The Baby Albatross

Once upon a time, on a very, very dis­tant is­land, where there is al­ways one sea­son; where nature is in­no­cent; where the air smells of jade-em­er­ald waves that, little by little, turn into purple and magenta, play­ing also with bright pink, red and azure col­ours: foam­ing waves that run into a thin strip of land – an end­less ex­panse of wa­ter – bring­ing to the shore a mix­ture of salty sand, al­gae and shell­fish. Above the mag­ni­fi­cent sea, above the alarm­ing land­scape, the sky is watch­ing – that sky that prac­tic­ally merges with the sea and re­peats all its shades and moods; where the scream of seagulls fly­ing over glass-clear wa­ter, the light noise of the surf break­ing onto the pebbles and the breath of nature can be heard; where the breeze brings the cool­ness that is so needed on a hot sum­mer day; where everything seems to be de­tached from other real­it­ies, cut from the most col­our­ful books; where an amaz­ing unity of light, air and space cre­ate a total har­mony; there were liv­ing a fam­ily of Al­batrosses – birds whose life passes in an end­less flight.

Mother, Father and their Little Baby Al­batross lived a peace­ful life, as be­ing a se­quel of the landscape. 

The Little Al­batross was raised with love. When he had just hatched from the egg and opened his eyes for the first time, he could see neither the light nor the eyes of his mother, but just pure and eternal love. That love was in everything, every­where, every time.

When the baby’s father left to glide over the ocean look­ing for food, the mother used to stay with her little child, telling stor­ies that the Baby Al­batross would listen to with un­abated curi­os­ity. At other times, when his mum was leav­ing, the father would teach his little son the art of fly­ing and soaring. 

Dad: Son, you will soon leave the fam­ily nest, and free­dom will be­come your life. But first, you have to learn how to fly. Re­mem­ber, last time I ex­plained to you the ba­sic principles.

Baby-Al­batross: But why should I leave you? I love you and mum and I like to live with you! I don’t want to be free, I don’t need to learn this stu­pid flight; I can sur­vive without it, can’t I?

D: Oh son, to be free is the greatest gift. A day will come when you want to share that free­dom with someone, and to ex­pand your ho­ri­zons. There is noth­ing more beau­ti­ful than the blend of free­dom and love. So, if you do not want to starve, then it’s high time you learned how to fly. I’ll show you one more time. Look out!

Say­ing this, Father Al­batross came closer to wa­ter and, like an artist, he seemed to soar above the waves; seen from be­low, he seemed to fly even higher than the sky. The little baby began to re­mem­ber his father’s words; he had told him that the wind should be his mate, that they should be a team be­cause the en­emy of the flight is not the wind, but fear. This was per­fect, and in his baby thoughts, he said:

The fish will come to me rather than I will dive for it. 

One day passed, and then other days passed and the Little Al­batross made a few friends.

At some point, one of them, the only one who already knew how to cross the sky, sug­ges­ted the oth­ers a little ad­ven­ture. So, the next night, after the par­ents fell asleep, they would meet near Pistris Shore (the place where the hungry sharks hunt the lagged-be­hind baby albatrosses).

Once they reached the es­tab­lished place, the eld­est said:

Hey losers, pay at­ten­tion! Now you will see a real les­son of
high pro­fes­sional skill.

The other two friends who had re­mained on the shore wanted to tell him to take care be­cause sharks are dan­ger­ous; most of the stor­ies told by their par­ents were about these creatures; but they did not suc­ceed be­cause their friend had already flown away. The two Baby Al­batrosses sud­denly ex­per­i­enced a strange and never-lived-be­fore feel­ing which they con­sidered to be pres­sure or tension.

A mighty wind kick-up was fol­lowed by thun­ders and light­ning. They had not had the chance to see a storm be­fore; there­fore, it seemed to them that the sky broke into pieces. The waves grew big­ger, more agit­ated and more fre­quent. The wa­ter be­came deeper and deeper, and the wind was rest­ive and un­man­age­able. Black, gi­ant clouds darkened the sky. A flash of light­ning per­meated the blue bound­less­ness, fol­lowed im­me­di­ately by a deep thun­der that dis­turbed the si­lence. A fierce suc­ces­sion of rain­drops, wind and end­less light­ning burst out.

One of the waves brought with it a fish­ing net in which the little brave al­batross had got tangled.

His friends tried to save their buddy, but the wind was too strong, so power­ful that it tossed them away to the other side of the island.

Tired and scared of what they saw, the Baby Al­batrosses fell asleep. The next morn­ing, an un­nat­ural noise woke them up. They were sur­roun­ded by weird birds: big­ger than them, but smal­ler than their par­ents. They did not have wings like their par­ents, but two long branches with a few small claws on top that were mov­ing without any birdy pur­pose. They did not even have feath­ers. Maybe they were fish? But to be fish they must have had fins, and live in the wa­ter. Al­though they had no beak, they still had eyes and nos­trils, and some of them (that was a pos­sib­il­ity) had brains. They moved slowly and had on their heads hair­styles identical to those of the little albatrosses. 

One of these creatures no­ticed the two al­batrosses and stealth­ily turned to­ward them.

Sur­prised, the al­batrosses were stuck up. They sur­veyed frantic­ally every inch, for­get­ting to even breathe or blink.

A1: Where are we?

A2: What are those creatures and what do they want to do with us? Aaaaa, one of the creatures is ap­proach­ing me… what should I do?? Aaaa…

Out of fear, the al­batross closed his eyes tight wait­ing for some­thing bad to hap­pen. Yet noth­ing really seemed to hap­pen, (well, be­sides the fact that his buddy nudged him as if he wanted to show him some­thing he was go­ing to miss if he did not open his eyes). So, he found cour­age enough to open his eyes. Once he opened them, he no­ticed a man ap­proach­ing and stretch­ing his pseudo-wing in front of the al­batrosses. There were some crumbs sim­ilar to shrimps, but with a totally non­spe­cific smell. Our Baby Al­batross shyly pecked first. It was food and it was delicious.

While our Baby Al­batross en­joyed the new nour­ish­ment, the other al­batross no­ticed that his friend had a broken wing. For­tu­nately, he was not the only one to no­tice that.

People helped the wounded al­batross and soon his wing healed. The al­batross said to his friend:

A1: I saw a hill nearby, let’s get there and maybe we will see the way back, the way home!

A2: Home? Isn’t this a home? Don’t you see? Those people provide us with food, play with us, take care of us; have you for­got­ten who healed your wing?

A1: I’m grate­ful to them for everything, but I miss my fam­ily, and I’m sure your fam­ily is wor­ried about you too.

A2: Now, here is my fam­ily. Stay with me! We can have fun to­gether, and the ad­vant­age is that there is no need to fly here.

A1: Good­bye my friend! I’ll tell your fam­ily that you’ve found your home. Stay well!

The Al­batross went to the hill without hes­it­a­tion. From the top of that hill, he saw not the sea, not the shore and not even the beau­ti­ful view, but the feel­ing he was already fa­mil­iar with. 

That wasn’t a land form like the cliffs that can of­fer his wings the wind for flight, as his father had told him. He felt mis­trust and fear. But then there was an­other feel­ing that was keener than any­thing – and that was the de­sire to be back home with his fam­ily. Leav­ing the fear aside, the al­batross began to fly as if he had done noth­ing but this all his life.

Even if in the be­gin­ning it was dif­fi­cult to find a bal­ance, the Al­batross soon be­came the link between sky and wa­ter, ex­per­i­en­cing the full feel­ing of ex­panse and bliss. The sur­pris­ingly light and weight­less at­mo­sphere re­vealed the view of lim­it­less beauty. He fell in love.

How much my father was right when he spoke about freedom! 

In less than a second, the Al­batross com­peted with a Boe­ing 747 (which he con­sidered to be a bird), and he won it; he sa­luted a mul­ti­tude of aquatic be­ings, see­ing a lot of new sil­hou­ettes and shapes, be­came friends with a dol­phin that hated mos­qui­toes and with the light­est turtle that taught him the les­son of re­lax­a­tion, and he fi­nally got home.

They all were happy to see him, es­pe­cially his par­ents. But there was no time for hugs, be­cause one of his friends was still in danger, un­able to dis­en­gage him­self from the net he was caught in. If left on his own, the baby would have been help­less, but now he re­ceived help not only from his fam­ily but from his friend’s fam­ily as well. To­gether they man­aged to free the ex­hausted albatross.

The two re­mained lifelong friends, and even if they were trav­el­ling long and afar, they would al­ways come back home. They lived hap­pily and in free­dom ever after.

(writ­ten 6 Decem­ber 2019)

Doina Pa­ciu