The Bond

By David Barth

This story was written on April 12, 2005. The idea for it came from a coworker's conversation fragment. From those half-dozen words, this story was developed, sort of like "improv night" at a comedy show where you take a few words and develop and expand a story from them. When the coworker, who is the mother of the principal human character in the story, read it, she cried.

Magdalia was a young lady, on a flight with her family to the warm beaches of Mexico. She had been looking forward to the trip. The family went on this excursion every autumn because it was nice to enjoy the warm sun on a southern beach. Magalia enjoyed walking in the warm sun on the sand at the waters edge, with the waves tickling her toes. Although she was young and still with her parents, Magdalia was very intelligent and thoughtful.

As they flew south, storm clouds appeared and the air became bumpy. Magdalia was wondering if they would have to land before they reached their next stop when, suddenly they flew into a cloud. Instantly, Magdalia realized that she was lost. Rain began pelting her little wings and her feathers became wet. She didn't mind wet feathers so much, but flying in rain was a bummer!

She looked around but couldn't see anyone else. Indeed, she was by herself in the cloud. Magdalia decided it was high time to descend and land. She hoped she wouldn't encounter a tree, or worse yet, a building, on the way down. Luckily, she escaped running into anything, and when she saw the ground, she was only about 15 feet above it. She set her wings to land and gently settled to the ground.

While trying to get her bearings and figure out what to do next, she saw a human, a young girl. She suspected that the relative age between hers and the girl's age was about the same. As the girl came nearer to Magdalia, her first instinct was to fly away, but the weather was not good for flying more than a few feet off the ground. Besides, the human girl, whom Magdalia decided to refer to as A. B., didn't seem to be threatening her. Magdalia knew that some humans were mean to animals and tried to kill them, but A. B. seemed different. She seemed to be very kind. So Magdalia decided not to fly away.

Magdalia's mother had begun to teach her the human alphabet, which could come in handy from time to time. The reason that Magdalia had decided to call the girl by the first two letters of the alphabet is because they were the only two letters she had learned. She realized that "A. B." wasn't a particularly good name. It sounded too much like the human word, "baby." But she decided that it would have to do, for now, at least until her mother taught her some more letters in the human alphabet. It was certainly better than her specie's name, "kill deer."

A. B. saw the little bird and guessed that it was a killdeer. She was surprised at the sight of a water bird near her home. It should be pecking at insects along a beach, not here near her home. She wondered why there weren't other Killdeers around. The little bird seemed to be lost, and it appeared to be looking at her, sizing her up. Well, A. B. thought, "That little bird doesn't have to worry about me. I like poor, helpless animals!"

Magdalia knew there were many kinds of animals in the world. Some were nice and some were naughty. In fact, some animals would try to eat her if they could catch her. But Magdalia was a kind animal which is why she hated the name of her species: "kill deer." Some people put the two words together, as in "killdeer," but that didn't improve the connotation of the name.

Magdalia knew that deer were also kind animals, like herself, and she would never dream of killing a deer like the mountain lion did. One time she was flying above the forest when she spotted a terrifying spectacle. A mountain lion was silently creeping up on a poor, defenseless spotted fawn. Magdalia screamed a warning, which sounds like "kill deer," but it was too late. She flew away, saddened, but wiser to the ways of the world. She felt guilty because she had meant for her call to be a warning to the poor, little fawn, but maybe it had actually been a command to the mean, old mountain lion.

Magdalia wanted to peck the individual who had named her species, "kill deer." She wished someone else had heard the species call first, and named them "real dear." That name would have been much more appropriate, Magdalia thought.

While Magdalia had been thinking about names, she hadn't noticed that A. B. had walked to the edge of a pond, bordered by slick moss. This was an old rock quarry that had filled with rain water, had steep sides, and was very deep.

Suddenly, Magdalia heard A. B. scream as A. B.'s Nike tennies slipped on the damp moss, and with a "splash," A. B. fell into the pond. Magdalia could see that A. B. could swim almost as well as she, but the icy water in the pond and A. B.'s clothing and heavy shoes, conspired to pull her under.

Magdalia had already established that A. B. was her friend, and she feared for her. She watched A. B. struggle to the surface of the pond several times to get a breath of air, then slip under each time. A. B.'s attempts to reach the edge of the pond grew weaker. A. B. had the presence of mind to kick off her tennies to reduce their weight on her, but it was too late.

Magdalia's heart sank. She didn't want to witness another death, like that of the death of the poor, cute, helpless fawn, when it died in the teeth of the mountain lion. In a way, Magdalia realized that the pond was like the mean old lion, trying to gobble up her friend, A. B.

Magdalia became frantic, looking around for some way to save A. B. Suddenly, she spotted a long string. If she could only get one end of it to A. B. But if A. B. pulled hard on the string, it would break. Then Magdalia saw that one end of the string was tied to a strong rope. And the other end of the rope was tied to a tree. Magdalia thought of a plan. Maybe she could take the end of the string in her beak and, somehow, give it to A. B. Then A. B. could pull the string, the rope would follow, and she could pull herself to safety.

Magdalia didn't hesitate. She picked up the end of the string in her beak and took off, flying toward A. B. By now, A. B. was almost not able to come to the surface to get air. She was exhausted, and hypothermia was setting in because of the icy, cold water. A. B. knew that when your body temperature drops from its normal temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit down into the 80s, you die. Her body temperature was 90 degrees and falling fast. A. B. felt that she could get to the surface only one more time.

She fought her way to the surface to get a breath, and then she heard the fluttering of wings. It was an eerie sound. A. B. thought that instead of seeing a bright light when you die, maybe she was hearing the fluttering of an angel's wings. She fought to keep her face above the water a bit longer to see the angel. Then she saw the killdeer. It looked like the one she had seen earlier, and it appeared to have a string in its bill. As A. B. started her final plunge into the depths, she felt the bird land on her left hand and drop the string between her fingers. She didn't see the killdeer drop the string because her head was already under the water. She knew she was going to drown.

She instinctively pulled the string as she floated downward in the cold water. Suddenly, she felt the rope, and she began wildly pulling on it. It became tight, and she pulled herself to the surface and up onto the edge of the pond. Her extra strength came from the adrenalin rush that shot through her body with the realization that she might be able to save herself and live to see her mother and father again.

A. B.'s mother had become worried when her daughter didn't come home on time. It was getting dark outside, and she decided to go out and call for her. She strolled down the path toward the pond, calling for A. B. As she neared the pond, she thought she saw a bird hovering close to the water with a string in its bill. Then she saw A. B. come to the surface and struggle to pull herself up on the edge, using a rope tied to a tree.

A. B.'s mother screamed and frantically ran to A. B. Her daughter was shivering terribly, unable to speak, and had turned blue. A. B.'s mother picked her up into her arms and ran back to their home. A. B. recovered nicely after a warm bath and some hot, lemon tea, laced with a little honey.

By this time, the weather had cleared enough that Magdalia could continue her flight south where she found her family and enjoyed a warm, peaceful beach for the winter. She was warmed not only by the rays of the sun on her feathers, but also in her heart, by the knowledge that she had prevented the second death that she had been about to witness.

Now, whenever A. B. sees a killdeer or hears its distinctive call, she remembers the little bird that saved her life. In the autumn, A. B. goes outside and searches for the lone killdeer. In some years she recognizes her little friend, and they look at each other approvingly.

Every year, during the migration south, when the flock gets to the area where A. B. lives, Magdalia makes an excuse to her fellow killdeers to leave the flock and flies down to the place that she first saw A. B. In some years she sees A. B. and in some she doesn't. But Magdalia will always remember her human friend.

And A. B.'s mother? She is so glad that A. B. got out of that awful pond. During the few days near the end of each Autumn, when she looks out of the kitchen window and sees her daughter, she thinks, "I wonder what Abbey is looking for out there."