“Whenever you’re ready, just slide into third and let it rip”
She laughed.
I don’t know what he did in response. His character was unknown to me at this point. The thing the story is based on is a moment that comes later and I don’t know the shape of the story yet, but I do know his world view on another situation in his life and I’m aiming to reach that. Warm you up a bit. Comedically, I think he can do one of two things here - either he shows an intention to have made his student laugh and his character is a joker, trying to smuggle jokes into his spiel as a driving instructor, or he shows a lack of humour and regrets an unintentional fart joke. I think the latter feels more meaty here.
“Alright, pull over. Here please…”
Her head flittered left and right and back again, looking perplexed at all the instruments on her console, like she’d suddenly been told to fly an alien vessel and by the way someone had replaced her hands with spoons. Needless to say she didn’t follow his instruction.
“Here please. Anywhere here” he escalated his intensity with tone and volume. Yes, intense seems a good character trait I think.
She didn’t know the rules about stopping on a major road, and that made her fluster a bit. All she could see were yellow lines and signs she didn’t know telling her what not to do between 8.30am and 5.40pm Monday - Friday but Wednesdays were fine but it wasn’t Wednesday even though she wasn’t a lorry, and more pertinently, a voice that needed her to pull over.
“HERE PLEASE.”
She found the indicator, pushed it down and drifted the car against the curb without even realising she hadn’t checked her mirror. She stopped the car safely, with a jerk. An intake of breath.
“I don’t care how you live your life. Okay. I don’t care. Be what you want. Be a happy-go-lucky student, drink on the weekend, take drugs and party on a Friday night, eat your coco pops for dinner and a big slab of ice cream for breakfast, hum at the maths teacher when their back is turned then pretend you can’t hear a humming when he asks. Yeah? Deny God exists to your mother. To her face. Take as many sexual partners as your heart dictates. Two at a time if that’s your jam. It’s not my jam. Jams my jam. But you do you, okay? Go on a holiday you can’t afford and borrow the money from your overdraft and not understand the implications. Skip Sunday school even to go smoke a fag with the vicar, get a vape off a monkey, whatever. I don’t… I don’t care. But right now, right here, in this car, we’re here to drive, okay? And we’re here to learn. The Honda Jazz is a potent weapon. Behind that wheel, you are in charge, and if someone dies because you were laughing, you won’t be laughing much any more. Okay?”
Stunned, she couldn’t think where to look and settled on a bit of bird shit on the front of the car. She’d thought he’d meant to do the fart joke.
*He has a welsh accent by the way. Maybe worth re-reading his rant now that you know. I should have said before, I apologise. It isn’t for comedic effect you understand; the whole thing is set in Wales so it does make sense that he would have a Welsh accent given that’s where he grew up. There’s a nice bounce to an angry welsh rant I’ve found, makes the rant flow better. *
“What was so funny anyway? You have got to take this seriously. Okay? I’m nothing, in the grand scheme of things. Nothing. No distraction. You could have a clown in your passenger seat squeaking his special horn. You could. It shouldn’t matter. My job is to get you on the road, and able to focus on getting you and your passengers to your destination safely”
Too much. Delete some of that last bit maybe. And tone down the welsh accent a bit. Maybe his mother was from the midlands now that I come to think of it. But not anything recognisable, just dilute that Welsh lyricism a bit. Let’s less emphasise the emphasis can we? He’s mildly welsh and that is a joy to read, but this isn’t a circus show.
“So once you’ve had a moment to calm down, we’re going to look to set off. Okay? Make sure the car is set in gear, get on the bite and ready to manoeuvre, check your mirrors, indicate.. ”
She looked over her shoulder. Traffic quiet now. She indicated, then checked her mirrors, exactly in the wrong order.
“Is it clear to go? Yes? Then let’s follow through”
The car, halfway into the road stalled as the driver bent over, her hand covering her mouth to try and muffle her laughter at the image now in her head. It didn’t help at all that when the car set off it the back wheels spun in such a way that it did sound like the car had farted.
He calmly pressed the hazard button, reached over and pressed the ignition button so the car engine turned off, then stepped out of the car. From the inside of the car you could hear him screaming some angst that had built up, possibly over a lifetime. Like the clouds had heard him, a localised flutter of rain fell from the heavens around him. He huddled over and pulled his grey hoodie over his head to get inside.
I’ve not written this bit yet, his past and so on, but let me tell you there is probably going to be history there. Well,here… I have to confess I’ve now re-edited *this section after I first pointed out that I hadn’t written it yet, and at this point now I have actually had a first go at that bit I can confirm. The gap between the first sentence in this paragraph and the last sentence in this is about 3 months. I’ll try to pretend like there’s only one single author writing linearly going forward. During that time I’ve personally suffered quite a bit. Thought I’d point that out as I didn’t want it to cloud my judgement and sully the character’s own history with my own.*
I mean God, could you imagine having to write these things out like the old days? By hand? and then edit them, and then re-write each page out like a fool because you needed it to look like one solid bit of work. And then had to pretend the author is invisible. Like words are themselves brought together from the ether and coalesce. Scratching at pages - expensive, hand squeezed papyrus or pig skin or something - with a fancy quill dipped in ink. It’s hard enough when I can just delete and write things at whim. There, I deleted a whole bit, you wouldn’t know it. I’ve also got autocorrect and a thesaurus a click away. Not that I’d ever, squander this sovereignty. I can even google things I’ve never seen, places I’ve never been. No reason to anchor anything you write in something mundane anymore.
The rain plopped on the car like little white pellets, splashing in thick puddles of water on the windscreen.
“Could you turn the windscreen wipers on please?” he asked with at least an attempt at composure.
His charge paused to look at the car’s cockpit controls in front of her. It was like her hands were holding hands on sticks. She tripped over in her mind remembering which side and which knob to twist or flick. She’d never been very good at bop-it growing up, and this just felt like a very boring, high stakes version. But in a moment of clarity she remembered, and just as she fumbled the windscreen wand up a gear, a large bird hit the windscreen.
Hard.
Dazed, and possibly dead, the entire wingspan of the impressive bird covered the windscreen at full stretch. In that moment, one could admire the beast up close, not least, the threaded white feathers like cottoned milk stretched elegantly across the screen; dappled spots of brown like a pale leopard print creeping down the neck; the fine dark tips as deathly ends to their winged fingertips; even the fracture lines of the windscreen in silhouette around the bird gave pause to thought. But that thought was “shit, is this windscreen about to break?”.
The plastic wipers struck the body with their trademark motorised groan, bending flimsily at the first sign of bird before scarpering back to their usual resting place, regrouping to try again undeterred by their failure to dislodge what would be their Everest of raindrops: a dead seagull. The pathetic breeze fluttered the downy barbs of the corpse at rest.
1 minute passed since the seagull hit them, though it felt far closer to 12. They were still half-parked on an empty road, an indicator flashing incessantly. Combined, they had spoken maybe 40 words between them, between relaxed and panicked, all in the vein of “bloody hell what was that”, “what’s going on?”, “is that a bird”, “yes it’s a seagull”, “what do I do?”, “shit, is it dead?”, “have I killed something”, “don’t worry just stay calm, I’ll have to think”, “are you okay?”, “I’m worried about this glass, I thought windscreens weren’t supposed to smash like this any more”. Those sorts of things. But the main thought for the “Jesus Christ, what the hell was that seagull doing?”
Cooler heads prevailed. He got out to survey the damage and wave a few cars on past the scene. Despite the chaotic chaos only one thought stayed in his mind, and they all related to his father and just how right he was. Not least as by now the scene was attracting significant attention, but he shooed them away as best as he could.
As the day faded away, the car was left overnight at a garage and the instructor walked home in the light of a blue evening. He took out his phone to text his charge: “don’t worry about today, you didn’t do anything wrong”. He watched as her three dots on screen started to dance in thought.
“but what if a bird hits my car on my test??”
“you’ll smash it”.
I don’t think he knew.
He laughed at himself.
Oh, maybe he did after all.
The next day he woke up with a tapping on the french patio doors - it was a few more splatters of the heavens’ milk, freshly laid. It was getting silly now. The arses of these birds needed to give him a break.
In situations like this, which let’s be honest are very rare, he decided to ring his dad. He knew he wouldn’t pick up. But he wanted to ring anyway, then leave a message. It was a comfort if nothing else. The plastic phone sent a few pips into his ear so he knew something was being connected somewhere, before a few customary rings and then the inevitable answer phone message.
“Hello Dad, I know you won’t get this but I think it’s happening to me too… I know we all called you mad, but -”
“Hello?”
“Dad??” he spluttered half his cup of morning joe onto the lounge rug.
“Who is this?” the voice answered back angrily.
“Er, it’s Mark?”
“Very funny. Seriously, who are you?” said the man who didn’t know he was.
“Oh.” It’s quite a thing to be told by your own dad that he didn’t know who you were, even if he only had your voice to go on. But then again, it was more unusual given his dad was dead that they would be having any conversation at all.
His father’s death wasn’t in question. He knew he was dead because he’d seen him dead. They’d ask him to identify the deceased like a police procedural. It was a bit of a farce given the way he had chosen to dress, but they had to go by the book. But nothing could prepare him for what he saw when they pulled back the sheet from over his head. Upsetting wasn’t the word, it was the embodiment of what he saw.
“Hello?”
The reminiscing, if you could call it that, had lasted a significant amount of time in the world in which our characters exist. Every paragraph laid before you hides the truth. Some may elongate the moment, develop a description that is only fleeting into a flight of fancy. Where other moments pass a lifetime in a single sentence.
He looked down at his novelty slippers. Bird claws from Primark. They were the last gift he had intended for his father; a panicked Christmas gift for a man who was impossible to buy for (and we mean impossible). But even though his dad had never received them, they gave an odd comfort to him now - they were the one object he could associate with him without a macabre edge. They hadn’t been touched by him, merely earmarked to be his. They let him remember, but from a safe distance. He looked over at the still unopened box in his spare room.
“Sod you then”.
The voice hung up on him. Another parcel of bird turd slid down onto his terrace glass almost timed to perfect. The day outside was glum, but his view of it was now shrouded in unpleasantness. He filled his bucket and went to clear the mess, only to narrowly miss a small offering of worms left on his rear doormat. The irony of his slippers wasn’t lost on him.
He tossed the entrails off his balcony in disgust, before quickly bellowing “Sorry!” to the onlookers below who were preparing to give him a mouthful.
His next lesson with his charge went by with less drama. Though the events of the last week still played on his mind, he had chosen to throw himself into his work, paying less heed to the ominous increase of bird excrement in his life. This morning, an early one, they rode his specially modified Honda Jazz next to a field brimming with birds tap-tap-tapping on the floor, dutifully looking for worms.
“A roundabout coming up now, lets prepare ourselves for the manoeuvre. What are we looking for?”
Not another soul on the road. One of the more pleasing parts of the job this, driving through empty roads, describing to a fresh mind ideal scenarios and safely nurturing their ability until they can drive solo.
“An empty quadrant”
“That’s right, that’s right. So, slow as we approach”
The car slowed professionally, before jolting ever so slightly to a stop.
“Good. Wait to acknowledge the situation”
She did that without doing anything.
“Check your mirrors. Is it clear to go?”
She sort of flitted her eyes in the general direction of her mirrors, not really looking just looking like she was looking.
“Okay, signal and… NO”
He saw her eyes darting about from mirror to mirror, clearly not taking in the important data they provided to her.
“You’ve got to check your mirrors, you don’t want someone coming in from behind”
She subdued a snigger. Not again, she thought. Nothing was going to disrupt her today.
As it happened, someone had entered her from behind last night. It’s why she had a little grin on her face all morning, and why she had been keen for an early morning lesson, got her out of bed so she didn’t linger and dote. This wasn’t her story you understand, I just wanted you to know that she had an active and healthy sex life. It was important. For one, it fleshed her out a bit I suppose, as otherwise she was an anonymous foil to another male protagonist. But she had a life ahead of her, and most importantly, no interest whatsoever in Mark other than as a colleague. Did she worry about sexual assault being alone with him? No more than usual. She would have been mortified if he leant in for a kiss or something but, she’s experienced worse. But, without getting sidetracked, she was perfectly satisfied with her fledgling but committed relationship while at University studying Psychology. This guy still in her bed wasn’t the one or anything, but he was perfectly pleasant until she could get out of Llandundo. She just needed to graduate and save a bit of money to make it to London where she’d be somebody. Somebody a bit cooler.
“Sorry”
She checked her mirrors properly. Even though it was 6am and there was literally nothing else to be seen for miles.
“Well done. And proceed”
She slid off the roundabout like a fried egg from a saucepan being plated up.
They kept driving in relative silence.
“You know when we had the incident” she searched for small talk.
“Keep your eyes on the road”
“You kept saying something about your dad” she persevered.
“Did I?” he had done. And it was still preying on his mind.
A dropping fell from the sky.
“Was there a reason?” she had her imaginary psychologists degree hat on and was probing for a diagnosis. She had a hunch there was abuse or at least absenteeism, but needed more evidence for her imaginary casebook.
Another plopped onto the side mirror.
“I don’t know really, it was a strange situation”
“But you referenced him specifically… mentioning my dad was the last thing on my mind with a dead bird on my car”
Plop. Plop. Plop.
“Can we keep conversation on the job at hand please, namely getting her from A to B safely and in a timely manner”, calling the car a her.
Turdy Turd Turd. Plop Plop Plop. Bird Shit Bird Shit Bird Shit.
“You should probably put some windscreen wipers on” Mark remarked given the increasing volume of bird excrement covering the car windscreen.
“Should I?” she said, curiously.
She might have been sarcastic there, but it’s possible at this point that he’s imagining things.
There was not a cloud in the sky, and yet the heavens kept dumping treasures.
“yeah if you just…”
Mark leaned over flustered to help her get the wipers on quicker.
“…if you pull this lever… or press the right buttons… she should… should squirt”
Stay focused, she thought.
“Are you flirting with me? Surely that one was intentional?” she was quite miffed actually.
“What do you mean?” Mark replied innocently.
I think the character is a bit of a buffoon really. I think I understand him a bit better now. I don’t think he’s particularly noticed that their genitals might be compatible in that way.
He raised his volume as the intensity of poo was beginning to resemble torrential rain. He could barely hear himself talk over the white noise.
“I don’t think you should be making jokes like that. It’s sexual harassment”
All he heard her say was something about her ass.
“Can we not talk about asses please?” Mark replied affronted.
“Then tell me about your dad” she tried to hammer home the dad thing, partly to detoxify the situation, partly to try out her theory about him.
“What?”
“Your dad, who was your dad?”
It was all getting quite intense. There was a howling in his head, like he himself was being battered from all sides by a furious wind. He heard voices whispering to him about juicy worms. The dripping of droppings washed down the car windscreen in waves, only interrupted occasionally by a reluctant wiping blade.
“God, it’s pissing it down now” she said almost casually.
“That’s not piss” he replied, like the star in an action film looking at a growing tsunami they were driving into the heart of.
“Wait, is this bird poo? Oh my god that is completely disgusting, what the fuck?”
Okay, so it was not a metaphor, it really was raining bird shit, that’s some relief because I didn’t really want this to be about a man having a weird birdshit related breakdown. God, even the word ‘breakdown’ works in the context of car vocab, it’s pretty neat he’s a driving instructor eh?
For some reason, the realisation made her flinch a little more when the windscreen received more unwelcome blessings. Nothing entered the car, but she still wiped an imagined drip from her eyes just in case, and covered them a little to be safe. The rain got louder. And then so did the sound of birds.
“I think we should pull over,” he suggested, “let the flock move past us or something”. The car screeched to a stop.
They sat in the lay-by for a bit.
We skipped a whole chunk of waiting and silence for things to calm down. There’s no longer bird poo falling from the sky. It is clear again. Quiet. But emotionally, Mark is a bit exhausted. It was time for a bit of honesty. Oh, and he had also explained that this wasn’t really an appropriate use of a lay-by, but given how early in the day it was, it would probably be okay. Onto a bit of emotional exposition, I hope.
“My dad was the Seagull King”
He let the words hang in the air. He hadn’t actually said it out loud before. He felt the opposite of a huge sense of relief. Crushing embarrassment, as he’d expected and felt since his dad had himself said those fateful words.
“He claimed he was the Seagull King” he corrected himself.
“the bird dude?”
“YES, that bloody bird man dude. It’s all bollocks obviously. He wasn’t a well man, certainly isn’t now”
His father was dead, but had been dead to him for many moons before any autopsy. You don’t tend to give much credence to a man who makes outrageous claims to the crown, regardless of species.
“I think they still follow me or something. I don’t know. They’ve been getting quite familiar with me of late. I don’t really understand it. They say birds never forget”
“No that’s elephants, surely”
That seemed a little forced. Let’s maybe try that again.
“I think they still follow me or something. I don’t know. They’ve been getting quite familiar with me of late. I don’t really understand it. I’ve had birds knocking at my windows at all hours. Even a few curious beaks peaking in through an open window. I can’t eat my lunch outside without being surrounded. I genuinely think they know who I am, remember who he was. or something”
“Shitting hell”
That’s a little bit more normal sounding. I’ll maybe delete one of them later if I’m feeling that way inclined.
“So you believe him?”
Mark didn’t respond. He hadn’t expected that to be the response. But apparently, given the way he described that he imagined the birds were gravitating towards him meant they had some sort of knowledge of who he was and the relationship his father had to him and them. He’d been caught out a bit there. It wasn’t an easy pill to swallow.
“No, no no…”, his throat a little drier and more vulnerable than he ever thought he’d sound. “I just…” he petered out without really giving an explanation.
“I’m mean, I’m sorry. For your loss and everything. Are you okay?”
He waited to respond. No, he was not okay, he thought, he hadn’t told her about the voices. About the fact he could hear and speak with birds and they all seemed to follow his requests. He didn’t tell her about the fact that every night he dreamed he was a bird, and could fly wherever and whenever he wanted. He didn’t tell her that when he woke up he yearned to eat worm meat. He didn’t tell her that he tapped his feet at awkward moments as if worm charming, and often accidentally feathered the break in his passenger seat controls when doing it absent-mindedly. He also didn’t tell her that when they hit the seagull before, he had been struck by an insurmountable volume of grief the likes of which he had never felt for someone else, completely helpless and responsible.
“Yeah I’m fine” he lied.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how did he die?”
It was too embarrassing to say. The body had been found crushed. The floor had hit him at such a high velocity it was hoped he’d died on impact. It was no accident. The fact that he had attached hundreds if not thousands of hand plucked seagull feathers to his skin via candle wax and had fallen from an open window in the only highrise building in the town, meant that there was more intention to the act than one might usually let on.
“He died doing what he loved”
She knew of course. Everyone knew. It was a small town and even a murmur of gossip finds its way falling into every ear. But when a man pretends he’s a bird and leaps from a building screaming “cacoooooar” - that kind of gossip has legs. Well, wings. She hadn’t known for sure of course, because it sounded so implausible before. And she didn’t know it was his father who had…
“I suppose it’s better to be a king for a day than…”
“…than a what? An irritable driving instructor for a lifetime?”
His home phone rang.
“Hello Mark, it’s me, Mark”
“Who?”
”You rang me the other day. You were trying to ring your dad”. It was a familiar voice, that which wasn’t his dead dad’s.
“Oh, right”
“I’m just returning the call to apologise for being so rude the other day. I’ve been having a lot of prank calls you see, so I don’t take kindly to strangers. But I spoke to my estate agent who filled me in on some of the details. It was quite a mess your dad left here, though I know it wasn’t his fault”
“It wasn’t?”
“Well, you know. Mental health and all that. The mind plays tricks. I’m really sorry for your loss.”
“Oh. Um, thanks”
It didn’t help that he was currently sharing noodles with a seagull he had invited into his house. Nor did it help that he had been perched on the balcony overlooking the pavement below when he had received the call.
“I’m actually an ornithologist as it happens… have been for a number of years… And let me tell you when you get to my age you see some things… it’s more common than you think… birds have a fascinating relationship with man… always watching them… waiting… learning… nothing sinister mind, they just have a fixation on us… on how we live by our feet… they could have been like dogs, you know? I have a friend who is an evolutionary biologist who swears by it… in another life, another roll of the genetic dice, it would be men and birds stood side-by-side, hand to wing… eyes in the air, feet on the ground that sort of things… you sea it sometimes fishing out at sea or with falconry and even pigeon fanciers sending dodgy messages attached to scrawny feet… but it just never clicked for some reason…”
Mark just sat on the phone listening. The seagull was knowingly tapping the remote control for his television but having the worst luck finding something he wanted to watch. Seagulls didn’t really understand the concept of antiques, game shows and selling property.
“Some people just have that affinity for them… others see birds as the ultimate symbol of freedom, where as others just need to see them caged, like their freedom is their crime… but no matter, I’m sure your father…”
He trailed off. He didn’t want Mark to clock that he had been reading that dreadful exposé in The Sun about the “Birdman from Llandudno”, with grainy pictures of a man dressed in feathers standing on the hills and looking out into the sun, surrounded by thousands of birds. They’d captured him looking through bins, perched on street lamps, and squatting in public…
“He had his burdens”
“Anyway… my apologies and condolences and everything else…”
“Thanks”
Another pause in the conversation. Our Mark continued.
“Sorry, I’ve got to go. There’s a seagull knocking on my front door”
The other Mark laughed at the idea.
“Those with faith will soar on wings like eagles… God bless” he added potently.
But Mark didn’t acknowledge this as he had to answer the door to a seagull knocking for his attention. He had a tape measure in his beak.
The bird explained that they had been trying to send him a message. He was to be anointed, with some urgency, as the new Seagull King. It was his rightful role as heir to the throne. The seagulls were fine with that process. They all believed in a strict deity that needed a representative on earth. Mark’s family line had been deigned by said deity, the great Larum, to be pure and His representative on earth, and that Mark would care for his flock as Rex Terrae until the great migration. The great migration was an apocalyptic event not too dissimilar to the second coming christ and the ascension from this earth that many humans believed would take place at the end of the world, only Larum’s was truth. And that end was coming soon. The signs were aligning, they needed to act soon.
“Please, come in” Mark gestured.
The Seagull bowed then waddled in. Mark was still very much in a dressing gown and his now trademark novelty bird claw slippers. For the seagull, the sight was majestic and only slightly jarring.
Mark started to speak with the bird.
“So my father was the Seagull King? He wasn’t mad?”
The seagull reiterated that his father had indeed been a representative of God on earth. He was a direct descendant of Daedalus and thus suited to be king. It was not a role that could be taken lightly or forgotten. Mark’s father had undergone a ceremony to be anointed as the gull’s leader on the land, and was in the process of holding court with many important gulls when he had met his untimely end. He had completed an extensive 13 months living as and studying seagulls, embedded into their lives and rituals in order to transform his soul from an unenlightened citizen of the human social world, into an enlightened birdsman and a refined one at that, given his continual anointment.
Mark was unhappy about the repeated use of the word anointing. He suspected where this was going, and it left him with a sense of dread. Despite this, he was ramming bowl after bowl of donated sunflower seeds his acolyte had provided.
It was confirmed to him that no, not everyone could hear seagulls speak, and that part of the reason it was clear he was suitable for the role was his deep connection with gulls. Few like him were beakfluens, that is someone who could comprehend the words of a beak, and even fewer had a more remarkable talent - the gift of elguano.
Mark instinctively understood what this meant. He looked up at his window.
He read it like tealeaves. Some of it depicted a scene - huge swathes of winged gulls rising beyond the heavens, holding aloft a figure in robes. In another panel, he saw himself with feathers gifted by a thousand seagulls, attaching them delicately one by one to his skin with candle wax. Others more directly spread into words like “soar” and “king”, while elsewhere phrases and motifs emerged like “one by feet, many by wing” and “feast on wholes, not scraps”
He has to die. We’ve gotten this far. We know who he is. We know what will happen. My writing will suffer if we do not make this sacrifice. He isn’t real. He’s dead. Dead. Dead. He won’t survive this story.
The birds had left some expensive looking robes on his bed. Deep red, but very much resembling a dressing gown, were that gown to be gifted to the Dalai Lama or similar. Beside them, a collection of candles. These weren’t pristine candles though, like one would expect to find in a department store, but more akin to a dodgy Etsy store which had remarkable attention to eco credentials. Knobbly, full of impurities, but very high quality wax scavenged across centuries. And beside these, a black bin bag heaving with feathers.
Hunched over his bed, with a shaving mirror for company, he carefully melted droplets of wax suspended in a glass bowl above a small candle. He dipped each quill into the cloudy-red soup, and pushed them through his skin as far as they would go. Each painful attachment drew a short intake of breath from Mark.
“It is easier for a gull to enter the kingdom of heaven because he has wings to get him there” he overheard one of the many birds eating canapés in his kitchen. They’d turned his flat into a bit of a hive of activity, and were hosting a pre-events do before the big reveal.
Mark’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He dismissed the call without a second thought. It was from his charge. He was late for his lesson. It didn’t matter. His career as a driving instructor was behind him. She would be fine with someone else. Happier even.
Another feather pierced his skin. It did look good, he thought. He’d had a bit of help with some eyeliner which brought the whole look together. And it was nice to have purpose again. Feel close to someone you’ve lost in the process.
There were only a few feathers left to attach, and even less spare skin left to attach it to. He tried to stand up, and flex his new addition. The pain was remarkable. But he caught a view of himself in the mirror. He looked very rock and roll. Ready to take on the world.
He marched out of his room full of intention to a wild cacophony one might ascribe to applause, but given that most of the seagulls couldn’t clap and only had terrible beak sounds to add, the sound of celebration was awful. But they were his people, guzzling worms and screaming. Or at least he was their person.
One of the senior gull advisors lead Mark out to the balcony. It was time. He knelt and looked to the sky. With a sudden fury of wind, every seagull in the area took to the skies. The ceremony lasted but a few minutes but by the end he knew he had been chosen.
Mark arose, his chin dripping with bird shit, as the Seagull King. The claws of dozens of birds took his shoulders and he started to soar.
