Static erupts from the radio as the young man turns the tuning dial, desperate for anything but the country and oldies channels he’d been stuck with for the last hour and a half of rural highway. Eventually he finds one, catching the end of a callsign declaring it was “the best of classic rock, every day, all the time.” He’s soon greeted by the opening riffs of “The Boys are Back in Town” by Thin Lizzie and slumps back in his seat with a groan, utterly defeated.
“This will have to do,” he mutters, knowing that despite his tastes, at least this is moderately less grating than what he’d been listening to prior. However, he quickly notices that something is off. The lyrics don’t line up with the rhythm of the song, like the singer ran the song through a machine translation before performing. “Fine, no music, then.” He reaches for the dial, only to find his hand unable to grip it. In fact, he doesn’t have a hand at all. Instead an outstretched, jet-black wing brushes futilely against the controls. He opens his mouth to scream, only for an alien screech to fill the air-
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”Be calm.”
The command cut through the crow’s panic like a blade. He instinctively latched onto it as an anchor, and while it didn’t directly calm him, it was just enough grounding for him to do it himself. And then he was awake.
He was lying on his side on something soft, still a bird, with the distinct feeling of something lightly pressed against his forehead.
“It was just a nightmare, you can stop touching me now,” he croaked, only to find himself beak-to-nose with something extremely different than the squirrel when he opened his eyes. “…Who are you?”
“Quiet, and be still,” the creature hissed. It was a bright blue lizard with a broad, crested head and two bulbous eyes, something rather unexpected given the forest he last remembered being in. “I cannot assess your condition if you do not let me focus.” It continued to hold one of its feet to his forehead, its oddly arranged toes spread wide to avoid jabbing him with its sharp claws. He opened his beak to ask another question, only for the animal to tap his beak with the claws of its other foot, silently repeating the request. He realized that he should be panicking, waking up in yet another strange place with yet another strange animal, but between his exhaustion and whatever the creature had done to help him calm down from his nightmare, he just couldn’t muster the energy. All he could do was start looking around the place he’d ended up in instead.
He was in a building. A simple one, but far more than the plain burrow or hovel made of mud and sticks he would have expected from a society made up of creatures with no hands. The wall beside him was made of actual bricks, clean-cut and solid, though clearly of a different make than the red brick he was most familiar with. These were a dark gray, about half the size of his already small body, with no visible mortar holding them together. Flickering lamplight illuminated a low ceiling made of sloped wooden planks, unfinished but just as clean-cut as the bricks, with the wall opposite his bed being taller than the one beside him. It all seemed very deliberate in design, but his sleep deprived brain couldn’t even begin to put things together.
“I see. Same as the Forager, but worse off.” The lizard removed its foot and tapped his beak once as the hue of its scales noticeably darkened to convey the message. “To expedite things, I will assume that you have most of the same questions that it did before allowing you to ask more freely. Agreed?” The chameleon’s eyes both fixated on the crow, though only one met his gaze, the other looked at his feet, seemingly interested in how he would go about standing.
“I’d rather you not,” the crow clicked his beak as he struggled to his feet, talons gripping the thick fabric of the cushion beneath him as his vision swam briefly. “I can’t… think clearly right now.”
“Good. Then I can skip that courtesy and cut straight to the current situation and what you can do to fix it.” The chameleon communicated almost entirely through gestures with its forelegs and head, punctuating its expressions with slight shifts in coloration. “I am Physician Mindful-Sight. You were brought to me after you and Forager Keen-Ear suffered some form of catastrophic mental trauma. Both of you are missing vital survival instincts in addition to your memories. This is worrying enough for the squirrel, but for you, it is life-threatening. You have forgotten how to sleep.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” The crow asks. “I’m terrified and confused, of course I can’t sleep very well. Why would ‘forgetting’ have anything to do with it?”
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“Show me how you would normally attempt to sleep.”
“Why?”
“To prove a point.”
“Right here?” The crow poked at the cushion with his beak.
“Wherever you are most inclined to.”
The crow nestled down onto the cushion like he’d assume any bird would do in a nest and shut his eyes. “There.”
“You are trying to sleep like a mammal, not a bird. It is no wonder that proper rest has eluded you.”
“How would you know?” the crow snapped, the veneer of calm he’d been able to maintain while the chameleon was touching him quickly fading. “You’re neither.”
“I,” Mindful-Sight tapped his beak with a claw, “am a Physician. It is my job to know how the bodies of everyone in our community function. Most birds are vigilant sleepers. You will find it near impossible to rest unless you are standing upright and close only one eye, letting half of your mind sleep at a time.”
“Why would I need to do that? How do I do that?” The crow’s voice increased in intensity, panic and anger filling his voice with equal intensity.
“Such adaptations were meant to protect our feral ancestors and serve little purpose for the civilized, but being Gifted does not allow us to simply ignore our physical bodies. Your body knows what to do, you just need to Understand what it is telling you to do.”
This isn’t my body! Stop acting like it is! The crow screamed internally, trembling as he barely contained an outburst of rage and confusion. Shouting demands at animals wouldn’t accomplish anything. “I don’t know why any of this is happening. I can't understand…”
“I can help you with the latter part.” Mindful-Sight gingerly placed a foot on the crow’s breast. “To Understand your body.”
“Understand?” It was at this moment that the crow realized that there was a subtle, but important difference between the meanings he and these animals ascribed to the word. Their “Understanding” was… deeper, somehow.
“You are already doing it, to an extent. You Understand the meanings I express in my motions and colors.” The Physician performed a far more elaborate gesture than usual, illustrating the point. “Normally, achieving an Understanding beyond the surface of something requires dedicated training and study. However, you will succumb to your lack of sleep long before you have the chance to do it properly. I will have to guide you towards the part you need.”
“Then do it,” the crow nodded. “I just want to sleep. Please.”
The Physician nodded, and began its instruction. “To start, close your eyes and turn your attention inward, to your heartbeat.”
He did so, focusing on the rapid, incessant pulsing within his chest. It was orders of magnitude faster than a human heartbeat, and even faster than the squirrel’s as he’d felt it on the previous night.
“It’s fast. Too fast.”
“Is it? Listen to it, like you listen to me.” Even with his eyes closed, the rhythmic prodding of Mindful-Sight’s claws were more than enough to convey the directions.
Listen… to sensations. The crow paid closer attention, trying to associate the beating of this foreign heart with a meaning the same way he did the chameleon’s touch. And sure enough, a meaning came to him.
“It’s… strong? Fast, but not dangerously so. I’m scared.”
“Indeed.” Mindful-Sight traced a claw up the crow’s neck, stopping on top of his head. “Now look deeper. To your physical mind, within your skull. It is in pain. It needs to rest. But something is stopping it. What is it?”
He stopped pushing away the throbbing and swirling sensations of his sleep-addled brain, letting them come to the forefront. This was harder to grasp, as he was paradoxically trying to focus on his inability to focus. But his exhaustion was crystal clear.
“I’m just tired. There’s nothing else.”
“Yes, but communication goes both ways. Understanding comes from conversation. Prompt your mind to sleep, and listen to the response.”
Sleep… The crow tried to drift off, and after a while, he noticed something. A block. He’d get so close to sleep, only for something within him to stop, like a small jolt. It was not part of his mind, but something physical. Something… divisive?
“It’s a reflex, pulling me away. It feels wrong.”
“That division is what your physical mind seeks,” the chameleon explained. “You are primed to reject it as something foreign, but you must not. Understand it, then embrace it.”
Sleep, and let it pass. Listen, and Understand… Once more he attempted sleep, and after an indeterminate amount of time, he felt that reflex push back again. It wasn’t blocking him from sleep, just partitioning it. I just need to… let it… And finally, sleep came, but his awareness did not end.
He opened one eye and stared at Mindful-Sight. Barely thinking. Just watching. Vigilant.
“Impressive,” the Physician waved as it turned and walked away. “Even if you needed an extra nudge. Take your well-earned rest, 'Ink-Talon.' We will speak again tomorrow.”