Astronomers on the Tuesday of Death The Passage of the Flamingo

Description

When I completed my studies as an engineer specializing in arc-angle geometry, I did not return to my homeland. In truth, I felt no need to return to *any* country, given that I could find no one interested in the knowledge I had acquired. Moreover, because the matter concerned the profound confidence this science had instilled in me regarding the hidden system governing the secrets of the visible world, a sense of pride prevented me from settling anywhere for two years. I committed to memory the clamor of every train traveling from the icy north of Europe to its south, and every train moving from its east—nestled amidst forests—to its west—wandering through them. My identity papers grew tattered; stamps faded and ink blurred over the years spent studying and drifting, until I became convinced that no one would acknowledge my very existence. I eventually stopped in Sweden. I told them I was Kurdish, and they showed a cold understanding of my obscure plight; they sent me to a complex overrun by successive waves of people fleeing toward their own fugitive ideas. Then, they thrust me into the intricacies of a new language—one with challenging articulations—where neither Russian nor the smattering of English I knew helped me forge the skills needed to crack the code. I implored the overseers of our new European lives to facilitate a human gamble—a journey eastward—and they obliged, issuing a small ID card stating that I was a lost soul and that whoever found me should keep me. That was how I understood it; yet, when I asked for a travel ticket and was asked to name my chosen destination, I faltered. After all, they had to record the traveler’s destination on the ticket. At first, I faltered; then, gathering a will woven from tender wheat stalks, I traced a circle with my finger across a large world map hanging in the offices of the Cosmic Complex—an agency for those fleeing toward the sanctuary of existence. They smiled at the humor in my gesture: I had encompassed half the globe. “Be more specific,” they said… “You must name a country.” Narrowing my eyes in search of the smallest nation in the Eastern Mediterranean, I placed my finger on a point that opened like a breach in a wall of water. “Malta.” They shrugged at my odd choice, then explained to a Kurdish interpreter that Malta was too small to accept arrivals from that part of the world… I shifted my finger an inch to the east, onto the map of that doomsday-haunted enclave: “Here,” I told them, “this skate-fish is swimming northward.” My finger rested on the island of Cyprus, which resembled a skate-fish. Their faces lit up—and why not? Cyprus had a history of sheltering groups of Kurds. And so, I arrived in Cyprus.