A Modern Fairytale

Sunflower seeds

One early morning, birds chirped their songs on tree branches, their sounds bouncing off one another perfectly, weaving together a symphony that perhaps only they understood. Indeed...it sounded like a song, but the little birds were in fact crying in panic.

Chirp!
It's coming! Something is coming!

Chirp!
We're done for!

Chirp...chirp?
What exactly is coming?

Chirp!
I don't know! It's coming!

Chirp! Chirp!
It's coming! It's coming!

Down where the humans trod, a man bid his wife and children goodbye. It looked more like a permanent farewell than a simple "see you later tonight". All around, the landscape was constantly changing into something different, as if nature suddenly had a choice to choose itself, and could not decide what it wanted to be now that it was given this freedom. The birds fluttered away from the trees when they disappeared, landing on new ones as they materialized—only to repeat the process when the new trees were replaced by something else again.

A blue bird soared across the sky, watching the view below her. In the coming years, she would find refuge wherever she was welcomed, observing quietly.

There is a loophole to every policy, a weakness in every spell. Queen Berenice had been enraged that a mere human kept her brother away for so long—all without a word—and at the same time, she was intrigued by the purity of the human soul in contrast to those of other humanoid species. The machinery under the newfound Venethema, therefore, was only ever interested in the human soul.

☆☆☆

You hadn't always been indispensable in my life. There was a period of time before all of this began when I was mostly alone. Free as a bird, I roamed among various species, lived among them, and decided that my favorite forms were that of a little blue bird and a humanoid. Carefree as my lifestyle was, I didn't really understand what was going on, though I did find the peculiarities in the shifting space.

Ulric Lauregnory. When I first met him, he had reddish brown hair and a pair of sincere, adventurous brown eyes. He was alive, he was a child, and he was climbing a tree. As I recall, it was around midday, and I was about to doze off—standing on a branch of that tree alone—when the branch rattled. Startled, I fluttered just a bit above the branch.

"Pft." The boy chuckled when he saw me. Did he somehow read my face? If so, that would be incredible. "I'm sorry, did I scare you?"

Chirp!
You bet!

He hoisted himself up onto a nearby branch. Seeing as he'd settled down, I returned to my branch too. We stared at each other wordlessly for...what was it, three minutes? Then, he said, "For some reason, I feel like you're not a regular bird. What do you say I bring you some sunflower seeds next time?"

Chirp!
Sure thing!

☆☆☆

The next time I met Ulric, he did bring the seeds just as he'd said he would. After eating some of them, I flew up to his shoulder and stayed there for half an hour as he mumbled about his dear friend—who was, at the time, actually wandering about beneath the tree, looking for him. In the end, Ulric chuckled, both at the silliness of his friend and at himself for talking to a bird as if he would be understood.

"But I think most of us want to do that at some point, you know?" he said, "Talk to animals, and without being judged. This tree is perfect for it. Well, see you soon."

A few days after that, Ulric climbed the same tree again. Once again, I was sleeping; once again, he startled me at first. He chuckled again, amused that such a familiar scene would happen twice. He opened his hand to reveal sunflower seeds, which again I ate. I went up to his shoulder, and he told me about his adventures. Honestly speaking, I know he wasn't really talking to me—he was speaking to himself, only out loud.

"I know my father's not coming back," he said, "I'm just lying to myself—and my mother too, I suppose. Though, I think she's also doing the same thing. Heh...isn't it funny? We lie to people we care about in hopes that they'll hurt less that way. I'm not sure if that's how it actually works."

After all, was that really something he would say aloud if he thought he was talking to someone that could actually comprehend those words? You know him well enough; you know that he wouldn't. Even if he looks different now, even without his memories from that time, Ulric is still, interestingly, very much the "same".

"See that boy over there?" he said, pointing at the same friend that had been looking for him the last time they were in this area, "That's Iefan. From what I've seen, he has a happy family. His sister is a little grumpy and his father is a bit odd, but they're a happy family. I hope it stays that way for them. Sometimes, seeing others happy kind of brings a similar joy in you, you know? The same way you feel sad when other people are sad. Are birds the same or is it just us plain humans?"

Chirp!
We're all the same.

"I really wish I could understand you," Ulric said, tilting his head so he could see me. "I feel like you understand me, and that's kind of...hm, interesting."

☆☆☆

Days turned into nights, and nights turned into days. A little blue bird eventually stopped being alarmed every time a brown-eyed boy showed up on her tree. He always came with sunflower seeds, and she always ate ten of them—she always ate ten, but he always brought twenty. He would tell her tales, and she would listen and occasionally chime in with a chirp or two. As time wore on, his tales grew more bitter. She witnessed it too—the sudden and shocking change of the landscape, the disappearance of people, all the phenomena that undoubtedly required but acquired no explanations.

"Nature doesn't just change like that," Ulric said, "Not that I know a lot about it, but I know it doesn't change like that. Not overnight. Like this tree, it's still growing but I bet it took at least two decades to get this tall in the first place."

Chirp!
You're right about that.

"Iefan's father left. I wonder what that means. I just hope he won't be like me."

Chirp?
Who, his father?

"Iefan, I mean. Sorry, ha...I'm a mess, huh?"

The young man didn't understand a single tweet. He merely said whatever he felt was appropriate.

Days turned into nights, and nights turned into days. One day, Ulric himself vanished.