“The sun comes sooooooon!” My mami twittered above my head, but her feathers dimmed the shrillness of her sweet call. I tucked my head closer to my own downy feathers, adjusting my little rump on the soft twigs of our nest. My siblings shifted with me.
“The sun! The SUN! THE SUN!!!” Mrs. Twitter sang as she flew. I knew she flew by because her song both loudened and softened according to her proximity to our little tree space. “the sunnn! the sun!”
Mami shook open her wings, allowing the early morning light to glisten on her wings and brighten my closed eyelids. With a little jump that shook the nest, she flew a few branches overhead. She did this everyday. No need for me to open my eyes to know.
“Oh, how I love the morning with it’s bright, beautiful streams of golden life light!” Mami’s song was the prettiest of all the birds, and I loved to listen to it although her song never changed morning by morning. “Oh, bright sun! How beautiful and bri—
My eyes popped open. All the neighbors hushed as well. Mami practically crash landed into our nest, shutting the sunlight from us.
“Mami?” I chirped.
She pushed her rump hard on me then, and I knew to not say anything. I relaxed, trusting that whatever had scared the neighborhood would soon pass. I slept.
When I woke, there were cautious songs but none of the gut-strong tunes of freedom and no fear.
I learned to fly. I learned to find food. And I learned fear.
“Kay, babies. Stretch wings long and leap.” Mami crooned to us as she demonstrated. We followed, tumbling through the wind drifts as she showed us the best places for eating, washing, and living. A shadow passed over us, and mami curled up to see. Her screech of “hidddde!” set my wings to flapping as strong as they could. I glanced back to see a large, black bird gaining on me with its claws outstretched. When I thought he would get me, Mami came like a blur, flying straight at him. In this high heights of chicken flying, the enemy was distracted for a moment. We hid along the eave of a featherless giant dwelling.
But when we flew to our tree, we had an unwelcome guest. Our enemy. On the lowest branch of our tree, he sat. Not moving. His claws taunted me because I knew I should have ended up in them that day.
Our neighbors moved to other trees, but my brave mami wouldn’t move until we were all raised. But she no longer greeted the sun with such jubilee. I didn’t know if she could still sing. I didn’t know if I could sing because if I so much opened my mouth, her feathers were in my mouth before I could make a noise. But I didn’t want to draw the attention of those claws to me again.
So I watched our enemy. Black. Shimmering feathers. Strong beak. His lack of movement terrified. He could see everything from that branch. I felt that his beady eyes just waited for me to hop from my branch, and then he would fly at me with speed that I could not zoom from.
Our enemy stood there always.
When the featherless, giant creatures came to our tree, we twitter-kind abandoned the tree. But the enemy showed no fear. No budge. Not even a feather moved. I watched from another tree. And I feared our enemy more. What would it be like to not be so afraid? Of other birds? Of the featherless, wingless giants? I wanted to be big, strong like him.
He didn’t know fear.
So I wondered. Others of his kind still hunted us, but this one never moved. Did he eat? Did he drink? Did he sleep?
Mami and my siblings finally moved trees. Some to start their own families. I moved, too. No one lived in our old tree except the enemy of the low branch. I felt he always watched me. I watched him. And wondered.
And then a funny, square, non-plant object was by the tree. Lots of wingless giants came to the tree and the large giant dwelling beside the tree. Then, one day, the wingless giant moved the funny non-plant. Then, he went up to the enemy of the low branch and picked him up. Just like that, the enemy was gone. Carried away without a feather moved.
Could it be that this entire time we had been afraid of nothing?
