You found it waddling in confused circles in the middle of the forest road – a bright little splash of red amongst the green canopy.

“Hey,” you said, and clicked your tongue. “What’re you doing over there? Get off the road! The travelers come by every other day, almost; you’ll get trampled, clear over.”

Its feathery head spun and may have searched for your voice, but its feet kept waddling. Soon it was back where it started, two little black eyes fixed with immense concentration at absolutely nothing at all.

The thing was lost, alright. You sidled out of the shrubbery and scooped it up, and the thing silently let you hold it, too dazed to do anything but stare. You ran your fingers over its feathers soothingly and checked for any wounds or signs of illness. Nothing, except that disconcerting listlessness.

“What on earth happened to you, huh, little guy?” you murmured, before retreating back into the shadows of the trees. You grabbed a couple twigs and a bunch of leaves and arranged a sort of bed in a soft pit of earth. You held the thing in front of the nest, palm open. It stared down; first at the awkward bundle of dead plant life, and then at you; and stepped with a slow resignation into the nest. It promptly started waddling in circles again.

“Hey, stop that,” you said. You held out my palm in the middle of its aimless path, and it stopped. “You okay?”

The thing couldn’t talk, you soon discovered. It might have been physically capable of it, but it couldn’t make a sound. It just stared at you.

“Hey, it’s alright. No need to be afraid.” You picked it up and put it on a low tree branch, so you wouldn’t have to look down my nose to talk to it. “Where’d you come from, little bird? You’re not a bird, though, I know. I’ve seen things like you before. Where’d you come from?”

As if the action were the most uninteresting thing in the world, it slowly turned its head to face the road.

“I know that. I meant which part of the forest you’re from.”

It blinked a couple times, and twisted its head in the direction the road came from.

“Oh. So you’re a traveler, you mean. But then how come you aren’t travelling?”

It looked at you, like it was trying to understand the question; and then it raised its wings. They looked gorgeous in the dappled light beneath the trees, two brilliant scarlet fans spread side by side. And like that the thing just stood there. Staring down at the forest floor.

“You can’t fly?”

Slowly, wearily, it let its wings fall.

“Why not?” you asked. “Don’t you want to fly?”

You picked it up and held it in your palm, and it blinked at you without comprehension.

“You want to fly. Little red, you want to fly.” Its eyes were small and dull and sad. “Why can’t you fly?”

There wasn’t much you could do for it. There wasn’t much it could do either, besides eat and gaze and wander aimlessly. But you fed it and gave it water and made sure it was comfortable, and since you never did anything besides eat and watch and wander, either, you made good company for each other. You talked to it a lot about the forest. It came naturally to you, since you had never seen anything outside of the forest.

“The forest is great, isn’t it?” you said.

“You never have to be hungry, or thirsty, and there’s nothing here that would want to eat you,” you said. “Even if you fell down there’s moss everywhere, and soft bushes, and they’ll catch you.

“It’s not so bad, staying here, don’t you think?” you said.

The thing just gave you that sad look again, and you got up and walked around for a little, because you couldn’t stand the way its little black eyes pointed at you. But you came back. There was nowhere else for you to be.

“You don’t have to be a traveler,” you said to it, apologetically. It was walking in circles on the forest floor again, staring at everything and nothing at the same time. “Are you listening? You don’t have to keep moving all the time. I know that travelers don’t like to stay still, but it’s safe here, and it’s good here, in the forest. What’s so bad about staying on the ground for a while?”

You sighed.

“Why can’t you fly?” you asked quietly.

It stopped. Its wings fluffed up a tiny bit, and it gazed up at the sky.

You looked up too and saw the trees all sway to one side. The sound traveled through the leaves and branches and reached you before the wind could, the sound of leaves clattering together like the rush of an approaching dragon. You reached out and tucked the thing into the crook of your arm, right before the wind blew its first kiss across your back.

“It’s the wind,” you explained to the thing. “The wind always comes right before the travelers do.”

The wind picked up, and within the clattering sounds, low, booming noises faintly throbbed against the earth. In the distance, something like a trumpet sounded.

“Did you hear that? That was an elephant. Only it’s not an elephant, it’s just like an elephant, like you’re almost a bird but not really. Most times, I don’t like travelers very much,” you confessed to the thing as a hundred pounding footsteps approached and began to shake the trees. “They make so much noise.”

But the thing didn’t hear you. It was standing straight up, little black eyes shining, staring at the road with a shimmering intensity. It opened its beak, wide, as if to speak. Then its short little feet scratched your hand, and you jolted it back. The thing plummeted down into the grass.

“Ow – what’re you doing!?”

The second its feet touched ground, the thing began to hop toward the road. The wind was really roaring now, and it kept knocking the thing over until its delicate red feathers were battered all out of shape; but it got back up and went right on hopping as fast as it could, every time. You chased after it, trying to catch it in your hands.

“What’re you doing!? That way’s the road!” you yelled at it, but you could hardly hear yourself over the wind and the footsteps.

And then the travelers burst into view. There must have been hundreds of them, of all shapes and colors and sizes, monkeys and stallions and eagles and bears – and they were all headed with fierce conviction toward whatever lay at the end of the road. When the thing saw the wild parade, it arched its neck back and over and spread its wings like it wanted to touch the skies with that scarlet plumage. It tried to jump up high enough for the wind to catch beneath its wings and buoy it up, but it fell. You frantically snatched it up and held it in your arms.

“What were you thinking!?” you shouted at it. “What were you thinking!? You want to go with them!? You hate the forest this much!?”

It opened its beak and seemed to scream silently. You crouched down behind a tree as the travelers stampeded hardly a foot away.

“Is it really that bad to stay with me?” you asked. “Why can’t you stay? I like you. It’s lonely without you. I’m lonely.”

But its little black eyes pointed at you again, and you could see a gleam flaring up from coals you had thought dead, and there wasn’t anything you could do against that. You shut your eyes and leaned your head back against the rough tree trunk.

“Fine,” you muttered. You opened your eyes and met the thing eye to eye. “Fine. I’ll help you get your flight back. But we’ve got to hurry – the last travelers will pass in just a minute.”

You got up and raised the thing high on one arm, and you started to run. The thing held itself steady, angling its wings so that the wind was behind them.

“Go!” you hollered. The thing threw itself off of your arm and beat at the air with its wings, but the wind tossed it back down. You caught it and raised it again. “It’s okay, just try again, try again little guy! Go!”

Your lungs were straining now. Next to you, on the road, you saw a cheetah dash by and a boar overtake you in half a second. The trees and bushes kept getting in your way. This time the thing managed to soar for a moment before almost breaking its neck on a tree branch and tumbling back into you.

A pink flamingo and a white tiger sauntered easily past. You watched them disappear into the foliage. Behind you, out of the corner of your eye, you saw the elephant approaching.

“Last chance,” you hissed from between your teeth. You wiped sweat out of your eyes. And you veered to the side and emerged out of the forest, running on the road, and you raised the thing on your arm one last time.

“Fly!” you cried.

The elephant trumpeted again. You could feel each of its monstrous footsteps thudding against the pit of your stomach. The wind blasted from behind you, your feet were flying. And the little bird thing raised its eyes to the sky, pumped its feathered arms twice, and took wing.

You watched the splash of red streak up towards bright blue. You felt the elephant thunder past you, and you let your feet slow down to a jog, to a walk, to standing still. You felt the wind sweep on with the travelers, leaving you behind.

You listened to the forest settle back down into silence once more.

You listened for a long time.


At the fountain, the water has gone stale.

At the grove, the fruit has lost their sweet savor.

At the nest in the soft pit of the earth, the forest air has lost its magic.

You sit down in front of the road and close your eyes.

A breeze winds lazily through the branches of the trees in order to reach you; it tosses your hair playfully and wraps you in warm caresses, bringing with it the scent of clouds and the sound of a red bird’s song.

You get up.

Your days are still young – there will be plenty of time. You step onto the road, you’re your hands behind your head, and start walking, whistling a tune to yourself under your breath.