The gull had come into his third cycle and he had learned many things about the world. He soared above the world now, following a rocky beach that ran down the length of land ahead.
The land undulated below him, swells of hills and valleys deposited by flowing water very long ago. The land terminated in great cliffs of red and white clay, and where sections had collapsed streaks of red and white crisscrossed the shore. A forest of beech and gum trees rose and fell with the land. Tree roots gripped the topsoil, twisting out and over the edge and open air and coiling back to grasp for the clay that was slipping out from under themselves. One old oak tree held a precarious position, tilted and tipping over the edge, stubbornly clinging on for more time.
The gull was familiar with this tree because the winged hunters with white heads often rested on its branches between soirees over the water of the bay. Sometimes they discarded their catches only half-eaten. None perched on the branches of the oak now, and the gull saw only bones of the underwater ones scattered on the beach below. The gull twirled his wings for a few beats, pulling himself higher into the sky and over the old oak tree. The gull soared and allowed the wind to carry him further down the beach.
The sky was a clear white blue and the gull could see the horizon in every direction. He had come to this place a cycle ago, following the flowing water south. Now the water slowed and widened, stretching wider until it almost met the sky. He understood that the sea lay further in that direction.
He’d flown that way last cycle, when the season turned, following the coast. Gulls do not plan, but when this season turned and the leaves began to fall, the gull would do so again. A gull in their third cycle understands the rhythm of the seasons.
On either side of himself, the gull could see other flowing waters. These two and the one he had followed met the salt water here. They intermingled, and together they birthed a great bay. Where the currents slowed they deposited sediment. Wide flats covered in dense water grasses. Life was all around him. The gull knew the very best places to find it, pluck it with his bill and then swallow it. When it moved on, so would he.
A gull lives wherever the worlds of the sky, land, and water meet. He lived in the moment, and that is why the gull soared.
He knew only one call when he was born, a call that expressed a need to be sated. The gull could not sate the need himself because he did not know how. Everything was new and it would be some time before the gull understood it all.
The call expressed a desire, one he could not fulfill. He could not explain why he made the call, the call came when he needed it. Other calls would come in time, the gull was dimly aware of this. What mattered now was this urge to fill his belly. The gull had a desire it could not fulfill in the moment, and that is why the gull called.
Then the great white head of his parent would lower into view and bend upside down to peer at him from a great height. The gull found his world suddenly cast into shadow so suddenly that it stumbled. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the shadow. His parents eyes were gray like the sky of that place and they regarded him, one eye then the other. The gull would call again and his need would be sated. Satisfied, the gull stopped calling.
Sometimes, the gull would call and call and his parent would would peer down, their heads haloed in brilliant white from the sun and his need would not be sated. So he would call until he was too tired to call more and then wait. The gull observed how a parent would return from the world above, swooping and flaring their wings, and the other would rise to stand and greet each other. They would trade places and sometimes make calls that expressed desires the gull could not fathom. Then, he would call and his desire would be satisfied.
Much later, when his feathers were grown and the desire to join the world above overwhelmed all else, the gull leapt from the second-highest rock on that grey and windy beach and trusted that the world above would receive him. He felt fear then. The gull had tumbled over these rocks many times since he was strong enough to walk around and explore his world. He had used his legs to push himself up, wings to pull himself over, and belly to slide down the rocks below. The gull understood hard landings.
The gull had reached out with his wings, seeking the wind around himself. Finding it, his flight feathers billowed and the gull pushed with his wings. He felt the wind rushing under his body and the lift under his tail feathers. The gull found the wind and it carried him to the world above. He had been born on a lonely speck of rock, the gull realized, an island surrounded by salt water on every horizon.
The details of his first flight were hazy. The gull remembered lift, and a swiftly tilting horizon. He also exuberance he had felt after, when he returned to nest where he was born and territory his parents held, and scuffed his landing beside his parents. They were of a height now, his parents no longer towered above him like when he was young. And yet their appearance could not be more different. The gull felt that familiar need, opened his bill, and called. Neither parent budged. They regarded him with cool grey eyes.
The gull settled his tail feathers to wait. Waiting and resting are part of every gull’s life, and every bird really. Flying is tiresome. While he rested, the gull observed the world around himself.
His need grew more urgent and yet he still could not express it, not here on land. He paced forward a few steps, turning towards the wind. His body tensed, but his shoulders and elbows the gull relaxed. He held his wings ready, away from his body. The gull stood there, one foot extending towards the direction he desired. He hesitated. Calling had been his only means of expressing himself before. But now the gull knew how to leave this world and join the sky above.
The gull raised his wings and ran. His body was low to the ground, back arched and poised to leap, wings rocking one way and then the other to maintain his precarious balance. He cupped his wings and the wind took him. The gull could not sate his desire on land, so he soared.
The horizon was all around him. One half there was a smudge of green-blue land that seemed very far away. The other half of the horizon was swallowed by the salt sea. the gull now understood how the world was divided.There was either inland, or the great salt sea that surrounded it. The gull knew that it would soon journey in the direction of that green-blue smudge, find flowing water, and follow it to wherever it led him.
Sunlight punched through patches of clouds casting contrasting rays of light and shadow onto patches of the sea. Caps of swells caught the light and reflected dazzling points of light. The island below sloped out of the water, the western side hunching higher than the rest. It was one last protrusion of bedrock eroding down to cobbles and boulders and sand. Others of his kind were scattered all over surface, hundreds of individuals squatting and squabbling over the few rocks each claimed as their own.
They were with him in the air, too, crossing this way and that, over the rocks and out to the sea. Many were fledglings like himself, unsteady in the air and still getting their bearings. Fledglings were mottled brown and grey, like himself, their feathers a mismatch between the cryptic coloration of the world where they were born and the bright sky there were now joining.
The plumage of the adult gulls stood apart from everything else in the landscape. Theirs was stark white with shades of gray on their wing coverlets and patterns of black on their wingtips. Adult gulls contrasted wonderfully against the slate blue of the sea and leaden clouds. Silhouetted against the light, the crooks of any gull’s wings could be seen and recognized even on the furthest edge of the horizon. A gull’s feathers were an expression who they were, as individuals, and they signified a gull’s the knowledge of the three worlds.
The gull had a desire, an urge and he needed to sate it. In short, the gull was hungry. But, the gull was not alone in the world. Where the clouds allowed the light to peek through, the white plumage of the adults shone like a beacon. They congregated on the swells of the channel running between the dense green sea grass, feeding where life was abundant.
The gull understood and followed.
This was the furthest the gull had flown inland. The water shrank to only a trickle over the horizon, and the two-legs roamed over it all. Opportunities abounded for gulls that knew how to see them. The trouble, the gull found, was dreaming.
It was true, a gull could sleep on the swells of open water, sleep even the whitecaps and breakers of the great salt sea itself, if needs be. A gull could paddle out over the horizon, alone against a widening watery world, and they would live, at least for a span. But on the open water, the horizon would bob in and out of a gull’s sight, a distracting motion when one is trying to rest. And they would also need to maintain a certain alertness to paddle against, and then around every swell lest they flounder. Even a gull could drown.
The gull desired to be on solid ground with others of its kind when it slept, as many of us do. Safe under the collective watch of other of his kind, the gull could let awareness slip, close an eye, and dream. Dreaming is how we all understand the waking world. It was the need to dream that kept the gull bound to the land.
As the sun sunk below the horizon,the gull looked for others of its kind. He found them roosting on a blacktop illuminated by always-lights that flickered a chemical yellow. The gull hooked around the blacktop, eyes scanning the horizon for water one last time. There was no water that he could see.
He dipped a wing and circled to land. The gull swooped low over the others but not so low as to be perceived as challenging anyone’s space. He flared his wings and dipped his tail, reaching out with his toes and fanning his wingtips as if still uncommitted to the ground. The he allowed the weight of his body to reach his legs and landed. The gull stowed his wings and quickly settled his tail feathers. His body remained upright, neck extended and eyes alert for any danger.
The blacktop was surrounded by isolated pockets of foliage and the flat-rock structures of the two-legs which were ubiquitous here. The horizon was not visible and that made the gull feel uneasy. Gulls prefer to have a visible horizon when resting, if at all possible. On the island where he was born, the tallest rocks with unobstructed views had been the most fiercely contested places. That it was an island with no four-legs to contend with on the ground did not matter. Gulls need space around themselves to feel comfortable and let their alertness slip.
The gull held his feathers tight against his body as he strode to be just a little closer to the others. Some stepped away, allowing him space.
All night the gull watched the comings and goings of the two-legs. They moved back and forth between their growling metals and the enormous flat-rock structure on the far end of the blacktop. The interior of it flickered with blue always-light impossibly brighter than the chemical yellow always-lights arranged over the blacktop. The gull noticed that his body cast several shadows in their flickering light. When the shadows overlapped, the contrast registered as sudden motion in the gull’s eyes. More than once that night the gull turned his bill and startled himself.
The gull preened and rested, but did not sleep. He was back in the sky before the grey-blue light touched the east.