Picking Karoo Num-num's

On a sunny morning, just outside the village of Burundi, the dark green water of the Rusizi rippled around Bendire and Crissal. The two thrashers sat on a protrusion in the middle of the river, Bendire picking at his feathers as Crissal rested; his neck cocked to one side as his squinted eyes stared at the shore. A pungency rose from the water, but the smell did not seem to bother either of the birds, nor did it the two young girls picking Karoo num-num's along the muddy bank of that forlorn place.

"Why is it you think people pick those flowers?" Crissal puzzled, his head still leaning to one side.

"What's that?" Bendire huffed, pruning a louse from the feathers beneath his left wing.

"The flowers. Why do people pick those flowers?"

The bird pinched the louse in his long beak and then swallowed. "Maybe they like being stung," he huffed and then he bent to his work.

"Hmmm," Crissal chirped.

"Yeah," Bendire muttered with a peck, his eye watching the two girls. "Those people are a strange species," he continued, his feathers puffing as his wings stretched and settled again. "I think they're all glutton for punishment."

"Is it me or are those girls getting closer to us?"

"It's you," Bendire twitched. "It seems whatever those people do winds up hurting them in the end. They're always picking and pulling and cutting something down. Just look at the two of them. They're yanking those flowers out of the ground and for what purpose? So they can stick them in a jar and watch them die."

"Hmmm?"

"Somebody aught to pluck them from the shore," Bendire huffed. "See how they'd like it."

"Are you sure they're not getting closer to use?" Crissal said, straitening his head.

"What?" Bendire twitched, the water rippling faster around them, rippling as a snout broke the surface before them, tearing from the dark green current like a prehistoric missile, a missile garbed in teeth and scales.

It was over before the two birds had properly shit themselves. On the shore a solitary girl stood screaming as white num-num's coiled and drifted in the wake of Gustave's tail, the humps of the great crocodile's back slipping beneath the water as it went.

"Hmmm!" Muttered Crissal, his wings lifting him into the blue African sky while his eyes remained fixed on the queer patch of shore where the girl had stood.

"I know," Bendire flapped. "I thought it was a rock too."