Stacey’s Bio:

Writing fiction from the time she learned to spell, Stacey Tarpley is a professional story-teller. Her full-time career as a zoo and aquarium designer takes her around the world, meeting amazing, inspiring people and encountering unbelievable experiences. In her free time, she has completed two fiction manuscripts and continuously challenges herself with flash fiction writing. Stacey has published several professional papers, speaks at national and international conferences, mentors new designers at her firm, and maintains a one-of-a-kind blog, www.designingzoos.com. Stacey looks forward to one day being a full-time, fully-paid author living on a farm filled with happy, cuddly critters.

Molting

By Stacey Tarpley

 

The itching awoke me this morning. Like ten thousand mosquitoes blanketing my back.

The cheap backscratcher with its stranger’s fingers is broken in pieces at my side, disarticulated at the red plastic wrist. I rub against the rough bark of the sugar maple I’m propped against. Temporary ecstasy.

Coah, coo, coo, coo. To my right. An owl, I think, scrambling for my binoculars. Coah, coo, coo. Some motion on the ground, my vision a blur.  Focus. Just a mourning dove. 

It’s early, of course. The sun just breaking the horizon. The mist just beginning to rise from the dewy grass around Steven’s Pond. A perk of having an itchy back.

I’m anxious for a loon. Perhaps a wood duck. Anything besides the starlings and house sparrows. They’ve taken over. They’re all the wild left in life. This excursion, this happy morning diversion, helps with the itching. Keeps my mind busy. A welcome break from the numb of my day to day. 

I used to be better about it. I used to awaken on Saturdays at 5 am, ready to explore the wetlands or the hardwood forest of Raven’s Mill. I used to have a bird list. 

I used to see loons regularly. Hear their call break the silence of the morning. Like they were calling to me. 

It may sound pedestrian or even a smidge sentimental, which I’ll admit I am both, but I admire the birds. Their freedom. Their flight. To spend the day twitting about, flitting about for a worm or a grasshopper or a mouse.  Catching your mate’s attention through song or dance or artful camouflage. Not so different from us, I suppose, but we’re not so beautiful.

The itching is unbearable. I scratch on the bark, up and down like a bear. I must look ridiculous, but no one is here to see me. No one but the mourning dove. My back is on fire. My skin feels like it’s ripping apart. But it’s not. It’s just inflamed. Just like yesterday and the day before. Today is worse I think. Definitely. Today is the worst.

I lie down on the still wet grass and stare at the lightening sky. To be fed by strangers. To be chased gleefully by babies on the lawn. To be coveted and cooed upon just for doing what comes naturally. 

I’d be a duck, I think. A wood duck would be grand, of course, but a plain old mallard would do, too. 

The chill of the ground penetrates my shirt and cools my back. It hurts like I’ve been carrying a backpack full of books across campus from the library. My arms ache as well. But the grass is comforting.

I’m awoken with a start, like I’m falling. The sun has moved up in the sky and the light of the morning has been replaced with the light of late afternoon. How long have I slept here next to the pond? My head is full of the confused fog of the sleepy. I wipe my eyes, but can’t feel my fingers on my skin. I can’t feel my fingers at all.

Panicked, I look at myself. All I see is mottled brown feathers. I look around and realize the scale is all wrong: the trees much too tall, the grass much too big. I try to stand and run, but I just waddle and trip on the trap that is my binoculars’ strap. I scream a ridiculous honking quack quack quack. 

Panicked I flap. And quack. And flap.

I must look ridiculous.

I sit down. Exhausted. I’m a duck, I think. I’m a duck. 

Around me, nothing has changed. The pond is still a pond. The cattails along the edge still sway in the breeze. Grasshoppers jump. Ants crawl through the soil at my feet. 

The crisp November wind ruffles my feathers and I am suddenly consumed with one all-consuming thought. Fly. I must fly. I must fly south. My internal compass clicks on and I stretch my wings wondering how to do this. I flap clumsily. Flap. Flap. With all my might. Flap. Flap. Flap. And finally, my feet are free from the ground. My body free from gravity. I watch the pond disappear beneath me. Getting smaller and smaller. I can barely see my binoculars and bird book beneath the maple tree. 

And moments later, as I tumble, rolling from the sky, searing pain tearing through my chest where the hunter’s bullet hit home, I think: 

I’m flying!

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