Forgive my cross-post, but I see that you are in need of some education, Mercutio.
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~camcroft/musklorikeet.htm
http://www.cohsoft.com.au/nature/gallery/m/musklori.jpg
http://www.birdworld.com.au/records/lorikeets/musklori.html
The anti-matter birds came calling today.
Green on green, greener than green, broadfeather arrows twist-morph-twist, shape shift, now iridescent-sheer, now clear. Translucent green green colours that flash in the cool dusk light, brighter by far than the new full moon fresh-risen.
"Gravity? What is gravity?" they call to one another, "Eggs have gravity. We are not eggs. Do you know why trees have branches, and we have claws to grip them with? God gave us claws to hold us down with when it gets too dark for him to see us fly. We do not sleep, merely wait till it is light enough for us to delight one another with our loops and colours once again."
Greens so rich and ever-changing, so bright that the young cherry tree in its early summer plumage still spring-fresh looks grey. It dares not compete. It pretends it has seen nothing and draws its downcast leaves about itself, and waits with stoic patience for the year to pass. In the springtime it will be in blossom once again and unquestionably beautiful. Wait, says the cherry tree, wait till then.
There are lots of greens. There is the fresh soft green of new spring growth; the sullen dull-paint green left in kitchens and bathrooms by uncaring landlords; the subtle dark-sheen grey-green of eucalyptus leaves baking in the summer heat. There is the radiation-green of a uranium-laced clockface, glowing by the light of locked-up neutrons breaking free at last to continue their interrupted malice.
And there is parrot green: a hundred, a thousand parrot greens. There are more brights of green in an anti-matter bird's instant double twist with stall than there are shades of ordinary green in a thousand-year-old forest, more subtle variations in a flicking double wing beat than a soft young plant can show all season, and more glowing pre-dusk brightness in an casual feather-bend than a whole Chernobyl full of neutrons can achieve.
Constantly they call to one another. Calling, calling. Another pair of arrows do a daredevil run through the cherry tree leaves. "That's not green", sing the lorikeets, "merely one plain shade; green is a rainbow - look!" And the small green feathers flash an infinity of brights, tumbling, shape-shifting, curling in the breeze self-generated. (Brights, not shades - anti-matter birds have brights of colour.) But the feathered speaker is not scornful. He knows nothing and cares less for ordinary life forms. He lives only for his green and playful friends.
Speaker? What speaker? Where did he go?
He is lost in a shape-shift blending of brightness in amongst the darkness of the ironbark crown.
"Stealth was not invented in the USA", cries the anti-matter bird. "The strangely-shaped and terribly expensive F-22 Raptor is only hard to see at night, on radar. *We* have stealth by daylight! And we are there and gone so fast that no ordinary creature ever sees our real ability. Except God, perhaps. They say that God sees everything: then God must be a parrot."
"Can you follow this manoeuvre? No? A replay? Too late, I'm invisible again. You can hear me, but only my anti-matter friends and I know just where my call is coming from. "
He exists for but one moment, then another, and another, and another: an endless cycle of flashing instant-rainbow moments. He mocks nature so carelessly, so effortlessly, and so casually that he and his bright-clad friends draw no envy from the trees, create no rancor in the once-green world they turn, just by being there, into shades of leafy greenish-grey.
Their outer world of plain, dull, non-parrot green is just a shadow, a backdrop, an unthinkingly expected endless variety of momentary perches and conveniently placed acrobatic obstacles to make the miracle of flight more joyful. They are part of that green and leafy world, but like a fish in clear water, are quite unaware of its existence. To the anti-matter bird, the new-mown grass and the ever-changing foliage are just floorboards to make a theatre with, and he and his friends are always spot-lit centre-stage.
They sing without envy, without malice, without thought even, for nothing that a mere ordinary creature is or does is significant to an anti-matter bird. All can hear them but they know that only God can understand the meaning of their calls. This is not vanity, for vanity is the other face of the mortal coin of envy, and an anti-matter bird has no thought or need to envy any creature.
Twist. Shift. Disappear.
Call. Flip. Call again.
Hang upside-down just for the joy of it.
Fast. So fast that only other parrots see.
Even the cats are reflex-slow. They have long since stopped trying to track the green-feather arrows with their gazes. They lie unhappily on the still sunwarm bricks and do nothing at all: too out of sorts to argue mastery amongst themselves as they are wont to do when nothing better offers.
The red-wattled Lord of the Trees, who alone amongst all the creatures has been pretending to a life as usual, is subdued. He does not even think to chase off these invaders, just resigns himself to a period when he must reign incognito. He flies from perch to perch in a half-hearted sort of way, holding his head high still, but without conviction. His mood too is grey. He dare not challenge any of the little anti-matter birds, for there is nothing he can do that they cannot do better and more joyfully. He alone has the bravery to share a tree with them, taste a blossom here and there. They do not notice. He is, after all, just an ordinary creature, and who looks at a mere theatre manager when the divas are on stage?
Now there is a change in the cacophony of happy chatter, a few seconds of reduced intensity. Down unseen, near the foot of the eucalypt, there is a large, feathery rustle. Who dares interrupt the anti-matter birds?! A crow? A dog? It cannot be the cats, they still lie sullenly on the concrete path, pretending to take their ease and fooling no-one. Whatever it is, the lorikeets can see it, of course - their eyes are used to watching one another's flashing antics and no larger creature can remain invisible to them, if not seen it is simply ignored, unnoticed, not worthy of attention.
But this loud rustle is disruptive, offensive. In an instant fifty, eighty, a hundred happy lorikeets are united in outrage: angry now, affronted, baying in a din of righteous disapproval like an MCG finals crowd at a grievous umpiring mistake. For two, three, four full seconds they scream at the intruder - perhaps the one moment in their lives when they will all do the same thing at the same time - then they are off!
If this corner of the world does not see fit to behave correctly, it seems, then they will grace some other lucky place with their colours and their joyful acrobatics and their constant friendly banter. They take wing! And, in less time than it takes to write, the anti-matter birds are gone, leaving only the echoes of their brightness, distant spots of imagined colour hovering before my eyes, like dust motes in the sun. A few more seconds and the colour-echoes have faded too. All is grey.
From the north-east, the opposite direction, three latecomers arrive in a flash of wing-bend colour and circle briefly. Where are the others, they ask themselves. Is this not the gathering tree? This hilltop eucalypt must be out of favour then, in disgrace. No need to stay and find out why! The three are off without so much as touching claw to it. The others are far off to the west by now, out of human sight, but distance means nothing to an anti-matter bird. They too are gone.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the green-grey foliage turns green again, washed out and wan, but recovering its battered self-respect. One by one, the ordinary creatures creep back into the garden. A blackbird hops from tree to tree, looking shamefaced in its dowdy brown. The cats, knowing it is useless to feign indifference, stand up and go about their business.
The Lord of the Trees puffs out his red wattles and calls experimentally. Is it too soon to reassert his mastery of this suburban garden? Yes. He must wait.
The others will forget, and then he will be respected once again. Perhaps.
The anti-matter birds came calling today, the anti-matter birds came calling.
