This is a first person narrative. Written based off of the life of bird, the story is about what the bird sees and feels throughout its day. The story also interracts with people and has a point of view from the sky.
Wings
I watch them from atop this branch, and I wonder. How do they spend their lives walking on two feet, slowly getting from place to place without the help of the wind beneath them. It’s a shame, but I know this freedom that we have across this sky beats any feeling in the world.
I see a mouse. It’s trying to hide from me, but I’m too sharp for it’s useless concealment. Finally I fly over to a window, open by people too lazy to shut their own glass containments. I see crackers. I want them. But before I knew it, the glass wall behind me shut with a loud thud and I flew forward to escape whatever had come for me from behind.
A human girl had her arms reached out towards me and inched closer until her hands were near my beak. She has a cracker in one hand. I want it. Against my own judgment, I move forward, and then I’m standing on her arm, talons wrapped around her tiny, little wrist. Her hair was thick and black, eyes like steel. Calmly she fed me the cracker until I had pecked away at its every surface. Satisfied I rested on her arm and she had gained my trust. That is how I got my name.
Mojo. My new name. She feeds me, strokes my wings. I love it. Every day I come back now, waiting for her black hair to shine in the distance and know that she’s brought me seeds and nuts for me to snack on.
One morning she took me outside on her shoulder and I felt what it was like to walk at human pace. Slowly, but steadily. I began to look around me. So many things that I had never bothered to notice before. The flowers on bushes shone with colors of spring and rebirth. The roots from each tree broke through the soil and stretched out as if the tree was yawning from standing so long. But every time a car whizzed by, my wings quivered and my beak rattled. The girl would give me another seed and I’d forget about the metal death traps that zoom by on the black road.
We were headed towards the towns largest cement structure. Labeled “Safeway” I flew off of her shoulder to get a better view before going through another glass wall that slid open every time someone approached it.
The inside was cold. Artificial light absorbed the entire building. The shelves were stocked with human food wrapped in the strange waste of plastic and paper. Once she had found her candy and snacks, the girl walked towards the checkout with me still on her shoulder. The woman in front of us kept looking beside her and behind her on the floor. She checked everywhere until she looked at the two of us and asked, “Have you seen my groceries? They were here just a sec….”
Just then I snap my head in the direction of a man walking out of the store with two bags of groceries in his hands. I squawked, but no one seemed to be paying attention to my bird noises. I raced out of the store and into the bright sun outside once more until I found the man stealing the groceries. I didn’t have much time, the man was getting into his car, so I did the only thing I thought was possible for me to help. Floating down towards the back wheels, I lifted my beak back until I couldn’t bend my neck any further and then plunged my beak into the tire with all the might I could muster up. I repeated this with all four tires until I heard the engine revving up and getting ready to leave the scene of the crime as a seemingly smooth getaway. However, the man couldn’t get his car rolling out of the parking spot before the little girl and the woman who had lost her groceries were out in the lot, staring at the scene unfold.
Some may call me a hero, but I save them the breath and just puff out my chest like any proud bird would do after saving the day. With a new home and a boosted ego, life with wings didn’t seem all the bad. Although enjoying the little things that humans seem to experience even on a simple walk to the grocery store was worth the tortoise pace.
THE END
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