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Our story begins at the edge of a lake, in rolling grassy hills and a promise of another day to live. Emboldened by this beauty, trees whistled, wind sang, and birds flew far above it all, remembering the melodies of their forefathers.
One such bird was the mother of only 3 new fledglings, the rest being taken by predators and the like. She was proud nonetheless, and vowed to protect her fledglings, defenceless as they were.
(Reader, I will tell you something before I transcribe more of the events I have seen today.
As an avid bird-watcher, I have seen my fair share of death, but in some way, what happens to the birds feels like a distant memory.)
While the mother bird flew through the trees and the forest, looking for worms and bugs to feed her young, the three fledglings chirped to each other loudly. Unbeknownst to them, however, their noise could only bring harm.
“Did you see that big fish in the lake the other day?” the first fledgling asked. Bubbly, unrestrained smiles filled the nest, and they all peered over the side of the sticks of their home, trying to spot the fish in the lake again.
“Yeah, I wonder if Mum’s going to bring that home to eat!” the other two exclaimed, almost in unison.
At this, they fell into a reverie and could almost taste their fish that was coming to them.
The second fledgling snapped out of it first, and elbowing the first, asked-
Before the first fledgling could answer, a scream could be heard below the nest, and the fledgling’s hearts were filled with terror almost instantly. Their first sibling had fallen somewhere deep down among the leaves, having been pushed out, and was screaming in pain.
Slowly, over the course of several minutes, the shrieks for help, for mercy, eventually turned into a bone-chilling silence.
(Reader, I have something of shame to admit. I could not, from my vantage point, view what became of the third fledgling. I apologize.)
But as the fledglings sat there, absorbing the bloody scene that they had just witnessed, a hiss could be heard from below. They looked back down, hoping for any sign that their brother was still alive, but there was something far more sinister that had taken his place.
A taipan slithered there now, looking back up at them with a twisted smile overcoming its face.
“Hello there, children..”
The second fledgling was struck with a horror that he could not have previously imagined.
What is happening?
That thought echoed over a hundred dozen times, in the span of seconds that felt like years.
It felt almost as if the world was collapsing, all of its colour leaching into shades of grey and a bitter, hateful red that overcame every corner of its vision.
At this moment, his mother came back to the nest.
Driven by shame, the second fledgling tried to run out of the nest onto the leaves below. Anywhere would work. As long as he could never look back at what he’d done, he would be okay. He knew that much.
As the sun rose on a new day, with its orange beams spreading out over the horizon,
it seemed that life began anew. More chances for sin, for mercy, for love to those who deserved it and who didn’t alike. All was washed away in the waves of sunlight washing over the hills below. As for the second fledgling, he was never seen again.
Is it wrong to assume that he was eaten, that he was in a happier place? Maybe he is still alive, lost somewhere in his misery. He might still learn to fly, but who can think of flight in the deepest pits of despair? Perhaps he is a new person. He could be any one of us.
Dear reader, he is me.