In Loving Memory of Mom Norfolk by by The Eagle Peeps (best value ebook reader TXT) 📕

NV:

I have a permanent divot in my head from you two!

NZ:

Losers!

When Mom came back to the nest you should have seen the look on her face when she saw us out and Dad filling his face. She had a way of looking at him that made him shrink in size and want to get as far away from the nest as he could.

We had a pretty idyllic life. We had a Mom and a Dad, a beautiful home, food and shelter; we thought it would go on like that forever.

Then one day, this strange Earth Walker creature came into our nest. Weirdest looking thing we had ever seen. We thought it was one of those night monsters coming for us during the day. He looked like he had a turtle shell on his head and had all these strange appendages hanging off him. Mom and Dad were beside themselves with worry. This Earth Walker was too big for them to fight off, so they just kept circling the nest telling us to be brave.

Well, one by one, we were removed from the nest, stuffed into a bag and lowered to the ground. What a bizarre feeling that was. Total darkness and dropping like a pine cone hurtling towards the earth below. Then some other Earth Walker took us out of the bags and put us in these buckets and took pictures of us. This was an alien abduction and it was a very scary thing. We were too young to fly away and too scared to move. We heard Mom and Dad above us and hoped there was some way they could rescue us.

One of the Earth Walkers held us and proceeded to pluck some feathers from us while another one took measurements of our beaks and talons; probably, for weird experiments later. Then they put these strange, shiny, but really pretty, bands on each of our legs……. NZ shows them her bands……. After that, we were stuffed back into the bags and up we went back to the nest and released. It was a horrible, frightening day. After the Earth Walkers left, Mom and Dad hung out for a while to make sure they wouldn’t return, then they came back to the nest to console us.

Our life went back to eating, sleeping, beak-bonking and pooping. Then one day the same Earth Walker returned. He put us in bags again, lowered us to the ground and we were put in separate boxes. We were in those boxes for such a long time and it felt like we were moving. We kept calling out for Mom and Dad but only heard each other.

Then we came to this place with more strange Earth Walkers. They took us out of the boxes and poked and prodded us, stuck needles in us, looked in our mouths, it was terribly frightening. After that we were put in an enclosure with walls. No sky, no wind, and strange noises all around. It was nothing like our nice soft nest that we had lived in. Mom and Dad were not there and we didn’t know where they were. We were lonely and afraid of what these strange creatures were going to do to us. They gave us food but we were too upset to eat. We were there for what seemed like an eternity.

They came for us again and this time they took us to an even bigger place that actually looked like a nest. It had sticks, leaves and pine straw and was outside in a big cage, not in a tree, and it didn’t sway us to sleep at night. Again, we called out for Mom and Dad……. No answer……..we were truly alone for the first time in our lives.

We eventually adjusted to this new nest and some of the animals in the surrounding forest would come and look at us. Finally, one of them told us that our Mom had died and Dad did not know that we had been taken away from him by these creatures. They told us we were far away from the garden and even if Dad wanted, he could never find us. We were so sad and so lonely.

NZ:

But remember that night?

NX:

I thought it was a dream at first.

NV:

Me too, but it wasn’t.

It was a couple nights after we had been told that our Mom had died. There was a sliver of a moon and the forest was very dark and we were huddled together listening to the creepy sounds around us. We all must have been thinking about Mom and how much we missed her. Suddenly, all the noises in the forest stopped and we felt a soft, whisper of a breeze from above us and then we felt her wings wrap around us gently, like when she would Mombrella us, and we heard her soft chirping. We weren’t dreaming, we all felt it, we knew; Mom had found us and was letting us know she was watching over us. She told us these Earth Walkers were keeping us safe and would help us grow and would eventually release us back into the wild. She told us Dad was lonely and a little confused but he would be okay because She was watching over him as well. We slept soundly and unafraid for the first time since we were taken from our home.

NZ:

You were such a baby NV, always whining in your sleep.

NV:

Well, I was a baby, you hooked-beaked prima donna, I was less than 6 weeks old and I missed my Mom and Dad.

NX:

It’s okay NV, she wasn’t much better herself, wallowing in self pity that she was the oldest and would have to care for us. Hmmph,….. you would have thought she had to tramp into the woods, kill something and drag it back to us the way she carried on.

We settled into a routine of sorts; twice a day these Earth Walkers would come in and throw food into the nest and then leave. The fish they were feeding us was not the good fish Dad brought to the nest and we weren’t thrilled by it but ate it anyway. Then one day they brought this other food that had hair and gushy insides. It wasn’t bad and we started eating more.

NV:

The skins were fun to play with too.

NZ:

Siiiiggghhh !!

NX:

Well, I have to agree, they were!

About once a week these Earth Walkers would come in and capture us. They weighed us, pulled our wings open, checked our feet. It was so humiliating to be handled by these creatures but they were so big, no matter how hard we fought they still did what they wanted to us.

Then they decided to move us again out of our comfy nest and into smaller cages.

NV:

Yeah, and miss Swan Lake here broke her leg.

NZ:

Ya moron, I didn’t do it on purpose and I had to live in a tiny cage for two weeks while you two had bigger accommodations.

NX:

That was great when they brought us back to the nest and there was this big open place for us to play in and actually fly in too.

NV:

And we had our own pool and it was just the two of us in that huge place for a whole week until you got better and they put you back in with us.

NZ:

Twits!

NV:

Oh yeah, they brought us another orphan, KS, who had some tail feather problems. She was kinda cute.

So, the four of us hung out in this big huge flying pen, eating, sleeping, bathing, fighting over food, playing with the skins, and of course, pooping. This pen had all kinds of perches we could fly to and one had a net behind it. We used to overshoot the perch and grab the net and hang upside down and pretend we were bats. It was a lot of fun. Once a week, without fail, the Earth Walkers came in, gathered us up and did their tests on us.

Then one day KS wasn’t with us anymore. They had moved her to the pen next door with two other eagles that had been brought in with tail feather problems as well.

NV:

I missed her; She was tough and wasn’t afraid to wrestle with me. You two were always afraid you are going to break a talon. KS and I had a lot of fun together.

NZ:

She had the manners of a vulture!

NX:

Well she was certainly lacking in southern charm!

Life went on; we had the wind, rain, and the heat. We had each other to spar with and play with. We had our pools and sticks which we used as pretend prey. The Earth Walkers kept feeding us and every couple of weeks they came in and did their tests on us and we kept practicing our flying skills for the day Mom promised us we would be released to live as real eagles in the wild.

NV:

Wow, do you remember that one

Earth Walker

that used to snatch us out of mid air?

She was scary!

NZ:

Aaarrrgh.. That creature actually caught me by my feet. There I was swinging upside down, wings spread out with my pantaloons showing and I couldn’t get away. I was never so humiliated! Hmmph!

NX:

Every time I saw The Snatcher come in I tried to get away from her but

Those

Earth Walkers

were a sneaky, relentless bunch.

Then came THE DAY….the one Mom promised….the one we dreamed about…The day we were set free. We didn’t realize it of course….just another day with these weird creatures plucking us out of the air and doing their strange tests. Except…this time we were carried outside and down the hill…. our first unimpeded glimpse of trees, sun and forever sky in a long time.

They put these sticky pads on our wings and then put us in covered cages. Being transported again was as frightening as the first time because we didn’t know where we were going or why. Then we arrived and we could see we were in a big field and there were lots and lots of these Earth Walker creatures around.

Poor NX had some kind of thingy attached to her by them. Turn around NX and show everybody…..

NX complies….

I hope it’s not a mind control thing.

NV:

Girl,… if you start hearing voices telling you to bark like a dog, chase cars, or quack like a duck, you tell us and we’ll chew that thing off of you!

It seemed like yesterday when we arrived at that strange place and yet, so long since we were in our beautiful nest with Mom and Dad.

One by one they released us……..

NZ:

I started flapping, sure that one of those aliens was going to snatch me back.

No ceiling,…….. just the forever sky above me.

NX:

Trees,……real trees, like the ones in that beautiful garden where our home was!

NV:

Freedom to fly as far and as high as I wanted. No looking back, ……only

forward towards freedom.

We couldn’t see Her but we heard Her in our minds and felt Her in our hearts;

Mom was there to welcome us back to the wild. It was a feeling of such joy and such love, coursing all the