Tommy

Prologue

A frazzled mother eagle had been circling the top of the Pledge mountains, and eventually detected a narrow ledge from where she could safely spy down at the peculiar bright yellow noisy thing. She knew that it was responsible for the crumbling of the awkward stone cradle she had in her wisdom chosen to nest - seven-hundred meters up and far away from the foot of the mountain. The frantic calling-out of her two ravenous children had ceased instantly the moment their long descent down to earth ended, and she turned her head, fighting off the bright eastern light, to zoom-in for any movement down below. Each of her babies; when their roughly stacked shelter had tumbled over the edge, instinctively gripped on to as many sticks; following their frantic somersaulting, as their small claws could gather, all during the merciless pluck from breakfast on the high crevice. She swapped and let the still-spooked rabbit tire itself out more in her left machine-like claw, while wondering if her children was still hungry. Suddenly, a second massive and deafening tremor shook the mountain and thundered up in her direction; warning that the rabbit; now having surrendered to a limp act on the stage of death in a desperate plea for mercy, was not number one on her list of priorities. Releasing her left claw, she darted a last look at the bloodied fur-ball, who wasn't quite sure how to make peace with its new habitat halfway up to heaven - bolting gratefully for the full ten meters of a lower ledge that it had miraculously hopped onto, then skidded to a slippery halt as it froze when it realised that there was no way down. The distraught mother swooped down and landed next to the jumble of various sized sticks and down-feathers, to investigate what had become of her children. First nudging at the lifeless pair with her beak, she froze, then burnt her large eyes up and down at the humming yellow monster, unsure how to strategise and exact her revenge on it. In the far distance, she barely made out her regular visitors' small silhouettes. They again came to appreciate from afar the usual breakfast ritual. She noticed that the smallest of the three; when tragedy struck, had turned on his heels and bolted, screaming - still arrowing across the tall dry grass away from the mountain. The other two short silhouettes turned away too and disappeared. After hopping over to where her three regular visitors had planted themselves earlier, the still perplexed mother bird studied the remains of a broken walking stick. It seemed to her that the walking stick - now snapped in half - was no match for the enormous yellow monster.

Ten minutes later while scanning the dusty road from high above, she was surprised to see the smallest of the three creatures still kicking up dust, heading towards the main road.

At ten o'clock that night the lonely mother bird peered down from the black blanket that draped the mountain, at what seemed to be an unusual bright orange sunrise. But she wasn't certain why it was limited only to the centre of town. The noisy yellow machines never came back; not that year.

The following winter the three small silhouettes arrived back around the same time as an even bigger yellow monster's growl this time scaled the side of the mountain. Death struck again, there was a broken walking stick again, and as the mother eagle and her husband waited that night, they were not disappointed. That night, once more it seemed as if the sun rose over town - with bright red and orange tongues licking, consuming most of the town, and people scattering in every direction. This time accompanied by a blinding flash that burnt for two days. The yellow monsters that killed their baby eagles never dared to return.