kinglet

The noble kinglet is a tiny bird and so called because of the dynamic black and yellow feathers which adorn its head like a miniature crown.

The minuscule little monarchs spend their days hopping and flitting about, constantly in search of sustenance.

The boy was suprised when he captured one—kinglets are naturally very fast and wary—but he’d dropped the net on it before it could escape.

He carried it home in the net, pinching off the fabric so that a small pocket formed in which the panicky little bird could be conventiently conveyed. The boy held onto the net firmly even after the kinglet’s needlelike beak had pierced his skin half a dozen times.

When he arrived home, he stole up to his room and placed the bird in an empty cage. He didn’t bother to stop his hand from bleeding. He just sat silently, observing his captive with rapt attention.

The boy watched as the kinglet spent the first ten minutes of its captivity frantically searching for an escape.

He continued watching when, after forty minutes, it stopped moving altogether, except for the slight swelling of its abdomen as it drew increasingly shallow breaths.

The boy only stirred after an hour had passed when the blood on the floor and his hand had dried to a deep, rich crimson, and the little bird had tipped over onto its side, never to right itself again.

When the boy’s mother heard him shuffling around and realized he was home, she poked her head into his room to ask him to wash up for dinner.

She found not one but two sets of cold, lifeless black eyes staring back at her.

“Darius, no! Not again!” she shrieked before crumpling to the ground like a starved kinglet in an empty cage.