The two may have been friends, but they disguised that fact in an adversarial style, perhaps so that their peers wouldn’t consider them to be traitors to their own kind.
Today the air promised storm and Sir Falcon, who preferred not to fly in high winds and low storm clouds, perched on a branch of a tall pine tree. The river was agitated and Dr. Beaver decided to postpone the task of patching a section of his home, which had come loose when a log shifted. He too found himself on the bank under the same tall pine tree. As if they had meet for a coffee date, the two were soon conversing.
Dr. Beaver: “I’ve had it on my mind that I didn’t express myself effectively last month when you suggested that I my life lacks adventure.”
Sir Falcon: “Yes, if you got out more, your conversation would definitely benefit.”
Dr. Beaver: “If you say so. I recall you saying that my problems are self-created. But consider this, if you will. At least my problems are real and I work on them until they are solved. It may not be a life full of spectacular flights and sudden plunges; the other forest creatures, stuck on the ground like I am, may not shudder with awe at my speed and agility. But in fact, you are just riding updrafts and cross winds without contributing much of your own effort.”
Sir Falcon: “I feel sorry for you. You’re stuck in your own small world, dredging up the same worries and concerns over and over again. Your problems never really get fixed because your constructs keep breaking down and it consumes all your effort just to get back to where you were. Your home is constantly threatened by the current in which you have chosen to build. Why would anyone build a house of sticks and straw in the middle of a river? Is it really surprising that at the first real rain, something breaks loose? Perhaps just a patch of twigs. But then a log shifts and everything collapses, washing away.”
Dr. Beaver: “Impermanence rules the world. But at least I’m accomplishing something that is meaningful to me. What do you accomplish? What purpose does your life serve? You soar high above the world and when you spot some mouse or partridge, you swoop down on a roller coaster of air and pluck them from their daily lives. They can’t even see you until you strike. You accuse me to living a narrow, plodding existence. But I am intimate with water, air and earth. You hate to get your feathers wet; you scarcely touch the earth, only landing to hunt and rest; you only know the air because it gives you a free ride for which you only have to open your wings and float.”
It looked as if Sir Falcon was about to respond when a crack of thunder and an almost simultaneous flash of lightening landed somewhere nearby in the forest. In an instant he had disappeared, startled into flight. But not much later he was back on a branch a few feet away. When he spoke, the bantering tone of superiority had vanished.
Sir Falcon: “There is a wall of water coming down the river. The sky is dark and clouds have gathered into a funnel. You only have a few moments before your home will be sweep away. Hurry, get your family out.”
With moments to spare, Dr. Beaver and his family had scrambled out of their home, diving beneath the walls of the dam then onto the shore. They were still hastening through the trees when an eight-foot-high wall of water sweep their home away and tearing up trees as it passed by.
After the flood, and before Dr. Beaver had begun the task of rebuilding from scratch, starting with toppling a large tree left standing at the edge of the fast-flowing river, Sir Falcon swooped down from a pine tree with a twig in his beak.
Not used to taking a break from his work, the beaver was touched enough to remember that without Sir Falcon’s warning, he would have lost not only his home but his family inside. Taking the twig, he laid it on a smooth boulder near the water and said,
“This shall have pride of place in our new home.”