Student Work: 'The City As I See It'

I fly over the concrete jungle the humans call a city. I am a hawk keeping watch over the bitter world below me. I can see the greyness of the dull, dark city as I glide over the high rise buildings standing like giants reaching up to the clouds.

I can hear the people buzzing around in their busy lives, like bees attending to a hive. I swoop down and the wind runs through my feathers sending chills up and down my spine. I continue plunging down into the deep depths of the city; I swerve around the corners that are as sharp as knifes. The rubbish flies at me like it is alive and free, trying to attack me. The tin cans and crisp wrappers glisten in the blissful sunlight that shines down on the city, taking away some of the darkness and mystery that lingers down in the corners of the dark allies.

I swoop straight up as if I am going to fly to heaven and beyond: nothing could stop me with the power I have deep down within me; I am like a bullet born to fly and to kill.  I reach the clouds and I stop. Stop dead. I can see my prey, my eyes home in and look like acute pebbles as black as death itself. My instincts kick in and the adrenalin rushes up and down my body. Nothing can stop me. I am invisible. I am free, in a world of my own. I am my own God. I rule. Nothing is better than me.

I glide down as fast as a lighting strike. I grasp my prey: it does not know what has hit it. It is helpless. Defeated.

I take my prize back to my home. A nest high up on a building. I can look over my kingdom here. I can keep watch. I guard my eggs here. I keep them warm. They look like blue gems, with chaotic speckles dotted across them. There are five of them; I give them all my heart. When they are older one will take my place and the others will move on to watch over another city. Another kingdom. And they will become Gods.

*

The day has come and they are ready to fly.  First one, then the next, until all four swoop and gather, flying in circles high above me.  A moment of sadness touches my heart: the fifth.  Fell.  Died.

Days ago he had attempted the first flight alone, jumped, dived and fell.  But today, the others swarm high above me keeping me in view.  Not too far.  Don’t go too far.

I leap into the air and throw my body into the winds, opening my wings wide: I fly, soar and glide, higher and higher.  Joining them up high we hunt together.  I show them a dive, a swoop.  They copy and days later are swooping, diving like deadly bullets without me.  I am proud.

Soon they will all leave.  For good.  I will be alone again.  Too old now for another mate.  I will enjoy each day left to me in my city, my kingdom, where I am a god.  But this god will die, will fall, wither and die.  Only in my children will I live on, so I must teach them well: everything I know.  Everything.

*

Our mother fell today.  From a great height.  We all felt it, though she is many miles away, in her city.  Her body probably lies between the high towers somewhere, unnoticed amongst the rubbish and ruins of the humans.  We all feel her in us.  We are connected.  My brothers fly high, when they perch they stand tall and when they dive, locked in to the kill they are keen warriors, killing quick: cleanly.  We were taught well.  We are proud and we show it.  My city is cleaner than my home.  The air is clear and blue and the light stays in the sky longer.  My city is small.  But I am king.

The sky is reflected in the sea, deep blues and greens; sometimes dark and moody.  I fly across it away from the hum and buzz of my home, with only the wind for company and occasionally another bird.  The birds at sea dive deep into the dark, coming up from that mystery with flapping fish in their grip.  I tackled one once – for fun.  It wasn’t much of a fight before the fish was mine.  The bird was not a fighter: a coward.  His friends watch me though, cautious of my approach.  They gather together in a cloud of claws and caws, caws, caws; the noise is enough to keep me away.  The fear in their yellow eyes my reward, my proof: I am king here.  Still I am alone and they are not.

I am alone, but they are not.