Why the Birds Don't Have Arms

It’s been wondered aloud by many a human, why is it that birds don’t have arms? Why is it that they have wings instead? There is a lot that goes into the ‘why’ and birds did used to have arms a long time ago. But it is most curious that humans always wonder this… as they are the reason birds do not have arms.

Birds were a different creature a long time ago. Much different from what you see today. This goes for all birds. Pigeons, chickens, eagles, turkeys, sparrows… all birds. You see, birds had arms. They still walked upright on their feet as they do today. Birds did not have wings nor did they have feathers. They were covered in something else. They were covered in strands of gold.

The earth as we knew it did not have gold buried in its surface along with other metals and minerals. The only gold on the planet existed on the backs of birds. It was what kept them warm. Long strands of flowing gold draped them from head to… kneecap. Oh, but humans loved gold ever since they laid their eyes on it. The way it sparkled under the sun and the perfect and uninterrupted blue skies. It’s color, it’s hue, all of it's glory.

So, the birds would often trade with the humans. It was not too difficult to pluck the gold off their bodies. They’d head into the villages and offer up some strands of gold and humans would often trade food in exchange. Some humans would build a shelter for the birds, perhaps a small house.

The birds would continue to grow more strands of gold on their body, just like humans do with their hair, but eventually, the gold would stop coming. The birds would trade away all of their gold strands and be left with their naked bodies underneath. But birds’ bodies are quite sticky like a glue. So, at that point, birds would then go dip themselves into a lake or a river or whatever body of water was nearby. When they emerged from the water, they would be covered in the clear blue water. It would stick to their bodies, and that would be their new covering. Their new hair. Their new… we shall say feathers, although feathers didn’t exist yet.

But the feathers arrived on Earth soon after.

Humans continued to trade with the birds and continued to take the gold and make necklaces and rings and trinkets. They wanted more and more gold. Their demand far outweighed the supply. They grew greedy. They wanted more than they could obtain. One day, a boy from a lonesome village arrived at a bustling town and told the townsfolk of the legend of gold. That gold existed beyond the sky. And humans could obtain more gold if they were to poke a hole in the sky. The townsfolk asked how this could be true. The boy explained that there were things called asteroids that floated by beyond the sky and if the sky were broken an asteroid could fly down to Earth and it would be covered in gold.

The greedy humans were far too excited for this. They plotted. They clamored and fought for materials. Soon, a group of seven townsfolk had created a cannon. They found the heaviest rock from the forest and loaded it into the cannon. They pointed the cannon directly up at the sky and launched it.

They watched the rock rise and rise and rise until it was the size of a pebble in their eyes… and then it hit something. It hit the sky. A gaping hole broke from the sky. Pieces of sky shattered and fell down to the Earth below. But what entered immediately, was not an asteroid, it was a gigantic ball of feathers. The ball of feathers plummeted and smacked into the forest floor and the feathers were launched into all directions. The townsfolk were mad. They didn’t know what these feathers were but they didn’t want them.

Then, the asteroids came. One after another. The boy was right about the first few. They landed and gold could be found within them. But then more asteroids came. They didn’t contain gold. Some of them were on fire and when they smacked into the Earth they lit larger fires. Then, larger asteroids dropped through the hole in the sky. And more larger asteroids. Earth was under attack! Gigantic rocks from beyond the sky were dropping to the ground, they were destroying houses, smashing trees, creating craters.

Humans panicked. Animals panicked. Chaos ensued. But the birds remained calm. They knew what they needed to do. All the birds on the planet, the doves, the chickens, the finches, the hawks, and even the ostriches too… they removed all of the gold strands from their bodies and flung them to the ground. They ran for bodies of water and plunged themselves in. They emerged from bodies of water all over the Earth, covered in the clear blue. The stickiness of their bodies was still prevalent. The birds ran for the forest where the giant ball of feathers landed. The birds dove into piles of feathers, rolling around in them, coating their clear blue bodies in the feathers.

The feathers stuck to them. And when the birds lifted their arms, their arms were doubled in size! More accurately, their arms had disappeared beneath piles of feathers, but the areas where their arms were… that had doubled in size. These appendages on their bodies were long and wide and paper thin. As they extended their appendages out, the wind blew by, and they felt their appendages shake and ripple. They felt the wind pushing at them and almost sweeping them off their feet.

Their appendages fluttered in the wind.

Their appendages… their wings.

The birds all took flight, amazed at how high they could jump without the weight of gold holding them down. They leapt high and flew even higher. The asteroids continued to plummet to Earth and smash into things and destroy things. The birds expertly evaded the asteroids and flew higher and higher into the sky. They eventually reached the hole in the sky. It was a large hole. But they were a large number of birds together… because they were every bird on Earth… together.

And with their still sticky bodies and bits of clear blue water still poking out from underneath their feathers… they began to roll their bodies along the sky and along the hole in the sky. The clear blue of their bodies stuck to the sky like glue… patching together the hole… slowly… slowly.

Some of their feathers were removed in the process, leaving feathery, white, fluffy materials hanging in the sky. The birds kept at it, pasting the clear blue of their bodies to the hole in the sky, until they had pasted over every inch of the hole blasted by the humans.

And there was no longer a hole in the sky.

And there were no longer asteroids plummeting to Earth.

The birds returned to the ground to find all the humans and all the animals cheering for them. They thanked the birds for saving everyone’s lives. The birds shrugged… new appendages that they had… wings that they now had. Their arms were forever coated by the feathers and the feathers had turned into wide wings that were now a part of them.

The gold that the birds stripped from their bodies... that sunk into the Earth and humans continued to discover it over the years. The feathery pieces that the birds left stuck to the sky, they grew and divided and spread and became clouds. And the birds’ arms… they were gone. The birds’ wings… they were here to stay. The birds’ feathers… those came from somewhere beyond the sky… but they were now a part of the bird and allowed the bird to take to the sky.

The humans asked the birds how they could ever repay them. The birds just asked that the humans continue to treat them all as equals. No matter which birds, whether it be parrots or emus or falcons or chickadees or sparrows or turkeys. And they asked that the humans keep the skies clear so that the birds could take flight in them. The birds would have to adapt their lives, no longer having arms, now having wings. But the skies would provide them a new home. The skies they patched up. The skies that bore pieces of them. The birds and the skies were forever connected.

And that is why the birds don’t have arms.

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