Fred

All he can do is hop in order to hustle away when he feels threatened. He cannot even escape to a nearby branch, which would not be normal for a Mynah bird anyway. Normal would be to create as much distance as possible from the perceived threat, but not so for Fred, which is the name I’ve given him.
Fred cannot fly! He cannot even spread his wings. He hops and runs with one wing partially open, but that is all.
Fred is confined to a small area. Where does he sleep at night if he sleeps at all?
Mynahs are very social birds and it is never more evident than toward evening when they begin to settle down for the night. Its not known to me whether their behavior is the same elsewhere but here in Hawaii, they have specially selected trees where they gather just before dusk.
The congregation is very noisy, they have a lot to talk about as they report on the activities of the day, but what of Fred? How does he fare? Maimed for life, will he ever know the sweet meaning of sidling up at evening to another of his own kind and rub feathers, so to speak?
He will watch with wonder at the glorious spectacle above as his peers prattle on about things, often trivial. He can only imagine as they hop and flit about the branches of the designated tree. Eventually, he too will fall asleep in his lowly hideaway, when they all call it a day. His days are never spent alone though. Friends come to attend, they seem to do so in shifts, alternating throughout the day. They run and walk with him and often have noisy debates with him, They bring a certain measure of joy to his life of confinement.
I pass and call to him and suddenly he is there, a lot closer than another would even dare. He hops away at my approach but it is not such a frantic thing. He pauses but still his wings fail. He looks at me and sits down. I fantasize, it is enough to believe that he knows me. No matter, I have seen something special and learned something important from him as well.

Aloha,

Papanui the storyteller
Aaron T Watene
Oct 12, 2009