Animal Fables V: Ostrich
Once upon a time, there lived an ostrich called Nerys.
Even by the standards of most ostriches, Nerys was particularly nervous. All the other ostriches called her Nervous Nerys, which they thought was hilarious. It wasn’t, but ostriches have a poor sense of humour and thus find unimaginative alliteration almost ridiculously amusing.
So, due to her nerves, Nerys spent most of her days with her head buried in the sand, avoiding everything. Life especially. And other ostriches.
One afternoon, as the rest of the ostriches were relaxing, Nerys suddenly and unexpectedly popped her head out of the sand, looked around excitedly and screeched at the top of her voice.
All the other ostriches came dashing over to her just as fast as their comical walks would carry them.
“What is it, Nerys? What’s wrong?” they all asked, with concerned twitches of their beaks.
“Oh, nothing!” said Nerys. “I just thought I should tell you all that it’s absolutely fascinating down there.”
“Where?” piped up one particularly argumentative ostrich.
“In the sand, silly! It’s wonderful! There are worms, strange little insects, plants, beautiful shifting layers of sand granules - there’s so much to see, to sense and to think about.”
And with that, Nerys popped her head back in the sand, whilst all the other ostriches looked down at her, completely bewildered.
The End.