The Dragonfly and the parrot.
Hi. I'm On Toh Kae. Some of you will think it's a funny name, but it isn't. Actually it's quite common among us, parrots. Yes I'm a parrot, a male parrot (Kae is a man's name). I'm youngish for my species (I'm only 42) if you consider that some of us can live up to 97 years and more. And time (years, seconds, moments) took on a different hue of grey (and gold!) for me since the event I will soon be referring to took place.
I live in a rather hectic jungle. Jungles are thought to be nice, peaceful places full of vegetation, animal life and rivers. That image is mostly true, but incomplete. There's the struggle for life, there's death, anonymous death, there's good days, bad days, lousy days. There's also Love. Funnily, there's no hate. Some fear, maybe; but no hate, which seems to be an element in human 'jungles'.
My jungle, however, changed before my very eyes one fine morning of October. October in my jungle (I don’t like saying this, because I don’t own this jungle, I simply dwell in it; ownership is a human trait I’d rather not share) is a placid month: the change from rainy, cool September to warm, moist November. Life was at rest, or expectant, you choose.
My flock is huge! Boy!, the sky goes dark at noon when we all go to drink at the Lark’s Nest, the place where the river kisses the rocks on the side of the mountain and creates a permanent sheet of clouds that gives you the impression of being up high, whereas in fact you’re only a couple of wingflips above the ground (50 feet in human units). It’s a magical place. Yes, we’re many, but we’re all different, too. At least I now feel different, and also I must look so too, for my flight mates eye me with a little suspicion these days. Can’t blame them.
We’re blue front parrots. We’re playful, jolly folks, whose sole purpose in life seems to be eating, loving, rearing and having fun. Of course, there’s more to it. Sometimes, there’s even more than that. For me there is now.
My kind is noted for its mating habits. Not that, you perverts! No! We, like geese, choose only one partner for life. It’s quite easy, really, if you are a blue front parrot.
In our world (our tiny side of the universe), Love is a matter of life and death: your blood line will be lost forever if your choice is wrong; and you don’t want to always be just another feather in that huge, dark flying spot overhead, you want to be special and unique for one, at least one other parrot. And I am a blue front parrot. But now not only a blue front parrot.
That fine morning of October (fine it was, oh, yes!), I was dozing, as usual, before the drink flight (one of our 3 major daily events, the other two being gathering fruit and fighting our neighbours). I was on the branch of a catalpa longissima, a beautiful tree. At one point I opened one eye and looked down at the creek down below. Often it was fun to watch the sloths, howler monkeys and other tree dwellers come down and drink when they couldn’t find any wet leaves.
That day, however, there was no one there. Well, that’s not entirely true.
Our eyes can see things other eyes can’t. We can spot ripe fruit, good to eat, from a long distance. Sunlight at dawn has colours I cannot verbalise: dual hues of orange along with yellow; and blue with a dash of pearl. Amazing? That silly word!
My one open eye saw this subtle, brief reflection, right above the water. The creek is shallow, so apart form the usual sparkles ... but this was different. It took another split second to realise it was a wing. An insect’s. The way in which it moved among the dense vegetation, not touching one leaf, stem; not getting entangled in cobwebs, and hunting at that!! I was fully awake now. Both eyes open.
We’re not great fliers but definitely better than sparrows and them noisy guacamayos! But this technique, Gosh!, was like nothing I’d ever even dreamed of!!! I was hypnotised.
I flew a little closer, barely making noise lest it would startle this supernatural apparition.
The creature’s body was long, slender, with incredible hues of blue and purple. But although the wings had first caught my eye, and the body was so awesome, the eyes....
Those eyes seemed to contain everything about them, each and every item of existence there was. No colour; rather, all colours. I stood there, still, agape, deeply embedded in the contemplation of this dance of colour, grace and frailty. Don’t ask me why, but perhaps I’d never paid attention to these other (read ‘lesser’) creatures of the forest, I had been blind. Like most of us, right? It takes half a second with wonder to shake us awake from the drowsiness of normal existence. From existence into life.
And so it was... a miracle, quiet, inconspicuous, almost invisible, the way true miracles are.
Suddenly, and as silently as it had appeared, the creature vanished. Honestly, I don't know why (can't recall), but I was sad and pensive for the rest of that day.
I didn't get to see that little piece of awe for the next two days. But my mockery, the fun I used to make of sloths drinking water at ground level (have you ever seen one of them funny-looking hairy carpets!?) would teach me a lesson or two.
I'd decided to fly down and land next to the creek. Our laughter is so loud, it sometimes blurs our own thoughts, and I'd been a little down since my encounter with the strange flying stick (an unkind name I'd chosen for it; one usually resorts to making fun of those wonderful, mysterious things one can't have, as if having them -owning them- would make them ...what, yours? hahahah! What a daft prick I was then!!!), I wanted thirsty sloths to chase the blues away.
There I was, short of breath from laughing, tears in my eyes, when a little but potent voice (potent, not loud but…) addressed me saying: "Hasn't any of you, noisy feathers, ever dislodged their jaws by laughing like that?!"
I looked around, both surprised and upset; who would dare interrupt my therapy?! But there was nothing. I mean... lesson 1: what the eyes cannot see is oftentimes more real than what is seen... distrust the obvious; rely only on the evident. But evidence is so elusive...But I'm digressing...
After a few awkward seconds I asked: "Who's there? Why don't you show yourself, you cowardly little crawly!!"
"Right here, I am, you filthy dirtbag! Who's hiding, you blind, dumb log!!?"
Hahahahaha. Oh, boy! And actually, there she was, less than half a wingflip away. On a white lily by the stream. Under my very nose!
Yes, ... she was. It was a lady. A dragonfly. My beautiful dragonfly princess... the miracle had started.
Our rather brisk first encounter slowly derived into unexpected areas of common interest: the rain (too much or too little); food (she's a hunter, hehehe!). The first surprise was that we could actually communicate. I mean, I can't talk to a cockatoo, for example, despite being members of the same species (reportedly!). A dragonfly, however extraordinary, beautiful and captivating, was not a likely candidate for a parrot to strike up conversation with, to say the least!!
But there I was. There we were. You know, the blindness I was referring to goes beyond images. I was there, listening to this creature impossible, charmed like never before. For instance, she told me that the best thing that could happen to her was to wake up one fine 'overcast' morning.
-What?! But ... you're a hunter. You spot and eat insects, right? And you like clouds in the sky?
-Sure. Bugs are dumb (she couldn't possibly think of herself as a bug) and we have these eyes that can see not only farther but also deeper. Sunlight on a cloudy day gives us an additional weapon. Bugs go blind.
- Our eyes are also like that, but we don't hunt. We collect, we gather.
-Ain't that boring? I mean, you just fly about looking for food and then find it and it won't run away from you?
- Yes. And it's not boring at all. We do it together.
-Together? How's that?
- We fly together. We're a flock. The Morning Dew flock, we are.
- What's a flock?
- It's a big bunch of parrots, flying together. We eat and chat and quarrel. It's so much fun!
For a second she fell silent. I thought she hadn't understood a word I'd said and opened my mouth for the second explanatory round when she said:
- Together?! Always?!!
- Yes. But why do you ask?
- It's unthinkable for dragonflies to want to do that. You see, we hafta hunt alone, fly alone, eat alone! Another dragonfly is not only a nuisance, but a danger. We...we do it all alone.
Her hesitation sounded like she was still trying to imagine what it's like to always live in a group. She couldn't. It even seemed to horrify her (her voice got this buzzy quality).
It must have taken us two days to come to terms with our respective views on life, language and symbols (for me a ripe fruit meant something completely different than it did to her). At first I cherished her company because of its uniqueness. Meeting one another had been so unexpected, so amusing and fun.
By the fourth day we had set a place and a time.
"What is it that parrots do when they're not eating", she asked toyingly.
"Well. We do lots. We chat; we do our feathers; we sing (some say we holler)". I replied, sure of the sound of importance of both my voice and the contents of what I was saying. I must have made an impression on her, I told myself.
"Is that what you call lots?! My wings! I fly and hunt most of the day. When I'm not feeding I rest, but I must find a safe place to do so. There's danger everywhere: spiders, ants (them tiny bastards!), sticky plants. Leaves shaken by the wind can also pose a threat. While I rest I imagine".
"You imagine", I asked, not understanding. "Why, that's amazing!" That last remark, as innocent as it appeared, was the cause of it all, as you'll see.
"Amazing?! Why? Because I'm an insect and you're a bird and they don't mingle? Or is it that insects can't imagine because they have no minds? Ah! I know it: could other birds' food do something as elaborate as imagine, or think or feel. Right?! Is that it!!?"
Her voice was harsh, even brutal. Her tone, however, hid something that at first escaped my attention: pain.
"No, no!", I babbled, taken aback by this sudden fit of anger. "I didn't mean to say that, at all"
"Then what -by the Good Rain- did you mean? And let it sound convincing because I'm about to start to think that I've been wasting my good time here."
"My goodness! How... how could you...?" I could not finish the sentence. In a split second she'd gone away.
We didn't see each other for two days.
I thought of her words. Of her. Then... I began to actually miss her. I missed a dragonfly. No, I missed her, that dragonfly. Even more despairing: I could tell her from the many other dragonflies. That startled me: when did that happen? Why didn't I know? Why?
On the third day of her absence, by the Lark's Nest, I was having a bath (warm day it was) when my thoughts were interrupted.
"Why did you say that? It was not necessary. You could have very well said that you were bored and tired and..."
"Why did I say what?", I asked. "I don't know what you're talking about".
"You implied I was not able to, or entitled, imagine." She said. Her voice conveyed tired sadness. "And I do. I have often wondered why I do. It's been like a curse, you know: I don't know of any other dragonfly that publicly states that they can imagine things. As a species, we're noted for our memory, flight and eyesight. But imagination?!... My fellows have always eyed me with suspicion. But I like it. I think it somehow saves me from an otherwise dull existence, you see. I sometimes daydream, too. I believe that is another kind of imagination..."
“I.... I’ve just realised I don’t know your name. I need to know your name.”
“Need?” Surprise had replaced sadness.
“Yes. I need to know your name. I must see you, everyday, from now on. I don’t want to be without you when I wake up, when I feed, or have a bath, or... What is this? It...feels so strange”.
“What is what?” She asked, as if this ‘topic’ had been the all we’d been talking about since we’d first met.
“I don’t know what to call it. It’s something like how you feel after the first rainy day at the end of the warm, dry season. Yes, quite like that”. I could not stop talking. It was odd, but it didn’t feel odd, it felt refreshing.
Suddenly, almost rudely, I said: “Of course that’s amazing! Precisely. Can’t you see? You actually imagine things. And so do I. And you were telling me about that”.
"So, you never thought I was ... dull?”, a shy question.
"Please, your name”. The words just left my mouth.
"德嫲, my name is 德嫲. It means ‘noble grandmother’.
"Noble grandmother" it was. After that we met everyday, and talked. I had never seen the world in such a tiny, predatory way. The lower levels of the jungle -to which I flew only to get water and that not very often- became the source of fascinating stories: darkness, stalking, pouncing, waiting, struggling. My eyes reacted to light reflected on dew drops on leaves, roots, logs. The rainbow threw its colours down there so mysteriously: hues of green (emerald?), grey (pearl?). Also the sounds!! The murmur of the running stream, the warm breeze singing through the jungle at dusk and dawn (she had these odd hours for hunting); the rustle of the scales of a serpent against the hard bark of trees, it all seemed magnified there.
I must admit she dazzled me. Every word she uttered acquired a meaning unknown to me; new concepts appeared in my vocabulary (I never had a word for those full square turns she made while flying, those that caught me aback and lost me so easily; she called them crots). She taught me her technique for still flight (very tiring, but I'm sure none of my fellow parrots has ever seen the blooming of a wishflower at dawn. It's a flower that blooms and opens its beautiful colours only for a few seconds before dying and, so they say, reappearing somewhere else on the jungle ground).
