The Kingfisher’s Story
A photo of a shallow, sandy bottom woodland stream with trees all around the banks. Two tree boughs are suspended vertically over the water and a swing made from blue rope and a stick is suspended from one bough.
Here I learnt the story of the kingfisher. He has watched this stream rise and fall, empires of minnows with it. Here, at dawn, the deer come to drink and gossip and speak of where to find the most perfectly ripe buds. Here, the dragon and damselflies whizz and flit, landing hither and thither, dazzling all but the kingfisher with their glitter. Here, where it is always a degree or two warmer, silent people come and sit quietly with their breath, watching the play of light on water.
The kingfisher remembers a time when there were thousands of his kin living along the full course of this stream. A time of bustling minnow empires, the occasional trout, and when the stream floor was covered in turquoise and emerald pebbles. This was the time before the miners came and left the stream with nothing but a golden, sandy blanket for a floor.
When the minnows were at their peak, the kingfisher said that the stream frothed and rolled with waves made by their tiny bodies. They would make their journeys en masse, confident in their number, doing their jumps and flicking their fins, so distracted by their own glitter that the kingfishers barely called it hunting when their took their fill from the water.
The kingfisher told me of the time the first vole scampered along the bough, down the rope, along the stick and then—plop!—into the water below it. The laughter echoed through the kingfisher’s memories so loudly, that I felt myself there with the vole, watching, applauding her bravery, wishing myself the courage to try. And that stick, the kingfisher said, that stick was left by the girl who enjoyed watching it travel under bridges.
Even though the girl first came with other humans, the kingfisher said he always knew she was different. She was quieter, still, and more observant. When she returned to the stream alone, to stand on the bridge and watch the water carry her boats beneath it, the kingfisher, in turn, learned to watch her.
The little girl, she grew with time, until she was big enough to climb that bough, wrap that rope, and make that swing. She would come and she would sit and she would float above the water the way the kingfisher would when he had his fill of hunting. Sometimes she would fold her body backwards and hang down from the stick, so that her hands and hair touched the water. Once she even fell in, and rolled about in the water in laughter. The kingfisher first thought about hunting her then.
If was not for food that he desired her, nor for a mate; it was instead because the girl reminded him of more populous times: when the deer came in groups of tens, not threes, and before the emeralds were lifted. The girl gave to the quiet stream a fullness which the kingfisher inhaled in remembrance of plenty. The girl’s quiet and attentive movements carried him to an abundant past when there was never time for lonely.
Once day, when the girl was picking up pebbles from the stream bed, the kingfisher came near. At first he perched on the lower bough, and then, after testing her waters, he lightly rested on the tip of the swing-stick before her astonished eyes. The girl calmed her racing heart with the firmest of breaths and the pair observed each other for a while. Each of their hearts growing slower and more calm by virtue of their quiet looking.
Eventually, the girl raised one arm; slowly now, so slow, she extended a finger and held it there before him. The kingfisher, he cocked his head from side to side, before gently fluttering over to alight upon her hand. The girl’s breath was held before she erupted into a soft laughter, and the kingfisher flew up on the wind it created. From then on, the kingfisher and the girl were bonded. She stayed with him until her clothes were raggedy and the mists came and swept her away. The kingfisher, he has gone too now, but his story remains to be caught by quiet sitters.
It has been a long time since the mists came, but if you go to Hammer Bottom and sit quietly by the River Wey, you too might hear the kingfisher’s story. If your heart is full of the right kind of memory, you may chance upon his song in the space between light and shade, see it resting there in the dapples. As you listen, everything will glitter and shimmer and your cares will melt away. You will smell the ripeness of the stream and its ripples will cascade over a beautiful loss you are grateful for having existed.
Listen to me read this story: