The Bird King

“A Hero’s journey to the kingdom”

A story by Abhiman

“At 20,000 ft. above the surface, huts look like little specs of paint drops on a canvas. I closed my eyes to soak in the coolness of the wind and the warmth of the gentle but bright moonlight. Stars played music in the sky as they twinkled and the warm planet below was suddenly a distant dream. It was like a Magical Realism. I was fully alive dear boy – oh how I miss it. Tsk! What I would give to relive that moment again”!

A tear rolled down the old man’s cheek as he looked up at the moon through bars of solid metal of an old prison located on a secret hill top. It was as if an old fox looked at the moon to howl. The pain of that moment was felt in its weightlessness.

A 19 year old boy, his cell-mate listened silently. His heart cried for him but he knew that they were totally on the mercy of the Snake-King.

10 Years Before

Life was astounding, when I was a kid & running in the field to tease my mother who was trying to catch hold of me and I was confident that I was the fastest runner in this world.

Then suddenly I heard the shrill cry of my mother, but before I could react, I had been grabbed by this beautiful golden feathered bird and within second in the air.

She was beautiful and was holding an apple in her beak. I took that fruit and ate it. I was fearless at that moment and was constantly staring at her eyes & we became friends. But suddenly I looked down & got panicked. There on the ground I could see villagers had started gathering and were trying to throw arrows at the bird. But the bird with golden feather was fearless. She dived towards the ground and gently put me on the ground far from the villagers. But during that process I got some deep scratch.

The village physician had already arrived had done his duty of dressing and bandaging.

After a lot of chaos the villagers left and I was alone in my mother’s lap. My father was still looking at the sky in search of the bird. Then I brought out that half eaten apple and showed it to mother. My mother’s eye widened in disbelief. She called out to my father and said that the Mythical Creatures Phoenix has accepted their son as her master.

Like every day, I was sitting near the Mythical Creatures Phoenix and collecting her tears. She would come every night and before leaving I would collect her tears in a small glass tube.

Every morning the wounded villagers would arrive and I would cure them. One day a patient came with a cancerous lump under his armpit and the tear drop didn’t work. So out of curiosity I just touched it with Phoenix’s feather and the lump just fell out like an extract from her body  & he was cured. During this whole episode, a physician who had come in disguise to know the secret behind my medicine, couldn’t suppress his astonishment and announced publicly that I am in hold of a godly bird Phoenix.

After this incident I had many fans and enemies. But in place of felicitation I was charged with treason to the kingdom for captivating a Godly bird & was brought in front of the princess. At that time I was not little worried about the punishment but was lost in the heavenly beauty that I had only heard as a story.

However true beauty of a woman and that is empathy humility and motherly care. Perhaps loss of father might have made the princess little harsh and rude.

I came out of my trance when I heard the final verdict.

“If you say that the phoenix is your friend then you have to find my father and bring him back to us and if you could then I would marry you and people would tell your story as a “Hero’s Journey”. But if you cannot then you would order your phoenix to serve for us for life”.

The word spread like wildfire throughout the kingdom.. People were surer about my failure and were sad. But I was wondering if the princess read my mind and felt attraction towards her!

When I reached my home, I found my parents sobbing. They asked me to fly away with my Phoenix.

I was surer to find the king and also I was sad for my parents. I knew that Phoenix lived for 500 years and them born from their ashes. So if my bird was the same one who had flown the king out of the country to save him, then I would definitely reach the king.

And that evening when I met her she confirmed by showing me the King’s Royal necklace that he had brought for me.

So without wasting time we had flown in search of our old beloved king. My bird has gone up to 20,000 feet and the world below was looking like a place in my dream.

I was now very happy and was dreaming of marrying the most beautiful girl on this earth and then suddenly the bird gave a warning scream and dived down in a great speed. I was not ready for this and I almost shouted at her but before she could react there were many arrows rushing towards us. She ditched many but later got hit and fell down like an asteroid from the sky. But she never forgot to curdle me in her soft feather, and I landed without injury.

We had been surrounded by many snake faced human soldiers and the leader with a snake mask reached near me and spat his words to me like venom.

“So you are the son of the old eagle king. Why you want to destroy us? We knew that you would come for your father. He is with us but we killed his bird. Now be ready for the same.”

Then they put me in the prison with the old king.

After keeping me hungry for a week, a trooper came to take me to the King.

“So you are the son of the Old King.”

“Your Majesty, I’m a just a citizen of his small Kingdom.”

“Oh! You are a spy.”

I calmly explained him the whole story & explained him that this bird is not a mighty eagle but a phoenix & we had come to take our king back.

“The king had only a desire to travel on an eagle’s back, and during that adventure he mistakenly ventured in to your Kingdom.  He had no evil intention Your Highness. His ailing daughter is desperately waiting for him to see him before her last breath.”

He took time to believe my story but then he kept an assignment, that if I can bring a forbidden fruit, which can remove their curse of exile from mankind, he would release the king.

“… and people would tell your story as a “Hero’s Journey” or else you would be thrown back to the prison with your old King.”

I was sent back to the Prison cell to say farewell to the king.

Present day

The banging on the iron barred door of the cell drew their attention.

“You there”, barked a trooper with his finger pointing towards the boy. “Get on your phoenix. She’s ready to fly. Remember – you owe us. And until you owe us, we own you”.

And he waited for me to get up. I said goodbye to king & followed the trooper.

We passed through the barn field and I could see my bird had sensed my arrival and rose to welcome me.

We roamed the whole world and fought & also befriended with many kingdoms before finding the forbidden fruit. We gave the fruit to the snake king and he let our old king go with us.

The old king was now very happy to again ride a phoenix. He thanked me a lot and in excitement he declared that he would give his daughter’s hand to you. I couldn’t stop laughing on this. I saw that king didn’t like my laughing. So I told him that his daughter had also promised the same thing to me. Now the king couldn’t stop laughing. “You see boy!! We father and daughter knows what is best for our kingdom.”

The Climax

But we never knew that more surprise was waiting for us in the kingdom. When we reached, the king said that, the princess on throne was not his daughter but an impersonator. She was the daughter of famous Eagle king & she had killed her father and imprisoned her brother, because they objected her marriage to the king’s man. She had imprisoned the king’s daughter and wife and had taken their looks to fool the people.

The duplicate queen came out of her disguise and ordered to imprison us. She said that she could now stay happily since her all enemies are now under her.

I had no other way but to summon my friends around the world including the snake king for war. The eagle queen had a big army of birds and reptiles too. We fought for 11 days and in the end the snake king strangled the eagle queen to death. Then we released her brother and handed him, his kingdom

We released the old king’s daughter and wife from prison. The princess came near me and the phoenix and talked to the bird.

“Why you lied to me. He is not a boy but a man with great power”. I couldn’t stop blushing. We got married

After 5 years my daughter was riding the phoenix and we were at terrace to watch them flying. The king couldn’t stop remembering his days again.

“At 20,000 ft above the surface, huts look like little specs of paint drops on a canvas. I closed my eyes to soak in the coolness of the wind and the warmth of the gentle but bright moonlight…”

I couldn’t stop smiling to myself. King was happily relaxing after giving his duty to me.

End


Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *