Meet Puffball

April 7, 2013

Puffball is afraid.

He doesn’t know where he is. He’d never seen a person before Tuesday morning. His little wing was yanked a little far to the left when he was picked up and it’s sore. He nuzzles it with his beak but the pain is dull and aching and deep and it won’t go away. This place doesn’t smell right. It’s not soft or warm and he’s alone, apart from the people who stare at him.

He doesn’t know what they want or what kind of animals they are. He just knows that he has no power against them. He tried nipping at one of them but his small beak left no mark.

He notices his heart is beating very vast, tat tat tat tat tat tat. It begins to ache. The aching under his wing and the aching in his chest now meet somewhere around his ‘wing’-pit and clasp on to each other and the pain is unbearable- it’s twinging now and he thinks maybe soon he will not be able to breath.

For the first time in Puffball’s very short life he has to acknowledge what death might be and his small brain is surprised by how much of a complete fact it is.

Death.

To stop and to not see anymore. To not see.

It is only this that Puffball thinks of now… how odd to not see anymore, the eyes to be blanked out and to not see. How very… very odd.

He closes his eyes and the entire black sky presses onto his skull and he falls into a thick graveyard sleep.