Outlook Anniversary Issue: The Memory Of Fields

Egrets begin to appear on a day like any other. First one, then another—on rooftops and ramparts, on pillars and parapets. A cluster here, a cluster there. They settle atop billboards, lamp posts, traffic lights, at bus stops and balconies. Soon, they start to fill streets and alleyways, roundabouts and flyovers, standing like sentinels—white-bright and watchful.

At first, people only stare from behind their windows. What is happening? Some have never seen an egret outside a photograph. Some only in faraway places. Why are they here? No one dares step outside. They whisper and wonder if this is an omen, if this is how something begins. Perhaps warnings arrive this way—quietly, without smoke or sirens, and only with the soft flutter of wings. Inside homes and apartments, kettles are boiled and forgotten. Phones are lifted, set down, lifted again. Messages are sent—Do you see them too? Old stories are remembered, half-formed. What do they say the city once was... Someone lights a lamp earlier than usual. Someone else says a prayer they have not used in years. Children are called in from balconies. A radio plays to an empty room. Someone watches the birds through binoculars. The city holds its breath. The birds stand still, as if listening. Time passes. Nothing happens.

And when nothing happens long enough, someone opens a door.

Tentatively they step outside. And when they do, they discover the birds still merely stand there. And so, people begin to go about their lives.

The children are thrilled. Excited by this strange sight. They bow to the birds and chirrup at them; they weave between them with arms outstretched as though they too wish to fly. At first parents chide and chastise—come back here at once—but that too dwindles when the birds do little more than move aside to make way for the children. Some adults walk straight past, eyes downcast, pretending they are not there. Some throw them quick glances, nervous, intrigued. Others stand before them as though to confront the creatures—what audacity to gather in this way in the city! The birds stare back quietly, eyes bright, black, and patient.

By the second morning—or perhaps the third—the birds are still there. Doors are opened and closed again. Shops lift their shutters. Buses run their routes. Traffic stops and starts. The birds do not move. Days pass without incident. And then something small happens.

Someone pauses mid-step, certain for a moment they can smell pine in the air. Pine? How puzzling. The forests have receded so far from the city they can no longer be seen. Someone else feels the soft swish of grass beneath their shoes, though the pavement—solid stone and cement—is unbroken. A woman looks down, startled by the faint squelch of mud where there is none. People gather where they can hear the rustle of leaves where no trees stand. It passes quickly though. Easily dismissed. Dust, perhaps. Or months of long, unusual heat.

But at night, some swear they fall asleep to the sound of rushing water.

And so many dream of open ground, wide and unnamed, where the sky feels close and clear.

After that, it happens more often.

The smell of ripening fruit though the supermarkets are closed or far away. A glimpse of silverlings, small and sharply darting, in a rain-dark puddle, gone almost in the same moment they’re noticed. A touch of bark instead of wall. At dawn, the song of birds no one can name. In the evening, the murmur of old voices offering prayers to river and forest. And through driest dust, perpetually rising, the clean wet smell of rain.

What is happening? People ask, over and again. They walk with eyes grown wider—in fear, in wonder. They slow their steps, glance back, look to one another for comfort, for confirmation. Did you smell that too? Did you hear it? Conversations begin and trail away. Explanations are offered, withdrawn. Some check the news, the weather. Some blame the season’s turning, all awry and out of sync. Some insist nothing is wrong. The world is as it is. And yet, and yet, the city feels oddly porous, as though something long held back has begun to seep through. Is it the birds? They begin to ask. These birds who arrived with the memory of fields on their wings. Who stand slender and upright, their necks curving, uncurving with slow, deliberate grace. Is it them? The birds are still and silent. Sometimes, they take a step, then another—measured, unhurried. Their long beaks tilt, tap against stone, lift again. Sometimes they preen, drawing feathers carefully into place. When people try to chase them away, they lift and alight elsewhere. They do not leave.

By this time, an order is issued: the birds are to be left alone until the authorities have devised a plan to deal with the situation. So people carry on—to work, and school, and supermarkets, and bars, and back. Though often they pause, uncertain where to place their feet; streets they have known for years feel misaligned, as though the ground itself has shifted.

What do they say the city once was...

Fire and water. Fire and water. Land learning itself. Layer upon layer. Stone lifting, folding, pressed by time, rivers carving paths to abandon and return. Forests rising, falling, melting into flames. Rain sinking into earth to feed roots and streams and memory. Seas swelling, parting, vanishing. Shells sinking into moon milk. The slow flow of magma, the soft persistent fall of life.

All this remains, below, beneath, unfinished.

The birds stay, and then one morning they are gone.

The streets look the same. The rooftops are empty. Traffic lights blink as they always have. People peer from their windows. They stare at the sky. They whisper and wonder if this too is an omen. Phones are lifted; messages are sent—Where are they? Children run out onto rooftops, and into balconies. They search the streets and pavements—looking for feathers, for tracks, for something they might have missed. The adults say it’s best the birds are gone. Who knew why they were here in the first place? Good riddance. Though at night many lie awake listening for the sound of water and wait to dream of open ground and open sky. They lie awake waiting for land to remember who it was and what it will be.

Janice Pariat is a storyteller, author and trail seeker. Her last novel Everything the Light Touches was listed on The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2022 and won multiple literary prizes. She is based between Delhi and Shillong and lives with a cat of many names

This article appeared as ‘The Memory Of Fields’ in Outlook’s 30th anniversary double issue ‘Party is Elsewhere’ dated January 21st, 2025, which explores the subject of imagined spaces as tools of resistance and politics.