Cheering for Life

By Zihao, Dong (Cloud)

North Africa, 66, 032, 854 BC.

As young leaves and buds appear on the magnolia tree, he can feel that the time is coming.

Looking to the clouds and mountains in the distance with his three meters-long head, he stretched his two limbs and two wings. Using two wings to prop up on land, he suddenly lifts his two legs, and then he uses his wings to jump up. In that way, he makes his 300kg body rise up and fly easily. When he fully spread his 10 meters wings on air, his shadow covers the ground and makes dinosaurs on land be filled with deep esteem. He watches the mountains and rivers beneath his body with pride. Before long, he reaches thousands of meters in height and thousands of meters away. The whole African continent seems to be clear under his eyes.

Every flutter of his wings was confident and powerful. While standing on the ground, he is as tall as a giraffe; while flying above the cloud, he is as giant as an airplane. He is an Arambourgiania, one of the biggest pterosaur species, as well as one of the biggest animals that can fly in Earth history. Experiencing hundreds of millions of years of evolution, pterosaurs like Arambourgiania now have hollow bright bones, Ejection takeoff mode, and the biggest wings ever appeared, all of which help them become the most successful flying species, even greater than birds in many aspects (birds are also great flying species). By the way, pterosaurs are not dinosaurs, they are another group of reptiles, although they have a close relationship with dinosaurs.

Now, the annual breeding season is coming with the spring. He has to migrate across over ten thousand kilometers long, passing by the whole North African continental sea (Sahara area in that time was an ocean), Atlantic Ocean, the east coast of North America, all the way to reach the breeding area in the middle area in North America, which is where he born.

The whole migration journey will be finished in less than one week. Once he flies up to a height of about 5 thousand meters height, he can glide on the air current for hundreds of kilometers without spending too much energy, just like what roc does in Chinese Mythology.

The first two days, he passes the African continental sea alone a string of islands. He sees giant plesiosaur and huge lizards (mosasaurs are actually species of lizard) swim under the shallow water. He sees thousands of small sea birds and Pteranodons skim across the sea and catch fish under the water. The families of birds had evolved from dinosaurs for 80 million years (or we can say birds are also dinosaurs because they are too similar), and now they are as flourish as the family of pterosaurs. Pterosaurs are larger and better at flying, while birds have smaller sizes and better mobility.

After rest and take shelter from rain for hours on an island in modern-day Morocco, he rises again. Gradually, the cyan sea horizon becomes dark blue. Islands disappear by degrees. He realizes that the hardest challenge in this journey is coming——flying across the Atlantic Ocean. There is no place for resting above the ocean, and the only thing he can eat is small fish. They had to be on tenterhooks every time they fly near the water surface, because numerous mosasaurs with lengths of over ten meters as well as giant sharks are galloping through the undercurrent, waiting for dining. Sometimes, if unlucky, he may meet a huge hurricane. Many of his brothers died during this part of the journey.

After three days-long flying, he successfully escapes from sharks, large marine lizards, and hurricanes, and finally found the east coast of North America. He found many companions from all over the world here, and they decide to fly together.

He and his companions skim over large areas in North America. This continent is the most flourishing but also the most dangerous land on earth. Terrestrial ecosystems here are much more abundant than ecosystems in the twenty-first century. Clustered Alamosaurus, with a weight of 50 tons, walkthrough deciduous forests. Millions of Triceratops and Edmontosaurus munch on unsavory but vast quantities of angiosperms on grassland, and each of them is as big as elephants, or even bigger. Bear-size predators, Dakotaraptors (looks like velociraptors in movie Jurassic Park, but have feathers), captures prey together inside the forest. However, all of them are not as dangerous as that one, Tyrannosaurus rex, or T-rex, which is the biggest and most powerful predator with no doubt on land in Earth history, with a weight of over ten tons. Once they meet a T-rex on the ground while rest, they would be killed.

After all, he reaches the breeding area. He would stay here for months until he finds his lover and give birth to children. When Autumn comes, they would fly away and migrate back to the south, for avoiding cold currents.

As the flower of the magnolia tree fades, he feels the time has come. However, this time is different, he is too old and too weak to migrate back to Africa. He's made over 40 migrate back and forth through his life, and he has experienced too much and saw too much. Now he can feel the end has come. He can never flutter his giant wings anymore. He could only watch the retreating backs of the children, who are flying all the way to the south. He doesn’t feel sad, because he knows his children will continue his journey, until the end of the day.

Their race has kept this migration tradition for millions of years. Each year in all those years, their race would fly across over ten million meters to reach the breeding area for the continuation of life. Their arduous but legendary journey makes their race flourish for millions of years. Even though we know that the asteroid that ends the age of reptiles is coming and they will be extinct soon from god’s perspective, their spirit will be inherited by other creatures. Just look at those wild geese over your head, who is flying to the south, and you can see the shadow of all those passing lives who had lived with brave and pride.

Viva La Vida, long live the life.