A short story about a turkey struggling to fit in. ------------------------------------------------------------- Kiri the Terrible Turkey I don’t understand what’s wrong with her”. Valerio’s old turkey voice was deep and warm, scarred by years of experience leading his clan. “The other poults are coming along just fine, scratching and pecking and such. But this strange little one, Kiri, she needs more instruction.” The other turkeys nodded in furious agreement, their dangly wattles and snoods flopping from side to side. “I haven’t even heard her gobble yet!” Valerio exclaimed. Kiri’s heart sank. She was only a mere ten feet away from the brush circle, stealthily eavesdropping on the gathering. She worked out long ago that her turkey brothers and sisters couldn’t hear or see as sharply as she could. She had so studiously practised her turkey habits – scratching, eating corn and rolling in the dust, but gobbling came especially hard. She knew she wasn’t the best turkey in the world but surely she could conquer the most basic turkey trait of all: gobbling. With her simmering determination her mighty wings began to unfurl before she noticed and snapped them to her side. “Such un-turkey-like behaviour” she scolded herself as she shuffled away to find a secluded place to practise. Perched atop a small mound at the centre of a clearing, Kiri opened her massive beak and pushed. Nothing. She centred her strong body over her talons and pushed again. Out came a few scratchy yelps. A sound for sure, but nothing like a gobble. “Why is this so hard?” she wondered. Frustrated, she prepared herself for a third try. She’d push her voice to breaking point if she had to. She gathered all the strength she could muster as her wings began to unfurl again without her noticing. With an almighty push she released a blood-curdling SCREECH! Hormones surged through Kiri’s feathered body. Her wings now stretched their full five feet wide, her eyes sharpened and her mind cleared. She felt focused, strong, and for the first time, alive. As her spine-tingling scream resonated throughout the valley, small birds emptied from their trees. Her turkey brethren scrambled for cover, startled by the cry of an unseen but fearsome predator. With her keen eyesight she could spot turkeys hiding everywhere in the brush. Oh no! She was forgetting Valerio’s first lesson, the foundational lesson for all turkeys: to prefer fear over bravery. Vivid memories of her tutelage flooded her mind: “fear keeps you alive”, “live to fight another day”, “better safe than dead”. But she felt no fear, her blood now coursing with adrenaline and raw courage. “What kind of turkey feels no fear?” she wondered. It didn’t matter. Her terrifying screech sounded so wrong yet felt so right. The blue abyss above her tore itself wide open, beckoning. The most primal of all her urges told her that the sky was home, and a place she truly belonged. Intoxicated by the wide expanse above she stiffened her proud wings and pumped them down through the air once, twice. “Kiri!” Valerio yelled, scuffling toward her. “Hide, there’s an eagle! Didn’t you hear it?” He wrapped his weathered wing around her and started shoving her through the dirt, toward the scrub. “No Valerio!” she replied, “I’m not afraid…” It fell on deaf ears. The old turkey gobbled something about ‘fear keeping you alive’ as he bundled her into the scrub with the others. The flurry was over, with Kiri tightly wedged between her turkey brothers and sisters. Peering through the branches they sat motionless. The muffled pounding of tiny bird hearts was all that punctuated the suspicious silence. Filled with dread they looked skyward. She too scanned the sky, but not for danger. Her eyes drank in that vast blue expanse like a tonic for the soul. Mesmerised by the sky and hemmed in by her adopted family, she could hear the turkeys’ whispers: “What kind of a turkey is she? She’s not afraid.” Heart racing, Kiri wondered the same thing: “Maybe I’m not a turkey after all.”
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 22:55:18 +0000
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