The Albatross

                                                            The Albatross                                                                                                                                                                                              
One spring day a redheaded, freckle faced farmer’s son was walking on the seashore. He had been walking up and
down the beach looking for perfect shells all day, and now his little boy legs were tired. He collapsed near a pile of grassy stones to examine his treasures. As he was setting his dirty, white bag down on one of the rocks when a flash of brown speckle caught his eye. In the center of the rock pile amidst a nest of grass and pebbles, there was an egg. It was a huge egg, much bigger than the ones that the chickens at the farm layed. The boy picked it up and smiled. This was more perfect then his sea shells. He carefully wrapped it in the red bandanna he always carried in his pocket and set it in his basket. A woman’s voice pierced the quietness of the deserted seashore.                                                                                                    
“Jimmy, Jimmy…it’s time to go.” Jimmy looked down at his prize.                              

“Don’t worry egg. I’ll put you under Matilda, and you’ll be nice and warm.” Jimmy patted the egg and ran down the beach to meet his parents.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                * * *                                                                      
That spring when the all the chickens eggs hatched, the proud new mothers gathered in the barnyard to show off their new broods.

“My little Daniel is already scratching for feed, one said.”

“Well, my Nathanial can already find his way around the barn,” said another.

"My Phoebe is already clucking,” said another hen proudly, and all the another hens turned to her in awe.                                                                                          
Just then, Matilda hen, who was the most respected chick mother in the barn, walked in with her new chicks. Five little yellow bodies followed her in perfect beat.                    

“One foot in front of the other, beaks held high now,” she chided them, and all the other hens sighed enviously.

Then they heard an awful noise. They looked around until one hen spotted the source of it. One of the chicks, if it could be called a chick, was running to catch up with Matilda hen. Instead of golden yellow, he was a strange looking brown speckled color.                                                                      

“Where have you been Anthony?” demanded Matilda hen in a mortified voice.                    
 
“I---I got lost.” Matilda hen sighed.                                                                                
“Get in line behind your brother.”

Anthony got in line but he wasn’t very good at walking in time. When it was lunchtime for her chicks, Matilda hen left the barnyard to feed them. As soon as she was gone the other hens looked at each other incredulously.                    
“Can you believe that…that…creature, is Matilda’s chick? The hens shook their heads at each other.                                                                                                              
“Such an ungraceful chick,” said one. “Poor Matilda, imagine having a chick that waddles like a common duck.”                                                                                
“And his feathers,” said another, “that awful speckled color.”                                        

“And did you see his wings?” another said. “They were positively indecent; why, they were dragging the ground I tell you.”
The hens all looked after Matilda hen.                              

“Poor Matilda,” one said.                                                                                          
“Yes, poor Matilda,” the others clucked.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            * * *                                                     
A few weeks after the chicks hatched they were all enrolled in Professor Rooster’s School for Young Chicks.  They were given classes in scratching for food, and classes in how to stay away from foxes, and classes in how to find your way around the barnyard.                                                                                                              
Anthony was bored. He didn’t care about scratching for food, he didn't care about foxes, and he didn’t care if he got lost in the barnyard. During classes he looked out the window and thought about the wonderful smell he had smelled that morning. He had been walking in a strait line to breakfast with the other chicks, when a strong wind had blown through the yard, causing all the other chicks to cluck wildly for their mothers. But Anthony hadn’t been afraid. He had smelled salt air in that gust of wind, and something in his body told him to go after it. Matilda hen had found him staring after the wind and scolded him for not running to safety like the other chicks. He had hung his head in shame, but ever since that day, when he went to sleep at night, Anthony had dreamed of that smell. He tried to put it out of his head, after all none of the other chicks ever thought of things like salty smelling wind, but it wouldn’t leave his mind.                                                                                          
“Anthony chick.” A stern voice cut through his reverie. He stood up on his wobbly legs.                                                                                                                        
“Yes, Professor Rooster.”

The professor walked over to Anthony on legs that were not wobbly in the least.                                                                                                    
“You seem to think that the diagonal cross scratch is not worth your concentration, Anthony chick.”                                                                                          
“No sir, Anthony quavered, it’s just…”                                                                      

“Never mind,” said professor Rooster. “You will sit at the front of the room from now on, where there are no windows to distract your flighty mind.”                                                  

“Yes sir,” said Anthony meekly.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            * * *                                         
There was a huge commotion in the barnyard; an even bigger commotion than when Donna duckling had fallen in love with Chet chick, and eloped to the next barnyard with him. Anthony had tried to fly. No chick, in the history of the barnyard, not even the particularly stupid ones, had ever tried to fly.                                                                      
“That Anthony’s destroying our barnyard’s reputation,” said one hen.                              

“And he’s a bad influence on the chicks,” said another.                                                  

“Flying just isn’t what chicks should do; it’s positively disgraceful,” said another.                    

“Positively disgraceful,” echoed the other hens. They went to see Matilda but she was at a counseling session with Dr. Tabby cat. So they all went home and forbade their chicks to play with Anthony.                                                                                          
They hadn’t really needed to do this since none of the chicks played with Anthony anyway, but it made them feel better.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              * * *                                                             
Anthony had learned his lesson. He didn’t try to fly in the barnyard anymore. He would go out in the fields beyond the tiny farm and practice his takeoffs, and landings, and gliding, and swooping, and soon he was a very fine flyer. But around the barnyard he kept his wings tucked to his sides and stuck his beak strait in the air like the rest of the chicks. And every now and again, when he was very high in the sky, he would smell the salty air smell he had smelled the day the wind blown though the barnyard. When he smelled that air he longed to fly in the direction it came from. But he was scared. All sorts of horrible things might happen to him if he left the farm. So he flew down, tucked in his wings, and walked back to the barnyard.                                                                                                                 

                                                                          * * *                                                                      
One night, as Anthony was sleeping in his warm hay nest, he had a dream. He saw water as far out to the horizon as he could see. He saw a stretch of yellow, gleaming sand that held it back. Looking up, he breathed the salty air that he had longed for so often, and saw the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. There were birds; some that looked liked him and some smaller, all flying, swooping and diving as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Anthony felt a wave of relief. So I’m not stupid after all, he thought. He opened his wings, eager to join the others, but just as his feet left the ground he awoke. He looked around at the other sleeping chicks. They would never dream such a dream, thought Anthony. He sighed and crept out of the barn and into the moonlit fields. He flew the rest of the night.                                                                                                                                                      * * *                                                                      
The next morning in school, Professor Rooster caught Anthony daydreaming again.                                                                                                                        
“Tell me what you are thinking about, Anthony,” he demanded in his most steely voice.          

Anthony looked up blankly. Before he realized what he was doing he told the professor about the water and the sand and the flying birds he had dreamed about. Professor Rooster's beak turned deathy white. He dismissed school and took Anthony with him to talk to Matilda hen.                                                                                          
“This is a most serious case of delusional thinking,” he told her grimly. “Even I can’t figure out what to do. We must take him to see Dr. Owl. If anyone can think of what to do with Anthony, Dr. Owl can.”                                                                                
Dr. Owl was revered throughout the entire farmyard for his wisdom. He had received several Ph.D’s in philosophy from the College for Wise Owls. Whatever he said, all the other animals agreed with him. After all, he had several PhD’s in philosophy, so he must be wise, they thought.                                                                                          
When Professor Rooster and Matilda hen brought Anthony to Dr. Owl, he looked at them over the rims of his spectacles.                                                                      
“Leave the young chick with me and I will talk to him,” Dr. Owl said in his dry, flat voice. Professor Rooster and Matilda hen hurried out of the room leaving Anthony looking up at Dr. Owl. Dr. Owl pulled off his spectacles and rubbed them on his feathers.                    

“Now, young chick, what lies have you been telling to the professor?” Anthony looked down at his ungainly webbed feet.                                                                                
“No lies, sir.”                                                                                                    
Dr. Owl stood up.                                                                                                    
“What did you tell them then?”

Anthony told Dr. Owl about the salty air he had smelled and the dream he had had.”                                                                                          
Dr. Owl shook his head gravley.                                                                      

“And you believe this place… this water, exists?” he asked slowly.”                              

Anthony looked at him sqarely.                                                            

“Yes.”                                                                                                                               

A hint of a smile crept around the corners of Dr. Owl's beak.

“How do you know it exists?”                                                                                

“I just know, I felt it when I smelled---”                                                            

Dr. Owl interrupted him smoothly.                                                                                
“But you have never seen it?”                                                                                          
“No.”                                                                                                    

“Dr. Owl paced the length of his dark room. Then he laughed. A cackling, mirthless, laugh.                                                                                                              
“Don’t you know anything Anthony? Unless you can see something with your own eyes, it is not real.”                                                                                                    
“But I know---” Anthony began.                                                                                                    
“You were imagining things,” said Dr. Owl shortly.                                                            

Anthony’s wings sagged and Dr. Owl walked over and touched his shoulder.                    

“It’s alright Anthony; everyone goes through stages of idealism. You will get over this…this…water delusion, and you will live a happy, productive life right here in the barnyard."

Anthony stiffened. Something inside him flared up, but all he said was,                              

“I know I’m not imagining things.”

Dr. Owl laughed his dead laugh.                              

“You’re must be even stupider than they say you are." He laughed harder. “Water stretching to the horizon… salty air...it's really almost amusing..."

Tears welled up in Anthony’s eyes and he turned around and ran down the steps of Dr. Owl’s tree house as fast as his webbed feet would let him.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      * * *                                                                                
Somthing been severed inside Anthony when Dr. Owl laughed at him,  and after that day Anthony stopped talking about his dreams. He didn’t tell anyone else about the wonderful wind he had smelled. He tried to not even think about it.

The hens nodded approvingly.                              

“Finally,” they all said, “that strange Anthony has begun to act like a normal chicken.”

They were right too. As Anthony stopped talking about the water and the salty air, he stopped thinking about them too. He got up in the morning and ate his feed, and walked in perfect beat to school, where he was now the first one to raise his wing and answer Professor Rooster’s questions. All the animals in the barnyard watched Anthony’s transformation.                                                                                                    
“Dr. Owl really is the wisest creature in the barnyard,” they said.                              

At first Anthony was miserable. But after a while he fell into a pattern of going through his day without feeling much at all. He never felt the ecstasy he had felt when flying and smelling the salty wind…but he never felt the pain of the ridicule of the other barnyard animals, either. In fact, Dr. Owl took Anthony under his wing, and said he would try to help him get into the College for Wise Owls if he kept his grades up. Under the tutelage of Dr. Owl, Anthony started becoming very detached, very proud, and very cynical. His laugh was no longer full of life and hope; it was starting to sound more like Dr. Owl’s cackle.                                                                                                              
When the chickens heard that Anthony would most likely be attending the College for Wise Owls, Anthony suddenly found himself surrounded by friends. He was invited to all the parties and get togethers he had previously been excluded from, and found himself one of the most popular chickens in the barnyard. Somewhere deep inside himself Anthony dreaded these parties. Somewhere inside himself, he dreaded the meaningless chatter, and the discussions of the different ways to polish ones beak to make it shiny. But the other part of him was glad to finally be liked. And it became easier and easier for him to squash the first part of himself. He almost never felt the pangs of longing he had felt when he had smelled the salty air when he was an awkward chick. Those times only came every now and then, and mostly when he was alone. So he made sure that he had a party to go to every night of the week. He wanted to avoid the longing that knifed through him when he was alone outside at night; and he smelled a gust of salty air.                                                                                                                                                                          * * *                                                                                
One day, about a year later, there was a terrible storm. Some of the trees fell down and a couple of the barn windows shattered. When it was over, the chickens crept out of the barn and looked around. Anthony walked down to the pond where a tree had fallen, to inspect the damage. He heard a faint voice,                                                                                
“You there, help me would you?”
Anthony turned around to see a strange looking little bird lying on the ground. The bird seemed strangely familiar to Anthony, but he couldn’t remember why.                                                                                                    
“Who are you? he asked. The strange little bird raised itself up on one wing.                    

“I’m Stanly seagull,” he replied.

Anthony was puzzled. Dr. Owl had never told him about a creature called, “seagull.”                                                                                                    
“Well, what are you doing here? 

Stanly seagull struggled to sit up.                                                  

“I was on my way to the sea when the storm came in. It was too strong and it blew me out here. Now would you please help me up?”

Anthony looked at him with a blank stare.                                                            

“What’s the sea? he asked”

The seagull winced as he sat upright.                                                  

“You know, sunshine, sand, blue water to the end of the horizon...

The seagulls voice seemed to fade as those words echoed in Anthony's mind.

To the end of the horizon... My old dream, he thought. That’s why he seemed so familiar. He’s just like the birds that flew around the water in my dream. A secret spring of hope bubbled up deep within him. Then he saw the wizened form of Dr. Owl in his mind’s eye. He heard the cackling voice.

"If you can’t see it with your eyes… "

Anthony looked down at the seagull and laughed scornfully.                                                            
“You expect me to believe a story like that when I’ve never seen such a place with my own eyes?” he said.

Stanly Seagull looked at him strangely.                                                  

“I’m afraid it’s true whether you believe in it or not. Now for the oceans sake help me up?”

Anthony helped him up to his feet.                                                  

“Thanks." Stanly said. He stretched his wings gingerly. "I seem to be okay, so I’ll continue on my way.”          

Anthony felt his heart hammering against his chest like it wanted to get out.                    

“You’re really going to the sea?" he asked with a tremor in his voice.                                                                                
“Yep.” Stanly seagull looked Anthony up and down. “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s an Albatross doing on a farm?”

Anthony stiffened.                                                  

“I’m a chicken.”

The seagull doubled over laughing.                                                  

“You? A chicken?”                                                                                                     
“Yes.”                                                                                                    

“Since when did a chicken have webbed feet?” the seagull asked.                                        

Anthony looked down at his feet and didn’t answer.                                                  

“And since when did chickens have wings like yours?” The seagull continued. Anthony didn’t say anything; he just stared at the seagull.                                                            

“Well, the seagull said. You wanna come with me?”

Anthony tore his gaze away from Stanly and looked back at the little red barn.                                                                                                                        
“I…can’t.”                                                                                                              
Stanly rolled his eyes.

“Of course you can. Now come on.”

Anthony felt a wild impulse rising in him. Suddenly he realized one thing. He could choose not to go with the seagull, but he would die if he spent one more day on the farm. He looked at Stanly in a daze, a longing taking over him so strongly it scared him; he knew what he had to do.                                                  

“I’ll go,” he said.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            * * *                                                                      
They arrived at the sea a week later. Stanly seagull waved and flew away, leaving Anthony staring at the waves in wonder. He breathed deeply. The wonderful smell…the smell that had almost driven him crazy with longing…it was here…he was drowning in it. He closed his eyes savoring the caress of the sun.

For a moment he just stood there, and all the memories of the barnyard, of being an outcast, of Dr. Owl and his cynical philosophy faded from his mind, fell from him like a heavy burden. He ran across the beach flapping his wings as he took off; and suddenly, he was soaring in the air. He dipped and glided and swooped. Not like a chicken. Like an albatross…and for the first time in his life, the longing that he had felt would burn a hole in his chest was gone; this was where he belonged.                                                                                          

He was free.