Note to Readers: Mel is our Next World Stories advice columnist.
Dear Mel,
I am guard at [name redacted] Penitentiary. Most days I am on yard duty in this walled-in space for outdoor exercise. It is mostly dust and some shriveled grass since the reservoir dried up and now there’s a situation developing. This little bird made a nest in the dry grass there. It is the first bird I’ve ever seen outside the zoo, and no one here ever saw it before. My partner on yard duty says it is a pelican but I don’t think so, and Lt. Bronson says it’s a rodent if it lives in the ground and we should kill it. I think he is wrong because rodents don’t lay eggs, do they?
Inmates are very protective of the bird and I suspect taking bets on those eggs, but the point is, if Lt. Bronson orders the bird killed there could be some violent reaction.
Inmate 7211409 is the only person the bird has allowed to come near the nest. He feeds it roaches and weevils from the kitchen. 7211409 has drawn some accurate sketches of the bird and its eggs, which I enclose.
It is about 10 inches long and makes a shrill whistling call, “Go Free, Go Free, Free,” which may be what endears it to the prisoners. I would appreciate any information you can give us about this bird and what can be done to protect it.
Signed,
– Newbie Birdwatcher
Dear Newbie,
I passed your letter and pictures to the people at BioHistory Preserves, an eco-unit of Rippov Enterprises, who are very excited about this discovery. They are 99 percent certain from the drawings and description that your bird is a killdeer, a kind of plover once valued for its effective control of tick-borne diseases and thought extinct in North America for many years. Your superiors have already been notified and you will be visited very soon by BHP field operatives as well as the avian taxidermy unit of your state police and local observers from the Reverse Engineering Agency. You are to be commended for alerting them to the bird’s presence, and inmate 7211409 as well for his accurate drawings and descriptions.
Yours,
Mel