Kirsten’s story is a piece that she did as part of her work at a Summer Writer’s Workshop at Sum of Us.
Kirsten had been studying The Moth by American writer Virginia Woolf and used Woolf’s allegory as a model for a story of her own based on the moral Do Unto Others …
During the Workshop Kirsten looked at the way writers use language to have an impact on the reader. She took part in discussion of purpose and audience, the voice of the piece of writing, point of view and the impact of a range of literary devices on the reader. Kirsten saw how different writers use different devices for their own purposes, how Charles Dickens use descriptive devices such as simile, metaphor, analogy and repetition for effect, whereas Ernest Hemingway’s work is devoid of adjectives and adverbs preferring the impact of common nouns to focus on the horrors of war.
Kirsten is entering Year 9 at MLC and has a passion for writing. She likes a range of authors and in recent years has moved through several of the popular Fantasy Fiction writers such as Christopher Paolini, John Flanaghan and Eoin Colfer.
As the Crow Flies, Indeed
By Kirsten Tsan 2014
Crows are generally viewed as a sign of bad luck; they’re associated with witches, sorcery and death, and a flock of crows are not a flock at all, but a murder. Luckily for the crows, they don’t speak human, so it’s not really their problem. And for Aark, son of Carr, it’s a wonderful day to be a crow!
Aark shakes the earth from his beak and moves to a promising patch of dirt, moist and brown. He’s glad that the cold is finally releasing its icy grip on the countryside, and the sun is getting brighter and brighter every day. Soon, the grass will grow thickly, farmers will begin to plough the ground, the trees will provide welcome shade with their fresh new leaves, and Aark’s nest will be remade, ready for a mate.
The sun warms his satin feathers and his beak gleams daffodil yellow, a promise of the oncoming spring. He hops easily from one patch of dirt to another, claws scratching through the earth, searching for the fattest grubs available in the final vestiges of the late winter.
A branch breaks with a resonating snap! Aark freezes. If there were a wildcat in the area, he’d already be dead, but wildcats don’t crack branches.
With a high-pitched keen, something heavy is flung in his direction. Aark takes to the air, cawing abuse at the human boy who crouches behind a tree. The boy looks up and reaches for another small rock, but Aark is way ahead of him, already taking shelter in an evergreen pine, where the human can’t get to him, slingshot or no. The boy curses, drops the stone and shuffles away, but Aark has sharp eyes. He didn’t miss the shiny thing falling from the boy’s pocket.
Waiting until the boy is out of throwing distance, Aark flutters down to inspect the shiny thing. It reflects the sun into his eyes, and he dances around the object until he can see it properly, round and gleaming in all its glory. He decides it’s nice enough to bring home and decorate his new nest, but as he picks it up he recalls that Cawr, good friend and tree sharer, would also be on the hunt for shiny things of any shape and size. He also remembers that yestermorn, he had found a sharp shiny thing that glittered in any light and took up much of his half-built nest, but Cawr had returned empty-handed. What would he do?
Taking the shiny object delicately in his beak, he takes to the air, all thoughts of grubs forgotten but the grumbling of his belly. Within a matter of wingbeats he is soaring through the sky directly towards his tree, with one eye on his surroundings and the other observing the view below. A birds’ eye view, indeed!
After a few minutes of easy flying, he drops on Cawr’s branch and folds his wings against his sides. Aark hops towards Cawr’s nest and calls, “Cawr!” around the heavy thing in his beak. A fine crow jumps out of his nest, dark feathers glistening in the hot afternoon light and dappled by the shade of the tree.
His friend replies with a brisk, “Aark!” and relieves him of the shiny thing, head bobbing in thanks. He then directs Aark to the best feeding grounds of the day, and Aark leaves in a flurry of feathers and a final cawr, growling belly driving him towards the grubs he knows are awaiting him.
Passing by a field in the process of being harvested, Aark notices a familiar human boy with his head hanging. In front of him a man rages, hands waving in all directions as if trying to scare off birds. His grating voice reaches even Aark’s ears, far above the pair, and he almost feels pity for the child facing the wrath of his father. Almost.
~*~
As he settles in his nest for the night, drowsy and pleasantly tired after a long day out, Aark listens to the sounds of the night. Crickets whine constantly, a dog barks somewhere far away from home, and he imagines he can just hear a raised human voice in the distance, still scolding a certain boy with stones in his pockets. Nestling down a little more, he tucks his head under his wing. Maybe, he thinks sleepily, Maybe I’ll help Cawr out tomorrow as well. He slips into a deep sleep and doesn’t awake until morning.
And while Aark dreams of shiny things and juicy grubs, a wretched child is mourning the bright new sovereign he lost and the supper he didn’t eat.
Moral: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
