1. A little bird lived all
alone in a very big
wood. He had woken up
one morning, back
when he was barely
fledged, and
untucked
his
head from under
his wing to find the
big wood empty.
There was no sound except
that of the wind
sighing through the branches.
2. His first thought was that he must have untucked his head
from under the wrong wing that morning. He tucked his head
under his other wing but when he took it out again the wood
was still empty. Then he tried the
first wing again for good measure.
Nothing but the trees
and the wind murmuring in the
leaves.
3. He ran up and down the branches
of the big oak tree calling out for
hours but nobody answered.
Not unless you count the
whistling of the wind
between the tree trunks.
4. He flew backwards and forwards over the immense woods
that always stretched to the horizon. He saw no other
living thing but trees.
He heard only the wind
burping and farting gently
among the roots.
5. And every night the little bird would cry himself to
sleep out of sheer loneliness and hope
to dream of happier days when the wood
had been full of other birds.
Even the wind was silent because it had
run out of parts of trees to make noises
through and it hated to do the same
thing every day.
6. But unknown to the little bird
there was just one other animal in the wood.
A tiny beetle, barely out of its pupa,
had looked up from happily munching on a
bit of dead wood to find itself all alone.
Like the little bird, it has looked
everywhere for others of its kind. It too
cried itself to sleep
each night.
7. Then one day, while they were coming round either side
of the trunk of the big oak tree, the little bird and
the beetle came face to face.
8. Of course the beetle was frightened at first but they soon
became friends and would happily play little games of hide and
seek all day in the
branches of the
big oak tree.
9. I know what you're thinking.
Nature cannot be denied for long.
10. They were both eaten by the big oak tree.
11. The next day the big oak tree woke up to find itself
in a barren land devoid of any other trees. And the
only other living things, from horizon to horizon, were
huge yet strangely little birds. And for
every second of every minute of every hour they
crapped on the branches of the big oak tree.
And the big oak tree cried in its loneliness and humilation.
And some would feel sorry for it, but not us, we know
what it did.
We saw it.
12. The wind howled through the gigantic feathers and beaks of the tiny giant birds.
For a few days anyway, at least the wind was happy.
Copyright xoggoth