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Distress Calls
Jul. 31st, 2009 07:08 pmAnd this, my friends, was my day today.
Upon rising to grey twilight, my usual crepuscular ablutions swiftly followed with a simple breakfast and a few minutes' meditations after dressing. I made the Morning Invocation to the Sun - something I posted on this LJ some time ago.
I did some more vedic mathematics calculations, just to keep in practice. And I wrote more notes for my story and for future projects for Traveller, not to mention notes on my ongoing Psion expansion for the game.
At 14:20 or so, I went into town. I wanted to get some cash from the bank. On the way back to the bus station (I bought some food and a calculator, not so I could cheat, but so I could confirm my efforts at vedic maths after I've written them. My honour.) I heard what were unmistakably avian distress calls, coming from a side street. Following the sound, I looked up - and I saw a fledgling seagull, on the roof, attempting to fly.
Damned thing was still grey feathered and speckled, but its wings were intact - and it was stranded on the roof, two storeys over a shop entrance. Each time it tried to flap its wings to take off, it'd only get so far before sliding back down towards the gutter, where it would just half hang there with its tail half hanging over thin air. If there were no gutter there, it'd have been on the floor - and a crowded street level is no place for a fledgling that cannot fly.
For around twenty minutes, I watched it attempt to fly, making its distress calls the while. I dropped into the store beneath it - a boutique - and caught the attention of one dull-witted, blank-eyed slacker of a young man. I drew his attention to the bird, hanging over his dimwitted head, and pointed out what would happen if a bird as yet incapable of flight happened to lose what little footing it had and plummeted two storeys down ont a customer's head - or if it were to defecate onto that customer's head instead.
In the end, I had to go. I had to attend to The Duty elsewhere. But of all the seemingly oblivious drones shopping, or chatting about nothing down below, I felt like the only human being on Earth who at that time was paying attention to something outside of the mindless trivial affairs of his own species.
What could I have done? I could not have helped that fledgling to fly, any more than I could have flapped my arms and taken off myself. All that I could do was to warn people below, just in case it failed.
In all likelihood, they'll have to send up someone tomorrow, to clean that bird's starved corpse off the roof. Or maybe the corpse'll fall off in time anyway, driven to the ground by the wind, the rain and gravity.
Sometimes the only thing one can do is to stand there and watch. It might not seem much, but it's more than just walking past, oblivious and unknowing.
Newcomers, now you know some more about what a warlock does.
I'm off to have some supper.
Eggs, I think.
Upon rising to grey twilight, my usual crepuscular ablutions swiftly followed with a simple breakfast and a few minutes' meditations after dressing. I made the Morning Invocation to the Sun - something I posted on this LJ some time ago.
I did some more vedic mathematics calculations, just to keep in practice. And I wrote more notes for my story and for future projects for Traveller, not to mention notes on my ongoing Psion expansion for the game.
At 14:20 or so, I went into town. I wanted to get some cash from the bank. On the way back to the bus station (I bought some food and a calculator, not so I could cheat, but so I could confirm my efforts at vedic maths after I've written them. My honour.) I heard what were unmistakably avian distress calls, coming from a side street. Following the sound, I looked up - and I saw a fledgling seagull, on the roof, attempting to fly.
Damned thing was still grey feathered and speckled, but its wings were intact - and it was stranded on the roof, two storeys over a shop entrance. Each time it tried to flap its wings to take off, it'd only get so far before sliding back down towards the gutter, where it would just half hang there with its tail half hanging over thin air. If there were no gutter there, it'd have been on the floor - and a crowded street level is no place for a fledgling that cannot fly.
For around twenty minutes, I watched it attempt to fly, making its distress calls the while. I dropped into the store beneath it - a boutique - and caught the attention of one dull-witted, blank-eyed slacker of a young man. I drew his attention to the bird, hanging over his dimwitted head, and pointed out what would happen if a bird as yet incapable of flight happened to lose what little footing it had and plummeted two storeys down ont a customer's head - or if it were to defecate onto that customer's head instead.
In the end, I had to go. I had to attend to The Duty elsewhere. But of all the seemingly oblivious drones shopping, or chatting about nothing down below, I felt like the only human being on Earth who at that time was paying attention to something outside of the mindless trivial affairs of his own species.
What could I have done? I could not have helped that fledgling to fly, any more than I could have flapped my arms and taken off myself. All that I could do was to warn people below, just in case it failed.
In all likelihood, they'll have to send up someone tomorrow, to clean that bird's starved corpse off the roof. Or maybe the corpse'll fall off in time anyway, driven to the ground by the wind, the rain and gravity.
Sometimes the only thing one can do is to stand there and watch. It might not seem much, but it's more than just walking past, oblivious and unknowing.
Newcomers, now you know some more about what a warlock does.
I'm off to have some supper.
Eggs, I think.
