Sometimes, it's hard to resist the urge. Other times resistance comes easily to my tongue.
It's taken several years to perfect. And even more years for all of my people, my species.
Centuries have passed; each generation better than the previous. My generation is the closest to perfection, or so my parents say.
The constant need to exclaim the coveted words has formed a popular expression among the elders. My father says them more than 10 times before the day is done. My mother, although more quiet, whispers them in silent shock or joy.
She whispers, but we still hear.
My brother and I, we are the next generation; the generation of perfection. My brother has perfected his opposition to the words. He's perfected opposition to most of the old ways. It irks my parents, and at times it bothers even me. For, I believe that in doing so, my little brother is completely destroying our history, our culture.
I suppose then, that my parents, and all of the elders for that matter, do not say this expression just because they lack the defiant genes of the new generation. I presume it is a way to preserve the old ways and to not take for granted the things we can do now. We have not always been able to operate the way we can today. Even simple things that I do every day, such as speaking or using my hands, were things that my ancestors could only dream of doing.
I remember a time when I was very young, just a few months over 2-years-old, before my brother was even born; I had met my great grandfather.
He was incredibly old; my father, his grandson, told me he had been born in the mid 2600's, placing him at just about 108 years. But having been told of my family's Looney history, I was well aware that some older members could live for many decades.
My great grandfather, whose name I can't strain to remember, was particularly different from myself. His beak was shorter also less pointy, his tail was longer with rounded feathers, his comb, the feathers on his head, curved forward in a way similar to my brother's today; they were also rounded.
But there were two particularly outrageous things about my elder that will stay with me for life:
One was his torso, which was noticeably small compared to his long legs, common to our species. The other was his arms, which were barely that. My great grand had small curved wings on each side of his body, with 4 fingers formed on the ends of each. I remember instantly looking down at my own two wings, which looked more like human arms with the generations past, and I stared at my fully formed, 4 fingered hands, and back to my grandfather's winged ones many times, before my mother told me to stop. I was confused; after all, as a child of the 28th century, born in 2756, I had no clue regarding my predecessors or what they looked like. He looked more like a bird than I had ever seen in anyone of my family. In fact, the only evidence I had in my childish mind that he was related to me was that his feathers were the same colors as mine, light blue and purple.
My father had brought me to meet him, for it was almost his time and he wanted me to know some of the family history before he passed away. He spoke, and he told stories of our family, and of the "old west", but, back then, I had no idea what the elder was saying. He spoke in the ancient language, with little English mixed in. My parents tired to translate most of his words, but my short 2-year-old attention span quickly turned me off the conversation.
The one thing I clearly remember from that day was when my grandfather actually picked me up with his winged hands and sat me on his lap. What he told me that day is the only reason I have not completely shut out the old ways like my brother has now.
My grandfather looked me in my green eyes with his own black ones and spoke to me, in plain English,
"You come from a rich heritage my son; our family tree streams from my very own grandfather, the great Road Runner, the fastest of us all. He spoke the very language you don't bother to hear right now. His genes are in your very blood; if you wish to grow up and be like him, you must learn Rev…learn."
Those words were all that was needed. Later, when I was much older, I asked to be taught; taught the history and the culture, my history and culture. Most importantly, I asked to be taught the language; my true language.
But as apart of the new generation, I dare not speak the words. They are lost; foreign to their own people, their own species. Each generation is getting better and better at abandoning; and mine has perfected the abandonment of everything.
Accept for me.
I won't let the memory of my great-great-great grandfather be abandoned. I silently live on his legacy through this new generation; keeping the history, the culture, and the language alive on the inside.
It's hard to resist the urge…
...Especially when I run.