250 Words: Chomreedhoo (Coat of black) 2

I walk the plains and forests of this land protected by my coat of black.  Like all Children of the Birdman, I have my companion with me always whether perched upon my shoulder, on a branch nearby or above me in the sky.  It is called a symbiotic relationship by people.  It is parasitic; he gains no advantage that I can see.

He finds us berries and nuts, plucks us worms from the ground.  He flies high and ahead to find the way and to call to me when there is danger approaching.  Danger that I don’t think I could ever protect him from.  

I give him nothing but conversation and that’s really just a way to hypnotise him and keep him with me.  Despite the colour of my coat I am no mate replacement.  I have stolen him away from his kind for my own ends. 

Perhaps I followed the wrong path.  This guilt I feel makes no sense given the life behind me: from the day I saw the man at a distance through the woods with a blackbird upon his shoulder through to learning the calls from him and the day I left to wander without a human care, a Child of the Birdman seeking one day to pass and become a bird and fly as my stolen companion does. 

If only I were the Birdman himself and could converse fully with these animals, if only the language had not been lost and turned to this sorcery.  

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Note: Chomreedhoo is, I think, old Manx-Gaelic for Coat of black.  The word appears in the song Armistice by Patrick Wolf, which is where I came across it - or, rather, more likely, initially, in the NME while talking about it.  Not sure if I wrote this and the first Chomreedhoo (Coat of black) before or after hearing the song itself.

Additionally, this one is a follow-up of sorts to Myths of our Solar System (30): Makemake, the first birdman.

Myths of our Solar System (31): Makemake plans to take over Rapa Nui

“It was me who created humanity and it is me who allows it to re-produce and carry on. I
could just as easily wipe it away again,” thinks Makemake as he sits, jealously watching
the island’s statues receive all the attention.

“And I would, too. Drive them all into the sea. Force them to die breathing water.

“I am the rightful ruler of this island yet they waste their time on those big-headed
monstrosities. If I were in charge I would not allow such frivolity, such back-breaking
labour. Forcing people to drag such freaks across the land. It’s inhuman. No grand and
overbearing monuments would I require.

“I would have everything covered in my image instead. Let the people know who is boss
that way. Leave my mark like that. Far more subtle. And not so easily stolen from this
place and lost.”

And with that Makemake rose up and his birdmen spread their wings across the island and
they wiped away the old order to create his own.

“Now I’m in charge, it will be forever. The island is mine- Creator of Humanity and God of
Fertility- the rightful heir. My cult rules now. Forever.”

Later, the first time one Easter, Europeans would come. They found toppled statues with
large heads around the island. And strange birdman engravings on stones all over it.
Both were a mystery.

Myths of our Solar System (30): Makemake, the first birdman

Makemake had been born with the umbilical cord about his throat, starving his brain of
oxygen and killing much of it. The people of the First World did not know this, they just
thought he had been born stupid.

Makemake never learned to speak, only ever saying one word as a child, one he would
shout when he needed to sit upon the potty and earning himself the nickname, Makemake.
And he didn’t learn to halt the ageing process, as the other immortals did, until he was
quite aged looking. So that though his siblings were young and pretty, he was old and
haggard with a long and wiry grey beard.

Mother had always seen a gentle spirit within her son. In his eyes was such wonder as he
stared day after day into the air around him each morning before starting his daily ritual of
jumping from his bed and showing intense disappointment every time he hit the ground.

Mother knew she could not give Makemake the gift of flight, not yet, and so she entrusted
in him the care of the birds, knowing that that gentle spirit would love those who could.
And so when he stood, rising to his feet, his eyes wide, his cheeks covered in dry mud,
Makemake began to whistle.

He tried various whistles until a sparrow came down from the sky and landed on his
shoulder. From then on Makemake would entertain himself by calling all the birds of This
World to him (sometimes several at a time) and amaze all those, including his siblings,
who had called him dumb or made fun of him. Amazing them especially when he would
call an eagle and then instruct it to attack small animals (something Haumea quickly put a
stop to, of course). Mostly, the birdman, Makemake, would sit with a female Blackcap on
his palm and they would whistle to one another.

Others copied and followed him so that soon, many people could call birds and those
people learned what could be done with them. Some were kept as pets while others were
eaten and later, during the First War, they were used to carry communications.

Makemake did not live to see all of this, however, dying after only a few years in the New
World and becoming its first inhabitant to rejoin Mother. And not long later, that female
Blackcap found herself a mate.