Assistant Editor Taylor Byas: Lauren Osborn’s micro-fiction “Ortolan” drops us into the intersection of hunger and desire, the crossroad where they meet and become one. In the speaker’s bed, bodies become delicacies, birds are “plucked and prepared” for consumption. But a feast is only temporary, the pleasure of devouring a good thing short-lived. Osborn’s micro-fiction argues that we always grow hungry again.
To hear Lauren read her story, click below:
Ortolan
“All Paradise opens! Let me die eating ortolans to the sound of soft music.”
—Benjamin Disraeli
There is a bird in France people eat whole, hiding under napkins from the prying eyes of God. Some delights are too shameful, even for the divine. That doesn’t stop us from indulging.
This is how I want you, bare skin exposed under my gaze, flesh against flesh against white sheet. Your legs raised to the sky, golden skin goosed and slick with buttery oil. I fit you comfortably in my mouth. I swallow you with a glance. We hide our sins beneath yellow-knit blankets and threadbare throws. The quilt your grandmother stitched you last Christmas.
. . .
Some birds risk capture as they search for warmer beds. Because I know love, I can’t blame them—it’s better to die adored than free. But I also know pain and what happens to girls in love, birds in nets. I refuse. Let me die eating ortolans to the sound of soft music.
. . .
The first night we meet, you wear your leather-brown sweater with a lemon scarf cutting across your throat. I wear an apron, stained red. I warn you I eat songbirds. My life is a tangled net of no escape. But you stay anyway. You don’t flinch when your tongue slips between the snare of my teeth.
. . .
Ortolans feed in the dark, which is why I keep the lights off. You gorge yourself in the covered box of my apartment bedroom. Door shut. Blinds tight. If the violence isn’t sweet enough, Holy Emperors gouge the birds’ vision to mimic night, which is why when we close our eyes to kiss, I imagine pupils the size of pinpricks with blood centers. There is no room for guilt in pleasure.
. . .
Hush, I say when you cry, ortolans don’t sing. You don’t notice the lie.
. . .
Forced full and ripe, the tweed feathered birds are drowned alive in liquor. The violence, never sweet enough. My saliva tastes like armagnac. Your sweat, wine. We drink until we forget each other’s names, until you forget your keys and stay another night, your head resting on a throw pillow the size of a dinner plate. I warn you I’m not looking for a pet.
. . .
I can hold no blame. You’re plucked and prepared for my bed by your own hand, wings shorn and bones hollowed. The golden condom wrapper gilding the bottom of your pocket before you pick up the phone to call. If you try and leave, I’ll push your head down farther. If you say you love me, I’ll eat you whole. There is no guilt in pleasure.
. . .
Once the sin of love is spoken, let the blood set spoiled on your tongue. I eat songbirds, I hide from God. Soon your flesh will be forgotten, your taste faded. I will once again know hunger. You will once again know loss.
Lauren Osborn is a graduate student in the PhD English Program at Oklahoma State University, studying fiction writing. She holds a MFA from Queen’s University of Charlotte. Originally from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, she lives and writes in Stillwater, Oklahoma. This is her debut publication.
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