fictober 2020

birds || day eleven

𝙤𝙘𝙩𝙤𝙗𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙞𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙝
---
𝙄𝙩 - (2017)
{𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙞 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠}
𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗯𝗶𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝘁
---

It was always a thing really, my obsession with birds. When I was younger I'd just listen to them whenever I could, barely knowing the difference between what different birds sounded like nor any idea of which ones were in the trees. Eventually I'd ended up finding books about them, not being able to comprehend all the information and just gazing at the pictures of them all.

How the sun would shine off of this one's feathers and the specks of colour under this one's wings. Their eyes were always so pretty despite how simple they were and every single pattern and colour seemed to be slightly different in each of the creatures. It was amazing really. Only it took me years to gather the courage to speak even part of how much I loved it all and to go to the library and check out books about them.

When I did though, it was almost all I did in the spare time I had, despite spending time with the losers, I would just read endlessly about all these different birds and migration and their habits and everything. Homing pigeons had always been one of my favourites, they were so common really but if you took the time to look at them, they were incredibly pretty. The greenish shine on their necks against the dull grey and the specks of black in their wings not to mention how remarkable they were with finding their way home (hence their name).

"Did you know that there are these birds," I'd brought up once when me and Bill were working on a project about birds— a valid excuse— "bowerbirds, from Australia, they look a lot like ravens but only in the sense of the blue-ish shine on their feathers— anyway that's not the point," I shook my head and noticed a small smile on Bill's lips, "they attract their mates by gathering anything that's blue and putting it in their nest! Birds using our litter and bottle caps and ten dollar notes, since it's Australia, to find a mate!" I couldn't stop now that I'd started.

"And it works! The females will often try and go to the nest with the most blue. I think it has something to do with survival of the fittest and almost proving that 'hey, I can gather all these things easier than any of the others!' Kind of like how people used to only try and marry for money and whatever, it's almost sad really and—" I managed to stop before I got off topic and realised that I'd been going on for too long. The best part about that though, was that Bill didn't seem to mind. He'd said that he enjoyed listening to whatever I had to say about the birds. So I only ever truly spoke of them with him. Because he listened.

Eventually I was comfortable enough to actually go out with some cheap set of binoculars and watch whatever was in the trees from a bench. It made me feel old, while the others would sit and chatter loudly, I'd be on my bench merely observing like some grandmother. I didn't really mind though and neither did anyone else.

Sometimes I'd find my gaze drifting from the trees and once, while Eddie and Richie managed to argue on about something I couldn't hear and Bill turned around in annoyance over them to find me looking through my binoculars at him from my bench. Not that he knew.

"Stan?" When he began walking closer I put them down. "Stan, what are you looking at?" There wasn't any mocking trace in his voice yet I still felt like he knew.

"A bird," I said, gaze still on him, "a really pretty one." Then he smiled and sat next to me.

"Could I see?"

a/n

i don't know enough about birds to be writing this.

this was inspired by a small comic strip i saw ages ago but caNT FIND SO IF ANYONE KNOWS WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT TELL ME SO I CAN CREDIT THEM—

okay uhh

do your homework
or don't I really don't care

thanks for readinggg

- tcp