I noticed I was running when I collapsed to my knees instantaneously from a boulder which emerged from the snow and fell to my stomach. Rolling onto my back, I squinted at the bright sky. I had lost all hope. I had gotten my jacket soaked. The sun was slowly rising in the sky, and I had realized that I would be late for school. Even so, I waited for a minute, still hoping to catch sight of the bird. I should really get off the ground, now, I thought stumbling to my feet. This is where I gaped in astonishment.
The bird sat perched on a thin branch near the top a tree. Its head was raised, and it was as still as a statue. Winter seemed to just melt away in the dazzling colors beaming from the bird’s wings. Behind it I noticed three other birds fluttering with ebullience. Four more. Five more. Six more! Birds all of the same kind flew together in one big circus of mastery and greatness. I fell back onto the snow in disbelief and removed my coat. I was sweating buckets.
I glared back to the branch where the original cardinal had been. It was gone. All I could see were the dancing birds-- hundreds of them now-- soaring and swooping and diving through the air as if it were an ocean fathoms below. More and more birds started coming. They flew all around me so fast that I couldn’t see where any of them were coming from.
Zip! Zap! Buzzz. I wailed feeling a strike of pain on my forearm. A black insect the size of a nickel used its needle-like stinger to form a hole in my skin. A tear rolled down my face, and I couldn’t reach out and flick it off me. Flying bugs such as this swarmed around me biting and poking me every second.
I screamed for help as the amount of circulating bugs and birds increased and the snow from underneath me melted in an instance. Dragonflies, bumble bees, and wasps wrote a plan of attack. Earthworms escaped from the deep tunnels in the soil and wrapped their bodies around my fingers and toes. Rattlesnakes slipped and slithered toward me with their jaws prepared to catapult. I opened my mouth to shriek in horrific agony, but a wasp made its way onto my tongue. I closed my eyes and prayed that it would be over. When I opened them, there was no commotion.
The birds, the bees, the worms, the wasps, the snakes, and the stink bugs were gone as if by a magic spell. I sat up and felt snow underneath me once again, and I started to cry. The bird, still in its silhouette pose, sat on the branch once again.