Wilbur stood his post near the plane as always. He readjusted his sunglasses, which seemed redundant as the sky was already dark. Above his lenses he could see the freckles of stars forming shapes and stories; he recalled with fondness a meeting he once had with another bird late one night after finishing his piloting duties, she had told him the shapes were called "constellations," and although there were official constellations there was no harm in making your own. Ever since then he would play with the shapes in the sky while he waited. Tonight they seemed to roll around the sky as he watched, a strange fog blurring them together.
Thud.
He had no memory of leaving his post, but he failed to question this as he was suddenly by the side of one of his passengers who had fallen cold on the ground. The offending tarantula, instead of scampering off as usual, stood posed on its hind legs, a threatening sight.
"Dodo One to Dodo Tower, red alert, calling for medical assistance,"
He tried to move his passenger to the dock, to prepare in case they didn't awaken on their own, but he couldn't. There were tarantulas everywhere, poised, looking at him, looking at his passenger, more tarantulas than he thought could exist on an island.
"Dodo One to Dodo Tower, we have a situation,"
Wilbur couldn't move. Something wasn't right. This wasn't right. This wasn't how it happened. The tarantulas always ran away. He could always pull his passenger back to the dock. He always called for help out of an abundance of caution.
They always woke up.
They weren't waking up.
The tarantulas seemed to be getting closer without moving. He could see their hairy legs clearer than anything else on the island. The tiny fangs seemed massive, how had he never been able to see them before?
"Dodo One to Dodo Tower, do you copy?"
No response.
"Orville, do you copy?"
No response.
Wilbur shook his passenger, the kid seemed smart, maybe they could fix whatever this was. All Wilbur wanted was for the tarantulas to go away, for the kid to wake up, to be able to page in to his brother and call off the emergency plane, to refer to the kid as "ground-pounder" to lighten his own spirits, to jump back into his quirky speech patterns, sometimes it made the passengers smile.
"C'mon, wake up, wake up,"
The words didn't seem like his own, they surrounded him, engulfing him. The world blurred around him, spinning into a frenzy, and then melting into a panicked slush. Maybe he was dying.
"Wilbur, wake up!"
Wilbur was pulled beak first out of his nightmare by none other than his brother, who had a tight grip on his shoulders. He was in his own bed, in his own room, his plane was docked outside, his last trip of the day had ended hours ago.
"Orville," Wilbur was groggy but sat up, desperate to make the memory go away, "what if the next time is different? What if they don't wake up?"
"Thats why we have the emergency crew on standby,"
"What if I can't reach you?"
"You keep some emergency supplies on your plane,"
"What if I can't reach that either?"
"You'd figure it out, you always do,"
Wilbur leaned against the wall.
"They always want to fly at night, they always decimate the islands until nothing lives but fish and tarantulas. They stuff their pockets with the things! Why do they throw themselves at danger like that?"
Orville sat on the edge of the bed. "I heard Nook's nephew's pay a pretty bell for those tarantulas, the whole island is pretty much built on tarantula money,"
"Well, I think those bellbottoms bebops should pay more for flowers or something that doesn't try to kill you," Wilbur muttered, "Flowers oughtta be in more demand than tarantulas, they're far prettier,"
"Maybe they should," Orville yawned, he kept the same work hours his brother did, which meant neither of them particularly slept.
"Now if I were to be running that shop," Wilbur pondered, starting to fall asleep sitting upright, "I'd pay the prettiest bells if someone could bring me the stars,"