Perched above the world in his tree was the little songbird, carefree and singing a happy tune. He watched, sometimes, the humans below in the park, watching children and parents play and lovers flirt; he did not much care about the things he saw, except for a longing in his young bird’s breast for the interactions between parent and child that a bird his age, although just a fledgling himself, has long since been without. Every day he sang and watched in faint envy of the children whose parents still loved them, watching and envying and waiting for a lark of the finer gender with whom to share the nest he will soon begin to build.
One day, while watching the walking path and all those who traveled upon it, the young lark espied a young girl—a newcomer to City Park, someone he’d never laid eyes upon before—a beautiful girl, probably no older than fourteen, and he in his fluttery heart fell in love, in a way that was unnatural for a young bird.
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This girl came to the park every day and sat beneath his tree to listen to his song, with her pen and notebook, splashing beautiful words of poetry upon the lined pages therein. With each word the little lark read, the deeper into love he fell with this human girl—and more desperate he became. The young songbird cried to God in his beaked fashion to make her love him, to make him human so that he may truly meet her and be hers. And as if his prayer had been answered, one day a sorcerer came to the little lark’s tree in Central Park and spoke unto him:
“So you wish to win the love of this lady, do you?”
The little bird chirped his affirmation.
“I can make you human,” the sorcerer told him. “In exchange for your services, I will make you human so that you may enamor that girl. But if you will not carry out those commands which I give you, you will be a songbird again in an instant. Do you take my offer, lark?”
&&&
A beautiful song erupted from the tree from the fledgling’s joy. He hopped from the tree and fluttered down onto the sorcerer’s finger, who in turn put the little bird down upon the earth. The sorcerer chanted over the bird, blocking him with his wide frame from prying eyes. As he chanted, the bird became a boy, about twelve, to match his youth as a bird; a brown-haired, blue-eyed, nameless boy.
Once the transformation was complete, the old sorcerer nodded gravely. “Now you are indebted to me, dear lark. Do you understand?”
The boy lark nodded, forming the word with his newly acquired human lips: “Yes.”
“Be on your way, lark; but do not leave the park. I will return when I have a task for you. Until then, good luck with your human girl.”
And then the sorcerer disappeared.
&&&
The fledgling boy walked carefully and uncertainly to the playground, which had seemed so far from his home but was now only a short walk away. He played, alone, curiously, with the equipment that had once indeed towered over his tiny bird’s form, that now he, unbeknown to him, was almost already too big as a boy to play upon.
Once he had satisfied himself, he sat on a bench next to the playground to watch for the mysterious girl. He watched her walk up the path toward the tree hours later, and saw her look up into the tree for the little bird that had always accompanied her. When she saw that he was not there, before the boy lark could stand, she had turned and begun to walk home. He ran clumsily to catch up with her.
“Wait!” he cried, breathlessly, from a few steps behind her.
The girl stopped, and turned to him.
“Hi,” the boy said, sheepishly. “My name is.. Lark.”
The girl replied with an uncertain “Hi…”
The two stood staring at each other for a moment, as Lark realized that he had nothing to actually say to her. All he knew about human life was from what he had observed from his life in the tree; he did not know what they talked about, or how otherwise they interacted. The girl eventually turned and walked off, without another word, not even her name.
&&&
The girl did not return to the park for a long time; but in the meantime, the old sorcerer did. By the time he did, Lark was growing hungry; he had found that his human body did not like the berries to which his bird’s body had been accustomed. “Steal,” the sorcerer instructed. “No one will give charity; you shall have to steal for your meals.”
This was not such a difficult task, as people often picnicked at the park. Lark learned to sneak about and stole easily, eating well every lunchtime, although he always went to bed hungry. All that kept him going was the thought of that beautiful girl who did not mention her name.
Even as the boy, Lark observed. He tried to learn from watching how he should approach the girl when next he saw her, and took to heart the lovers’ interactions. He imagined that if he treated her those ways, that she could do nothing but love him.
When the girl returned to the park, looking to the tree for her little songbird, Lark came to her. She looked at him curiously, and at the same time suspiciously. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you again.”
Lark hesitated for a moment, then took her hand in one of his. He smiled at her, shyly. “I love you.” he told her. Then, uncertainly: “Will you marry me?”
The girl stared at him, blankly for a moment. Then she pulled her hand away from his with a look of anger on her face. “Do you think that’s funny? You don’t even know my name.” she responded. “Leave me alone!”
She stormed off, back out of the park, leaving Lark to his confusion. He did not know what he had done, but he knew that he had certainly failed to win the girl’s heart. In his woe he laid on the bench upon which he slept and cried, knowing not what else to do. He lay this way for many hours.
&&&
The sorcerer came to him much later that day, and the boy recounted what had happened to him. A solution came quickly to the old sorcerer: “Kill her.”
“What?”
“She does not want you, so she obviously does not matter, Lark. Get rid of her.”
Lark stared wide-eyed at the sorcerer. “I would never do that!”
The sorcerer’s eyes were filled with anger. “I command you so, boy.” he said, sternly.
“I would never kill her. I love her.”
“Then you will be a bird once again,” the sorcerer sneered.
And so with a long magical chant, the sorcerer used his magic to turn the twelve-year-old boy back into a fledgling lark, picking him up in his large, old hands, and putting the songbird back into his tree. “And thus you shall stay,” the old, evil sorcerer said. With that, he disappeared, never to return to the park.
&&&
The girl, though, she returned, and upon seeing the little bird in his tree once again, she sat beneath it with her poetry book and her ink pen. The lark’s heart still jumped with excitement at seeing her, and he fluttered down from the tree and onto the earth before her.
“Hello, little bird,” the girl said, cheerily. “How are you today?”
Lark chirped his chipper reply, and the girl giggled at his responsiveness.
He hopped over to her, in the cautious manner of a small bird. The girl put her notebook down next to herself and shifted from her lean against the tree, to reach out to him. Lark hopped onto her finger, cocking his head to the side with a bird’s smile wide across his face.
“My name is Andrea,” the girl told the little bird. “Do you want to come home with me?”
Yes, Andrea, yes! Lark replied in his bird-tongue.
Andrea stood and picked up her notebook in her unoccupied hand, then walking with the lark cupped in her palm, cooing at him as she went. Lark was overjoyed and ruffled his feathers contentedly in the warmth of her hand.
&&&
When Andrea got Lark home, she set him alone in a little bird cage in her bedroom, where for years to come he would sit, lonely, as the beautiful girl returned to the park to write her poetry to another bird’s song and hardly gave her lark at home a second thought.
