The Wave
Micro-fiction: I see it coming. Do you?
One day the Earth shook. It shook so hard no one could deny it. The tremor came from deep within the old body and rippled outward.
The birds along the shore of a vast ocean began to squawk to each other. The flightless birds at the bottom of the cliff called up to the birds at the top of the cliff.
“Did you feel that?” they asked.
The birds blessed, by mere chance, with flight, called back down.
“Yes! We did!”
Soon a great wave rose out of the ocean, along the horizon. With every passing second, the wave grew closer. Again, the flightless birds, stuck lower down, on a cliff they could not climb alone, called out.
“Do you see that?”
“Yes! We do!” the birds who could take to the skies at any moment said.
“It’s coming.”
“Yes.”
“It will come for us all.”
“No. We are safe. It will only get you. We are so very sorry.”
“Please help! Can you carry us?”
“We see it coming. But we cannot help. The weight of you is too heavy and we are too high up.”
Both groups of birds watched the wave approach. It crept slowly across the ocean, with a roar that brought true fear to some, and no fear to many.
The wave did descend upon the flightless birds and swallow them whole. And while the birds who considered their own existence more than chance—a destiny—huddled closer to the ones who thought nothing of their privilege, the wave showed its true size, its true power. It scooped them up into its maw as well, consuming every last bird, because the wave does not care who soars freely or not; it would eat the sky if it could.
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(Nods in solemn recognition)
God I hope the good ones were penguins..
My heart shattered at the truth in the conclusion.