Write on Wednesday: Small Expectations

This week's Write on Wednesday exercise is about "Small Expectations": imagining myself as tiny as my thumb, where would I live, what would I do?   Pop over to Ink Paper Pen if you would like to join in with the Write on Wednesday exercise this week.  The link on it will be open until the end of Friday.  















I stretched out my curled up body from of the warmth of my home.  The sweet smell of the surrounding nectar was calling me as was the birdsong.  It must be morning time.  That rumble in my tummy was becoming tremulous and threatening to rock me out of my rather precarious home. I needed food now.  I crawled out of my gum nut, shaking off the old seeds, grabbing what I could to pop them in my mouth.  They were hard to chew, and made me thirsty, but kept the hunger away for a while.  I saw a drop of dew on a nearby leaf and sucked it up to quench my thirsty while I looked around for my friends.


"Sssoo, ssweety, you're awake again?" It was Silver, the slippery tiger snake, startling me as he stared at me with his hungry eyes.  I stood very tall.  I felt very tall now as I was as tall as the largest gum leaf on my tree but still I picked up my pronged stick that lay near my gum nut and held out in front of me with all my might.


"What do you want, Silver?" I shouted using my loudest, fiercest voice. 


"He's mine, Silver, lay off, ha haaa haaa" In swooped my friend, Cassandra the Kookaburra, "Hungry, Gerry? Let's go grab some tucker! Jump on."  


I jumped on her back and clutched at a any feathers I could so that I didn't fall off as she took off, swooping here and there, up and down, in and out of the trees, down into the grass, over the billabong.  My legs flew out behind me as my body bounced along.  I loved flying with Cassie.  I wanted wings like Cassandra so that I could go wherever I wanted, escape from the Silver and Rascal the red-back spider.   Oh, to glide through the air, up to the top of the trees, out the end of the earth and back again, to the stars and the moon, out the best of the nectar, the sweetest pieces of food, to find other friends to play with, oh, I wanted to fly so badly.


I stretched my arms out to feel what it felt like to fly, flapping them just like Cassandra did.  Cassandra's body kept moving away from me, I was flying!  I was in the air and flying!  I flapped harder and harder but I was going down, down to the ground, to the thick, thick grass, where Silver's friends lived.  


"Help, HELP, HELP! CASSANDRA!!!"


I felt a whoosh beneath me as the beige and blue feathers came from behind me and collected me just before I landed.


"Why did you let go Gerry?"  She called as she made for the nearest tree to land, clearly shaken. 


"I'm sorry, Cassi, I'm sorry. I just want to be like you."  I buried my face in her back and cried as she carried me to safety. 


"You're safe now Gerry." Cassi soothed, "You don't need to be like me, you are your own self and that self is wonderful."  Cassi wrapped her wings around me as we perched up high in the trees overlooking the grasslands, safe.


xx Meg