Home, Heart & Happiness: A Short Story!
Here is another short story that I also wrote when on holiday, again it is also inspired by my trip to Hadrian’s Wall at Housesteads’ Roman Fort. However, this tale has a slightly perception and is quite a different story (as well as being much shorter in length!)…
So here everyone is my tale, “Home, Heart & Happiness.”…
I was born in a burrowed nest, deep within a wall, safe, warm and snug. Though the wall might have been hard stony brick we were hopeful, my siblings and I, of what lay beyond the wall.
Tiger wanted there to be some other males to fight with. Flax, my younger brother only wanted more food. I, however, wanted love.
Companionship and friends was what I felt I needed the most.
My name was Sunflower Seeds. We were what you would call goldfinches. We had our own name for ourselves, which you would say along the lines of “the-creatures-who-call-the-sun”.
It was on our first flight that I remember seeing them.
They were wandering through the spiky thistle flowers, looking a little aimless, as if they had lost something. There were three of them, two quite bigger than the other and they all wore jaggedy spines on their backs.
“Did you hear that?” asked Flax.
We shook our heads. A squeal then penetrated the sky.
“You both heard that, right?” Flax persisted.
“Yes,” we chorused, diving down to investigate, Ma and Da following us.
We landed just beside the creatures, startling them into shock-balls. Tiger popped around them, inspecting them. He pulled out a wing to pat one of them.
“Ow!” Tiger cried, flapping his injured wing in distress.
A set of bright blue eyes looked up at us.
“I am terribly sorry,” said the creature the eyes belonged to.
“It’s alright,” grumbled Tiger.
“Who are you?” I asked, bounding over to them.
“We are the-soft-sharp-earth-bellied-creatures,” replied another with green eyes. “My name is Emerald, my husband Chestnut,” she pointed to a creature with brown eyes. “And our daughter Periwinkle,” Emerald pointed to the blue-eyed soft-sharp-earth-bellied-creature or hedgehog as you would say. “We are looking for a new home.”
“Our old one was burnt by lightning,” sniffed Periwinkle.
“Come with us, we shall find you a new home, my name is Sunflower, these are my brothers Tiger and Flax, and my parents Wriggle and Shell,” I told them.
“Thank you, that would be very kind,” replied Emerald as Periwinkle smiled at me.
Together we found a lovely large logpile, covered with layers of leaves. Emerald, Chestnut and Periwinkle made their home from that, happy to have somewhere suitable.
We all became firm friends and lived out our lives together, all eight of us.
Thanks for reading,
Hetty Monksea
