Jerry the Pigeon
Marcus William Lowry
On one cold autumn morning just as the sun peaked through the trees. A pigeon named Jerry was waking up to the beams of light subtly pressing against his feathers. Wake up Jerry the light said, wake up and meet me. A few minutes went by and Jerry was slowly drawn from his dreams of peculiar things back into the real world.
It was his first day performing his duties as a courier pigeon. The other pigeons had long left the training nest and Jerry was the last to go. He just didn’t know where to fly and why he should bother following the other pigeons. He had been born to roam the skies delivering top-notch messages but he had no longing to blindly go through life as a delivery pigeon.
This was not because Jerry was mean or spiteful, but rather he was confused and misunderstood. Sure he had been trained with the best, but no one ever told him why. None of the other pigeons would ever ask questions, but to Jerry, questions is all there were. He would wonder things like: “Why am I here”, “Where am I going”, “Who do these messages go to anyways?” “Why do all the other pigeons think differently than I?” “How come I have to wear this bracelet around my ankle?”
No matter what answer the other pigeons gave him, he knew they truly did not know. Eventually this put a great distance between him and all of the other pigeons. The Elder Pigeons were angry because he would not follow orders without questioning them. Eventually he was confronted by Rufus, the top dog of the couriers elite, who forced Jerry to perform his duties.
He told Jerry to stop with his childish behavior and fulfill his duties as a pigeon. Just to make sure Jerry did not get any crazy ideas of freedom, he would fly his routes with him. Jerry knew this was dangerous. He had seen firsthand some of the wounds which inflicted his fellow pigeons. Sometimes, a pigeon would never return, but no one acknowledged this nor dared to question the beak of Rufus.
Once they reached the runway, a short board extending from the roof. Rufus forced a small envelope inside the chain lock which was bound to Jerry’s left leg. With a loud shriek he said: “let’s go.” With one liquid motion Rufus spread his wings and descended down from the coup. Jerry was quick to follow. As they neared the middle of the tower which rested high above the city the wind suddenly swept beneath their wings. In the next instant they were soaring over many buildings which sat quietly in the shadows of the tower. Bells from the local church filled the air of the small mountain town, but this peaceful flight would not last long. Little did Jerry know he was entering a world of peril.
In a few short minutes the town was fading in the distance. The sun had crept above the horizon and shined brightly in their faces. Loud noises and sudden shockwaves could be felt, but the fog covering the valley floor was thick. Although, this was no ordinary fog; flashes of light and bright beams would occasionally appear and fly through the sky much faster than Jerry knew he could fly. He asked Rufus what this was, but the only response he got “Keep your head down and stay quiet….peck (a rude insult amongst pigeons).”
Suddenly, and without warning, a bright beam came through the misty sky and went shot through the wing of Rufus. He screamed loudly and began plummeting to the ground. Jerry was right behind him “Hey…Hey…Are you ok? What is going on…What happened to you..What are those things!” However, Rufus gave no answers and crashed abruptly inside a small crater no bigger than an English barrel. Jerry landing on the brim of the crater losing his balance as the fragile dirt drifted down the crater toward Rufu.
Moments before Jerry reached Rufus he heard someone speaking a language he had never heard before. It was getting closer, through the weird smelling fog Jerry could see a shadowy figure hastily approaching. He screamed for Rufus to get up, “Move Rufus, get up, get up, something is coming….PLEASE GET UP!” Sadly, his voice fell on deaf ears, Rufus lay their silently starring at the sky, not saying a word. Seconds later the figure appeared, it was a man holding a large contraption of wood and steel and with one loud noise and a fiery blast came from its tip, Rufus disappeared.
Jerry quickly took back to the sky, and then he heard: Flapping his wings as frantically as he could, but the sky was filled with fiery blast. He had to say low and stay fast. BOOM, BOOM, WHIZ, WHIZ, BOOM, BOOM, and BOOM. He could see the same objects quickly flying by him that made Rufus fall from the sky. Jerry remembered the training and quickly dove with his wings pressed tightly against his body to ground. This gave him enough speed to spread his wings just before impact and gain lots of speed. He diligently zipped through the foliage, just skimming the ground.
He kept this up for hours until he could no longer hear anything. Jerry fiercely flew all day because the sun was getting ready to rest behind the mountains. He took refuge in an old Hicker-nut tree and decided to take a breather. His foot was numb because of how tightly the chain was fastened to his leg and he could not flap another wing to save his life. Jerry had no idea what had happened, nor any idea as to where he was. Amazingly the only thing going through Jerry’s mind…….FREEDOM!
