It’s the Fourth Friday Challenge for May. My friend Paul and I, both posting daily in 2011, decided to give each other a job once a month to keep things spicy. In his words, “we want to push ourselves to do something more interesting than we might otherwise.” I will put his challenge to me at the bottom of this post — it’s your choice to read the challenge or my response first.

– – – – –

I am a great, strong beast of a bird. I know how menacing yet graceful I look as my cohorts and I spread across the horizon, single file. It seems hardly possible that I am able to stay aloft — I am huge and my flapping seems almost languid — too slow to be purposeful.

Yet we move fast. We are not quite in sync, not quite in a perfect line; we’ll leave that to the flocks of lesser birds with smaller minds. We are not cogs in a greater machine. We are individuals.

I spot a fish far below, just under the surface of the sea. I aim, fire. I drop like a bomb, but don’t explode — I cut into the water like a surgeon’s knife cuts into flesh. In a swift motion I snap my prey in my mighty jaws.

I pause on the surface of the water, looking up into the blue sky as I swallow my prize. Gathering myself and launching upward, I return once again to my brethren, following my drumbeat, ever in motion.

I am Pelican!

– – – – –

This post was in response to Paul’s Fourth Friday Challenge to me, May 2011:

A mischievous spirit transforms you into an animal for a day. What kind of animal is it? Describe your adventures in animal form.

– – – – –

Read Paul’s response to my challenge here