The Starling and the Fisher

Rolly looked up through the leaves of the elm at the small, dark, tee-shaped figure soaring graceful figure eights high above against a backdrop of fresh, fat spring clouds. The hawk sent a cry down to earth, high-pitched and slightly raspy. Rolly’s siblings shivered all around him and emulated frightened turtles ducking into their shells.

The six baby starlings that surrounded him whispered amongst themselves as if afraid the great hawk in the sky could hear from that far away. Maybe he could. His sister Serry whispered, “It’s him. It’s the Black Hawk,” as she huddled even closer under Rolly’s left wing.

“Shhhhh!” whispered Hod. He pecked ay Serry and said, “he’ll hear you---”

“Don’t be silly,” said Rolly, “he’s too far away.”

“The Black Hawk has super hearing powers,” Big Mot said and Hod added, “yeah…and eyes like high-powered radar.”

Rolly said nothing but stared at the hawk in awe, wishing he could someday soar like that. He knew that that was an impossibility. A single tear leaked from his eye as the hawk soared out of view. He focused on the clouds that had now blotted out the last blue from the sky, their bottoms grown heavier and darker, and he felt that at least one of his prayers had been fruitful. It would rain this afternoon and hopefully throughout the night and next morning.

The young starlings unhuddled and looked towards the west. They could see little except forest and as they watched the horizon darken to dusk, they detected the ozone scent of the water gathering in the sky. The indigo light of dusk made them excited. It meant momma and poppa were coming back with dinner…it made them nervous too, worried that momma and poppa would not come back…after all, the Black Hawk had sounded ravenous.

Rolly’s two sisters began chirping soft wailing little cries of distress as they always did as the sky grew dark. His four brothers’ heartbeats were as fast as the sisters, but they would not weep.

At last, a cry from the east behind them, “Tooooweee ta-wooo!” Momma was home. An answering cry, “Taweeee-tawoooooo!” was Poppa, farther away but on his way. All seven baby starlings warbled happily.

There were no stars that night and no moon either, the cloud cover efficiently curtained their brilliance away. Come the next day, Poppa flew off at the first hint of a paler shade from the east like a black dart shot from a crossbow. Momma stayed behind and spoke to her brood, “I’m sorry children, as you know, it will soon rain.” She lifted her sleek head to the sky, her glossy ochre feathers speckled black and gold, were already dappled with beading drops of drizzle. She puffed out her feathers until she was three times her size to keep her babies warm and dry. “I know you were all anxious and excited to test your wings today for the first time, but we will wait until the storm is over.”

Rolly hoped it would never stop raining.

Fat drops pattered down on the leaves all around the starling’s nest, as hypnotizing as ancient tribal music. By noon it had escalated into a symphony complete with the clashes of thunder like cymbals, and shrieking wind like arias. The wee starlings shivered but were not afraid. Momma told them stories.

“But what if the ending isn’t happy?” It was Hod. “Like what if the Princess Sparrow gets eaten by something evil?”

“Yeah,” piped up Terry who was neither boy or girl starling, he/she hadn’t decided yet. “Like what if the Black Hawk swoops her up---”

“---and chomps off her head!” finished Fuzzy Mot.

“Children! Where do you get such imagination?” But she chuckled softly above them.

Hod said, “the Black Hawk was up there yesterday. We were worried you two were gonners!”

Serry and May stifled sobs.

“Now now children. The Black Hawk is old. We are so much swifter than he…”

The girls dreadful sniffling stopped and Hod said, “But he is evil Momma. We heard he ate his children…”

“And tore up his wife with his own talons,” added Serry shrilly.

Rolly shivered and looked up at the sky. It was getting dark. The rain was letting up at last. He shivered again though not with revolt but with fear of the dawn.

Momma Starling said, “Well yes, he has done some unforgivable things. Rumor has it, he ate a poisoned rat and took over the sickness of it.”

The children nodded as if they understood.

“Please just stay out of the sky when he’s circling.”

“He’s so graceful and his arcs so elegantly…perfect,” Rolly whispered softly, he was half- napping.

Big Mot pecked him.

“Ouch!”

“What the fern are you sayin’?” he sputtered at Rolly.

“Oh. Uh…nothing! I was dreaming. About…uh…”

“Nevermind, you useless gimp. After tomorrow we will all be forced to abandon you.”

Momma sighed but did not argue.

The rain stopped as if on Big Mot’s side. He smirked at Rolly and shrugged. And though it was near dark, the Black Hawk’s lonesome shrill cry sounded from high above. Rolly thought so high, he was over the clouds. Another tear trailed down his black feathered face. He’d never get there. Come the morning he’d commit to his death. Call it suicide…call it just surrendering…he’d known from the time he had hatched he was different. All the other chicks had normal bodies and normal feet and beaks…and wings.

He did not. His right wing seemed to be lagging a muscle or ligament or something. It was shriveled and drooped. When he lifted it, it flopped. Big Mot was right, they would peck his eyes from his head to save him from seeing his terrible fate. They would defecate on his back as they all flew away, as a way of leaving him with a part of them as he was left to die.

Die he would, with no water. He could eat bugs but why bother? What is a bird that can’t fly? A useless gimp as his brother had aptly pointed out.

The Black Hawk cried out again and Serry asked Momma, “Tell us about the Black Hawk Momma…did he really attack the Wherrywill Owls? Did he really tear the eyes from Prince Egon?”

Rolly listened in wonder. His siblings all around him oohhhed and aaahed…he was surprised to find himself adding his voice. That hawk was truly evil. He’d obviously sold his soul to Mother Nature’s nemesis, Satan. And even in the pitch blackness, the Black Hawk's cry instilled ever more icy terror in their hearts. Only an insane hawk would fly at night.

His Momma said, “Stay away from him. He may rain blood from his last victim upon you!”

The starlings shivered as at last their father came home with crunchy green crickets for dinner.

The sky grew light. Rolly’s siblings trembled with excitement. He was trembling with the anxiety of his coming death. On a whim, he stood up and flapped his small wings. One flapped with the power of a turbine engine, the other waggled a little bit. He sighed. He heard his father’s voice in the distance and prepared to say goodbye.

Then he heard the cry of the Black Hawk.

His father screamed. The hawk screamed in triumph.

Rolly’s mother cried out in anguish like a siren on the sea.

“Is he---?” a sister queried.

“Quiet!” Momma screamed. “Today you will learn to fly. Tomorrow, you will feed yourselves.” No one spoke. Momma’s eyes were blazing with non-compos mentis.

The overcast sky was as dour as Momma Starling’s mood, she would mourn later, when the nest was empty and her babies soaring all but one.

Momma Starling nudged Big Mot and Hod to the edge first, as they were the biggest and would set a fine example. “Remember your lessons children! And be brave!”

His brothers did not hesitate, they flapped their strong new wings and flew high over the trees. Rolly hid behind his mother. The girls went next, to prove they were just as strong, and they soared even higher. Fuzzy Mot and Terry swooped dangerously low before remembering their lessons, they flapped furiously and cried out with relief when they recovered and flew after their sisters and brothers.

“Rolly. I’m sorry but you must leave the nest.”

Rolly came out from behind her tailfeathers. “You’re not sorry. Why’d you even bother to name me?”

“Your father,” her voice faltered, the word fractured, she cleared her throat... “Your father named you after his favorite uncle, Roland. He thought you’d be special. But you turned out to be afflicted as his grandfather had been. He also had a cousin with Lame Wing. That one refused to leave the nest and was pecked full of holes, they snapped his legs as well, leaving him an eyeless broken thing when he hit the ground.”

Rolly shuddered. He would leap bravely to his death and die with honor…and his eyes.

“I love you son.” He had never heard her say that to any of them. “Go be with your father now.”

Rolly leapt from the nest as far out as he could, with his beak held high and his tail feathers spread wide. His good wing was strong, he instinctively flapped it madly… inevitably, he spiraled towards the earth. His lame wing curled under his belly, the wind from his passage held it there as the ground came up fast. He looked down and writhed to avoid a thick branch. Better to die quickly in a splat on the ground than to break your back on a branch and lie paralyzed for days. He missed the thick branch, only to whack his head on another. The lights in his world went out.

When he awoke, he was flying! He was looking over the tops of trees and fields and a great silvery-blue river. “Whaaaaa?” he croaked, “Is this heaven?”

“Shush.” Came the voice from above. It was deep and calm- the voice of his father! He slept more soundly than he ever had, all his anxieties gone.

The flight he had thought a dream turned into a nightmare when he opened his eyes at last.

He lay in the shadow of an enormous black hawk…the Black Hawk! The great old bird lowered his head to study the starling, late afternoon sunlight pierced Rolly’s eyes like shards of red-hot glass.

Rolly, now frustrated for not being in heaven, said bravely, “Just get it over with. Eat me already.”

The large bird of prey chuckled softly, grandfatherly, and said, “Eat you? Don’t be silly. I’m no filthy cannibal.” He cocked his head. “Oh. I see. You have heard stories of me. I suppose I could have put an end to all that hullaballoo…” he flapped a wing and a gust of air pushed Rolly nearly over…”but the truth is, I simple wanted to be left alone.”

He stepped aside and into the ray of sunlight and Rolly saw that the bird was not black at all, but steel grey, his wings brown and speckled with red and gold. Great dark eyes shone with wisdom in a somewhat scruffy face gone frosty with age. “Name’s Fisher by the way…”

Rolly sat frozen, glaring, trying to comprehend…

Fisher understood and nodded. “I saw the raven come after your father and cried out a warning to him but was too late. Rest assured that raven will prey upon starlings no longer. I watched your nest afterwards. Starlings can be quite high-spirited and emotional, many come unhinged when they lose a mate…irrational even.”

Rolly swallowed. Fisher spoke the truth.

“What a brave little bird you are. I witnessed your gallant leap just seconds before…well, nevermind about that. But why waste something so precious as a life?”

“Perhaps your old eyes can’t see this?” Rolly flopped his deformed wing and could not help leaking tears.

“What? A little wing that needs some attention?”

Rolly goggled at him, confused.

“What?” Fisher looked around, his head swiveled around to his back comically, like an owl’s. “Have I got crawdads crawling from my ears?”

Rolly felt the tension burst from him in an expulsion of laughter, he felt a hundred times lighter.

“I’m serious young man-bird. While you were sleeping, I took the liberty of inspecting your infirmed wing…”

“Infirmed?”

“Well, yes. As in ill. An illness can be cured. Your wing needs to stretch to its full capacity, that’s our first step. Then we will exercise the muscles under it until they are atrophied no longer.”

“We?”

“Well, you can’t do it on your own…”

“I thought you wanted to be left alone.”

Fisher puffed his somewhat scrawny old man-bird’s chest until he looked twice his size, his eyelids lowered to half-mast. Rolly feared he’d overstepped his station as a child bird, “I-I-I’m sorry. None of my business.”

“That is correct young sir. And what do I call you anyways?”

“Rolly, sir. But I’d prefer Roland.”

“Well, Roland. No time like the present.”

Four hours later Roland’s curled up wing was stretched straight and bound to two straight twigs with scraps of twine pulled from Fisher’s spacious nest. It hurt at first, but Fisher was patient and gentle, flexing the little wing further and further until stretched to its maximum length. Rolly winced at first, then sighed as blood rushed to the atrophied muscles. When it was splinted at last, dusk had fallen.

They ate apples and lettuce and fish for supper.

Roland ate ravenously though his wing throbbed.

“There’s a farm over that hill you see on the horizon.” Fisher pointed a wing towards the moonlit hill. The farmer leaves me a selection from his crop, I eat his rodents. But it is fish I truly crave.”

“I’ve never had it fresh like this before. This is way tastier than maggots.”

“It’s trout from that river we flew over yesterday.”

Fisher talked about trout and gobies and carp and catfish.

Roland dozed off, his mind and belly full of fish and fresh veggies. He shivered in his sleep when the wind flew in from the north and registered Fisher covering him with his substantial wing. He was awakened by a rumbling in his ear and realized that Fisher was talking in his sleep. ‘Not just talking…he’s sobbing.’

“Yasmine…no, don’t…”

Summer sun on a spring morning awoke Roland. He was shocked to find he’d slept past the coming of dawn. He was alone in the large aerie. The distant cry of the old hawk brought him happiness instead of fear, it came from beyond the hill on the horizon and Roland wished for more fresh produce.

That day, all throughout grueling physical therapy sessions, Fisher answered the boy bird’s endless questions.

“…but why do some birds migrate in winter and not others?”

“Well, some birds handle the cold better than others. Hawks migrate where there is adequate prey. If it were to snow in this territory, I would migrate south. It rarely snows here, and I am old, so I do not. But I do know of some younger of my breed that do. Many small birds stay because they are simply too small for such a taxing flight. They have special feathers. Ever notice how fat they appear in winter?”

On and on he talked. The old bird knew everything!

Early one June morning, Roland awoke alone as usual, but witnessed a dark cloud in the midst of the pale cerulean sky. It covered half the sky with blackness. It wafted closer in slow motion, rising, spreading, then falling into a dark tartarean wave. The wave swooped upwards again, and Roland’s heart swept up with it. They were starlings. Hundreds of them…perhaps a thousand! His kin were performing a grand murmuration, and he longed to fly with them.

“See that one in the front?”

Fisher’s voice had startled him. The old hawk was quiet as a ghost. It was a quality Roland had gotten used to and admired.

“Yes, it’s like a maestro conducting an orchestra.”

“Well, that could be you.”

Roland once would have argued, demeaning himself, but this day he said, “Yes, I would like that.” He flapped his two turbine strong wings and darted off like his father had- an arrow from a crossbow- into the cloud of his clan.

He soared through them and upwards… they all turned and followed. They followed the one who could soar like a hawk.

***

“Yes Yas…I did as you asked. May I come home now?”