Magpies are the guardians of the roads. Of once-busy intersections, now still. Of the soaring, graceless behemoths that have escaped from the soil and climb into the sky, like buildings of old. Of the cracked, gray scars that line the surface of the earth. Of the remnants of our past.

Nobody has heard of a road without a magpie, at least not here. In this part of the world, every road has at least one—usually more. A nesting pair. A flock of a hundred. Every road has a magpie. Every.

Nobody is quite sure why. Do they know something? Do they know anything? Or are they just. There. Guided by some instinct that not even they understand. What do the magpies understand?

Everybody knows they’re smart. Smart, smart birds, with their trinkets and their toys. We leave them offerings, sometimes. An extra rabbit that we trapped. An old, family dog who passed in her sleep. A bauble from a bygone time that reflects the sunlight straight up, up to where the magpies can see it and be summoned, and in return, they leave us things we might like. Old money. Jewelry that they no longer care about. An interesting rock.

Sometimes, I wonder who is leaving offerings to who.

What do the guardians of the road think of us? Do they think of us as guardians of the ruins? Of the titanic, hollow buildings that rise up from the ground? Of the crumbling houses? Of the burned out, empty stadiums that we call our homes? What are we to magpies? Are we their followers? Their pets? Rivals? What?

Who knows. Maybe not even the magpies.

Sometimes, I wonder if they care about us. The magpies. If they know, deep down, that we made the roads they haunt. Well. Our ancestors. Not us, not anymore. I doubt there’s a person alive, at least in this part of the world, who could make a road.

Sometimes, I wonder who used the roads.

I mean, I know it was us. Well. Our ancestors. The same ones who built them in the first place, but who specifically? Priests? Leaders? Everyday, run of the mill, people?

What went on the roads? I’ve heard people say “cars” and “planes” and “automobiles,” but nobody can tell me what those were. Nobody remembers. Once, I heard a car described as a “sheet metal animal that humans fed bones to as tribute, so that the car would take them places,” and a plane called “a massive, underwater car,” but those both seem unbelievable.

I think our ancestors walked. A lot. Always walking, and the roads were how they got from settlement to settlement. Stomping across that cracked gray scar. I wonder if they had shoes? Sometimes, the roads are so hot from the sun that I can’t bear to step on it, so they must’ve had shoes. Or tougher feet than us.

Sometimes, I wonder if the magpies guarded the roads way back then.