Mo had to get up early every morning, like so many people do.

And most of his mornings were always the same, a recurring routine that probably wasn't very different from what most people do after being woken up by the alarm clock.

This particular morning, Mo was still quite tired. And although he never complains about his daily tasks, today he wasn't at all motivated to get out of bed. We all have days like this, right?

So he was a lot slower in performing his morning routine than usual, and as a result, he had to hurry a bit in the end. He almost forgot to put on his hat even!

But eventually he was ready to leave. So he stepped outside, closed the door behind him and was about to go, when something suddenly bumped into his leg.

He looked down and saw ... well, he couldn't really make it out. It was something colorful and kind of egg-shaped, maybe a little bigger that an ordinary pineapple.

And it rolled around his feet!

Mo was so puzzled that he just stood and stared at that strange something performing its strange movements. He had never seen anything like it!

Suddenly the weird creature stood up (if you can call it that considering it was a rolling thing) and jumped up towards Mo's face but landed on his hand instead, more gracefully than Mo would have imagined.

And it stood still.

Mo (still stunned) could take a closer look at the odd thing now. It was indeed an egg-shaped creature! And it had feathers in all colors and a beak. So Mo figured that it must be some sort of bird. But he had never seen a bird without wings before that moved around rolling and jumping.

But there's a first time for everything, he thought.

As a further confirmation of his guess, the animal started making bird sounds. Nothing like any other bird though. Something between a croaking, tweeting and the sound of a washing machine that just finished a program. But still clearly the sound of a bird.

That Egg-Bird now seemed to feel pretty comfortable on the palm of Mo's hand. It didn't make but the slightest inclination to move or roll away.

And Mo, although he was already way too late, somehow didn't want to move either. This was a special moment and he kind of liked that weird bird on this hand. The bright colors of its feathers, its funny way of moving around, the strange sounds it made ... He couldn't help but smile. What wondrous things there are in the world!

So there they stood in the little front yard, Mo and the Egg-Bird.

Mo couldn't say for how long, he had lost track of time, but eventually he knelt down and carefully set the Egg-Bird on the ground where it turned around and looked at him.

"I have to go now, little Egg-Bird" said Mo, "But it was a pleasure to meet you and you are always welcome here. I would be glad to see you again!"

And the Egg-Bird seemed to understand. He once again made his croak-tweet-washing-machine sound, jumped a few times up and down and then toppled over and started rolling in circles towards the near forest.

From this day on, the Egg-Bird appeared in front of Mo's house every now and then; sometimes in the morning, sometimes it was already waiting for him when Mo came home in the afternoon. Mo enjoyed the company of this weird bird a lot. He had never laughed and smiled so much before. When he watched it rolling and jumping around and making funny noises, there was nothing bad left in this world. Everything was only joy, color and lightness.

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animated digital painting. gif. 750x1162 px.

year of creation: 2021