New Life Takes Flight

The heavy thunderstorm overnight had frightened him, and through the late hours of the night and into the dawn, he cowered beneath his mother's soft fur at the very bottom of their nest in the fork of the old tree. The tree, his world, shook violently under wind and rain, and though it felt like it might be the end, it didn't topple. It held firm, as it had always managed to do so far.

But with the sunrise came clear skies, and dark clouds soon rolled away. The rain left the forest clean and vibrant, and now as the leaves danced gently in a light breeze, they flicked away the last vestiges of the storm, casting away their raindrops that glittered as they fell down to earth.

And now the little animal was no longer so afraid, but instead curious of the sights and sounds around him. He peered out from his shelter, eyes wide with wonder, tall ears pricked to pick up the songs of the bugs and the birds. Today would be the day his world would grow much wider. But would he be ready?  

His mother thought so. She emerged close behind her child, gently reassuring him to go on. They clung to the branches of their home with gangly claws, seven of them, five connected with webbing so as to form a paddle-like appendage. Their back feet were strange, too, their middle toe still faced forward, while the right now faced back to form a grasping implement; the left toe, no longer needed, had become small and now had little purpose. These creatures were tribbetheres, ones of a very special kind. They were the long distant descendants of such fierce little hunters as the necksnapper, which had turned their eyes toward the skies and onto smaller but more abundant food: flying insects. As they ascended the newly-grown trees in pursuit, their bodies changed to best assist them in finding their food. Fingers already numerous grew longer; skin stretched between them, forming a net with which to grasp their prey between their hands. Their long hind leg pushed them upwards from branch to branch, and into the open air to pounce on their food and stuff it into the jaws as they then spread their hands wide as a parachute to slow their fall back to earth. He came from a long lineage of such skillful jumpers. Every one of his ancestors was a winner in the story of life, successful in passing on its attributes to a new generation. It was a lot to live up to. All he could do, of course, was to try his best.

The youngster, as if compelled by some internal force to go on even though he had never gone so far from his nest before, soon crawled to the very end of his wobbly branch. There, he was surrounded by the green leaves through which the gentle rays of sunlight cast a golden sheen on his fur. Just behind, his mom stood watchful, attentive. She was a good mother, for her ancestors were good ones too. To raise up healthy young in this land required care and attention. She would do anything it took to help her child succeed. With a gentle touch, she encouraged her son to take his first leap. The insects were just starting to flutter up from the damp vegetation, warmed up by the sun and shaking the dew from their wings. It was the perfect time to learn to hunt. He looked back at her, just for a moment, and she cocked her head. She knew he was ready, and he knew it too.

And so off he went, with her following close behind. He leapt high into the air, spreading his arms and then closing them together, as if to catch a bug. Except there was nothing between his hands when he pulled them apart again. His mother watched ahead anxious, waiting for him to glide downward to safety as she would now do. But what he did next surprised her. He reached forward to grab at the air again, as he had just done, and in doing so his skin, which stretched just a little lower down his body and wider around his arms than in others like him, and so caught the wind. Rather than fall slowly down, he rose up into the air. Again and again, he reached and grabbed and gained height, as if pulling himself into the sky itself. The two grew distant in the air, her dropping, him rising, as they both approached another nearby stand of trees. She touched down on the trunk, and called back at him nervously with a high pitched bark. Recognizing her concern, he turned and flew at once toward his mother, fluttering his wings in this unusual way until landing on a branch high above the low perch she had reached in her own leap. Peering down at her, neither seemed quite able to believe what he had managed to do. But though she did not quite understand it, mother was clearly proud of her child. She quickly clambered upward to meet him, and closed her arms around him in a gentle embrace. The two nuzzled for just a moment before the young one broke away. Taking one final look at his mother, who had carried him this far in life, he set off on a journey to places she could not follow him.

The first tribbat took flight into the morning light, onward to places no tribbet had ever gone before.