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Nick Drayson

Some writers are wary of bookshops. It is not the bright lights or the sharp smell of all that new ink, increasingly mingled these days with the aroma of fresh coffee: it is just the sight of all those books – thousands of them. ‘Why am I doing this?’ they think. ‘Does the world really need yet another book? What’s the point of it all?’ But then they read a new novel – it might even be a best-seller or have won a major prize – and think, ‘No, it’s OK. I can do as well as that, and maybe if I try hard enough I can even do better.’ So they keep writing.

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I love travelling overseas. I like the whole flying thing: the taxi ride to the airport wondering what I forgot to pack, the queuing at check-in, the thrill of getting through security. Then there’s the flight itself. The rush of take-off, the first free drink, the little plastic tray with little plastic dishes and plastic knives and forks – just like a picnic in the clouds. Whether the destination is familiar or exotic, I like arriving, too. But one thing I have learned over the years is that no matter where I go, I’ve been there before. Different airport, same old Nick. It must have been much the same two thousand years ago when the Roman poet Horace wrote Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt – Those who fly across the sea, change the sky but not the me. In the nineteenth century, though, if we are to believe Jem Poster, things were very different.

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ABR welcomes letters from our readers. Correspondents should note that letters may be edited. Letters and emails must reach us by the middle of the current month, and must include a telephone number for verification.

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With wings as black as night and breast as white as cloud, the sea eagle swooped from the sky. It snatched up the baby boy in front of his mother’s very eyes. She acted quickly. She grabbed a coconut shell and hurled it towards the bird. The baby dropped to the ground and landed unhurt on soft sand. But before she could reach it, the baby was gone, swept away by the tsunami. The eagle knew, you see. Like the elephants who had already left the coast, like the dogs that ran for high ground before anyone saw anything, the eagle knew that the big wave was coming. It had been trying to save the baby, and the woman had stopped it, and now her baby is dead.

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Australian Magpie by Gisela Kaplan & Kookaburra by Sarah Legge

by
March 2005, no. 269

In the old days, it was easy. The eagle was a large bird with sharp talons for gripping and a hooked beak for tearing prey; the swallow was a fast-flying bird that left our shores each winter to seek warmer climes. But since Charles Darwin, we can’t say that anymore, because the very language of such descriptions implies purpose – either will (the swallow somehow knowing, planning, its migration) or design.

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