this crop. I pecked into the branches of each cone we picked- simply because I wanted to know how and why things were this way, and how they changed. After several years I had travelled hundreds of miles and become the most effective gatherer of all.

I had never disclosed my technique, fearful that the greatest Jay might see my records as an attempt to become better than he at collecting piñon. Little did he know, I already was better but I did not attempt to become so.

In my gathering, I had marked branches for many dozens of miles, with careful notes on conditions as the years passed. When I came upon a marked branch that had failed to produce seeds, I noted that. Years continued and my curiosity was no longer solitary �" I had a world of data, of answers that could give some insight into why this endless treadmill of effort and existence was worth it.

I began to notice that there was a pattern. I had picked up on it intuitively to effectively gather more, but here it was pecked directly into the wood �" evidence that piñon trees would be more productive when we had missed a year or two each decade. I decided not to share this discovery, and continued about my business content with my discovery.

My seventh winter was hell. Despite my individual progress in gathering and attempts to travel further, the usual method of praying the same hundred trees might sustain us was dominant. Rather than risk being turned out from friends, family, and the life we all knew, some of the other jays indebted themselves to the greatest Jay and each other, trading their precious few seeds for the right to continue in our community. Many of the chicks that hatched that year went silent as their families made the harsh choice to remain in our tree at their expense.

Still, the greatest Jay, bedecked in the seeds of 14 gathers, continued to preach reliance on one source and one source alone. I saw through his ruse, and refused to believe that his personal profit from the suffering of my friends was clandestine, or as he seemed to suggest, earned. My own gathered seeds made up the bulk of his costume. He was especially content to snack upon the fattest seeds I had found in my travels, and had fashioned these shells into his pride �" a crown of shells pecked intricately and inlaid with bones that we had found in our searches.

The time for the gather had come. One small jay in his first gather excitedly shouted through the trees that he had spotted a cone. The rituals for the year had to commence. I sat through another lecture on the importance of hard work, of delayed gratification, and commuity sprit, all while I watched the b*****d consume his own weight in seeds �" the special “ritual” cones were the most valuable of all- and something in me broke.

I rose to my feet, and spoke at the “greatest” Jay with a fire I had never heard nor seen before, “NO. This is WRONG. What you are doing is vile and I shall have no part of it. I have lived seven summers not to see the children of this tree sacrificed so you may continue your way of life. The hardest struck in this tree have been those with the most mouths to feed and the least ability to gather. And yet more is demanded every year.”

The greatest Jay had stood with his eyes closed in silence. After my outburst he continued his murmured prayers as if nothing had happened. My eyes flashed with tears at the sheer hubris of this… thing. Every other jay turned to me quizzically, knowing I had violated protocol in the prayers, yet they didnt’ rise to draw me out. They hung on the silence, as if they hoped one word would come and complete the process of ripping the veil from their eyes. I spoke up once more: “I can prove the greatest will destroy the forest-destroy this community if things don’t change.”

Suddenly the greatest had enough. He bellowed and flapped and used all the tricks he could to intimidate me. He called his second-in-command and his man-at-arms, who dragged me, chirping at a fever pitch, to the old snake hole below the tree. A great hero had once challenged the serpent that made his home here. The jays all lived in fear of this snake for generations, exercising caution each time they left the nest until the progenitor of the greatest had defeated the beast. Over my own life I had heard this story morph from a neat point of history to a foundational point of our culture. Gathering piñon had gone from a matter of convenience to a ritual need my grandmother told me once that the very tree we lived in was once common property, that nobody in her time went hungry because all the trees in this small forest gave seeds in times when others failed to.

They had rolled a rock in front of the snake hole to close me in, and between the ground and the rock, I saw a sliver of sky and of forest. I gazed with anger upon the trees which had been claimed more and more by successive greatests as ritual trees, exclusively for consumption by greatests and their kin.

Outside, the man-at-arms broke my righteous, silent anger: “you’re right you know,” he said. The man-at-arms had been hatched by a couple who lived a branch below us. While I was older than him, we had grown together as we learned to hunt for the precious piñon, taught by my grandfather and father, since his own father passed in his childhood. As my peculiar tendencies were noticed though, his own family steered him away from me, fearing I might be the one to challenge this lineage of greatests and disturb their status quo of ritual tedium.

I chuckled at him through the small opening, saying, “friend, I have always been right. Since I started tapping out my records I was right. I was shunned for my obsession, for doing what I loved. Everyone was concerned for my fitting in, for my safety, for my social standing�"my own father refused to acknowledge me once he took his job in the court out of fear I’d be his downfall. But I’ve always been right to do what I please. I haven’t hurt anyone, and I haven’t spoken falsely. On any branch you’ll find my beak marks�"the lines mark my year since my birth and the specks mark the crop we collected.

Anyway, if you check the branches, you’ll see that each year has given more and more piñon, but we have in turn picked each of the ritual trees clean. In the past the trees would thrive; we would collect only as much as we needed, and a few to get each of our families through winter. We left seeds in the cones, knowing that the piñon worked hard to produce these seeds�"some to share and some to keep. The greatest insists that we gather stockpiles, cleaning each tree from crown to root to sate the desires of him and his cronies. If we continue this way, there will be none left in not much time.”

He had listened intently, knowing that his own experience hadn’t differed much from my own. After a few seconds of silence, he questioned, “why should I belive you? Why would you share this knowledge with me if not to seek the piñon for yourself and take the place of the greatest?”

I knew his question had been fair. Anyone in my position might have answered whatever would set them free fastest.

I had resigned myself, knowing that if this stupid, arbitrary machine of a culture would come for me, I wouldn’t let it dress up my death as it saw fit. So I told the truth: “I care nothing for the piñon itself. I can get by with whatever comes my way. I care not if I’m exiled like the others but for the sake of these chicks and the elderly that have been turned out or starved…

Why is their suffering justified? Why is piñon the only savior when the earth’s bounty provides plenty for all?”

The man-at-arms ruminated over this question, which caused his feathers to stand on end. Without a word, thirty seconds, a minute passed, and the rock slowly slid away. He was gone without a trace by the time I emerged and my eyes adjusted to the light. I fled.

I fled for two more summers. I traversed the distant mountains that I had seen for years from the top of our mesa. I fled through canyons where we had dared not tread before. I realized with deep sadness that I had been so blinded by the piñon, so enmeshed with it that I scarcely paid attention to the other trees.

So I resumed my data collection. Unburdened by the need to meticulously count our piñon haul, I discovered a great many things about the streams, the trees, the rocks, all across the land. I met a great many friends. From the beavers I learned of their efforts to create space for themselves and the life around them. From the herons, I learned of lands far beyond that they constantly traveled to and from. From the bears, I learned nothing directly since they were mostly asleep, but I did notice how closely they kept their young and how devoted mothers they could be.

In time I felt at home anywhere. Unburdened by the almighty piñon, I could explore and learn from all, and eat what was plentiful. In my travels I had grown heavier from the good eating (and the knowledge), but I could not shake from me the empty feeling since I had abandoned the tree. In the fall, when I spotted my first piñon in months, I felt the call to come home.

I made my way back over mountains and canyons, hoping, just maybe, that things might have taken a turn for the better since my talk with the man-at-arms. When I approached our old tree, I was startled by a bombardment of stones sent my way. I saw an abundance of new faces, and nowhere could I spot the greatest.

I chirped the signal used by my father and the other leadership to call order. A hush fell over the woods as I circled and swooped down to my parents’ branch. I was met by a pair of complete strangers, young folks who were in the midst of a meal. They looked at me with awe and said nothing as two burly birds approached.

I recognized the son of the greatest, but this couldn’t be him�"he was destined to rule after his father passed and could never be seen subservient to anyone (if at all). He looked fatter than even his father had been toward the end. Without a word they seized me and carried me to the nest of the greatest, at the crown of the tallest tree.

I was met by the man-at-arms. He sat in the seat of honor and his enormous body took up the bulk of the nest. He had a look of mischief in his eyes as he seemed to recognize me. “Well, my friend. It’s been far too long…” he paused. He used one wing to embrace his enormous girth, saying “you can tell that I’ve done well for myself here,” and he chuckled. I looked around, clearly missing some development. “You won’t find him here, he passed away a while ago. There was a brush fire and he was too heavy to fly or be moved.”

I paused for a moment as I spotted a new development: the heap of piñon that had once taken center stage during our rituals was replaced with a pile of bleached white bones. “It was a shame to put such a body to waste,” the biggest said. The greatest’s son suddenly left the nest, clearly affected. Realization dawned upon me and I looked at my old friend in disgust.

“You… even after I shared my knowledge, after you freed me…” He seemed to understand I was connecting the dots. “Yes,” he said, “that fat old coot fed me for months.” The room was at a hush as each bird confirmed with their remorseful looks that this had somehow been acceptable under the circumstances.

“After the fire there was scarcely a thing to eat. The piñon were damaged for years- recovered now but barely. Knowing what you had told me, I had the tribe collect all the data you recorded. We scoured each branch, put our best minds to work, and decided to replant the forest according to your words.”

My shock at the egregious act of the former man-at-arms was tempered with a glimmer of hope that my message had survived and pulled the tribe through a difficult time. My brief relief was brought down to earth, and then below the sea as the biggest continued: “with more limited options for piñon, I had to make tough choices.” It was wasteful for the greatest to hoard it all to himself and distribute it. With only a few trees left I took initiative, stuck to your data and got the forest producing more than it ever had. So now, everyone works for me; they get their just wages, and a portion is collected to replant the trees. The majority…” he continued, once again grabbing the ridge of his egregiously large belly “go here.”

I wrestled with the truth of what had happened. Was my data truly that accurate, that reliable that the entire tribe could survive this tough time? Only a few years ago we were struggling to get by on piñon alone. “Why piñon still? Why not allow the tribe to diversify?” He responded with his booming tone and a mocking face: “What else but piñon? We were raised within it, we eat it, we breathe it. It makes the world go ’round, as they say. They’re free to eat what they please, but if I don’t get my piñon… They get exiled, or they can give me their chicks to mold into productive members of this society.”

I realized that my words so many years ago had fallen upon ears that truly believed, without doubt, that piñon was the alpha and omega. There was nothing in his heart but desire, desire that had been bred and trained into him to serve a long-dead system. He had refined the tribe into a meticulous machine, using my very own data to extract all he could from the tree as well as its inhabitants. Each mark on each branch was extended, with countless records added to account for seed size, weather patterns, precipitation… I had dreamed of continuing my research in that way, once. It had served as an acceptable outlet for my curiosity. But I saw, face-to-face, that my act of curiosity and expression, my escape from the dreary world we were both raised in, was taken from me and used to justify a new order of abuse.

What I couldn’t wrap my head around is how… How was this jay, one of countless others, who grew up in the way I did, able to become… this? How did I escape the pit of desire he fell into? My breathing was heavy as these questions flooded my mind. I saw no hint of remorse or empathy in my benefactor’s face. Without him, I’d have died alone in the snake hole. With him, I’ve indirectly brought untold suffering to those I hoped to protect.

I wept. I sobbed openly and loudly for the first time since I could remember. I had no words for the biggest or anyone around. I had no words for this monster, a monster that I had accidentally unleashed. Even the rituals the greatest forced us into had a veneer of selflessness- he told us that without his rituals and his necessary allotment of piñon that we would all suffer. But this creature before me had no delusions about such higher powers. He understood the deeper functions of the forest I had uncovered. He knew the forest could provide for all if used in moderation. He knew that over-abundance was the M.O. of the previous regime and led directly to its downfall.

I saw around me on each branch the marks I had originated. I was surrounded on each side with reminders of my role in this terrifying regime. Whatever came next, I did not want to hear. Whether it would benefit me or not, whether I’d be allowed to live or not, I wanted to perish and recuse myself from this travesty with dignity.

There was silence as I wept. Each other jay knew that this world was not one they had bought into willingly. They had known us. The biggest had been popular and had friends among the faces staring at me. I knew them in passing as their families shyed them away from me, keeping them from my brazen way of doing what felt right and just and natural to me. When I became the top collector for that brief year, I was suddenly surrounded by this friend group as well, but I was rarely allowed to speak before the others took control. I had always struggled to communicate, especially in groups, but my records had been that way of talking, of showing what had been and what could be.

After what seemed like an eternity, my labored breathing and crying hiccups had dissipated. I was crumpled in a mass on the floor of the nest and the sun shone like emeralds through needles on the tree. I stood up, and without a word, I turned to leave. I knew returning was a mistake.

I beat my wings with fury, seeking the sweet embrace of the sky I had come to love so much on my back, after a lifetime of hiding in the shadows. This tree, this tribe, had chosen its fate. I knew my records were used against my intentions, but this couldn’t be helped. Though many had suffered because of me (though indirectly,) I could not bring them back by enslaving myself. I now despised the piñon. I couldn’t bring myself to eat it, to rest on its branches, to look upon it. Not because our silent bretheren had betrayed us, but because my community had betrayed me and the piñon in turn. The kindling of creativity, the light of sharing and innovation was given to the tribe and squandered just as quickly as it had emerged. What had been beautiful and detailed, and art in its execution had become waste and suffering.

I continued to weep. As I did, each tear fell to the ground, sparkling as it descended hundreds of feet. Each tear warmed the earth and far below the ground, seeds of all types of plants were germinating, aided by the tears of my pain. I cried until I had no tears, and blood came to replace them. Each drop of blood dazzled in the light as rubies, and fell to the cold snowy ground of the distant peaks. That spring, some say a beautiful bunch of red wildflowers emerged in those spots.

I flew until my feathers fell out, with no tears or blood to offer. Each one floated gently down to earth, undisturbed by wind on this still day. Each one stuck directly into the earth, and became one by one a mighty pine. The feathers around my eyes were stained with blood, making them blue and red. These became mountains, blue in the daylight and blood-red at dawn and dusk.

Finally, my withered body felt the need to rest. With no blood, no tears, no feathers, I found myself atop the highest mountain that any creature knew of. I was the furthest I had ever been. I sat upon the peak, and with the last of my strength, pecked at the tallest piñon I’d ever seen. From it sprung a river of sap, endless, and red like my bloody tears. I sat and fell asleep for the final time.

Above me, there were circles of jays.