And he took flight

Fearless was the young ornithologist who went by the name of Arjun. Keen of the eye and sharp of the mind, unquenchable was his thirst for adventure. And insatiable his hunger for knowledge.

Early one morn, at the crack of dawn, the intrepid ornithologist rose from bed and set out to find a treasure of knowledge in the dingy alleyways of Jumeraat Bazaar. Two streets down, he came upon a scrawny and dubious looking peddler, towing a cartful of literature, bound in leather. He scaled walls by night, peddled by morning and called himself Ali. Alas, books, to him, merely balanced a weighing stone on the other side of a balance.

A sparkle set itself ablaze in his eye the instant they fell upon the dirty pile. And Arjun began sifting the sand for the nugget in gold. Grains dropped through the hourglass in torrents. As did perspiration through the pores. Arjun, keen as he was, kept on, regardless of the hour. Regardless of the heckles raised on the peddler. Regardless of the incessantly growing din in the dingy bazaar.

Rise he did, clutching a leather-bound hard enough to inspire white on his knuckles. When he did, triumph wrote an allegory across his forehead. He held the chronicle of a hero, a man who coerced an entire generation to look skywards. A man who taught the world that a bird was an angel in disguise.

Fleet of the foot as he was, he reached his den in no time, and threw himself headlong into the chronicle – an account of the experiences of the hero, in pursuit of the White-tailed Tropicbird from Samoa. One of only three species of the Tropicbird, the bird was magnificence written across the inconceivably blue Samoan skies.

Less of leather and more of adventure the chronicle smelt. And it unravelled the tethers of imagination in the young man. The expectation put a resonating throb of a concoction of young blood and adrenalin in his temples. Tatters were how his resistance and reason lay, and a deep breath did Arjun take. He willed the Samoan spirit into his veins.

Three weeks passed but the passion survived. And down set the young man his foot on Samoan soil. Along snaked the road from Apia to Sa‘Moana, and with it sped the young man they called Arjun.

He set his sails southwards on small vessel and in search of the island of the White-tailed Tropicbird. Across the sky the sun stretched. The salt of the sea met the salt of his perspiration. Soon enough, out of the blue sea grew a speck of green. That spec grew to a mountain. And so did his eagerness to set foot on that land.
Suddenly, the vessel sputtered and choked itself to a fuming death. The maritime beast had a hole in its heart, and away she bled across the ocean for miles behind, leaving her tanks dry. With the island in site, and an oar without, the young man and his vessel bobbed at the mercy of a ruthless ocean.

For this alone he lived, this relentless explorer. He tore a strip of metal off the boat and made an oar of it. Short as it was, he moved slow. But move he did. Alas, he was no match to the massive white waves of the mighty ocean and tumbled into the sea.

The ocean thrashed him with rocks, dragged him along urchins, and doused him in water. But the boy was steadfast. He reached the beach and screamed at the sea, “Is that all my friend?” And his laughter tinkled.

His vessel in shambles, his garb in tatters and his hope on the decline he screamed for help. For three days and three nights he screamed. And his voice found no mate. Dejected, hungry, and utterly out of hopelessness he looked up towards the mountain. And he heard it thunder. Boulders rolled down. The earth trembled. Birds flew from their perches. Even the ocean succumbed into silence. And it rose to the sky from the top of the mountain. A plume of smoke.