For thousands of years, in many guises and under many names, the mid-winter feast has been a time of celebration, a time for telling stories of hope, an affirmation of life and renewal of the spirit. In that tradition I would like to offer this little Christmas story, comprised of roughly equal parts of once-was, what-if, and might-have-been. I call it...

by R C McDonald

Denny flumped angrily onto his perch, muttering musically to himself. He was NOT impressed with the way things had been going lately! Everybody was always distracted these days, and nobody, even his special human, ever spent more than a few seconds talking to him anymore, much less let him out to play! His whole world had gone topsy-turvy! What on earth was going on? Were they just going to forget about him, and leave him to pine away in his cage, all on his own?

It hadn't always been like that... his 'humom', as he liked to call her, was quite perceptive for one of her species, and he had been able to train her to respond to his wishes quite easily. He had grown to enjoy their interactions as much as she seemed to, and both looked forward to their time together each day.

Then she'd met her mate, and at first, Denny had been happy for her. He wanted only the best for his humom, and the fellow she'd picked had been reasonably polite to him, whistling to him, even. Imagine a human trying to talk like a canary! Grouchy as he was feeling, Denny just couldn't resist a musical chuckle at the thought. "If that poor fellow only knew how silly he sounds!", he murmered. "Still, you can't fault him for trying, I suppose... I just wish he hadn't taken up quite so much of Donna's time!"

At first they had tried to make up for things, and Denny was allowed out to play whenever either was home. But he'd gotten into trouble - nothing he couldn't have gotten out of on his own! - a couple of times when only Dan and Denny were home, and after that Dan worried too much about his safety to let him out until Donna was home too. And sometimes that was a very long wait!

Denny was thoroughly disgusted. Donna had started getting fat, and lately he hardly recognized her any more. Recently she had begun staying at home instead of going out each day, and at first he had rejoiced, sure that soon their old routine would re-establish itself, and their friendship would be renewed.

But so far, that hadn't happened. She seemed sleepy a lot of the time, and very distracted most of the rest of the time. It was very difficult to get her attention, and when he did, he couldn't seem to keep it for more than a few minutes at most. He'd mostly stopped singing, too, and nobody had even appeared to notice!

"Oh, I wish I'd never been hatched!" he muttered crossly, appalled at the prospect of spending the rest of his life living in his cage, ignored. "I bet nobody'd even miss me if I wasn't here!"

"Are you so sure of that?" said a sweet voice in his ear, and Denny promptly fell off his perch. He'd been so suprised he hadn't even had time to jump!

"What'd you want to do that for?" he muttered crossly, shaking his head, and trying to get his feathers into some sort of order without looking like he was preening. He was also trying very hard not to stare - standing right next to where he'd been laying across the perch, was one of the most beautiful hen canaries he'd ever seen.

"Where'd you come from, anyways? How'd you get into my cage without me noticing?"

"That's not the important thing just now," she said, and giggled "You have a feather sticking straight up out of your head!"

He grimaced and lifted one foot to scratch his head feathers back into order. Perfect timing, as usual! What was it about females that always left him feeling so clumsy?

When he was done, he hopped back up to the perch and looked at her. She regarded him seriously, and said "I'm sorry I frightened you off the perch."

"Frightened? Me? Hah! Not likely! You surprised me, is all! Male canaries don't even GET frightened, except of serious things, like owls, or hawks, or... frightened? Hmph!" He trailed off into silence and clicked his beak irritably. He'd been wishing things wouldn't be so boring, but did his wishes have to be answered quite like this?

She giggled at him again, and said coyly, "You know, you're kind of cute when you're cross," and then stopped suddenly and looked straight at him.

"Did you really mean what you said about never having been hatched? Why in heaven would you ever say such a thing?"

"Well, look around you!" he snapped crossly. "I used to have the run of the place when my humom was home, and now she barely looks at me! I don't even recognize her anymore, almost, she's changed so much! They don't seem to much care whether I sing or not, and sometimes I think they don't care whether I live or die! They don't need me anymore, that's obvious, isn't it?"

"Things aren't always so obvious as they look," she said mysteriously. "Look, if you really meant it, I can show you what things would have been like around here if you'd never been hatched... if you still want to know!"

"How on earth could you do something like that?" he asked, interested in spite of himself. Maybe she was talking like a crazy thing, but, it wasn't like he had anything better to do, was it?

"Oh, that part's easy!" she said cheerily. "You must have heard that God notices everything, even a little sparrow's fall? Well, if he notices them, how much more do you think he notices a canary? After all, we are special, you know!"

"Well, I always thought so," he answered, then stared. Donna had just walked past his cage - which now had TWO canaries in it - and she had even glanced at him! Yet she didn't bat an eye, and walked right past as if everything was normal! Just what was going on here??

"Oh, don't worry, she can't see me," said his mysterious visitor, and then giggled again. "I almost wish they could, sometimes!"

"What do you mean? You're real, aren't you? Why would I be able to see you, and not them?"

"Because I am only here for you," she said seriously. "Don't you know that when a canary dies, we become God's messengers of hope? You badly needed some hope tonight, and so here I am! But I'm only real to you, to them I am still just a dream."

"But....but...," he sputtered, completely at a loss.

"It's a special night, tonight, you know - it's almost the anniversary of the night God was born into a human body, for a little while. Although nobody much remembers the old legend, these days, it can still happen, that when the clock strikes midnight, animals can speak, for an hour, to the ones they love.

"The human who translated that legend forgot to mention that birds are included in that particular little bit of magic, so tonight it will be your turn to tell your humom just what you've been feeling.

"But first you need to see what her life would have been like without you. Look, and See!"

Her voice changed, with the last word, to a commanding tone, and her wing swept out and over his eyes. Suddenly the world around him was gone, and he was floating in a sea of greyness. Then, like it was unfolding on a screen, a scene painted itself onto the greyness in front of him.

It was his Donna, when she was younger, the way she'd been when he was just a chick. She was walking along the streets in the rain, without an umbrella or even a hat, her shoulders hunched and her head hanging. She looked utterly miserable.

"Donna!" he called out, alarmed. "Donna, what's wrong?"

"She can't hear you," he heard, and realized for the first time that he wasn't alone in the greyness - his mysterious companion had followed him.

"This is the way the world would have been, if you hadn't been hatched. Since you were never born in this world, nobody here can hear you.

"She's just been told that the little canary she was hoping for, never hatched. Now she is just walking, because she doesn't want to go home and put away the cage she had all ready for you. The breeder doesn't have any more young canaries to sell, and told her that she will have to wait another year, and she doesn't know anybody else to ask. Wait, let's take a look a year from now..."

Denny felt a little better about that. In a year she would have met Dan, and surely there would be another canary for her, it wasn't like he was so very important, was it?

In the midst of this comforting thought, he noticed the new scene that was unfolding in front of him - and gawked in disbelief. "Surely this can't be right!" he gasped in dismay.

Donna was sitting in a plain room with dirty white walls, in a plain blue-gray robe. She was sitting in a plastic chair by a window covered in bars. Her hair was in disarray, and her face was blank and dull. As he watched, a slow tear crept its way down her cheek.

"Oh no!" he gasped. "What's happened to her? Where's Dan, why aren't they in their new apartment?"

"She never met Dan," his companion told him. "She met him in a pet store while she was buying food and toys for you, remember? It was her animation while she talked about you which attracted his interest in the first place!

"Do you remember her walking in the rain? She got sick, and then fell into a deep depression during her recovery, and lost her job. She's lost her interest in living, and her ability to take care of herself, and so she's been placed in this institution indefinitely."

While they were watching, an attendant entered the room and shook Donna's shoulder. "Time for your drugs!" he told her in sugary-sweet tones, then handed Donna a handful of pills and a small glass of water, and watched while she obediantly threw the tablets down her throat and chased them down with the water, then resumed staring out the window, her eyes blank and dull.

"Oh, this is terrible, I can't stand any more, please take me home!" Denny begged. "I had no idea, it doesn't matter if she ignores me the rest of my life, please take me home!"

His mysterious companion gazed at him affectionately. "All right," she said warmly, and suddenly the grey world was gone, and they were once more in Denny's cage.

"Remember, when you hear the clock strike midnight," she said, and gave Denny an intense look, "you will have exactly one hour, during which you will be able to talk to Donna, and she will understand you. Remember!"

Denny blinked. Just like that, without a goodbye or a hint of a warning, she was gone.

He looked around the room, feeling like he had been gone an eon, even though it had actually been only an hour or two, if that. He'd had no idea what a difference he'd made in Donna's life, just by being himself! Maybe it wasn't too late to heal the gap between them.

He noticed with surprise that Donna had fallen asleep on the couch, and had forgotten to cover him. The lights had been left on, and it was almost midnight! What if she slept through the magic hour and they never had a chance to talk?

He had better try to wake her up, gently. He began to sing her favourite songs, quietly at first, and then gaining a little more volume as his confidence increased. Now that he knew how important he was, he was determined to make a difference again!

Just as the clock began to strike midnight, Donna sat up and rubbed her eyes. She looked up at Denny, and murmered, "Oh Denny, how lovely it is to hear you singing again, I've so missed the sound of your voice! I dreamed there was another canary here, and that she was talking to you, and you were talking back!

"I suppose it must be getting close to the time the baby will be born, for me to be having such odd dreams. I could understand every word you said, but I can't remember a single thing you talked about! Isn't that odd? I am sorry I went to sleep and forgot to cover you!"

"That's okay," Denny told her. "It's magic, the same reason you can hear me now. It won't last, so we had better do our talking now, while we can. What was that you said about a baby??"

"Magic?" she murmered, and blinked at him. "I guess it is, at that! Or maybe I'm still dreaming. Didn't you realize I'm going to have a baby?"

"A baby?" he asked excitedly, "You mean you've laid an egg?"

"Well, in a way!" she laughed, and pointed at her belly. Here's my 'egg' - the baby grows inside me, instead of in an egg, like canaries do."

"Oh, I'd thought you were just getting fat! How odd, and how wonderful," Denny said, "We're going to have a little human around the place! No wonder you've been acting so strangely! I was beginning to think you had forgotten all about me..."

"Oh, my poor Denny!" she murmered, affectionately. "It's been so hectic around here lately, nobody's had much time for you, have they? I am so sorry, I meant to take the time to tell you what was going on, but somehow I just never did! I will try to do better, in the future."

"That's okay," Denny said generously, "but do please ask Dan to trust me a little more, okay? He needs to learn who's boss around here!"

"I will!" she laughed. "And just so you know, I will be staying home from now on, to take care of the baby, and you! Now, I think it's time for you to catch up on your beauty sleep - we can't have you starting a mid-winter moult again, now can we? I love you, Denny... sleep well, and thanks for sharing your magic with me tonight..."

The clock began to make the ticking noises it always made just prior to striking the hour, and Denny knew he had to be quick. He gazed seriously up at his humom and said "I love you, Donna, never forget that, please? I will always be your little feathered angel. Merry Christmas, Donna!"

"I know you will, Denny, Merry Christmas!" she murmered lovingly, and gazed at him affectionately before putting the cover on his cage. "I have always said, if it wasn't for you, I would probably be locked up in an insane asylum somewhere!"

Denny shuddered, knowing she spoke the simple truth, and glad he had been able to make such a difference in her life. The world would have been a much poorer place without her loving warmth in it!

Denny couldn't resist one last song before going to sleep, knowing at last that everything in his world was the way it was meant to be.

"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!" he trilled. It was good to be alive!

by R C McDonald
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Copyright © Dec 2001.
All rights reserved.