the impact was so hard and so sudden it took King a moment to realize that he was hanging practically upside down, his clutching nails making the most god-awful sound. And he realized then, hanging there, that there would always be a good part of him wanting to get home. King let go and fell to the floor. He had no desire to fight. But Rusty was incensed that anybody should even think of using his ledge. And to touch it was unforgiveable. He chased King all around the coop. And his anger turned to madness when King suddenly charged him, and poor King was bitten, stabbed, and slammed for a whole hour—from one end of the coop to the other; up the chicken wire, and down, and over. His lids grew bloodier than ever, and his popcorn nose looked like a maraschino cherry. The strange boy noticed King then, and he threw King out. And King was glad. Away he flew—zigzag, zigzag—more determined than ever to reach home.
Several days later King was again sitting on a wire. He had caught hold of it while flying at full speed. Bobbing back and forth, he was tired, hungry and thirsty, and afraid. He had been working long and hard to get home.
Suddenly King heard a strange noise.
Pock!
A little boy with a long black stick was crouched behind a car.
Pock!
King tilted his head. High above him he saw a lone pigeon circling and down below the boy cranking the stick.
Pock! TING-Ing-ing…!
In his attempt to fly to safety, King nearly collided with the stick and found himself flapping up the boy’s face. The boy ran, crying. King fluttered upward.
The lone pigeon King had seen from below began to follow King. She was a hen. And she was playful. The more King zigged and zagged and changed his course the more she zipped and dived about him. But King grew sad. More and more new territory rolled into view beneath him.
The sun was directly above them, King and the hen, when the huge bird fell out of the steaming glare. He was a hawk, and he descended quickly, and King and the hen went suddenly in opposite directions, like a clump of feathers bursting apart. King’s zigzagging became frantic, and the hawk chose King. The hawk plunged, talons foremost. Quickly King darted away, flapping hard. He felt sure that he was a goner. Banging his wings even harder, he suddenly crashed into something. It was sharp, solid, and feathery. It was the hawk. Downward King went, as if stuck to the hooked beak. But the hawk was as stunned as King was. The whole landscape turned, round and round, and King started away again, lunging, lunging into the hawk. Again and again, in panic and confusion, a small, soft mad thing, King plunged and hit and knocked. And suddenly the hawk rose and winged away.
Downward and downward King fell, spinning like a windmill or a leaf. Then he began to flutter his wings and vaguely he moved back and forth and around; but still he fell downward. The hen shot past. King struggled, but it was no use. He plopped down onto the soft plowed ground.
He lay there a long time without moving. He saw the hen pecking and eating, pecking and eating a few feet off. He knew that there was something to be learned from what just happened. But he didn’t know what it was. The hen came closer. She pecked at his head, and began drawing the lice and dirt from his down. It felt good, no other hen had ever done that to him, but it disturbed his thinking. He got up and wobbled away. He pecked and ate, pecked and ate, thinking.
Every time he flew homeward, he knew that he ended up farther away from home. When he wanted to escape the hawk, he in fact plunged right in among the talons. And King halted. It came to him suddenly—that supreme insight—like the flash of a most beautiful light. He must think the other..he must think the opposite…he must desire what he did not want!
King steadied himself. His body ached. He tilted his head. High above him he saw the huge blue sky beckoning and beneath him the earth, impassive, like death and broken bones. Shutting his eyes tightly, King dived into the dirt.
It was working. He was in the air. And quickly he aimed for the trees, he aimed for the houses, he aimed for the wire—and he flew straight! He floated upward and upward! He felt like a great adventurer! He felt like Columbus Popcorn or Magellan Fantail or Vasco de Gama de Pouter!
And damn it, if the hen wasn’t following!
It was getting dark. They had flown a long way, but still King saw no familiar landmarks; they were all the new ones he had learned. He felt, though, that he and the hen were getting closer to home. Aiming away from the ledge of a tall building King hit it, perfectly, and lighted. And the hen settled beside him.
“O-O-O-rooo!” King surprised himself. “O-O-O-rooo!”
The hen fluffed herself up.
King towered over her for a moment, large and menacing. But King remembered that he must remember that he was now a thinking pigeon, and that he must think in order to avoid all the old embarrassments.
“Rooo! Rooo! Rooo!” he called.
And she came.
He bit her all over the face and head, up and down, all around, the soft little feathers. Then he gave her what food he had left in his crop. Then he raised himself above her, and she nestled and squatted lower. Tall, puffed up, he walked all around her, as far as he could without falling off the ledge. And again he walked all around her. He was looking over the ledge and down. He had to think, “Over the ledge and down.” And he leapt, awaiting the void, and felt the feathery cushion of her broad back. He wiggled. He flapped. But when he scooted, as all pigeons do after coupling, he rammed into the wall. He had forgotten. Thinking, thinking, he moved back to her side, and she nestled low again. “Over the ledge, and on to her back….” He balanced. He wiggled. He wiggled and wiggled and wiggled and wiggled. He flapped and flapped and flapped. And he scooted right off the ledge. Smack! Smack! Smack! his wings went as he shot over the street lamps. Smack! Smack! Smack! came the hen close behind. It was the happiest moment of King’s life and he didn’t care what he hit!
The next day King got up bright and early. He was thinking again, and he wanted to go home. But the hen wanted to stay on the ledge and build a nest. They wiggled and flapped some more, then flew down into the street to find something to eat. It was slim pickings, but soon they saw other pigeons and found from them where to go. For a while King forgot about home, but then he remembered again. What was he thinking for if not to get home? But then he remembered the boy who had flung him out the car window, Rusty in the strange coop who beat him relentlessly, the huge bird with the hooked beak, and all the terrible zigzagging he had done. And he began to realize something about home. Home was not somewhere that kept fading in the distance. Home was here, with the hen: where he himself was. Yes, he was a pigeon, and like all pigeons, coupled for life. With his hen, he would build a nest, sit on eggs, and feed the squabs.
The hen shot upward with several twigs in her beak. King tilted his head. He saw some twigs a few feet away. And he went after them, jab-jab-jabbing—not at the twigs but into the air.
He forgot, sometimes, he was forever a thinking bird.
o O o
Brief Bio of the Author
A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Lowell Uda has taught English at the U. of Hawaii and the U. of Montana, and worked in Montana state government. After that he became a United Methodist minister, pastoring churches in Colorado and Montana. His short story, “The Cherry Tree,” won first prize in the 2011 Common Review Short Story Prize contest. Stories, poems, and creative nonfiction of his have appeared in literary and other magazines, including The North American Review, the Hawaii Review, the Chariton Review, and, most recently, A River and Sound Review, Written River, The Whirlwind Review, 5x5, Assisi, In Our Own Voice, Divide: Journal of Literature, Arts and Ideas, Poems Across the Big Sky, Moonrabbit Review, and The Other Side.
Under the Hala Tree by Lowell Uda
Price: $2.99 USD. 19090 words. Published on November 10, 2012. Fiction.
In ancient Polynesia the people used their own body parts to grow life sustaining plants. Under the Hala Tree, a retelling of their stories about their origins, sparkles with wit
and slightly bawdy humor. Author Lowell Uda comes by his love of these tales from his mother, who was reared as Hawaiian in a Hawaiian family.
Parable of the Promise by Lowell Uda
Price: $1.99 USD. 1820 words. Published on November 28, 2012. Fiction.
A childless couple, the Man of the Forest and the Woman of the Forest, spend many happy years caring for God's creation but nurture one sadness in their life together. God makes them a promise: "Some day you will care not only for the trees, waterways and creatures of the forest, but also for your own children." But the years go by and the old couple remain barren.
Where to find Lowell Uda online
Website: https://www.riceuniversepublishing.com
Twitter: UdaLowell
Facebook: Facebook profile
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/lowell-uda/50/282/506
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