The Albatross Boss

Albatross?

Is it a heavy weight, something you hang round your neck? A huge bird that spends its days hunting a sailor with a crossbow (its the sailor who has the crossbow)? A crazy cartoon creature with massive wings, a flying helmet and goggles. Just like this.

Yes! This is the one I like! The funny image is sort of true: a young albatross needs a runway to take off from and I imagine they try loads of times to get airborne, lumbering along, like some stitched together early plane, all struts and wires and cloth and wood, tilting this way and that, the feet paddling on the ground, skipping, catching air in those ungainly stretched out wings; sometimes beaking (that’s not a spelling mistake) down, belly skidding, losing dignity… And then sudden, soaring flight way over the long valleying waves of the ocean… So be it.

It makes me think of writing.

Of course, they really look like this:

Wow! Look at that beak! It looks like it’s made from beaten gold; and its ghost-white head is so smooth and has fine pencil streaks- I guess those are special feathers tiny and sleek to let it cut through gales and tempests- and its eye is deep and dark as the ocean it flies over. And this is why it’s the boss.

OK enough about albatrosses.