Photo by @tristancarax
It was too young, thin translucent skin stretched over half formed bone, black swollen eyes still sealed shut.
Instinctively she picked up the thing, the fall should’ve killed it, instead the peeling bark of it’s birthplace intervened. It clung to life.
Tiny stumps that would form wings pushed into her palm as it nestled against the warmth of her skin, her stomach churning with barbed horror as she realized what had happened.
It was so weak it had been rejected.
Even if she found the right nest, it would just get pushed out again. She couldn’t put it back, not where she found it, nor where it came from, helpless, alone, it’s life rested in her hands.
Lo had been terrified of birds since the first time she met bold, ravenous city seagulls as a small girl, something only made worse during each subsequent encounter. Yet the little creature, limp, barely clinging to life, hardly resembled the swarming, mobbing, snatching things of her nightmares - it seemed so fragile on her palm.
Walking back to her apartment, her hands cupping the tiny bird, it was like watching another Lo, one she struggled to recognise. What had possessed her to touch it, to pick up the gross thing that seemed nothing like a bird, it was so ugly, so helpless...
Once she got home she’d call bird rescue, she decided, they’d take it.
Her local bird rescue, as Lo found out countless teary phone calls later, didn’t take chicks, she surprised herself, fighting this hard for a damned bird.
Part of Lo suggested giving up, letting nature play out, assuring her she’d done as much as any reasonable person would. It was a part she’d never listened to, not when her marriage had taken a wobble, not when she’d got the hospital report, she wouldn’t start now.
No, giving up was never an option, and after that last call, she couldn’t consider it.
"Chances of survival are very low past this point, there's very little point in trying, it’s only a painful prolonging of the inevitable" —sentiments that were all too familiar.
She’d told the bird rescue center the same thing she’d told her doctor sixteen stolen months ago.
"Fuck you."
Raising a baby bird is no easy task. She started with forums, sharing pictures, trying to figure out what kind of bird it was, what to feed it.
It needed a heat lamp, feeding throughout the night, food carefully pushed out a syringe. The tiny thing went crazy for that, blindly bobbing and shaking. It got more food up her wallpaper than it ate!
But it grew. Slowly, then by grams each week.
Its dark eyes opened, pale skin thickening, puckering with the nibs of quills, feathers pushing out further every day, its beak growing longer - until it finally looked like a bird.
Lo didn’t see a bird.
She was still as scared of birds as ever.
No. Lo saw another fighter, that just needed someone to believe in them.
Written for the 31 sentence contest hosted by @tristancarax. The word count for each sentence this week is 18, 19, 4, 31, 8, 14, 23, 28, 26, 22, 25, 13, 26, 21, 27, 16, 29, 17, 2, 7, 20, 15, 11, 10, 3, 6, 30, 5, 9, 1, 12. As a bird lover, this image hurt my heart a little bit. I hope the little dude was okay, I kind of had to write this ending just to reassure myself lol. I really didn't know how to approach this other than wanting an ending where the bird at least had a chance, but thank you to @girlbeforemirror who mentioned ornithopbobia (fear of birds) in the comments, and ended up being the final bit of inspiration I needed. The 31 sentence contest is a really great one, both for a bit of fun and for honing skill without even noticing, would highly recommend any potential writers out there give it a go.
Splendid! She must overcome her bird-phobia to come to the assistance of a baby rejected by its own mother.
And though everyone warns she'll only be prolonging its misery, that she should let nature take its course, she learns how to feed and care for this little creature - this fighter. She was still as scared of birds as ever. But she didn't see this one as just another bird. #Love it!
P.S. For future reference, English has no apostrophe in "its" - the possessive, like "his" and "hers," which is crazy, while "it's" is the contraction for "it is." Just FYI. :)
Thank you very much! I liked setting it up like she would stop being afraid of birds but then in the end, hadn't overcome it at all. I came to a similar acceptance of just a single spider, it's amazing the human capacity to hold two seemingly opposed perspectives and reconcile them just fine. The exception that proves the rule and all :l
Awww damn it, I shouldve spotted that, I'm so bad for really basic mistakes, like if two completely unrelated words start the same I can easily type the wrong one without noticing. My auto pilot just gets carried away sometimes. Thank you for mentioning it, English is my first language so not so much an FYI for the future but I do need to up my proofreading, especislly with anything written on my phone, the autocorrect is just as bad as me. That said it's just easy to not think about the stuff we use all the time, I used to get Italians joking about how much better their English is than mine haha
Ooh, now I want the story of your spider friend!
English is a ridiculous language, hard to learn, with so many exceptions to the rule. Sorry if I came across like a stern English teacher. For the sake of our many non-native English writers here, I thought I'd give it a mention.
You weave in a lot for the reader to think about- and want to know more about - e.g.
And "sixteen stolen months" later she's alive and fighting.
Not just for herself now, but for the little fighter who's so tiny and weak. Rescuing an animal can be the best treatment for convalescents, soldiers with PTSD, the lonely - anyone!
I didn't want her having made it against the odds herself the complete focus of the story, but that was the point I started off from. So often it is the case that those who have been through something are more sensitive to others. I didn't want to say too much about her seeing something of herself in the bird and have it more as an uncurrent. I spent far too much time on the phrasing where that came up trying to get it to where I was happy with it. If there were more words, there mightve been more about her life, her being there so the bird didn't have to fight alone and a hint of her having had to face some difficult days without support. That is definitely a self healing people can find through caring for rescue animals, be it getting through something together, or being there for them in a way a person never got.
Have to agree with you there, got a few rescue animals myself, when little Mia (a conure who was born missing a toe on one of her feet, her leg developed a bit funny because of it and she can't balance as easily) goes to sleep on my shoulder, leaning against me for support, there is no better treatment for any woes I might have. Very much appreciate the comments :)
What a sad picture and thoughtful story... I hope the little bird survives!
A wonderful story, very touching, and written so well! A fear of birds is overcome momentarily, through empathy for a rejected baby bird fighting to live. And though Lo still fears birds, Lo doesn't see a bird even when it is clearly a bird. A really great job on this prompt!
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That was pretty awesome. I loved your take on this weeks prompt.
My favorite paragraph:
It reminds me of the bee that stung me at the age of about three. From then on to about the age of thirteen, I was terrified of bees. I would scream just like a little girl and run just as fast as a cheetah (if you believe I'm that fast, I have a bridge to sell you!). They scared the life out of me. Then, around the age of thirteen, one stung me. I simple brushed off the stinger from my skins and nothing bad happened to me (if you don't press down on the bulb, most of the venom won't go inside of your body). I've been friends with bees ever since.
Another time, some kids were taking care of a baby squirrel when it had gotten hurt somehow. They couldn't keep it any longer. I said that I would figure out what to do with this creature that loved to jump on me and the people around. The squirrel really like humans!
Me and the people I was with, all of whom were dressed up as Hollywood icons like Jack Sparrow, Charlie Chaplin, and Davvy Jones, brought this squirrel from one apartment to the next about a mile away while crossing busy streets and going through a mall. haha. The squirrel jumped all around, up and down legs of all who were around but it did stay with us.
Getting it to the apartment safely, I called a squirrel place that came and picked it up a few days later.
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