It's called a Trap

            Looking through the bushes, I can see them. The tall ones that walk on two legs, sometimes four, sometimes, they have multiple limbs made of metal, and that is really freaky. They come in different sizes, colors, and their fur changes in different ways as well. But they are all the same. I have seen what they have done to my kind.

            When I was just a hatchling, I saw the small ones throw stones at my family. When I was old enough to fly, I saw the elders release their house trained flea bags on my brothers and sisters, laughing as they pounced and chewed. When I became old enough to build my own nest, men and women continued to chop down the trees I made my home in. The last one, a few days ago, when it dropped, left me crippled due to a branch crushing my left wing.

            Watching them, I can see them laugh and smile, I wish I could see them suffer as I have.

            “Aw! Poor birdy,” I jump at the sound behind me, I look back and try to fly away, but the pain is too much and I end up hopping onto my chest. I can feel the stubby little fingers pick me up, and lift me into the palm of their hand. The fingers stroke my back, and it is comforting and disgusting at the same time. I’m scared and angry. I don’t want to die.

            I’ve been captive for a month now. They have me in a cage, my wing is bandaged, they feed me, they pet me, they ask me to sing. They have been kind and I hate them for it. I know it is a trap, I know they want me to let my guard down so that they can feed me to their flea bag of a feline that focuses its attention on me whenever I am let out of the cage for bandage changed. I can see its eyes glaze in hunger when it sees me.

            Once, the humans let it sniff me. It licked my head, and rubbed its massive grey head against my tiny yellow one. I trembled in fear, but held my bowels. I retained my dignity.

            “Time to fly little one,” the large red-headed woman said, opening the cage and pulling me out as gently as a human can do anything ‘gently’.

            “No! Mommy! I want to keep Thunder Wing!” The son shouted, snot coming out of his nose from crying too hard.

            “Her name is Princess Peony! And she needs to go home to rule her kingdom!” The daughter screeched. She was the one who had found me and taken care of me the most. She had begged her mother to let them keep me until I was healed. Her mother had said no, until she had done what humans do bet, and thrown her mother’s favorite Elvis ashtray against a wall.

            Setting me on the open windowsill, the woman held her children by her sides and they looked eagerly towards me for some reason. I looked around for the grey cat, or some other form of danger, and saw none. I looked outside, tested my wings, looked back at them, and then jumped.

            Three weeks later, I came back to the house and sat on the windowsill. I had a grasshopper in my clutches. A gift. The boy saw me, squealed, and opened the window. He grabbed me, held me close, and I couldn’t remember why I had come back. Humans are vicious creatures.