Goodbye

– Felix

Felix circled over the wetlands, surveying left to right, scanning the muddy shores below, but there were no curlews anywhere. In fact, there wasn’t a single bird of any species. Nothing but footprints, and so many it was hard to tell the who, what, and where of it all. And everything was covered with seagull business. He circled closer to a large flat expanse of mud to investigate.

There. A curlew print! And another! So they had been here.

He landed, bob-walking over to the clearest one, unfilled by water. Fresh. He bent to sniff it, drawing out its signature colour.

“Hello.”

The voice startled him. He turned to see a seagull, with the characteristic patches of brown feathers that marked him out as a juvenile. “Whatcha doing?” it asked.

“I doubt you can help me,” Felix said.

“Ok,” the bird turned to fly away.

“Unless you’ve seen the curlews?”

“That’d be the Eastern Curlews, then?”

“So you have seen them?”

“Seen them? I was here for their sendoff. Beautiful it was. The avocets sang and the godwits danced. The stilts and sandpipers cheered them off. Even the dotterels were—wait! Where are you going?”

Felix flew as hard and fast as he could, scanning for just the slightest glimpse. If he could see them, he reasoned, he could catch them. But there was nothing. Not a flock in the sky, not a speck on the horizon. He flew higher, hoping to see further.

“Hello.” The seagull was beside him again. “You’re too late, you know.”

“No. I can catch them, I can,” Felix flapped harder.

“They left at Dawn Chorus,” the seagull said. “And their wings are bigger than yours.”

Felix didn’t waste his energy responding; he was puffing already. The next bend in the river was just ahead. He fixed his eyes on the distance, on the layer of air over the coastal dunes where the wind whipped fine grains into the air, blasting his beak even from here. He closed his third eyelids and kept flying.

“You’re never going to catch them. Look at me. See how I’m not even flapping?” Felix looked. The gull did appear to be coasting. “You’re flapping your hardest, and I caught you easily. But you? On a scale of me to curlews? You’re not even in the equation. You’ll be hungry before you leave the dunes, while they’re already crossing the interstate line.”

“But I have to!”

“But you can’t. You’ll die if you keep flying this hard. I can hear your belly rumbling from here.”

It was true. He was starving already. His wings hurt, his head pounded. His belly rumbled again. The last of his energy sapped, taking his desire with it. He stopped flapping.

He couldn’t even cry.

“Errr…you might want to start flapping again, buddy. Unless you’re on a first name basis with that ground? It does seem pretty keen to meet you.”

Felix looked down. In a vivid, sharp and bright moment he saw the jagged rocks. He knew without calculating where his crash point was. He saw the grass and the way it conspired to end right where the ground would hurt him most. He squawked in alarm and tried to pull up. Spreading his wings wide he reached forward with his feet, trying to shed the speed he’d worked so hard to build up. But it was too late. He closed his eyes, hoped for a gust of wind. His cloaca loosened.

His eyes snapped open. That’s it! The first lesson of flying! Without even bothering to recalculate his lift formula, he opened his cloaca and let out everything he had. He rose up just enough to avoid disaster but not enough to avoid embarrassment—his feet scraped the rocks and slowed his bottom half just enough to fling him top-half-first into the stinging saltwater.

“Ooohhhhh!” his seagull companion winced as he bobbed back up. “You are so lucky it’s high tide. If you’d hit those oysters…”

But Felix had a new problem. The closest he’d ever come to swimming was watching ducks do it while he stole their bread from the shallows. “Help,” he cried out, trying to steer feet that made better wings than paddles. He gulped a beakful of water. Flipped over. Bubbles roared around his head and he snapped at them: any air would do. Coughing and spluttering, his world turned red. Something grabbed at his legs. He kicked free. Salt water stung his cut feet. His wing snagged on something soft and slimy. The red turned to black. The thing grabbed at his legs again.

He gasped another beakful of bubbles, coughed, and took in a breath of water, coughing again. Water flooded his beak and drowned his lungs. And then a warmth and softness enveloped him, keeping him safe. Promising him an end. Never again would he have to think, or feel. Or breathe. How simple.

He relaxed.