Bohemia Village Voice

The Bird of Stone

Tap, tap, tap was heard in the distance as men worked in the old stone quarry but this day was different. As the men broke open the rock to their surprise and bewilderment they saw something move. First they saw what looked like a long beak emerge between a crack in the rock face.
Slowly the head of a bird broke its way free. Then a long wing and then the other but its body was still enclosed. Not making a sound, the men eased a little closer. It was an ugly creature about a foot long. After a while its body emerged and they could see it had a long tail with feathers splayed out at the very end of it.
“It is the strangest thing I have seen,” said one of the men.
“What shall we do about it?” said another but before anyone could reply the creature spread its wings and with a terrible screech flew into nearby trees. One of the men suggested they look closer. They discovered that the creature had come from an egg that was broken when the rock had been split open. They realized they had found something special and rushed over to see if it was still among the trees. It was nowhere to be seen. The men went over to the main hut to their foreman who stared at them in disbelief, wondering why they had all stopped work.
“What ever is the matter and what was that awful screech” he asked. When the men explained, the foreman said he would report it and sent his men back to work.
Soon after this incident the creature’s screeching was heard in the village. People looked up to see it on a telegraph wire outside the local school. One of the teachers, in shock and amazement, saw it and hurried into the school telling everyone what she saw. The children rushed out to see it and made such a din that the creature was frightened away. Soon the news spread and everyone was searching for it.
It was next discovered by a farmer who disturbed it in his field. It flew off after it had killed a lamb. The farmer was distressed to find its flesh ripped and eaten away.
“What kind of bird would do that?” he declared. The story was told on TV and a picture appeared of the slaughtered lamb in the local papers. People were warned not to approach the bird as it was considered dangerous. It was next seen some miles away near a garden pond drinking water and attacking fish. The owner was angry as they were his prize Koi carp worth thousands of pounds. The police said it must be caught and shot before it endangered life – babies or infants in particular being at risk. People became frightened but some wanted to see and photograph it. Within a week it had grown twice its size and had been seen in many areas of southern England. When flying, it looked like a glider, scarcely flapping its wings. No one had seen anything like it before.
The broken egg at the quarry was examined by scientists and it was discovered to be a prehistoric bird. It had hatched whilst the sun beat down on the rock. The bird could not settle anywhere and eventually managed to fly, hounded by the public, to the Sussex coast at Bexhill and it settled on the rocks, it turned to stone, as I woke up from my dream.