When he came to, it was well after dark, and he floated in moonlight on the surface
of the ocean. His wings were ragged bars of lead, but the weight of failure was
even heavier on his back. He wished, feebly, that the weight could be just enough
to drug him gently down to the bottom, and end it all.
As he sank low in the water, a strange hollow voice sounded within him. There's no
way around it. I am a seagull. I am limited by my nature. If I were meant to learn so
much about flying, I'd have charts for brains.
If I were meant to fly at speed, I'd have a falcon's short wings, and live on mice
instead of fish. My father was right. I must forget this foolishness. I must fly home to
the Flock and be content as I am, as a poor limited seagull.
The voice faded, and Jonathan agreed. The place for a seagull at night is on shore,
and from this moment forth, he vowed, he would be a normal gull. It would make
everyone happier.
He pushed wearily away from the dark water and flew toward the land, grateful
for what he had learned about work, saving, and low-altitude flying.
But no, he thought. I am done with the way I was, I am done with everything I
learned. I am a seagull like every other seagull, and I will fly like one. So he
climbed painfully to a hundred feet and flapped his wings harder, pressing for
shore.
He felt better for his decision to be just another one of the Flock. There would be
no ties now to the force that had driven him to learn, there would be no more
challenge and no more failure. And it was pretty, just to stop thinking, and fly
through the dark, toward the lights above the beach.
Dark! The hollow voice cracked in alarm. Seagulls never fly in the dark!
Jonathan was not alert to listen. It's pretty, he thought. The moon and the lights
twinkling on the water, throwing out little beacon-trails through the night, and all so
peaceful and still...
Get down! Seagulls never fly in the dark! If you were meant to fly in the dark, you'd
have the eyes of an owl! You'd have charts for brains! You'd have a falcon's short
wings!
There in the night, a hundred feet in the air, Jonathan Livingston Seagull - blinked.
His pain, his resolutions, vanished.
Short wings. A falcon's short wings!
That's the answer! What a fool I've been! All I need is a tiny little wing, all I need is
to fold most of my wings and fly on just the tips alone! Short wings!
He climbed two thousand feet above the black sea, and without a moment for
thought of failure and death, he brought his forewings tightly in to his body, left
only the narrow swept daggers of his wingtips extended into the wind, and fell into
a vertical dive.
The wind was a monster roar at his head. Seventy miles per hour, ninety, a hundred
and twenty and faster still. The wing-strain now at a hundred and forty miles per
hour wasn't nearly as hard as it had been before at seventy, and with the faintest
twist of his wingtips he eased out of the dive and shot above the waves, a gray
cannonball under the moon.
He closed his eyes to slits against the wind and rejoiced. A hundred forty miles per
hour! And under control! If I dive from five thousand feet instead of two thousand, I
wonder how fast..
His vows of a moment before were forgotten, swept away in that great swift wind.
Yet he felt guiltless, breaking the promises he had made himself. Such promises are
only for the gulls that accept the ordinary.
One who has touched excellence in his learning has no need of that kind of
promise.
Replies
Really, is breaking promise good or bad?!
That exactly what sometimes happens to us. We say "if I were meant to do something, I would have something like someone else" and then we give up. Like what our seagull thought about when he said "If I were meant to learn so much about flying, I'd have charts for brains. If I were meant to fly at speed, I'd have a falcon's short wings, and live on mice instead of fish. My father was right. I must forget this foolishness. I must fly home to the Flock and be content as I am, as a poor limited seagull" and later he said "If you were meant to fly in the dark, you'd have the eyes of an owl!". I'm really happy that he had his strength back and broke the promise that he made because we alreadly have this "something" that others have but it is hidden somewhere.
I like the last line that says "One who has touched excellence in his learning has no need of that kind of promise". This is really true!
Ps. Skoon is following the story and waiting for the next part :->