Sean huddled.

Crouching himself low, he hoped he could remain safe.

There were demons in the woods, and he couldn't tell who was friendly and who wanted him maimed.

So he cowered into a corner, certain that protecting himself from everything would ensure that the predators couldn't touch him.

Sure, he was afraid. He would admit that. But it was that fear, that unshakable fear, that had gotten him this far. Day in and day out he watched others let their guard down, and they were massacred. But he wasn't going to let that happen to him. No one was going to get at him. He had too much to protect. There was his stability...his future...his independence...it all had to be fortified against the vultures that were circling overhead to scavenge his fortunes.

And he couldn't let that happen.

So he ducked away into a hole. It was safe in that hole. No one would see him in that hole. There were enough unwary souls wondering the countryside to occupy the predators' time. He would be safe in this hole.

The hole was dank. It was dark. It was lonely. It was silent. It was stagnant. It was cramped. But it was safe.

Sean lived in this hole, his back turned to the outside, while he protected everything valuable in his world.

The dankness, the loneliness, the silence were unimportant to him. He hardly ever even noticed them, because it wasn't his objective to be happy. He wanted to be safe. Maybe safety gave him happiness. It didn't matter, because he didn't think about it that way: it was just safe, that was all. Outside, the vultures were circling. Their eyes were probing the ground, looking for prey: perhaps a lame animal that had already been hurt by another predator, and was limping along the valley floor. Perhaps this was what the vultures were looking for, so that they could swoop down and finish off the injured creature. The world that the vultures perpetuated was such a savage one.

And Sean knew this. Every day, before he had retreated to his sanctuary, he used to look up and see the vultures single out a broken creature. He watched his friends get maimed and ripped apart by the senseless, uncaring animals. He saw his family members crushed by the weight of the vultures' descent. He saw how all the creatures crawling the ground seemed to, eventually, find themselves hurt. And they were never quick enough to save themselves from the scavengers. They weren't always killed, sometimes the birds just left them hurt... hurt so badly, usually, that they could no longer find happiness in existence.

But they were left...spared. They were left to continue wandering the ground, casting their eyes to the sky, hoping another vulture wouldn't single them out for destruction, but also faintly wishing something would end the pain.

And Sean couldn't afford to have that happen to himself. He had seen it too many times, and he was afraid of it. This stability, this future, this independence were too valuable for him to just let them be devoured by the vultures. This, he had reasoned, was the logical choice. This hole that he now surrounded himself with would save him from the destruction he had witnessed so many times before.

And he was so proud of himself to have found a solution to a problem that it seemed no one else were capable of solving. That idea, if nothing else, did make him a little happy. He knew that while he crouched in the safety of his hole, others were on the ground running from the vultures: running, running but never surviving. Others were being destroyed because they hadn't fallen into the wisdom which he had found.

As Sean cowered in his hole, a lone Eagle, circling high in the heavens, far above the scavenging vultures, thought he saw a glimmer of something reflective far, far below. He circled back again to take another look, but it was gone. Maybe it was just his imagination, he reasoned. After all, there was nothing in that area but jagged rocks and bottomless pits. So the Eagle turned his head back to the sky, and simply drifted on the winds.

He floated, confidently, high above the dangers of the world below. He floated happily, because he had once walked that ground in fear. He had once spent his days looking fearfully up at the vultures that waited to devour his strengths. And he had decided that he had too much to protect. So he worked to find a way to save his stability...his independence... his future from those scavengers.

And as he worked, he soon realized that these strengths could be used...not just protected. And as he developed the strengths, he slowly learned to fly. It was never easy. No one ever said freedom was easy. But it was possible. It was possible because it was something he wanted so badly that he refused to allow himself to fail. He knew that to fail was to die... or worse, to be maimed forever.

Now, many years later, and many struggles into the equally fearful unknown world of flying, he was now free...free from the scavengers...free from the vultures which wanted only to take what he had.

Now he was above them.

Looking down, he could see them circle a kill, but he knew they could never reach his height. They concentrated on the ground, where the prey crawled, so they would never know the power that could be achieved.

And the Eagle was proud that he had learned a way to combat the evils which very few people, it seemed, ever learned. And he was happy with the thought, having saved his future...his stability...his independence.

(c) 1997 Me

[Safety] [The Room] [The Trail] [Cool Summer] [Achievement] [Valkyries' Last Ride]
[Infinity] [The Eagle] [Spring Sunday] [Astray] [The Bumblebee] [Plastic Toy Soldiers]

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