CRUMBS [a short novella]

Chapter 7: pretzel

Parrruuu Parrruuuu! Squeeled Parker.

Zeeeet zeeeet! Squeeled Seto. (Although she did not know what all the whistling was about).

Parker had just managed to read out most of the newspaper piece on Seto birds. Reading was one of the benefits of being around newspapers all the time. Not the getting hit in the head part, but the literacy part.

"What are we squealing about Parker?" Seto asked mid way through her chirps.

"Prr". He tried to speak but the words wouldn't come out.

He wanted to tell her who she was, and where she was from. That there were less of her kind every year. That she flies from Canada to Columbia every winter, which is why she speaks both English and Spanish. That the deforestation in South America makes it hard for her family to survive Summer migrations. Maybe that would help her put the pieces of her memory back together.

But Parker couldn't bring himself to share the story. He was afraid. This made him feel like more of a lowly pigeon than he already was.

This time Parker wasn't afraid that she might be a thief, an alien, a murderer, or a spy with ninja-like moves. He was afraid that if he told Seto who she really was, she wouldn't need him anymore. She'd be gone as fast as she came, and he'd lose the only true companion he ever had. His heavenly friend who fell from the sky.

"Nothing", said Parker. "I said nothing".

Parker knew that eventually when Seto saw the Empire State Building, she would remember who she really was. A migratory and endangered bird, who must fly back home to her family. But why cut the adventure short if she would find out later anyway? Omitting the truth was not the same as lying. Or at least that's what Parker wanted to believe.

By now it was Thursday afternoon and people were all across the streets grabbing lunch and a quick coffee before they went back to their lowly cubicles and busy bee lives. The streets were very busy indeed.

Seto began to whine. Her little legs were not use to walking so much. She was a flying bird.

"Maybe you could fly up a little to see where we are?" Seto asked.

It was hard to see the signs from the ground with all the people, and Seto's wing was still not feeling well enough to fly. But Parker couldn't remember if his wings even remembered how to fly. When was the last time he even flew?

"Well...I don't fly", Parker mumbled.

Seto's little birdy face pinched as if she just tasted a lemon for the first time. There it was. He said it. He just clustered himself at the bottom of the bird-chain with lowly chickens, ostriches, and penguins. He just told her that he's a waddler bird.

"I'm not a Waddler!" he exclaimed at the sight of her concerned face. "Pigeons can fly. I just don't".

So he told her of when he was a young pigeon with his mom and 12 siblings. How his mom would fly, but not nearly as much as her own mother did, or as much as her mother's mother did, and definitely not as much as her mother's mother's mother did.

Then he told her about his kind. How they were once friends with humans, and not always hated on the city streets. His lineage was of noble messenger birds. Before Snapchats, Emails, Text Messages, and Likes, Pigeons transported physical messages between humans. Not to be confused with Twitter Tweeters - that had nothing to do with Pigeon messengers or even anything to do with birds. Oh, Humans.

Parker's great great, very great grandmother was even in World War I. Her name was Cher Ami (Google that, it's true). She saved the Lost Battalion of the 77th Division in October of 1918 and received the honor of Croix de Guerre.

But Parker never felt the compassion humans once had for pigeons. He never delivered messages, he never won a medal, he never flew.

His head was hung low. He was ashamed in front of this beautiful singing, flying specimen. But Seto was a loving type of bird, not a vulture.

"Well..when I remember who I am, will you send messages to me when I fly back to where I'm from?" She stretched out her wing and lifted Parker's birdy chin to meet her eyes with his.

Parker's heart skipped a dozen beats. There it was. A flicker of hope in Parker's bulgy pigeony eyes. He did not know what he loved more. That someone believed in him, or that someone wanted him to send them love notes. Maybe she felt for him too. Just maybe.

Out of the blue, both his and Seto's tummies growled with anger. It was time to eat and fortunately for them, there was a pretzel stand straight ahead.

Parker was determined to fly.
But let's save that goal for tomorrow, he thought.