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This is my most recent story, and my first foray into non-fiction. I am willing to write stories like this as well.

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1. Extinct: no longer existing or living. That is the summarized definition held in most dictionaries, and, oddly enough, more often than not a picture of a dodo bird accompanies it. That is where I first saw the dodo bird when I was only seven years old, sobbed for hours to my mom because I’d never get to see a living dodo bird, and oddly enough, where I first fell in love.

2. I fell in love, of course, but for some reason, I sometimes have nightmares that a dodo bird will stand at the foot of my bed someday, and when I open my eyes it will use its monstrosity of a beak to pluck my pleading eyes out of their sockets. I’ve done my research. I know the dream on all counts is completely irrational. One, they’re extinct, and two, the creatures were known for how harmless and gentle they were... most of of the time. Oh, and three, if anything the dodo would go for my hands if it were pissed at me. Yet I still have those nightmares from time to time. No wonder I sometimes have insomnia issues.

3. Mauritius: this is the island where the dodo bird once lived. It is a small island, 560 miles east of Madagascar, and only 787 square miles in total space. It holds an untold amount of endangered species within its boundaries. On the left side of Mauritius’s coat of arms, a dodo bird stands, holding the crest with its foot. It is unspoken, but it is known, with a hint of tragedy, that the death of the dodo bird gave the country new life.

4. Mauritius glows in twinkling moonlight,
A dodo bird walks into a place too well known,
Broken eggs surround it,
As do the grunts of pigs,
And the dodo bird feels what it's like to be alone.
She has not seen others with her form in a while,
She calls throughout the island,
And no one can answer.
The eggs are gone, long dead, she sees,
And a call of anguish escapes her beak.
Still, no answer.
There will never be an answer again.
This is why she wanders to the ships,
why she is taken,
and why she ultimately tosses herself overboard,
the last image in her eyes
that of baby dodo birds
huddling happily, close to their mother,
as she seals a species' doom.

5. Of all the people in the world to have a weakness for the dodo bird, I never would have suspected Douglas Adams of being such a person. And yet he is; he writes in his collaborative novel, Last Chance to See, that the dodo bird was “a large, gentle dove.” What a beautiful way to describe a dodo bird. I always liked his humor, but now that I know this about him, I think I’ve grown to like the man too. Too bad that like his beloved bird, he is dead too.

6. Raphus cucullatus: that is the genus and species of the dodo bird. The dodo bird was also called Struthio cucullatus by a man named Linnaeus in 1758. The genus Raphus was not added until 1760, when a man named Brisson decided to group the dodo bird in a separate genus from the ostrich, also known as Struthio camelus, maybe thinking that it was an insult to the ostrich to group the two together. I don’t know whether to be offended by that on the dodos’ behalf or not; I mean, ostriches do stick their heads in holes to hide from predators, so maybe it was best.

7. Looking at various pictures over the years, I have found that the dodo bird was a grotesque creature, one whose color never seems to be quite determined by researchers. Is it gray, white, brown, black, or even green, as one source seemed to insist? What I know is that the dodo bird stood at three feet tall, weighed fifty pounds, had an obscenely large beak known to bite off fingers (once again, the color escapes most researchers... is it black, or yellow with a tip of red?) and had wings far too small for it to fly. Looking at it, one would normally wonder what blinded God so much to create a creature like this. Yet, for some reason, I find it absolutely adorable.

8. A little known fact is that the dodo bird is not the only creature in the family Raphidae (currently, they are being resorted into a subfamily called Raphinae, but I’ll talk about that later). There is another creature, which is every bit as fascinating, called the Rodrigues Solitaire, which was a close relative of the dodo bird and every bit as adorable. It looked like the lovechild of a dodo bird and a duck, even though it’s more related to doves than ducks, and was said to taste delicious. Naturally, it must have gotten that from the duck side of the family, because duck is delicious (and thankfully not endangered, or else I’d feel guilty about eating it).

9. It is 1601, and meat far too rough and gamey is roasting over the fire on the ship just off the coast of Mauritius; it is the only thing they could catch today. He wonders if maybe the other creatures have gotten smart enough to realize they taste good to humans and so have hidden from them. He stares at the roasting bird to find another one walking nonchalantly toward his side. He wonders if this bird, one called the “knot-arse” on the ship, the dodaars, he thinks, can recognize its fellow on the spit. This should not disturb him nearly as much as it does. So he draws the creature in front of him, hoping to nail the naive look on its face.

10. Raphidae versus Raphinae. This really should not bug me as much as it does. It is a single letter, and yet it separates the idea that the dodo bird and the Rodrigues solitaire are unique enough to warrant a family of their own and the idea that they only warrant a subfamily. Additionally, it may sound immature, but Raphidae just sounds better than Raphinae. The “dae” sound just comes off as happier, because it reminds me of sunshine, whereas the “nae” sound... yeah, I just think of no. I understand the biological reason why Raphidae had to be replaced with Raphinae (the dodo bird was found to have more in common with the other members of the Columbidae bird family than previously thought), but I’m still a bit ticked about it. It doesn’t help my case in the slightest that I was planning on using Raphidae as a superhero name for a comic book character I’m writing.

11. The Internet has been a godsend. I have been able to use it to learn about anything I wish to learn about; naturally, I used it to learn more about the creature that had begun to consume my imagination a long time ago. I’ve learned about excavations in Mauritius in 2005, where they found the bones of hundreds of dodo birds; it was found that they died in a flash flood. I’ve learned that contrary to expectation, dodo birds tasted horrible. But I also frequented sites that had nothing to do with the dodo bird, and they required a username. That’s why for the vast majority of the sites I frequent, I am known as Dodogrrl.

12. I have feared death ever since I recognized its power, its permanence. My nightmares have featured images of death, of vultures and dead children and my own body being ripped into pieces in a million ways. Still, I have heard from my religion, my Catholic faith, that death is but the beginning, that yes, the body dies but the spirit lives on, reunited with God and the loved ones lost before for eternity. The beauty of this thought is reassuring, but unfortunately I seem to have been desensitized to it, for the nightmares keep coming. However, imagining that a bunch of dodo birds will be there to greet me when my time to die comes makes death not so scary anymore, and each night I do so, the nightmares go away for a little while.

13. It sees an odd shape by the sea; the shape looks like a large brown shell with flaps of something unknown flowing in the breeze, and it is carrying the most bizarre creatures it has ever seen. These creatures have long, dangly legs, no feathers on their bodies, and are holding things with the ends of their wings. Speaking of which, their wings are gangly, featherless, and the ugliest it has ever seen. They look comical, and the dodo bird is curious. It wonders why this odd new creature must carry so much with the tips of their wings; it has never has to, and it has survived just fine without those awkward-looking sticks these odd creatures carry. The question consumes its mind, and it needs an answer to this bizarre conundrum that has filled its brain in place of food. Additionally, it’s not like any other creature has tried to eat it. Therefore, it spots the ship and its creatures and walks forward.