“You can’t perch here”

Plucking one of my stories from wattpad to here LOL. (as an attempt to go back to feeling like a teen writer, my golden years :P) It was from a few months ago. The prompt? Write a scene from the point of view of an animal.

Note (also taken from what I put on Wattpad): The main character here is an oriental magpie robin. I tried to apply my scriptwriting techniques professor’s concepts of “turning a scene” and the “dramatic dilemma”. Not my best attempt, but hey, I finally wrote this difficult prompt! The motivation to do this was thanks to “Watership Down” by Richard Adams. Enjoy!

***

Hazel looked down from his perch on the electric pole. He could hear his friends Emory and Liél fussing around and making their nest inside the electrical box below him. He chuckled in a slight twitter. The sun shone down on the mud on the street down below, and the reflection stung his beady eyes. He ruffled his feathers, dipping his tail in and out. Soon he began to feel hungry. 

Beating his wings, he flew upwards and sighted his familiar haunt, the garden trees just a few meters away. The towering trees were fan-shaped with leaves half his size, and he spotted a clear branch that he was used to landing on. Seeing that everything was alright, he dove to the bottom among its leaves to forage for food. Hopping about and nosing around with his beak, he spotted a line of ants, which he promptly snapped up. 

Circling the trunks of the closest trees, he slowly satiated his hunger. Suddenly, he heard the song of an unfamiliar bird of his kind from above. It was a warning call. 

“You idiot, don’t you see what’s coming?!” it screeched.

At that exact second, he noticed a large, skulking, grey figure to his right. As it pounced, Hazel had already taken to the air, far above the reach of the cat. With his heart racing, he realised how foolish he was not to have heard, seen, or smelled it. And, although he huffed at the brusque manner of the unknown bird’s words, he couldn’t help but sigh in relief and feel grateful for what it did for him.

He tried to remember the spot where he had heard the warning that saved his life. He flew towards what he thought was the correct branch, but he could see no flash of iridescent black that would betray his saviour. He flew farther to search the trees, and looked up and down the branches of the tree he had browsed under, but there was no sign of the bird. Perplexed, he flew back to his electrical pole.

Liél was hanging onto the wire, sitting upright.

“How do you do?” she sang. 

“I almost died,” Hazel replied, with a harsh hiss. “I was looking for bugs, when this fellow I heard warned me before Two Ears could jump on me.”

“Yes, I heard the warning too,” Liél noted. “It was a new bird, was it not?”

“Yeah, and when I flew up to it – it was gone,” Hazel said, a little dejectedly. 

“Well, I hope you find it,” Liél whistled softly. “It’s worth thanking. Now I’m off to look for more little soft grasses for my nest.”

“Good luck,” Hazel said, and shifted his legs over the top of the electrical pole.

As Liél flew away, he listened to the myriad conversations slowly gathering around him. The annoying myna was performing a solo over the yellow wall with white holes in the house near the trees he fed himself by. Her song was shrill and loud, with many sentences in it. An unseen parakeet from behind the group of big white houses on his side shrieked. He put his head under his wing, thinking, “No one’s out to kill you, buddy! Stop crying.” 

The short, deeper, business-like call of his red-vented bulbul friend could be heard from the last white house on his side. It repeated over and over until he flew away. He also heard the sharp barks of the larger Two Ears that didn’t usually bother his kind. The loud, unnatural rumble from one of the large, coloured beasts with four shiny circles on its sides also rolled swiftly under him. As it disappeared in the distance, Hazel started his song.

Feeling pleased, he continued for several more minutes. Suddenly, he heard the fluttering of wings behind him and he twisted his head to look back at a greyer bird of his kind, albeit smaller in size. 

“Hey, you duffer. Still alive?” she said. 

Hazel cocked his head. He remembered her voice. “You… you saved my life!”

She landed on the spot Liél was sitting on earlier. Immediately, Hazel lunged at her.

“You can’t perch here,” he said. The new bird jumped back, avoiding his attack. He landed on the wire.

“What?” she said, balancing herself a little ways away from him on the same wire.

“This place belongs to my friends,” he said, “I’m sorry.” 

He continued to advance on her with quick hops, and she moved backward as they spoke.

“How come they let you stay?” she said.

“I have no mate,” he said, stopping. 

She let out a small whistle. “I’m sorry. Well, can’t I even hang around here for a while?” she asked.

“No,” he said. 

“You owe me,” she replied, ruffling her feathers.

“I do,” Hazel replied. “But not here. I can’t talk to you if you stay here.”

She hissed, then flew away. Hazel sighed, and didn’t feel like singing anymore.

***

Some weeks later, Hazel was moseying around the bottom of the trees where the cat had almost got him. He felt lonely, as Emory and Liél were busy taking care of their new brood. His other friend, the red-vented bulbul, was nowhere to be seen. He hadn’t met the grey bird who saved his life ever since he drove her away from Emory’s territory, and he regretted not seeing her again. 

He was about to eat a juicy-looking centipede when he suddenly heard a forlorn call from the leaves up above him. It begged him to come – and he recognised its voice.

He flew up, hovering by the tree-trunk and searching around for a glint of feathers, but he could see nothing. He waited, listening for the same call.

There it came again. It was a repeated cry for help – like a chick’s, but the voice was fuller and older. He spotted a hole in the tree trunk and found the same grey bird that saved his life. Quickly, he landed on the tip of the hole, looking into the darkness. He saw the bird’s eyes reflecting the light from outside.

“Help me…” she said. “My wing’s broken… And I’m so, so hungry…”

She shifted and he saw that her body was so thin. She looked hopeless. He felt that no amount of his help would keep her alive. She was too weak, and she would eventually die. And he thought about the future. If she did survive, he might feel the need to woo her (at this he shifted awkwardly) – but the question was: could his children be raised by a crippled mother?

He sighed, and remembered that he did owe her… If he left her now to die alone, could he possibly live with that? Could he sing again without thinking about her?

Finally, he sighed, “I’ll bring you something to eat. What’s your name?”

“Ariadne…” she said, weakly. 

“What a difficult name,” Hazel replied. 

“It is… what it is…” she replied, laughing quietly.

“I’m Hazel,” he said.

“Thanks, Hazel…” She was breathing hoarsely.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

Allaying his own hunger, he swooped down to the leaves and began the slow process of bringing her insects, worms, and centipedes. She gratefully gobbled up what he brought to her hole, and soon she drifted off to sleep. Finding his duty of the day finished, he went down to search for more food on the far side of the trees. 

The calls of new birds brought him back to Ariadne’s hole. A pair of the same kind had arrived on the branch he’d stood on to talk to Ariadne, but he drove them away, fighting with the male and getting a small wound on his shoulder in the process. Ariadne was too weak to notice.

Nevertheless, he stood by a branch near the hole to watch over her, where he stayed for the next several weeks, caring for her and feeding her, and guarding her as she would emerge on the branch to drink water collected on the leaves. No bird could come close to her as long as he was there. 

He kept his hearing sharp, listening for any intruder, except for the times Ariadne would be in a good mood. He would then sing for her – long songs made to impress another bird, and she would laugh sweetly in her high, twittering voice.

One day, Ariadne stretched out her wings and flapped them. It showed a stark difference from the limp wing she had had when Hazel first found her in the hole. He watched as she hopped off the branch and soared to a lower one. 

“Can you come back up?” he said. Ariadne chirped, and flapped her wings multiple times, rising a little from the branch. She landed again, and Hazel felt a stab of worry for her. What if she couldn’t come up to the hollow? What if she couldn’t fly again?

Ariadne beat her wings once more and lifted off the branch. In a flash, she was there beside him once more.

“I… feel… great!” she said, flying up toward the top of the tree. She faltered, and landed clumsily on a thin branch. 

“Take it slow,” Hazel called up to her. He flew to her side. 

It took a few days till Ariadne could fly normally again. The muscles on her wings had lain inert as her bones healed, but soon she could fly greater distances and forage for food on her own without Hazel worrying after her.

“Now you don’t need to watch over me,” she told him. “You can go back to your friends.”

Hazel was silent. He shuffled a bit on the branch he was perched on. “Hmmm. I’d rather stay here.”

He looked to the electric post in the distance. “Besides, Emory will pick on me again for not having a mate.”

Ariadne laughed. “At this point, you won’t have to puff up your tail feathers.”

Hazel cocked his head, not allowing himself to believe her. Ariadne misunderstood, and thought that he didn’t get her point.

“You idiot, you’re so dense!” she said, twittering happily. “It means I’d pick you.”