Purpose

I was a mere hatchling when I first heard of the one’s who came from the mud. Mother called them humans, I would always cringe whenever that name was used. I didn’t know why, but I believe the world of tomorrow should entail some dignity before I, too, am consumed. The tales of their beginnings were my mother’s favorite stories to share. My mother would say they were the most blessed creatures to ever evolve of the Green Planet, or Earth as they named. I vaguely remember the times when the land was green. The planet was fertile, thriving, and growing in beauty each year, until the humans arose from the mud. They were as good as vermin to me. The humans were ugly creatures; hairless, furless and featherless. Humans had claimed the world as their own and soon enough my home, the Great Forest, was the last precursor of the luscious ancient world. Reality now was that we were a dying breed, one of many in the browning world. In the early years the world was one community, an intertwined family as even the roots of the family tree knew the purpose of its leaves. Life boomed in beautiful harmony. Now in my growing age my mother’s company was a distant comfort that I have long forgotten, and human nature had stained the world.

Early on, I witnessed as many humans lacked this connection with the world. My mother told me of the humans infant years as a new species. They began traveling nomadically in cliques, and hunted for survival, which was necessary for a struggling young species. My mother was impressed emphatically with how intelligent they were. They evolved so quickly she told me. They learned the ways of agriculture and how to tune into to the life giving land. They settled in villages and lived in harmony as they grew nutrients magically from the blank soil. Mother rambled on constantly about how amazing the humans were, and how misguided they had become. My mother had an uncommon opinion amongst the animal kingdom. She loved them because she witnessed their potential from their very beginnings. Her faith in humanity and her empathy towards them had grown into an unpopular belief amongst the dying world as many others accused them for the state of our only home in the universe. The Green Planet began to show fatal symptoms of deforestation, species extinction, and ecosystem endangerment. Human nature contradicted Mother Nature entirely. They were separated from all other life on Earth as they were broken from the oneness with the world. However, I soon realized that I, too, was different.

The crackings grew everyday as some of the oldest remnants of green fell. Every tree that fell stung my ears like lightning strikes against solid rock. What stung the most about the crackings were the lives of my brethren who relied on them, and soon my home, too, would join the carcasses. I was raised atop the Great Forest, me and my mother lived alongside our neighbors, the Parrots. I used to awaken to the voices of my kin echoing through the trees. My mother would tell me of the Parrot’s purpose. They were to break the language bridge between animals and the humans, as my mother professed. As a species, we learned to quickly imitate their dialogue in an attempt to guide the new species, the humans.

There were many different races of Parrots, three-hundred and ninety three to be precise, all of whom lived in harmony together in the Great Forest. The Macaws grew the largest. They had a beautiful array of colors in their family line. Some had red feathers, others sky-blue feathers, along their backsides that transformed into striking yellow and royal-blue feathers if you traced them from head to tail with your sight. All macaws had identical golden feathers underneath on their bellies that were displayed awesomely whenever they took flight. In our society, the Macaws were mostly in charge of hunting for food or working on the construction of our neighborhood nests, for they were the strongest. Others, the more colorful and strange-looking species such as the Rainbow Lorikeet whose colors defied description, were in charge of architecture, as well as cosmetics and healthcare for the Parrot community.

Every Parrot race was beautiful in its own way and all were appreciated and necessary for the functionality of our society, but, one particular branch of the Parrot family was especially influential, the Cockatoos. The white feathers of the Cockatoo family were recognized by all. They were the most intelligent birds, their duties consisting of most of our educators, and lawmakers. The Cockatoos were the ones who founded our society and guided it into the harmonic balance of races in order to achieve peace, love and happiness for all.

In my adolescence I thought of myself as a fellow Parrot, although I am now keen of our differences. My mother and I were a unique pairing, she was rumored to have outlived the eldest parrot of our time by three fold, but all of those who were born with her, had long lost their voice. We grew much larger than our brother and sister birds, and I even outgrew my mother. However, I grew even stranger. In puberty my feathers fell and scales rose in their place. I had an immense, dawning wingspan. My mother was different, but I was something else. As the days progress, I grew more foreign, even still, however, my obvious differences were never questioned. To the Parrots, to my mother, and to all other animals, I was a fellow member of the planet with the same shared birthright. I was loved.

The Cockatoos were the first to recognize the problems the humans were causing and they, along with my mother who had a seat amongst the Elder committee, began to monitor their progress. This is how my mother first began to learn about the humans. They observed how the human population grew cancerously as they destroyed the lush, green land by domesticating and enslaving other species. The human’s influence soon swelled to every continent, to every island, and to every waterway in our world. They hunted species mercilessly to extinction, destroyed thousands of ecosystems/homes of other species, and resurrected barren and cold homes of metal that reached taller than even the reach of the trees in the Great Forest.

In our society, from the very beginning it was encouraged to interact with developing species in order to create a peaceful environment, like our own, for them. We did this with buffalo of the Great Plains, whose populations thrived for many decades before the humans. The humble Cockatoos, and my mother, began to learn the language of the humans in order to heal our declining planet. Communication with the humans was the only way to introduce peace to humanity and conserve balance on the Green Planet. My mother adopted this purpose.

Disastrously, the Cockatoos planned failed. The humans conquered every corner of the world as their diabolical nature overshadowed the cause of the Cockatoos. It was decided that a special task force of Parrots with the highest potential for success must be chosen to meet humanity head on. Only the smartest, strongest and most courageous Parrots were nominated. Finally, the team was elected. It consisted widely of many species of Parrots, based on how well they spoke human language, work ethic, and physical readiness they demonstrated to carry out the mission of rationalizing with the humans. The bravest of the Parrots were honored with a goodbye ceremony of the ages and a feast that welcomed all races from all over the Great Forest.

My mother joined the best of the best and ventured from the Great Forest. I remember her departing words with frightening detail the morning after the feast. Her words were so clear and sharp as if that each time I meditated upon them she was beside me whispering them into my ear. She and the others had awoken early on this summer’s morning as the Sun’s rays strained through the tops of the Redwoods.

She came to me, kissed my forehead and spoke in a sweet voice, “Sweetie, I must go now. My calling is here, my purpose is now. I will open the eyes of humanity to the harmony of the world. They will thrive with us from now on.”

Still half asleep, I rolled over in my bed and peeked open my eyes to say my temporary farewell. My eyes shot open to the realization that she was gone.

After days of her absence I asked my Parrot neighbors if they knew where she went. They all denied knowing anything, and the only information I dug up that the region she was assigned was over the vast waters in the west. I knew where her destination was. One across the massive sea, to the origin lands of the humans. This was a long journey only an expert flier would dare to take. I was too young to go after her at the time. I hoped everyday for her return, but I never saw her again.

Later I learned the tragedy that shook the world. Disastrously, those who heroically ventured out, were doomed. They were met with the full force of humanity’s tendencies as humans clipped their wings, immobilizing even the strongest of the bunch, and entrapped them in metal cages, the noblest we had to offer were kept as commodities in the human’s green-less houses. The humans found petty entertainment in the Parrots great endeavor at first, then they grew weary and bored of us. The few not to die in solitude were released, traumatized and weak, the world was unrecognizable to those who were cutoff for so long. They had little hope of survival.

I watched as the human population exploded over the last century after the efforts of my peers failed. They grew cancerously and they consumed almost every resource left in the world. I watch them now from the last standing tree of the Great Forest, as they hack at its roots. I know the humans better than anything else that ever roamed the world. I am their last counterpart. I knew them better than they even knew themselves. My purpose was either to save the world, or die along with it under the rise of the laws of Human Nature. In the laws of Human Nature there was no balance, there weren’t even any laws for the humans would break them if there were. I found myself screaming for the humans at the bottom of my home to stop their path of destruction, but with one final, heart-wrenching crack. The last tree fell and me along with it.

The spiral toward the ground felt eternal. I was numbed at the experience of my life flashing before me, it was humbling i accepted death in this moment. I saw my mother’s face in high definition. I knew what my mother and the others tried to do. She always wanted to save them (the humans). They wanted to share the wealth and abundance of peace that can be achieved on the Green Planet. They wanted to show the world that humans can coexist with nature. Long passed down through word-of-beak, the mythical Oracle of the Parrots told of a day when the world would face an ultimatum as the spirit of the Green Planet would be threatened. All animals and plants on this planet would share a oneness in spirit as long as they understood the principles of survival. The prophecy calls of a time when the Green Planet would grow sick. Diseased and dying, one hero would cleanse the world with fire. However, the hero must fully understand the the words of Mother Nature;

“Balance and prosperity must always ensue, life ends when neither exists.

In times when corpses: those who fail to receive what they need; and survivors; those who only take in times of need; thrive, balance will ensue.  

In times when saints: those who give to those in need; thrive, prosperity will ensue.

But when killers: those who take all they can; thrive, death will ensue.”

Just before i smacked the ground with the weight of the entire world on top of me, I spread my large, reptilian wings to parachute my descent. My brilliance was revealed to the humans who stood in awe at the sight of me. I never knew how large i had grown before this moment, the space before was so cluttered with trees, but now it was empty and I was fully revealed. My large body casted a shadow over the world as my dark, leathery scales absorbed the intense sunlight. I grew stronger than ever before as here was nothing left in the atmosphere or on the surface of the planet to absorb the sun. Nothing, but me. I could feel the rush of warmth inside my belly. It grew hot and smoke began to steam from my nostrils. A powerful sensation ran from the tip of my snout to the end of my pointed tail as the fire grew within me. I hovered above all that was and the humans stood entranced at my magnificence. The ant-like figures were frozen, for they knew of their looming future. In a historic devastation, I blew away the humans with the strength of my wings. They flew off the planet into the void of space where they would remain forever. In a tsunami of fire that consumed the planet ten-times over,the historic cleanse unfolded.

To begin the new age, an age that I would personally foresee over, was my purpose. In order to dismiss the rise of another species like the humans, I would create a new world where only peace and love will exist. This new age of peace without humanity was what I was meant to build. To set in motion the age of the Dragon, was my purpose.