6
Fletcher shook his head and stretched his wings and opened his eyes at the base of
the cliff, in the center of the whole Flock assembled. There was a great clamor of
squawks and screes from the crowd when first he moved.
"He lives! He that was dead lives!"
"Touched him with a wingtip! Brought him to life! The Son of the Great Gull!"
"No! He denies it! He's a devil! DEVIL! Come to break the Flock!"
There were four thousand gulls in the crowd, frightened at what had happened,
and the cry DEVIL! went through them like the wind of an ocean storm. Eyes glazed,
beaks sharp, they closed in to destroy.
"Would you feel better if we left, Fletcher?" asked Jonathan.
"I certainly wouldn't object too much if we did..."
Instantly they stood together a half-mile away, and the flashing beaks of the mob
closed on empty air.
"Why is it," Jonathan puzzled, "that the hardest thing in the world is to convince a
bird that he is free, and that he can prove it for himself if he'd just spend a little
time practicing? Why should that be so hard?"
Fletcher still blinked from the change of scene. "What did you just do? How did we
get here?"
"You did say you wanted to be out of the mob, didn't you?"
"Yes! But how did you..."
"Like everything else, Fletcher. Practice." By morning the Flock had forgotten its
insanity, but Fletcher had not. "Jonathan, remember what you said a long time ago,
about loving the Flock enough to return to it and help it learn?"
"Sure."
"I don't understand how you manage to love a mob of birds that has just tried to
kill you."
"Oh, Fletch, you don't love that! You don't love hatred and evil, of course. You have
to practice and see the real gull, the good in every one of them, and to help them
see it in themselves. That's what I mean by love. It's fun, when you get the knack of
it.
"I remember a fierce young bird for instance, Fletcher Lynd Seagull, his name. Just
been made Outcast, ready to fight the Flock to the death, getting a start on building
his own bitter hell out on the Far Cliffs. And here he is today building his own
heaven instead, and leading the whole Flock in that direction."
Fletcher turned to his instructor, and there was a moment of fright in his eye. "Me
leading? What do you mean, me leading? You're the instructor here. You couldn't
leave!"
"Couldn't I? Don't you think that there might be other flocks, other Fletchers, that
need an instructor more than this one, that's on its way toward the light?"
"Me? Jon, I'm just a plain seagull and you're... "
" ...the only Son of the Great Gull, I suppose?" Jonathan sighed and looked out to
sea.
"You don't need me any longer. You need to keep finding yourself, a little more
each day, that real, unlimited Fletcher Seagull.
He's your instructor. You need to understand him and to practice him."
A moment later Jonathan's body wavered in the air, shimmering, and began to go
transparent. "Don't let them spread silly rumors about me, or make me a god. O.K.,
Fletch? I'm a seagull. I like to fly, maybe..."
"JONATHAN!"
"Poor Fletch. Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is
limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and
you'll see the way to fly."
The shimmering stopped. Jonathan Seagull had vanished into empty air.
Replies
You put exactly word of the main text but I think the correct word is:
screech verb
/skriːtʃ/ v [I]
to make an unpleasant loud high noise
She was screeching at him at the top of her voice.
He was screeching with pain/laughter.
[+ speech] "Don't you dare touch me!" she screeched.
The car screeched to a halt/standstill (= stopped very suddenly, making a loud high noise).
figurative The economic recovery is likely to screech to a halt/standstill (= stop very suddenly) if taxes are increased.
, Instead of screes (line 3).
Yes, of course you did.