If Animals Could Talk...
"As The Wild Goose Flies" ...
Written and Illustrated by Ron Hevener
It was business as usual … Political strategists were advising British Petroleum on how to save face … Republicans were debating the merits of tea … the stock exchange was crashing on Wednesday and rallying by Friday, the same as always, and nobody could decide which movies were worth watching any more.
On TV, America was dancing with the stars, England was judging everybody’s talent and immigration was the subject du jour of national debate as flocks of wild birds and hordes of colorful butterflies flew as they had always flown – free and beautiful on magnetic paths only they could sense, pulling them towards a destiny only they could imagine.
Nobody bothered asking the birds what they thought of migration. What could common birds and butterflies know about pulling up their roots and starting a life all over again some place else? They didn’t have jobs, houses, cars and passports. Butterflies were made for catching in jars, pinning under glass in scientific biology collections and wreaking their revenge by splattering themselves on windshields at high speeds. Birds? Birds were just feather-brains ….
“Did you see that!” a magnificent gander piloting the flock shouted to his followers as they flew into the night.
“Did we see what?” a fellow traveler asked, craning her neck side-ways and pushing aside the clouds for a better view.
“Over there!” pointed their leader. “That truck we’ve been following. It’s pulling off the highway. Can’t they see the lights of Phoenix up ahead? If they need a place to rest, I’m sure they can find a place to rest in Phoenix.”
“They’re driving off the road, into the desert. What could they possibly be looking for in all that cactus and sage brush?” came the professor-ly voice of a goose who never had ventured far beyond his tidy home on the perfectly-manicured island of a small pond at the center of a respected university.
“Maybe it’s a new kind of driving mechanism,” a goose from Detroit honked, struggling to pull up his baggy pants. “You know, some big- deal secret technology they don’t want the rest of us to know about.”
“No, no,” observed an elderly goose with a crippled foot from an injury on an airport runway. “Haven’t you been reading the papers blowing in the wind and listening to the Internet twitter? Out here, it’s most likely a military maneuver of some sort.”
“Well I’m a gambler and I’ll bet it’s none of those things,” said a petite lady goose with curly white hair tinted blue.
Adjusting their altitude and flying closer for a better look, the curious flock of geese noticed the truck slowing down and coming to a stop. As they circled wide enough not to arouse suspicion, the birds watched several men get out, walk to the back of the truck and open the rear doors. Even from their height, the geese could hear voices.
“What are they saying, Mama?” asked a young goose, huffing and puffing as he tried keeping up with the rest of them.
“Just never you mind, son!” scolded his mother. “You just look straight ahead! Don’t pay no attention to anything else except your flyin’! And, if you had done those push-ups like I told you, instead of munching bread and potato chips all day, your wings wouldn’t be sore from having so much to carry! See how it works? Don’t you pay no attention to them. You stick with Mama!”
Drifting gently in the breeze now, the geese blended into the darkness of the sky … below them, a small group of frightened, cowering people slowly emerged from the back of the truck and formed a straight line, not unlike the formation in which the geese were flying now. Big, small, young and old, the frightened people stood, wrapping themselves in blankets and holding on to each other.
“They’re afraid,” said the boy-goose.
“Don’t look!” said his mama. “Didn’t I just tell you not to look?”
At the sound of gun-shots, the geese broke their flight formation and scattered apart.
“Mama!”
“I’m still here, baby!” his mother sputtered in surprise, gathering her wits about her and fluttering close to him. “I’m still here.”
“What happened?” one of the others asked, as the leader of the flock made sure everyone was OK. Not a feather had been lost. “What was THAT all about!”
The leader of their flock, seasoned by many such migrations, didn’t know what had happened. Looking below, he saw the truck speeding away, heard the screaming and cursing of frightened people throwing themselves toward someone lying on the ground and he knew it wasn’t good.
“They lost their way,” he said, finally, to the rest of the flock. “Follow me.”
They flew North. They flew North as they had always flown, they and their fathers and the fathers of those before them. They flew across farms and fields, towns, and cities. They flew across rivers that divided land, and vast waters that separated islands from one another like the isolated souls of man and beast in the lonely journey of life. They flew across townships and counties and states. They flew across churches telling people how to be, schools telling people how to be, and museums telling people what they once were. They flew over libraries of wisdom, towers of communication, lodges of ancient brotherhoods and pagan clearings in the forests. They flew across whole countries and didn’t feel a thing.
As the wild geese flew, and as the butterflies danced, oil companies struggled to elevate themselves from plundering destroyers to responsible citizens. Republicans still drank tea. Banks quietly closed their doors, merged and changed their names with scarcely a ripple. The stock exchange crashed and rose, but not quite as high as the week before. Life was changing, shifting, migrating, if you will, from one place, one circumstance, to another, just like the wild birds and the butterflies in their travels. There was no need to talk about it. There was no need for words, the definition, spelling and use of which had a way of emigrating from one meaning and immigrating to another without anyone’s consent or permission.
Wild geese would fly North or South like America’s middle class in the vast and nebulous waters of “the economy” … freedoms once taken for granted would disappear in the name of security … bravery, courage and confidence would fade into memories of what used to be in a time when Black and White were colors on a silver screen and people used the eye of their own imagination to give it life. Therein lies the key. Therein lies the secret of Butterflies and Birds when it comes to emigration and immigration as they go from one place to find another, and, when the time is right, find their way back home again.
Whether it is a desire for higher ground, greener pastures or better opportunity, what is the difference? Harming no one of their own kind in the process, they find their way – by land, air and water. Nesting in territories where they are not welcome, does not continue.
We are as different from other animals as they are different from us. Within our power is the ability to shape their destiny, and it is not the other way around. If it must be the ever-changing laws of a nation we are forced to live by, then let us set free the eyes of our mind to see the enemy not as the ones crossing our borders … but as those who would betray them in a goose chase of no return and leave them to die in the unmerciful desert.
“Mama?” the boy-goose asked, as they flew on … “What were all those people doing in that truck?”
“They were allowing someone else to fly for them,” said his mother. “Instead of making the journey themselves.”
“Why would anybody do that?” he asked, his arms aching, but getting stronger.
“Perhaps they didn’t know that bringing a dream to your own front door is a whole lot better than traveling thousands of miles to get there.” Bumping into him playfully, she added with a gentle smile, “And a whole lot easier on your wings!”
Perhaps that’s what animals would say about immigration …if animals could talk.
- RH.
©2010 Ron Hevener—This illustrated story is brought to you by RonHevener.com
Mr. Hevener is the author of such novels as Fate of the Stallion, The Blue Ribbon and High Stakes. He is a successful designer inspired by animals and the adventurous, romantic, fun-loving people who make animals an important part of their lifestyle. Mr. Hevener's stories are broadcast on public TV and he is listed in Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia and reference guide to public personalities. Readers can ask him about issues facing them in today's crazy world by writing to Hevener@dejazzd.com
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