Z is for Zany

zany |ˈzānē|
adjective ( -nier , -niest )
amusingly unconventional and idiosyncratic : zany humor.
noun
an erratic or eccentric person.

This picture was a prompt back in June, 2010 for a little writing challenge I took part in. And actually, the scene I wrote has a character who is rather zany. Enjoy.

It wasn't easy.

Well, the spell was easy comparatively speaking but that's only the first part of the experiment, and the single aspect that I had any control over. The rest was up to my magical creation and the idea that there might be enough sustainable, aka not polluted air, for the birds to survive. It was a long shot but I decided to go for it. No one believed it would work in this industrial waste of an empire and I was going to prove them wrong.

I have one ray of hope. Sometimes when the wind moves the sky a certain way, I have detected a hint of blue. The bright bird egg color in the old animal encyclopedia books that showed brilliant colors of all animals that once ruled the land, sky and sea.

Despite every warning from my old mentor and the gossip of the city dwellers, all called me insane in my idea creation, I went to the perch I'd chosen especially for the spell. It was the best launch point for the birds to fly up into the sky on. After much watching of weather, I determined the perfect day for the experiment. It wasn't long and no matter how much I prepared there was this small bit of doubt that I can't shake. If I was wrong, then all hope of a healthy environment past the clouds of steamed industrial residue would become lost. I can't stand the thought of living in that world, of no true nature. The truth is... this was my last shot.

It's not easy doing a spell with that doubt, but I shoved it down to a dark recess of my mind and pulled out the two special cubes I'd created in the lab. With a tense moment of concentration, I breathed life on them, willing the change and it happened. The cubes morphed into two perfectly white birds that began to fly up into the sky at one.

They don't die right away and that is encouraging. I have to find them again to make sure they survived. It's not going to be easy but I'm up for the challenge.