Baby Parrot

A  mango tree stood in my front garden.  Colourful as the rainbow, many parrots perched on it swinging, singing, swirling, chirping, twittering, hugging, and eating mangoes. Among them was a baby parrot, who  just learnt how to fly.

I did not like the company of the parrots. They ate the  mangoes and disturbed me of my tranquility and calmness.  I hatched a plan to net the baby parrot to let the parents learn a lesson to never dare sit on the branches of the tree.

That evening the moment the parrots perched on the tree, the baby parrot fell in the net set by me. How hard the parrots tried to release the baby parrot, they never succeeded.  The dawn broke. The parrots awaited the hunter to take his prey.

Cautiously I climbed up on the tree and grabbed the baby parrot   in my hand. As I was climbing down, a group of parrots with the parents attacked me scratching and hurting. In the unexpected attack, I fell down releasing the baby parrot. They flew away, never to return.

It rained many days, followed by the winter and scorching summer. The incident got slipped out of  my mind. In the meantime, I was blessed with a cute daughter with a  limp.  By now my daughter was able to crawl and started moving to the open yard.

One day, while returning from the work, I found my daughter playing with a parrot. She had developed friendship with the parrot. They were involved in playful mood.  My daughter would produce some unknown sounds and the parrot reciprocated the same. I noticed that one of the tiny legs of the parrot had a wound for which I felt sorry.

I did not disturb their company and waited for some time till it got dark.  I made a trap to cage the parrot again. It fell in the cage next day.  I took it home, patted it lovingly, applied some medicines on the wound and let it go.

But the parrot never moved away. It stayed back in my house, playing with my handicapped daughter. A few days later, I saw the wound of the parrot got healed. It was able to walk painlessly.  I started loving the parrot as much as I loved my daughter. It became my habit to wake up listening to the twittering of the parrot every day morning.

That morning, I yearned to listen its twittering, but I did not hear it. The day broke and the parrot was not to be seen anywhere. I was feeling very gloomy for having not seen the parrot I started loving most.

I stood in despair in the front yard and my daughter sitting under the mango tree.  Suddenly, I saw thousands of parrots descending on the mango tree. They started swinging, singing, swirling, twittering and hugging one another.

They brought with them some twigs of a rare medicinal plant and left it beneath the tree. My daughter picked up few of them and put in her mouth. She gradually recovered from her handicap.

To let them stay comfortably forever, I made nests for the parrots in my yard. I filled it with maize  grains. The parrots came in hundreds and perched on the mango tree. I was happy they would finish the grains I had kept for them in the nests.

But to my astonishment, I found next morning that not even a single grain had been eaten. They search for their food flying far away places.  They only needed a shelter during the night on the mango tree.

I demolished all the nests that were built for them. I kept all the windows and doors of my house open to welcome the parrots.

One night I was sleeping, and I heard a screech of a parrot. I got up to see in dim light that a snake was sitting on my daughter.  One bite and my daughter, whom I loved very much, would have been no more!

Before I could regain my senses from the shock to find a stick to kill the snake, the parrot jumped onto the snake. But within no time, the parrot was killed by the snake. While the parrot was being swallowed by the snake, I found the mark of wound on one of its legs. I realized that it was the same parrot which  I had  nursed. It became a prey to the snake  to save my daughter. 

In the memory, me and my daughter together planted lots  of mango saplings to give food and shelter to the birds.  My daughter  got  married and settled afar. But, I was left with the company of swinging, singing, swirling, chirping, twittering parrots -  eating mangoes and hugging one another.