“It’s insane,” the aviation authority puffed up. A fat, little pigeon who could hardly do 50 km/hour – he prided himself for a colorful plume around his neck, and that’s exactly why he was their leader.
“You chose us to be the sacrificial flock. Our strategy would work, she would not come after you,” said Scarface somberly. There was a grim determination on his face, his beak pursed tight.
The AA found Scarface to be utterly ugly to look at. It was not that he was thin, whereas the pigeons are supposed to be fat, it was the fact that one side of his body was charred crisp – wings, face, body, everything.
“I believe your brains have also fried in that roast. She is fickle and her wrath is terrible. You are placing all of us here at tremendous risk. The entire bloody species, asshole!”
“We have gone through the plan multiple times. We must take a stand. And that’s today,” Scarface tutted. He looked over at the horizon – the green gave way to black. The bountiful to infertile. Puffs of smoke mingled malevolently with the clouds. His nemesis was waiting for them.
“Remember, if you fail and you will – I would offer all your squabs to her as a peace offering. Your entire family and all the generations that would sprout from your cursed lineage would be the sacrificial offering. I request you to please reconsider.”
The AA saw doubt arise in that inscrutable double face. Scarface’s left wing twitched and he opened his beak uncertainly. “See, you don’t have to go ahead with your plan. Countless have tried before and failed – your father has established a perfect system. Why do you wish to stain his legacy?”
“Of utter cowardice? Of giving in? Not only did he senselessly sacrifice his own life, but my mom’s too.”
“That was a mistake. She was only supposed to go after your dad’s flock, not after your mom’s.”
“She kills for fun. Do you think one flock fills her gigantic belly? We don’t even make a pitiful morsel. They died for nothing. My mind is made up. My flock has trained hard for this – you have to give us a chance.”
AA sighed, “If you say so.”
A terrible scream erupted from the distance. The trees juddered. All the pigeons in the surrounding trees held their collective breaths.
“She’s getting impatient. It’s time to leave.”
The AA flapped his wings and signaled his flock. His would be the first flock to fly away.
Slowly, the other pigeons started flying en masse. His family included. He had given them a strict instruction of not lingering around, no time for impractical emotions – he didn’t want them to meet the same fate as he did.
Was he jeopardizing their lives for his vendetta? Was he being shortsighted?
He shook his head and turned around. His flock of 50 was grim, and not a caw or coo was to be heard. They were afraid. This was the group that received the short-end of the stick of fate – and they decided to make something of it.
“Listen, all. History might mark us out as the heroes, or as the scourge of the entire species. Either way, we might not survive. So, if there is even a shred of doubt in your cool hearts, you might leave. You can go back to your lives and live peacefully with your family, till the next migration cycle. It’s life, but an uncertain one – one riddled with fear. I for one don’t want to be afraid. We have toed her line for too long, we had let her dictate terms. Not anymore. Today, we make a stand. We are puny beings, but our will is mighty. So, who is with me?”
A single coo, in determined unison.
“Pigeons, prepare for the flight of your lives!”
He beat his wings and plunged. The wind answered his call, the updraft propelled him straight to the sky. His flock joined him a second later.
Within no time, he was amongst the sky. He was the apex bird, at the center of the V-formation. Fighting the wind, and passing the bountiful upwash to the two birds immediately to his two sides. They, in turn – doing the same down the line.
A tight formation, flapping wings in unison. But they were slower than the other flocks, deliberately so. They had to give the other flocks time to fly away to safety.
He looked down. The blanket of clouds offered no silver lining to the scenery below. Uprooted trees, blackened debris, fried souls. This black scorch of Earth was the bleakest part of their annual migration. Families were torn apart; generations were wiped out of existence.
He sensed poison in the air with the tip of his beak. Smog & char, they were near her lair.
He looked down. He scanned the mountain that was her perch, her den, their certain death. Apart from the smoke, he couldn’t see anything living. His heart hammered hard, it was almost too painful. She was crafty – she knew that terror was in the anticipation of the bang. She would take her own sweet time in catching up with them.
He remembered the first time that he saw her. That dirty green and craggy, hard surface of her skin still rattled his head like a Funko-pop every time he thought of her. The tip of her wings had horns, the top of her forehead had horns, her spinal cord jutted outwards in a series of horns, her teeth were pincers – they were not white – the white had long been coated with a thick layer of red, blood red. She was one big, gigantic killing machine – a juggernaut of death.
He could still hear his mom’s pitiful screams as she shoved him towards the ground, while she was being consumed by the fire. Pure menacing blue. He saw his mother turn from charred flesh to bones, one moment – she was flying, the very next – her bones dropped like dead weight. The offshoots of that fire touched him glancingly, scorching one side of his body.
The roar rocked him out of his reverie. It was coming from his right. He searched the skies – just a pale shadow of a megalith was visible against the grey clouds, the amber of her fire deepening the color of the clouds to a deep red.
“She is going after the other flock; we have to grab her attention.”
He dived towards his right, gliding over the gush of wind which was moving the same way. His crew followed him, never breaking that V-formation. They were swift and rapid, kind of no-nonsense pigeons – who knew what they had to do – show bravery in certain death.
“Hecklers, you have the stage,” he cooed over the winds. The birds on the two sides passed on the message down the two arms on the V till it reached the last in line.
They were approaching closer. He could sense it.
Suddenly he dropped out of the sky. Where there was supposed to be air beneath his wings, there was none. He vigorously flapped his wings to gain back the level. It took extreme effort on his part to keep himself on the course. He could sense other birds struggling. But as the leader, it was his duty to make their paths easier than it was for him. She was flying nearby, causing turbulence in the atmosphere.
He saw the flock of oldies. They were the slowest and the weakest link of the chain. He knew that the dragon was behind them.
And just like that, the gigantic slab of green came into his view. His first reaction, which he couldn’t control, was pure, unbridled fear. Terror at the sheer size of her, she was so gigantic, he couldn’t fit her entirely in the view.
A force of nature.
A malicious force of nature, he corrected himself.
A wily, malicious force of nature who went after the pigeons for fun.
“I suspected a lizard on a portable toilet. I suspect it was a commode-o-dragon.”
The wind carried his heckler’s jibe. But the dragon didn’t even look in their directions. She was vindictive, she had to take the bait. He needed to go closer so that she could hear his hecklers.
“Tell me, you fat lump of snot green – why do dinosaurs live longer than the dragons?”
The dragon eyed them with her left eye which could fit five of them. There was a cat-like quality in them. He shuddered, he hated cats as well.
“Because they don’t smoke.”
She snorted smoke and turned her gaze towards her.
“What’s big and green and slimy, and hangs from tall trees?”
She was distracted now. This gave the oldies precious time to scoot off.
She changed her direction and directed her full attention to them. She glided over the air with her gigantic wings – smooth, sure, and inexorably towards them.
“Are you a dumb fucker, can’t you speak?”
She roared, shooting a single spurt of fireball towards the heckler. The pigeon couldn’t evade it quickly enough, the ball consumed him – and his bones dropped out of the sky shortly after.
“Guys, we have got her attention. Conserve your energy, we are changing course & increasing our pace.”
He suddenly nose-dived, turned around, and started going in the opposite direction, away from the other flocks. The other pigeons followed him. Because of its gigantic girth, the dragon couldn’t execute a sharp turn.
They gained precious time while she tried to navigate her body towards them. She roared fire to bridge the gulf. But this time, it couldn’t catch up with them.
He screeched in pleasure. The strategy was working, they just had to maintain discipline.
They zipped around in seemingly random directions, sometimes going near her, sometimes away – but still maintaining a safe distance from her. They had choreographed every movement and it felt good that it was all coming together.
She was getting increasingly frustrated and spurting fire knowing well that they weren’t in the range. Still, he worried, as the birds at the end of the two arms of the V started dropping off one by one as some random burst caught hold of them. Also, they were starting to slow down. They were tired of this dance.
He just hoped that the dragon tired off before they did. Indeed, she was showing signs of fatigue. Her attack range was getting smaller, the burst of fire was getting weaker.
Never had the pigeons survived that long against her than they had done. His mother would have been proud. They stood up against a motherfucking dragon.
He gravely looked back at his squad. They knew what came next. They had planned for this moment; they had mentally prepared themselves – this was the purpose of their lives. He plunged to a dizzying dive, his lieutenants religiously following each move.
The dragon was no longer smoking fire. She was tired of the sudden turns and the distance it had to travel. She could easily overtake them, were they to allow her to travel in a single direction. But they were like flies to her, swatting and buzzing around her in all directions – never allowing her more than a moment to glide over the air and rest – forcing her to flap her wings to lift her bulky, cumbersome body each time she changed directions.
Scarface too was tired of the exertion, tired of carrying the wind for a squad of 40 remaining birds, tired of his flying antics. If he continued like this, he would die of exhaustion.
He sighed and solemnly cooed – “My courageous men and women, thank you for following me so far. It has been an honor flying amongst the best of the pigeons that this world has to offer. It’s time for me to bid adieu. See you in the next life.”
His troop cooed in unison.
Funko-pop nod. This was it.
He stopped mid-air, turned around, and faced the dragon.
Scales like diamond, menacing eyes of a predator, color of snot. A force of nature. His nemesis.
Before the dragon could react, the leader of the pigeon shot across the sky and aimed for her gaping maw.
It’s just like a cave – a very hot, sizzling, and roiling cave.
That was the last thing he thought before being consumed by the dragon. Soon, the other birds followed suit. She couldn’t believe her luck; she opened her mouth wide open as the birds fed themselves to her willingly – all 40 of them.
Closing her mouth, she let herself glide over the air. She was content but exhausted. She still couldn’t understand what happened just then, but it didn’t take her long to realize her mistake.
She felt a sharp prick in her neck. Something stuck in her throat, blocking the air-vent. Her tongue couldn’t reach the blockage. Frantically, she looked at the Earth. There wasn’t a body of water in sight.
She started coughing. Smoke gushed out of her nose. Spasmodically, she retracted and stretched her wings. Unable to breathe, she tried to retch – to push out whatever was blocking her throat.
She struggled long and hard, but to no avail.
Tired, she dropped out of the sky like a stone, the clouds parting ways to let her fall, and she crashed to the Earth-like an unyielding meteor. The dragon was dead before she touched the ground.
Alienman 