"Death of the Emperor's Nightingale" ©2026 by Romie Stott
Content warning:
The emperor’s flesh-and-blood nightingale flew away
when a jewelled simulacrum took her place.
But after the fake bird broke,
the nightingale was caught in a net
and brought to a lab for further study.
Bits of bird were scanned and uploaded to a computer
which analyzed the creature in every way possible:
- aerodynamics
- sound quality
- flight patterns
- DNA sequencing
- feather count
- molecular composition
- more.
They captured everything but her spirit.
Though ones and zeroes filled data banks,
she wanted nothing to do with
the digital recordings playing on loop.
Drawn back to the palace,
her ghost searched for a place to roost
and settled upon the emperor.
The gems that once encrusted
her replacement lost their lustre.
The emperor smashed the broken automaton,
prised ruby eyes and diamond wings
from bezeled body
and scattered the remains
to scrambling subjects.
A petty act of charity
wasn’t enough to exorcise his demons.
The emperor’s dreams were bedeviled.
with a strident new song every night,
and each melody was a song arrow
piercing his power-hardened heart.
He ordered the files to be deleted
and digital simulacra destroyed.
Declared nightingales protected species
and slept easy.
Each season, her flesh-and-blood progeny
nest outside his bedroom window.