ISSN 1492-8132
Issue 68, © 2003
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Robirda
Mar 30, 2003

Welcome to Robirda's Companion Birds eZine

For breeder or pet bird owners who care.

Feature Article

This fictional tale of a lost little bird is based on real-life incidents. When we last saw our small feathered hero, he had survived his accidental escapade, but in his search for food and shelter had allowed himself to be captured. Thinking he'd found a new home, he instead found himself being sold to a pet store...

by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © Mar 2003

It was wonderful to eat without being interrupted, and I took my time. Dawdle though I might, eventually my hunger was satisfied, and I left the seed cup and returned to the perch.

My feathers were in terrible disarray, and it took quite some time before I was satisfied that my preening was complete. Now, finally, I could take a little time to look around and learn more about where I was.

Julie was standing nearby, behind a machine that looked something like the typewriter old Joe used to use, only larger. She was watching me, and laughed as she saw me notice her.

"Finally paying some attention to your surroundings, are you, my lad?" she said. "You must have been half-starved, the way you tucked into that seed!"

I had no way of telling her that it had been hours since I'd had even a bite, but I knew how to agree with her, and did.

"Chee-eep!" I said emphatically, and bobbed my head, laughing back at her. She seemed to know what I meant, and smiled broadly.

"Well, laddie-my-buck, you are going to grow up to be an awfully big canary if you keep eating like that!" she said slyly, and I ducked my head in appreciation. This girl was clever, for a human!

"I'm glad you're done, though," she continued, "because we have to lock up for the evening soon, and I wanted to be sure that you were going to be all right. But I don't think there'll be a problem with your eating and drinking!" and she smiled again.

"I'll bet you didn't even notice Lucian leaving, did you? Let me just lock up the cash register, then I'll be off - but I'll be back in the morning, okay?"

As she was speaking, she turned a small key near the bottom of the machine, then removed the key and came out from behind the counter, heading for the door. I cheeped a couple of times and she grinned at me as she opened the door.

"Night-night yourself!" she called, then pulled the door shut and locked it from the outside.

Looking around, I saw that my cage - a tiny thing that Lucian had called a 'singing cage' - was hanging in a large window. Sharing the space with me, in three box-like affairs spread along the bottom of the window, were several of the small furry animals I'd seen earlier. I remembered that Julie had called them "kittens, puppies, and rabbits," when she placed my cage here.

The birds who'd been brought in with me were in cages packed onto the shelves of a divider that ran parallel to the back wall, across the middle of the room.

A door was placed across one corner of the room, and the entire wall beyond it was covered with cages of various-sized furry creatures of all kinds, who began making an even louder din than before as soon as Julie closed the door behind her.

I winced as some of the birds joined in the cacaphony, and sighed, wishing the room echoed less. Trying to turn my attention to other things, I turned about and looked out the window.

This was a very different view than that from old Joe's windows! There, I'd seen narrow tree-lined streets, with cars parked along each side. Buildings stood side by side well back of the trees, and you could sit and sunbathe, watching clouds and wild birds play in the sky.

Here, there was no green at all. There was a flat walk outside the window, only a few feet lower down, and more people than I had ever before seen were moving along it in both directions and at widely varying speeds.

There seemed to be a road only a few feet further away, and looking across the store and out the small window in the door, I could see that there was another road intersecting it, and that our building was placed in the corner where they met.

Both roads were packed solid with cars, all moving with an odd sort of stop-and-start rythym, as lights at the corners changed. People gathered in clumps by the corners, then when the lights changed, they all surged across the streets together.

It seemed rather dark out, although bright lights set on tall standards were placed evenly along the edge between the walkway and the streets. The light of one was shining right on me, making my little cage seem as bright as day.

Peering upwards beyond the lights and the people, I was shocked to find that what little sky I could see looked very dark - it was evening already, maybe later, but thanks to all the lights, I'd had no idea!

Most of the other creatures sharing the store with me had begun to quiet down while I was gazing about. It was fairly dark further back, since the lights inside the store were off except for a few small ones here and there. The animals who shared my window were beginning to curl up together in little furry heaps, preparing to sleep as if the window was not as bright as day.

I looked about again and sighed. I was stiff and incredibly sore from the long, strange day I had somehow managed to live through, and although I had caught short cat-naps here and there, I was still young and growing, and my body was desperately demanding that I rest.

There was nowhere else to perch, in this small cage, and I could not get out of the light. I would have to sleep in the light like the others were, strange though that seemed, or it was clear I would get no rest tonight.

Uneasily, I turned my head about and tucked my beak and nose into the feathers between my wings, fluffing them so I would stay warm, then pulled one foot up and tried to doze.

It was difficult, although my exhaustion helped. The light seemed to shine right through my eyelids, and I felt like it was beating on them, insisting I stay awake. I concentrated on ignoring it, and began to doze a little, jerking awake every now and again to peer about, but nothing changed except the people outside.

The lights continued to shine, but even they could not overcome my exhaustion, and eventually I drifted off into odd dreams of endless flying in a strange, flat landscape that hosted an angry, tearing wind, scattered with the same tall light-topped posts that lined the streets outside and shone on my cage.

No matter how hard I flew, I could find nowhere to shelter me in that strange, cold place. In my dreams, I began to grow desperate, swept along out of control on the untamed wind, longing for a place I could not remember.

Suddenly, gasping, I awoke, and gazed about. My cage was still bright with light, and the store was still dark with shadows. The streets outside were quiet and empty, and with a quick jolt I realized that they looked uncannily like the landscape I had been flying over in my dreams.

My neck creaked as I lifted it out of my feathers, and I realized that as I slept my body, unused to the kind of exercise I'd gotten yesterday, had stiffened. I had cramps in my wings that I would never have been able to imagine, before!

Groaning a little, I began to stretch - only to have my wingtip stopped by the bars of the cage. Hissing with pain, I looked down.

Below me, the cage widened a bit to accomodate two cups, one with seed and one with water. I hopped down and discovered I could manage to stretch my wings one at a time by standing on the far side of one cup and stretching a wing out over the other, then reversing the procedure to stretch the other wing.

Slowly, I began to work a few of the worst of my cramps loose, then ate and returned to the top perch. Carefully, I extended both wings as far as possible, folded the tips, then clung to the perch and flapped as hard as I could, trying to release some of the tension and unease that had me feeling so unsettled.

The tips of my wings banged against the side of the cage, but I ignored them. I was angry now, angry at having to get used to living in a world that expected me to live like this - me, who had known the love of a human and the heartbreak of losing a family, me, who had flown the wild wind over the straits and survived!

The thought of living like this for even a single day more was intolerable, and I was determined to work out as much of my stiffness as I could. If a chance came to escape today, I must be ready to take it!

A small part of me wondered about Julie - but then I remembered that she'd said she had to do what Lucian told her. I remembered his quick, impersonal handling and rough transport of our cages, and my resolve grew.

I meant nothing to him! I knew I had gotten myself into this when I had escaped from the cage that my father, mother and I had been expected to live in after the death of our first human, by hopping out the open window that had unexpectedly presented itself. The wind outside had quickly blown me away, and deep inside, I knew I would never see Sally or my parents again.

Worse was Doris' betrayal, when I'd willingly entered a tempting cage she had set out for me. Thinking I had found a new home, instead I had been left in a smelly room crowded with miserable birds, then crammed into a cage full of other birds and brought to this pet store.

I would not make such a mistake again, I told myself firmly, and decided I must set my liking for Julie aside - I had been misled before, and must not allow it to happen again.

By the time I had worked off some of my feelings, I was beginning to feel quite hungry again, and set about eating what was left of my seed, finding I could manage to have a partial bath in my water cup.

I settled back on the top perch to preen, and saw that the darkness outside the window was beginning to lighten to grey. The tall lights lost a little of their intensity, then as the daylight grew, went out entirely. The relief from their glare was short-lived, though, as soon the sun popped up and began to shine through the window directly onto me.

At first I was happy to spend a little time sunbathing, but once I became warmed through, I realized that there was no shade, and that I would have to wait until the sun rose high enough to stop shining through the window before I could cool off.

I was beginning to get uncomfortably warm, but at least I could cool off a little by dunking my head into my water cup! Panting with the heat, I stood on my water cup and watched as the sun rose higher. It looked like I would have to wait for relief for awhile yet!

Then I heard a noise that was already familiar to me - the sound of a key in a lock. At once, every creature in the store began to call, most as loudly as they could. Looking over to the door, I saw Julie entering the store.

She called, "Hi everybody, I'm here!" then glanced at my open, panting beak, slicked-down feathers, and outheld, drooping, wings, and jumped.

"Oh my!" she exclaimed, "I'd forgotten that the morning sun would shine so brightly on you, here, let's get you into some shade!" While speaking, she lifted my cage off its hook and placed it on the counter beside the machine she had called a 'cash register'.

"I'm so sorry, laddie, here, I brought you some greens - chow down while you can, okay? Lucian doesn't like me giving you birds greens, he says it's just spoiling you, but I know how important these little 'treats' really are to you... Let's hope we can find you a good home soon, shall we?"

As she was speaking, she was wedging a lovely big piece of greenery into the bars near one end of my perch, and I smiled to myself. Old Joe used to give us this stuff all the time - he'd called it 'rapini' - and I noted with approval that my piece included not only lots of leaves, but an almost-ripe flowerhead, with the flowers already turning yellow, and lots of juicy, tender stem attached.

The flowers always were my favourite part, and while Julie wandered about feeding everybody and cleaning out their cages, I lost no time in devouring as much of my piece of rapini as I could manage. By the time Julie had finished her chores and returned, there was almost nothing left except the green smears on my beak, which I was busily polishing on the perch.

"Well, you certainly didn't waste any time demolishing that, did you my lad?" she chuckled, and then started to open my cage door. "Here, let's get you cleaned up," she began, but it was too late. As I saw her approach the cage door, I had readied myself, and as soon as the gap was wide enough I darted out and zipped away before she even had the cage door fully open.

"Oh my!" she gasped, "Lucian said Doris caught you flying out with the wild birds - I suppose that's how you managed to get loose in the first place?" I barely heard her, being too busy glorying in being able to really stretch my wings, flying in big loops around the store while all the caged animals called, sounding as if they were cheering me on.

I landed on top of a cage full of tiny birds to catch my breath and decide on my next move, while the inhabitants of the cage all beeped and scattered to the far end. I looked about, saw Julie heading rapidly in my direction, and jumped - there was no way I was going to return to that tiny cage, if I could help it!

Landing on top of a little ledge over the door, I saw that Julie was again heading determinedly in my direction, and the spirit of mischief overtook me. Taking to the air, I swooped in her direction, then zipped behind her head and lightly flicked her neck with the tips of my wings.

"Why you little brat!" she exclaimed, "where on earth did you learn to do that? Is that your name? Shall I call you Flicker? Come on, Flicker, let's get you back into your cage, okay? If Lucian gets here first, we'll both be in trouble!"

Lightly I swooped back to the little ledge over the door, and cheeped in amusement. She could beg all she wanted, but there was no way I would willingly return to that terrible little cage!

Suddenly the door underneath me began to open, and I realized that here was my chance to get completely away. Even as Julie yelled, "Don't open that door!" it was too late - all I needed was a few inches, and tipping my wings sideways I barrelled through the widening gap. Zipping past Lucian's nose, I caught a brief glimpse of his startled eyes and gaping mouth.

"Flicker, wait!" I heard Julie call, and a moment of regret passed through me. I had truly liked Julie, and it would have been nice to have a human to play with again.

But I could not live in that tiny cage, that didn't even allow me to fully stretch my wings, much less sleep under those glaring lights. It would be best just to forget her, and look for my fate elsewhere.

Clamping my beak shut, I ignored Julie's calls and Lucian's angry shouts, and flew on. In my memory rang the words burned forever into my mind, spoken to me by the most beautiful canary I had ever seen, who'd appeared to me as I lay dying.

"Have faith that there is a home waiting for you, and a human waiting to love you - never stop looking until you know you have found them," she had said.

I held the memory fast, hoping against hope that she was right, and once again set out to ride the wind.

by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © Mar 2003