First Cycle - Spring

by Sarah Kassem

  “You’re my best friend,” Cristobal said. “I’ve been trained since birth to take care of you. I’ll be a good friend, a best friend. I’ll do anything for you and I’d die for you. Die!”

  Viktor looked helplessly at Cristobal and said, “Thank you.”

  “You don’t need to thank me, Viktor. We are best friends and best friends are there for each other” the little bird said before adding, “do you have anything to eat?”

  Viktor gave him a chocolate bar left over from his school lunch. Cristobal looked at it with a mixture of reluctance and disgust before he asked what it was. Viktor told him that it contains cookies, caramel and chocolate.

  When the little bird had finished the caramel and the chocolate and left the biscuit part, he sat down on the bed.

  “How are you?” He asked.

  “Good,” Viktor replied.

  “Do you need anything?” Asked Cristobal.

  “Like what?”

  “No idea. Just that if you did need anything, then you should let us know. We can get you anything you want. Anything. No matter what.”

  Viktor nodded.

  “Let me know if you think of anything. Don’t forget that we are here to fulfill your wishes, to make you happy.”

  “Ok,” Viktor said.

  “The League had a conference.” Cristobal said, his tone changing. “The Reptiles Association has declared war on us.”

  Viktor didn’t really understand what this meant and so he asked, “Why?”

  Cristobal fluttered his wings furiously and flew a few frantic laps around the room, screaming, “Why? You ask me why?”

  Viktor was scared and kept silent.

  “They insulted us! Didn’t you see it for yourself? They insulted James, a king! And then they insulted us even more and now all the birds are offended and angry. They said that we have the same ancestors. Did you hear that? “

  Viktor nodded.

  “They said that we are descended from reptiles. This is so terrible, soooo terrible!” Cristobal flew so many agitated circles around the room that it made Viktor dizzy.

  “They said that we are descended from the same ancestors. This is the worst insult that there is! We are not reptiles! How can they say that? We are birds! We are descended from Phoenix. We have never had dandruff and crawled on the ground nor have we ever looked as disgusting as them! Phoenix made us, each of us individually. He created us in his image and gave us our colorful feathers and made us the masters of the skies. We are beautiful and we fly! And they are ugly creeping things and are disgusting! Disgusting!”

  Viktor nodded.

  Cristobal sat down again, quite out of breath and panting. He asked: “How would you feel if someone told you that you’re garbage, and that your whole family is trash, and that your ancestors were garbage?”

  Viktor thought about it and imagined himself standing in front of a garbage can that was in fact his Grandpa Gideon.

  “It’s an insult!” Cristobal called out again. “Disgusting!”

  Viktor nodded.

  “I’m your best friend, right?” asked Cristobal.

  “Yes,” replied Viktor.

  “And you’re my best friend, right?”

  Viktor nodded.

  “The League of Birds will always be there for you, always looking out for you and will always do anything for you and will always and anywhere protect you and watch over you. I promise, I swear to Phoenix and on my life!”

  Viktor nodded again.

  “The reptiles are evil in nature. They lie and say nasty things and are evil and sooo bad! They are crocodiles and alligators and pythons and cobras and terrible snakes that are poisonous and swallow everything! Have you ever seen a crocodile?”

  “On television.”

  “Did you see how evil they are? They have huge mouths and big sharp teeth and kill everything! Do you think we look like crocodiles?”

  “No,” Viktor said. He thought of the beautiful James, and of how beautiful Cristobal was. He thought of the large, beautiful, creepy eagles, the budgies and the peacocks which he had seen once at the zoo.

  “No! We do not look like disgusting reptiles! So how can we have the same origin? This is such a terrible insult!”

  Viktor nodded.

  “So the Royal Guard has been thinking and they decided that it amounts to a declaration of war. The Reptiles Association wants war with us and that is why they offended us in such a way.”

  “So what will the birds do now?” Asked Viktor.

  “We are still thinking. In any case, we have proclaimed maximum alert. The Royal Guard is thinking about what we should do next. We have called up all the harpy reservists. They will now be drawn in and wait for instructions.”

  “What are they?”

  “What?”

  “Harpy?”

  “They are big, horrible birds. They are our elite killing commandos. They are used only in an emergency and in war. They’re like eagles and hawks, but much larger and waaaay more powerful! They are so strong that you can’t imagine it. Even we are afraid of them sometimes. I have always been terrified of harpies. At the beginning of the world, Phoenix flew to hell, and he took demons and made harpies from them.”

  Viktor was very creeped out by this.

  “We don’t have many harpies, so we only use them in exceptional situations. And now is such a situation! It was such a horrible, horrible insult!” Cristobal flew up and turned a few laps around the room excitedly while shouting: “Horrible!”

  Viktor made a mental note to look up harpies in his children’s encyclopedia.

  Cristobal sat down again, massaged his temples and thought. “But, I’m here for a different reason, to tell you something else. But… what was it? Oh man, I’ve forgotten!” He thought hard and ran in a circle on the bedspread.

  Viktor tried to control his mind and kneaded his pillow anxiously.

  “Ah,” cried Cristobal after a while. “Cahuc! I have to tell you about Cahuc.” He flew up and turned a few happy loops around the room.

  “What’s that?” Asked Viktor.

  Cristobal sat down and looked in horror at Viktor. “You don’t remember? I told you about it before.”

  Viktor thought hard.

  “Antarctica! I even showed you Abramskaya on the map. Nearby is Cahuc, the safest place in the world. There are no reptiles there because they would die instantly at the South Pole as it’s the coldest place in the world.”

  Viktor remembered and exclaimed, “Yes!”

  “Cahuc is now approved. You have all access rights to it. The League of Birds has vowed to always take care of you and protect you and as such they have opened access to Cahuc for you. You can go there when something bad happens. If you ever have anxiety or are threatened or if something happens to you then you can escape straight to Cahuc where you can hide. No one will be able to find you there and as such you can wait there until it’s all over, until it’s safe again. Then you can come back.”

  “But Antarctica is so far away. How do I get there?”

  “That’s why I’m here today. I was told about the decision yesterday and then trained to show you how to get there. That’s what I’ll show you now.”

  Viktor nodded.

  “There’s a point in your brain which is connected to Cahuc.” Cristobal buzzed around Viktor’s head and pointed to a spot on his skull. “Here.”

  Viktor put his finger on the spot but there was nothing there.

  “We’ll practice. I’ll show you how to do it. You have to concentrate a lot, and if you concentrate hard enough, then you can find the point.”

  Viktor listened to Cristobal’s instructions, focusing on the point as he concentrated. He remembered that a few months ago he’d had a blinding pain on the exact point Cristobal was showing him now. He tried to remember where the pain had been and concentrated even harder.

  “Did you find it?” Asked Cristobal.

  Viktor nodded and closed his eyes.

  He coul
d sense the small, ugly dark spot, the small piece of hardened tissue in his brain.

  He concentrated even harder and then he could see the small, ugly dark spot as well. It was like a small black marble lying in the coils of his brain. A Venus moving in front of the sun.

  Then he was there as well, there with the ugly, dark spot. He felt the point and realised that it was open like a doorway and all he had to do was simply go inside, to pass through it.

  “Do it now,” called Cristobal.

  Something flashed in Viktor’s brain

  When he opened his eyes, he fainted from fright.

  His consciousness returned slowly and as if in a dream and he heard Cristobal’s voice.“Viktor! Viktor, wake up! Viktor,” shouted the bird. The voice pulled him out of the heavy inertia, and he opened his eyes, blinked a few times and thought he was blind.

  Everything in front of his field of vision was white. He blinked a few more times but everything remained white.

  His eyes were watering. He closed them till they stopped burning and then opened them again.

  Something disheveled fluttered in front of his field of vision and he recognized Cristobal, a strong wind hurling the bird back and forth as he tried with all his might to remain still in front of Viktor’s face in the air. His blue and green and pink feathers were such a stark contrast to the white that they hurt his eyes.

  He closed his eyes again because they were watering so much and burning so much that it seemed as if they would melt.

  “Viktor, stand up! Stand up, or you will die! Get up!” he heard Cristobal cry from afar.

  He opened his eyes again and Cristobal was in front of his face, fluttering back and forth. The bird shouted something but this time Viktor did not understand the words as the wind was so strong it seemed to steal and hurl them away.

  “Get up,” he finally understood.

  He rose and tried to get up, but the wind pushed him back down.

  “Viktor, stand up!” Cristobal was now at the side of his head and shouting in his ear. “Please, please, please get up!”

  Viktor tried again, pressing his body against the wind and he managed to sit up. He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his fists. The wind was blowing so much his skin felt as if there were thousands of tiny needles stabbing him all over.

  “Yes, good! Very good! Stand up! Viktor, get up completely. We have to walk!” Cristobal pointed a wing in a certain direction and was blown away. He came back a few seconds later, battling hard against the wind, beating his tiny wings as he cried again, “Get up!” His voice sounded as if it came from miles away. Then it was as if he could only hear a whisper far, far in the distance. Viktor could see that Cristobal was saying something. It was as if the wind were playing ping-pong with the words. Or as if the words were confetti and the wind was swirling them around.

  “Please get up, Viktor! Please, we must get to the cave! Get up and follow me now!”

  Viktor pushed the floor with his hands to raise himself and he noticed how his fingers sank into something soft. When he looked at the ground, he saw it was covered in snow.

  He closed his eyes, waited until the burning subsided, then wiped the tears from his eyes and stood up.

  He took a few steps towards Cristobal, who once more cried something inaudible to him. He then slipped and landed face down in the snow.

  The small needles that still plagued him transformed into huge hammers that pounded him as he lay there.

  He pushed himself up and managed to stand. He heard Cristobal screaming into his ear, “Careful! Go very carefully. It’s slippery. Follow me slowly. Slowly!”

  He made small cautious steps and followed Cristobal. From time to time a powerful gust of wind hit him and swept him away, but the little bird always returned and flapped with all his strength against the wind.

  Viktor put one foot before the other and made sure it was stable on the frozen snow before he lifted his other foot and put it forward.

  He closed his eyes every few seconds and stood, waiting until the burning subsided and he was able to wipe the tears away and continue, following Cristobal.

  It was difficult to breathe. The wind had such an immense strength that it forced its way into his mouth and his nose and made it almost impossible to exhale. It seemed as if his nostrils and his lungs were blocked, clogged up. Viktor thought he would choke and he was dizzy, but he pulled his sweater over his nose and mouth and it was a little easier to breathe.

  He closed his eyes and rubbed his eyelids, then stumbled back and landed hard with his knee on the frozen ground. He writhed and screamed, but the wind took his words, his cries of pain, and threw them away without care.

  Cristobal fluttered next to his ear and shouted something before he too was flung back by the wind and Viktor saw him lying on the ground some distance away. The hummingbird scrambled up again, and flew as ferociously as he could against the wind to once more draw level with Viktor.

  Viktor forced himself up as best he could and crawled on all fours in the direction that Cristobal flew. He saw a small mountain in the distance; or at least he thought it was a mountain. In the midst of the white ground, the white sky and the white air, it was little more than a contour that looked like a large rock.

  He lowered his head, closed his eyes and crawled on. His sweater slid down from his mouth and the wind crashed into him like a stone thrown in his face.

  He writhed and pulled the sweater over his face once more. He breathed and rubbed his eyes before he began to cry.

  He heard Cristobal call something through the wind and he pulled the sweater down from his eyes and looked up, but the wind was so strong he was forced to look down again as his eyes burned.

  When he could finally manage to look up, he saw Cristobal pointing to a small dark hole in the rock. Viktor nodded and crawled on.

  To his left, something else caught his eye and he looked to the side and saw a withered tree, its black speckled white branches like hard bone jutting upward and bent back and forth by the wind.

  “Viktor! Just a little further, we’re almost there,” shouted Cristobal. “Can I go under your sweater? Please?”

  Viktor lifted his sweater and Cristobal flew underneath. Viktor put his head back into the neck and looked at Cristobal clinging to his undershirt beneath the material.

  “Oh Viktor, oh my God, I’m dying,” shouted Cristobal.

  Viktor burst into tears.

  “Viktor! Don’t cry, we’re almost there! You can see the mountain. There’s a cave and we need to get in there!”

  Viktor thought he would collapse but he continued to crawl. Now and then he looked outside to make sure that they were still going in the right direction.

  Soon he felt hard rock under his hands and knees, and he realised that sharp little stones were cutting his hands and piercing through the fabric of his pants.

  He stood up and walked on. The wind was a bit weaker now, reduced in its force by the mountain which stood like a curtain before them. He saw the opening in the rock, recognizing it by its darker color which stood out from the white.

  “Go inside,” Cristobal cried as they reached the cave and he crawled out from under the sweater and flew into the rocks. Viktor followed him inside. The wind was still strong at the cave entrance but as they went deeper inside it weakened, and soon enough it died completely.

  Viktor collapsed on the floor and pressed his fists into eyes. He pulled his knees to his chest and began to sob.

  Cristobal stood on the floor next to Viktor’s head and put his little wings around him.

  “I want to go home!” Viktor sobbed between two burst of tears. “I don’t like it here! I want to go home!”

  Cristobal said nothing and waited until Viktor had calmed down.

  When the crying fit was over, Viktor stayed lying on the floor, staring at the rocky wall and sniffed.

  “Are you alright, Viktor?” Asked Cristobal.

  Viktor sat up, banged his hands on the floor, winced
at the pain and shouted: “No! I want to go home! I hate it here!” He sniffed again and then said quietly: “I don’t like it here. It’s terrible. I’ve never been to such a horrible place. I want to go home.” His voice trailed off and he began to cry again.

  “Viktor! No, don’t say that. Today it’s very windy here but it’s not always like this. It’s just the wind. The wind is always very strong here, but it doesn’t come often. Don’t worry.”

  “I don’t want to be here!” Viktor shouted as he struck the floor again.

  “Viktor! Listen. Cahuc is very important. You have to always remember this place, remember that you can come here when you need to escape. Maybe you’ll never need to come here. That would make me very happy. But just in case something happens and you have to leave, then there’s no safer place for you than here. Nobody will ever find this place. No one! Only we know where it is. Just us and don’t forget that reptiles would never survive here. They can’t stand the cold and would die immediately. Here you are safer than anywhere else in the world. Do you understand me?”

  Viktor wiped his nose on the sleeve of his sweater.

  “Really, Viktor. Believe me. Today it is exceptionally windy. It’s not always so bad. Here, when the sun shines, it’s quite bearable. And if it is windy then you have to come to this cave as fast as possible. This is Hammerfest Four. That’s the name of the mountain.”

  Viktor looked around.

  It was a small cave, so small that the rear wall and the end of the cave could be seen with the naked eye.

  “Why isn’t it cold in here?” Asked Viktor.

  “What do you mean? It’s awfully cold,” Cristobal said.

  “I read in my encyclopedia that Antarctica is the coldest place on the planet.”

  “It is!”

  Viktor looked down at himself. “But all I am wearing is my sweater and I’m not cold. Well, not very cold anyway.”

  Cristobal looked at him and thought.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It doesn’t feel like the coldest place in the world.”

  Cristobal shrugged. “I’m cold. Very cold!”

  “I’m cold as well. But if I go out in winter in Hedera Helix with only this sweater on then I’d be freezing. And Hedera Helix is not in Antarctica.”