Rudy

‘Where did you fall from?’ It asks me, looming over from a terrifying height. It takes one step closer and I respond with four little petrified hops away. It takes another, I take four more. We dance with this distancing a few seconds further before it sighs, shrugs and walks away. I ruffle my feathers in triumphant pride of my agile victory, before remembering what came before: the fall. I had only teetered out slightly, hearing the Wrinkly One from Below trying to croak out a tune whilst watering its plants. I had hatched a plan to relieve myself on it, my aim improving and the desire to shut it up growing. Before I knew it, the ground came flashing forward. Not worth it. Now I’m pottering about on this stony ground, unable to fly, amongst all these Terrifying Talls from the Below. How the mighty have fallen.

Oh no, I hear footsteps with a design. There’s that voice again - not the Wrinkly One but that It, a Terrifying Tall from before. It’s brought back-up, a Terrifying Tall Number Two, who makes sighs of sweetness as it approaches. Don’t aaaah me, I’ll peck your meaty little hands off, my mother warned me about you. They’re both coming closer, more assured this time. What’s that? A box! Hop hop, hop hop. No, this way. No, that way. Aha! Nice try, you good-for-nothing - no! Darkness. It’s dark. I’m hopping and flapping and making the most pathetic caws of defiance, but they have me.

My heart’s racing as I bump up and down, up and down, within these undignified cardboard confines. I hear their muffled words. The Terrifying Tall mumble grumbles: ‘A cat was going to get it! I couldn’t just leave him there.’

Well, what a saint you are. I may be but a few days old, but my kind have circled yours for many centuries. We know your language and we know your tricks. We have studied your bizarre rituals for as long as you have studied ours. If only you carried me with a little more care, you may be buried in a martyr’s grave for your good deed one day. I know your language but you do not know mine; you do not hear me and continue to bumble bounce along some more.

It feels like an eternity before my box is laid down. I am cooed at in a higher pitch, as if tonal change offers reassurance. I assure you, it does not. The Terrifying Tall rumble-fumbles with the folds of the box, allowing the sunlight to suddenly flood in. Well, you could’ve warned me. I winker-blinker in the sudden brightness and poke my fluffy head up. I am ushered down, my infant claws grappling unceremoniously with the ground.

‘Oh, look at his little feather antennae!’

Terrifying Tall Number Two is here as well, what joy. Its finger brushes my fluffy head, tracing the two moo licks pointing above each of my eyes. I give a little indignant hop hop and take in the surroundings; I’ve been relocated to a balcony where the air smells more of sewage than sea water. It’s satisfactory, I suppose. A few plants on one side and… a hideous platter of food on the other. An encouraging click of fingers indicates that hideous platter is intended for my digestion. I edge closer towards the brown jelly, hunger outweighing dignity. The Terrifying Tall pushes the plate towards me.

‘The internet said you’d take dog food.’

My hunger isn’t outweighing my self-respect, thank you very much. I huff puff out my chest and turn my beak towards the sun in disgust, The Talls step inside from the balcony, having a mumble grumble together before popping their heads back out. ‘We’ll be back with food, we won’t be long!’ Footsteps pitter patter out and a door slams. Finally, I am alone.

I half-flap and half-clamber my way on top of a planting pot exposed to the sun. I settle my claws around the warm ceramic, take my position and rest. I don’t even notice them coming back, until the lower voice of Number Two mutters:

‘It’s such a universal act, isn’t? Basking in the sun.’

God knows how long they’ve been watching me, the sneaks. I carry on my basking as they huddle out onto my new home. A new scent grabs my intrigue and I angle my gaze towards the source. The Terrifying Tall wrestles open a see-through box, things wriggle wriggle inside. ‘Pass me the tweezers, would you?’ Number Two obliges. The tweezers pluck out a single wriggler and bring it towards my beak, which I eagerly open. Gobble, gobble. Real Food.

We carry on the day in a cycle of food and rest, a combination I do not object to. Eventually the sun lowers and the air grows cool. The Terrifying Tall offers a meaty finger onto which I hop hop with some degree of trust. Once inside, it takes me to my cardboard box, now nestled with soft bedding. I shuffle with unease once closed in. The box is cold, dark and an abrupt change from the elements of sun and soft breeze. I object, but you do not know my language.

The daylight returns many hours later. The Terrifying Tall awakes, shuffles to my box. It brings the box outside with eager coo-coos to wake me. The imitated birdsong immediately falls to blubbering sounds once the cardboard flaps are uncovered. The Terrifying Tall Number Two hurries over and they both loom over my lifeless body. The Terrifying Tall sad sobs, unsure whether to blame itself for not giving me enough air holes or for failing to crank up the radiator to full blast. I don’t really remember myself; I know only that I was residing in the body I am now looking at, unsure of how I got from there to here. The Terrifying Tall pauses its noise - worse, I admit, than Wrinkly One’s crooning - then bursts all over again after touching my corpse’s beak. It borders on pathetic, though I am touched.

The plans are arranged for my burial and I listen in with curiosity. The Terrifying Talls box my body, cover it with straw and head outside. A car journey takes our small procession out of the grey streets of the Below to green flashes of the Beyond. After awhile the glimmer shimmer of sea water reveals itself beyond the land, towards which we continue to bumble along. The car eventually pulls to a stand-still and the procession continues on foot, I spectating from above. We have come to the point where the land recedes to the lapping water. I feel on more of a journey now than in my few weeks of life. The Two Terrifying Talls sit for awhile with the box containing my corpse. After some silence and more sad sighs, they hiddle fiddle with the box. Finding a groove in the ground, they take out my straw-wrapped body and nestle it within. Stupidly, they seem to have forgotten a shovel. The Terrifying Tall adjusts my straw coffin and weaves in a handful of flowers. They sit for awhile, perhaps thinking of death or dinner or both, then bid my body farewell. I do not join them. I wait and watch for a long time, whilst the elements break my body back to beginnings. They pipette my small lungs and return my remaining breath to the wind. They direct my blood back towards the water and slowly sink my form into the soil. Just some feathers remain, which disperse across the land. Perhaps one will be picked up in curiosity by an inquisitive child, a Terrible Small, who will quiz his elders in the language he still has yet to learn.