The Backwards-Singing Bird

Leo, bless his well-meaning heart, had a talent for tripping over air. It was less a characteristic and more a fundamental law of physics as it applied to him. He’d been attempting to gracefully, or at least less disastrously, retrieve a stray soccer ball that had taken a rather enthusiastic bounce off his own head and into a particularly dense thicket of brambles. The brambles, as if sensing his inherent vulnerability, seemed to reach out, snagging at his worn sneakers and the frayed edges of his jeans. With a yelp that was more surprised than pained, Leo tumbled headfirst into the prickly embrace, his arms flailing like an untethered kite.

It was in this rather undignified position, with a leaf stuck precariously to his nose and a faint scent of damp earth tickling his nostrils, that he heard it. A sound so utterly bizarre, so profoundly… wrong, that it made him momentarily forget the indignity of his current bramble-based predicament. It was a bird, he was sure of it, but it was singing. Except, it wasn't singing forward. It was singing backward.

“*Gniknats a si ti, ylruof ruoy dna, em gnirb t’nod uoy fi*,” warbled a small, flustered-sounding creature from a branch just above his head.