Chapter 1

Norman looked down at his talon. Talons really, since there was more than one. That wasn’t right. He flexed the talon, lifted it off the branch. He tilted his head, studied it. It looked sharp, murderous even. He leaned forward, following the tip to its sharp needle like end. And lost his balance on the branch, his wings flaring out, beating at the air as he recovered. That wasn’t right either. Why the fuck did he have wings? He wasn’t a can of Red Bull. He tilted his head the other way, flared his wings for dramatic effect, feeling the power of his muscles. He giggled, or at least, tried too, but his throat couldn’t cope, the muscles required, not there. No giggle escaped his beak. Beak? why did he have a beak?

A cold wind rustled his feathers. Of course he would have feathers. It’s what birds had, after all.

Norman looked past the talons, which appeared to be his, down to the forest floor. A forest floor covered in pine needles and acorns. Not many of them in Hull, England. Norman looked back up. Mountains peaked through the branches. Not many of them in Hull either.

So did that mean he could fly? How does one do that? stick out your arms and hope for the best? Fuck it. In his mind he gracefully launched himself from the branch. In reality, he tried to bend knees he didn’t have and toppled from the branch as though he had just been shot.

Norman collided very ungainfully with a branch and reckoned he should do something pretty quick considering how fast the forest floor was becoming closer.

He spread his wings and hoped for the best. It wasn’t going to be good enough. Nowhere near good enough. He started flapping, both mentally and physically. It still wasn’t good enough. Norman hit the ground which, thankfully, was mossy and soft.

‘Well fuck!’ Turns out, flying wasn’t easy. Norman flexed his wing muscles in turn, trying to work out what exactly did what, his brain trying to make sense of the strange sensations being returned. He had another go at trying to take off. He didn’t know where he was or what predators there were, but he knew that being on the ground was not a good place to be. His wings flapped energetically, but he stayed firmly rooted to the ground. ‘Come on you fat fuck!’ He gave it another go and this time felt lighter on his talons. ‘Yes! Come on... ‘ He tried some different angles to his wings and suddenly there was air under his claws. ‘How about if I do... ‘ He started climbing, higher and higher, right up until the moment he smacked his head into the underside of a branch.

‘Ouch! Fuck!’ Norman automatically stopped flapping his wings and made to rub the crown of his head with a hand he no longer possessed ... He plummeted. ‘Shitting cunti-bollocks!’. This time he managed to change his fall into a drunken swoop, ‘Fuck yeah! I’m cooking on gas now!’ He beat his wings and careened off a pine tree. ‘Fucks sake!’ He bounced off a further two pine trees before he managed to get above the tree tops.

Norman climbed higher. Fuck his eyes were good. He tried going for a glide, flexing his muscles to see how they steered him. The rush of wind over his feathers tickled, fed strange information to his brain. He knew the information must be important, but he lacked the means to interpret it. A few strong beats of his wings and he was climbing again. He was faster this time, more controlled. He looked around with his admittedly awesome vision and couldn’t see a house or signs of habitation anywhere, and he could see one heck of a distance. He must be in Wales, he decided, as it sure wasn’t England. Snowdonia National Park? Did they have pine trees there? It bloody well wasn’t Hull, where his last known memories as a man were. Norman tucked his wings and went for it.

‘Fuck! This is fast!’ Yet he felt that he could go faster still. It was like riding a powerful motor bike in the sky. Norman wondered if this is what it was like to pilot a fighter plane. He want for a tight turn, feeling the g-force compress his feathered chest. ‘Fuck, this is fun... ‘ Norman had no idea what the time was, or what the date was. It must be summer, or summer-ish as he couldn’t see any snow. It wasn’t raining, so he couldn’t be in the land of the porridge-wogs. Ireland maybe? There were far too many tall mountains for it to be Wales. He climbed higher and higher until it started to get cold and his breathing struggled. In the distance he could see the sea. Quite a lot of it, in fact. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he had no idea of the last time when he had eaten. The more he thought about it the hungrier he became. ‘This could be a problem... ‘ He tucked his wings and dove back down towards an open treeless piece of mountain. Movement caught his acute vision. A rabbit, or was it a hare? Animal identification had never been his strong point. Knowing the difference between a cat and a dog was pretty much the limit of his ability. Breed, a step too far. If it went “Woof!” then it was either a dog or a cat soaked in petrol next to a naked flame.

‘Death from above, the silent killer of the skies, swooping down to sow death and destruction... ‘ The ground was coming up at a terrifying speed and Norman decided that he had ballsed things up monumentally. ‘SHIT!!! I think I’m coming in too fast ... FUCK!! I AM going too fast... ‘ Norman spread everything that he could spread, including his arse cheeks, the cold wind whistling through places no cold wind should whistle. Norman hit Thumper like a feathery cannon ball, his spread talons slamming into fur, locking on and closing more from terror than design. His leg muscles screamed out in agony as the weight of the hare tore him from the sky. Norman had just enough time and presence of mind to fold his wings tight into his body as he ploughed into the heather, the hare catapulted over the top of him. They tumbled down the hillside before a dense clump of heather arrested their roll. The hare was screaming it’s head off, little furry paws scrabbling at anything in a desperate bid for purchase and hopefully freedom. Norman stabbed his head forward, grabbed a beak full of fur and ripped it’s throat out. The squeals of panic and terror turned to gurgles of pain as it continued to thrash about. Hastily extracting himself, Norman hopped off to the side, out of the way of the hare’s thrashing paws, which he had discovered, gave one heck of a punch. Extending his wings, he checked for damage. Some twinges of bruised muscles and he had lost several feathers, but appeared remarkably whole given the crash landing. He glared at the dying and still thrashing hare. ‘Fuck! You were heavy!’ He spat out a clump of fur.

There was a scream from above. Norman looked up to see something circling above. ‘Fucking vultures, get your own dinner... ‘ Norman ripped into fur, spitting out the furry mouthfuls. He hadn’t a clue as to what he was doing, only that he was very hungry, and this is what the birds of prey had done in the few nature shows on TV that he had caught brief clips of as he was looking for sports programmes. The meat, when he finally got to it, was strong in taste, almost too strong for Norman, very irony, though it parted easily under his beak.

The bird above, had been joined by several others.’ Where the fuck have you all being hiding?’ It was like when someone at work pulled out the really good quality chocolate biscuits and everyone suddenly had a reason to be in the vicinity, including people you didn’t even know worked there. The twats. He tore out another strip of meat and received a paw in the face. The damn thing was still alive. A shadow came in to land nearby. Is that a mother-fucking eagle! It squawked at him imperiously and hopped closer. ‘FUCK OFF!’ Norman shouted at it, or at least, that’s what his brain intended. What came out was a very irate shriek. The eagle hopped back a few paces, startled at the unexpected defiance. ‘Fucking do one or I will go Danny DeVito on your arse. Fucking Bully. I hate bully’s.’ A couple of crows landed nearby, keeping Norman between themselves and the eagle, watching carefully for anything that they could grab and fly off with. The damn hare had finally stopped kicking and there was a lot of slimy, smelly shit under his beak that made him want to throw up. He swallowed a few more beakfuls of meat before the eagle regained its courage and made another approach. The pair of crows sidled closer as well, ready to make their move as soon as Norman and the eagle squared off. The eagle spread is admittedly huge wings and screamed out what was probably a challenge/threat in the avian world. Norman ignored it, his human intelligence overruling the hawks natural one. The Eagle moved closer again whilst Norman kept a watchful eye on the two crows which were matching the eagles distance with their own.

The eagle made its move, quickly hopping over, wings still outspread. The two crows hopped closer in a perfect pincer move, probably expecting the two raptors to be too busy with each other to worry about them. The eagle moved in for the kill, reaching out to grab the hare in its own scarily-impressive-at-this-distance beak. Norman stabbed his beak into the eagles neck and ripped out a beakful of feathers. The eagle screamed and took off, startled, as Norman quickly spun, turning a hasty body swerve from the eagles retaliatory beak strike into an attack against the two crows which had darted close enough to grab two beakfuls of innards and would probably have gone for a quick swallow and another beak grab had the battle of the titans gone the way they had been expecting. They had certainly not expected the eagle to be chased off by the smaller bird and for that bird to quickly spin and attack them. They squawked in surprised indignation and flew to safer distance, one minus several tail feathers.

Norman let the tail feathers go and resumed his meal. He was quickly satiated, though looking at the mass of slimy innards just made him want to throw all he had eaten back up. Beating his wings in the amateurish way that he was, he hopped away from the carcass, feeling a bit like a bloated turkey. He managed, eventually, to get airborne, the two crows already getting well stuck in before they were sent packing by the exceptionally disgruntled eagle.

Norman had never been a boy scout, but it looked like the sun was about midway through the sky and was being chased by dark clouds. Now that he was airborne, he didn’t feel quite as bloated, and he had also just discovered that he could feel temperature changes through his feathers. He had no clue as to what the differences meant, or even portended, but he didn’t mind playing around with the shape of his wings to see what the effects would be. Norman found it remarkably relaxing, or that could just have been his full stomach, he really wasn’t sure which. He didn’t know when he learned to sore, he just suddenly became aware that he was doing it. He had pretending that he was a bomber, looking for a target to hit. Though in his case, the payload was a bowel full of shit, when he had realised that he had been circling a boulder for some time, without any of that tedious wing flapping nonsense. Norman opened his bomb bay doors and released his biological Little Boy upon the unsuspecting rock below. He continued to slowly circle, amazed at how his eyes could follow the descent of his own shit.

He missed the boulder target by a good seven feet at least. ’Need a little more practice me-thinks.’

The distant dark clouds had become impending and he felt the first spits of rain that quickly became heavier. The rain was cold and soaked slowly through his feathers and streamed down his neck. It wasn’t pleasant. Norman retreated to the canopy of the pine trees. His landing on a branch was ungainly, wobbly and a bit touch and go for a moment. He sidled up to the trunk and hunkered down as best as he could as the rain moved from annoying to torrential in the blink of an eye. ’Fuck this for a game of tiddlywinks.’ He thought. A nice, fresh bacon roll, a mug of coffee and a centrally heated house was very appealing at this moment in time. As it turned out, the rain was set for the rest of the day. His first night’s sleep was restless and unsatisfying. There was an owl somewhere, that just wouldn’t fucking shut up. Norman swore that he would find out where the fucker slept during the day, then screech loudly all through the day and see how the twat liked it. There were other noises as well, rustling, squeaking, barks, chirrups and death cries. There was a definite downside to having good hearing. Then there was the something that was repetitively knocking on a tree somewhere, which was like water torture.

The next day was dry, but overcast. Norman, tired and grumpy, took to the sky to try and cheer himself up. First on the agenda was some aerial manoeuvres. To both improve on his existing ability and to find out what he was capable of. To see what was possible and what wasn’t. Pretending to be a member of the red arrows aerial display team, he carried out loop the loops and barrel rolls. once he got bored of that, he practiced landing, because, he freely admitted to himself, he was shit at it.

As much fun as it was, it grew boring fast. Hunting for food was tedious, he wasn’t always successful, and every time he did manage to kill something, he had to fight to keep it. He thought back to all those animal rights protestors claiming that zoos were cruel. ‘Seriously? Three square meals a day, lodging and heath care. What wasn’t there to like? Well, maybe they’ didn’t get three square meals a day, but at least you didn’t have to worry about starving to death.’ Norman had made up his mind without realising that there had been a decision to be made ’One more night and that’s it.’

The owl didn’t let up that night either and the new morning brought light rain. For good, or bad, Norman had made his decision. He launched himself off his branch and semi-skilfully avoided trees and branches as he gained height. He didn’t have a direction in mind, choosing the patch of sky with what looked like the least amount of rain in it. Gliding on a thermal, Norman looked down. There was an undeniable certain beauty to the landscape. like looking at Google Earth which was moving instead of being a stationary snapshot on your computer screen.

He spotted his first signs of human habitation below, which made him sad for all the comforts he no longer had or had access to. He carried on. In the distance was a sight known to pretty much everyone in the UK. The orange cantilevered arches of the Forth rail bridge. He was in Scotland then. That at least explained the rain. Norman circled, taking in the majesty of the structure, and the cruise ships that were dwarfed nearby. From his height, The cruise ships were positively tiny. He spotted the welcome sign of two yellow arches and his beak salivated at the thought of a nice juicy burger. It was going to be tricky, a manoeuvre still outwith of his ability, but the payoff would be worth the not inconsiderable risk. He spotted a group of young girls just leaving the McDonalds and tucked in for a dive. There was a mixed bag of body types in the group and he aimed for the fattest

as he reckoned that she was the least likely to go for any of the vegetarian options.

Norman levelled out as he studied the path the girls were taking and the approach most likely to lead to success and the optimum getaway. Happy with his decision, he tucked up again and went for it. He tried not to get to fast, having learned from the incident with the hare. He needed to time things so that the prize was halfway to her mouth. That was going to be the tricky bit. An invisible side wind buffeted him off course, forcing him to make slight wing adjustment to compensate. The girls rapidly approaching below him were completely oblivious to his rapidly closing feathery presence above.

’Right. Deploy talons. This is like that mechanical claw game in amusement arcades, but a bit more hard-core. And ... brake!’ Norman unfurled his full wingspan to slow his speed right down, then furled them again as he sped past the girls face and made a grab for the paper bag surrounding what he hoped was a burger. He felt his claws enfold something and then he was passed, something in his talons. ‘Deploy wings and away!’ He was beating the air furiously for height when the screams started and he glanced back. The girls were safely in the distance, hunched over, hands covering their heads as they scattered in every direction.

Norman glided to an ungainly halt on the roof of a nearby building, making such an arse of the landing that it almost ruined the elation of the theft, and scared the absolute shit out of a flock of pigeons who had been resting quietly in supposed safety.

The pigeons scattered every which way, leaving behind a smokescreen of lightly falling feathers

shed in their haste to flee. Norman paid them no heed, not interested in them in the slightest, his attention fully on the prize at his talons. He ripped the brown paper bag apart. ’Yes! You fucking dancer!’ A double cheeseburger lay beneath him, only a small bite having been taken out of it. Norman got stuck straight in, concentrating on the burger first and he quickly swallowed it down. It tasted oh-so good. And a damn sight easier than chasing rabbits around a hillside. Less fur as well. And no revolting intestines either. ‘Fuck natural habitat. The city is where it’s at... ‘ His immensely satisfied pleasure was not long in being ruined by a horrendous screaming. He looked up from the remains of his burger into a flock of sea gulls. ’For fucks sake! steal your own!’