Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
Kall’kiuk crouched despondently on the pebbly beach, and gazed with blurred vision at the turquoise waves that lapped gently at his webbed, orange toes. No sign of anything on the horizon. His beak dipped to rest on his fluffy white chest, and he waggled his flippers in despair. The cold wind, straight from the south pole, tousled his green feathery crest and moaned as it left him behind, winging out over the languid sea, tossing the icy misty about in swirls of white hopelessness that mocked him and his aspirations.
Because Kall’kiuk had dreams. Not for him the humdrum daily activities of the colony. He could no longer bear the thought of another day of preening, of squabbling over nest-building, of fighting over pilchards. Even the terror of the predatory skuas had become just another unpleasant event in the endless antipodean day, intolerable in its mindless and unchanging tyranny.
His feet were beginning to get sore, standing on the sea-washed pebbles that grated and rattled with each tedious wave. He shuddered with dismay, and turned to waddle back to the colony, bur stiffened as he sensed something new , something different from anything that had happened ever before. He raised himself up to his fullest height, and cast his beady black-eyed gaze out toward the swirling mist.
There was a buzzing sound. It was not like the buzzing of the mackerel’s beating tail flukes as it flees a swift hunter’s beak, nor like the buzzing of his mother’s nest talk when he was a chick. It was thinner, but more constant, and it was growing in intensity. Something was coming through the fog. Sore feet forgotten, Kall’kiuk hopped on the treacherous stones to try to see further over the waves, his crest rising to a spiked green horn, announcing his agitation to the world.
A shape emerged from the mist, sweeping across the fluttering swell, grey at first, then resolving into black with a flurry of bright colours on its top, approaching the beach and pushing a wave of white foam before it as though it fought with the water itself. Kall’kiuk ‘s heart swelled. This was something new! It was no orca or leopard seal, indeed it was unlike anything he had seen or heard before! He hopped forward, his toes awash in the foaming edge of the sea, eager to see what this might be.
The thing ran straight at the beach, and ran up on it with a great crunching of gravel. It stopped, half out of the water, and the buzzing, which had grown to a deafening roar suddenly faltered and ceased. Then Kall’kiuk snapped his beak in consternation as the creature seemed to split into three parts. The main, buzzing part stayed beached, half in and half out of the water, but two other creatures, both tall and agile, leapt up onto the beach from the back of the main part. It was these that Kall’kiuk realised had been the coloured parts of the thing, for they were adorned in the most glorious shades of yellow and orange, as if it was peak mating season! They walked upright, like penguins, although their flippers and legs were the wrong shape, and now that the herculean buzzing had stopped, Kall’kiuk could hear them calling in low hooting sounds, which reminded Kall’kiuk of seals or walrus.
That thought gave him pause to think, and he hopped from one foot to another, uncertain whether to flee, but it was too late. With three swift strides of its long legs, one of the giants was upon him, and he was being held firmly in the grasp of its flippers.
What followed was disorienting, and bizarre to Kall’kiuk, but not painful. There was a great deal of poking and prodding, with the creatures all the time making quiet hooting sounds, and Kall’kiuk began to wonder if they were trying to give him a message of some sort. He signalled to them every way he knew how, but it seemed to make no difference to them, and he did not think they could understand him any better than he could them.
After some time, he found himself being stood gently on his own feet, and the creatures retreated to the thing awash on the shore. Shortly, the buzzing began again, and with a crescendo of angry vibrations, the thing hauled itself back into the sea, and spinning around retreated across the aqua blanket of the waves back into the mist. As the sound faded, Kall’kiuk ‘s heart plummeted. Had he failed some test? Was there to be no great revelation or adventure to come from this beyond a slightly undignified ruffling of his feathers? As the last view of the shadowy shape was swallowed by the sea smoke, his beak dropped to his chest in resignation and defeat. There would be no salvation. There would be no escape from the monotony of the colony. He felt a terrible lethargy rising from the stones under his cold toes.
But wait. He caught a glimpse of something shiny out of the corner of his eye. Craning his short neck, he could see something glittering near the top of his flipper. It looked for all the world like a funny shaped sardine, but when he snapped at it with his beak, he found it as hard as stone, and he could make out strange markings on it, nothing like fish scales should look. How had that gotten there, he wondered? And then, with a shattering realisation, he knew! He had not failed the test after all! The creatures had chosen him! They had put their mark on him. He hopped from one foot to the other in a paroxysm of delight. His adventure was not over at all! It was only beginning. Surely the creatures’ mark was a sign of some kind – of great things to come. And he had been chosen to bear the sign! Kall’kiuk stretched himself as high as he could and crooned with pride at the departed buzzing thing. Surely it would be back. Surely it would bring…well, Kall’kiuk couldn’t imagine what it might bring next time, but he was sure it would be wonderful!
Kall’kiuk spun around and raced up the beach. He had to tell the others. He had to make them understand. He would bring the sign to the colony. His life was forever changed. Nothing would be the same again. He was special. He had been chosen.