by Dana Wall
“Your Projected Migration Efficiency Rating has dropped to 62%,” the sparrow from HR chirped, adjusting her tiny glasses with one wing. “That’s well below the industry standard of 85%, Ms. Honksworth.”
Gloria Honksworth, Senior Migration Consultant at Wingways Solutions LLC, fought the urge to roll her eyes. Twenty years of guiding geese across continents, and now she was being lectured by a bird who’d never flown further than the office park.
“With all due respect,” Gloria said, straightening her neck feathers, “traditional metrics don’t account for the current situation. The warm fronts are arriving three weeks early, the cool fronts are stalling out over the Great Lakes, and half our usual rest stops have been converted into parking lots.”
The sparrow – Ms. Twitterton, according to her name tag – consulted her tablet. “Nevertheless, your last three migration groups have all deviated significantly from their approved flight plans. The Canadian contingent ended up in Miami instead of Mexico City. The Atlantic seaboard flock somehow got lost over Kansas. And let’s not even discuss the incident with the Hudson Bay formation and that squadron of fighter jets.”
“That was a scheduling error! How was I supposed to know the Air Force would be running drills in our airspace?”
“By filing the proper flight path documentation,” Ms. Twitterton replied primly. “Which you haven’t done correctly since last spring.”
Gloria’s neck feathers ruffled in indignation. “The standard forms don’t have checkboxes for ‘freak thunderstorm’ or ‘entire lake dried up’ or ‘wind patterns completely reversed from historical data.’ I’m having to rewrite the whole playbook here!”
“That’s not protocol–”
“Protocol?” Gloria spread her wings, knocking over a stack of migration maps. “I started flying these routes before you were an egg! Back then, we had reliable seasons, predictable weather patterns, actual wetlands to land in. Now? I’ve got elderly geese getting heatstroke in October, goslings who’ve never seen snow asking why we bother migrating at all, and don’t get me started on the mess with the GPS signals…”
Ms. Twitterton made a note on her tablet. “Speaking of GPS, your requisition for new tracking devices has been denied. The budget committee feels the current equipment is adequate.”
“Adequate? Half of them still think magnetic north is where it was in 1990!”
“Ms. Honksworth.” The sparrow’s voice took on a warning tone. “Your attitude isn’t helping. Now, we’ve assigned you a new group for next week’s migration. They’re a young flock, very tech-savvy, very modern. They’ve requested a more… contemporary approach to navigation.”
Gloria’s heart sank. “Please tell me they’re not the ones with the smartphone app.”
“MigrateGr8 is a perfectly valid navigation tool–”
“It’s designed for human road trips! It doesn’t account for wind speed, wing fatigue, or the fact that we can’t just pull into a Motel 6!”
The sparrow sighed and pulled out a final form. “This is your last chance, Ms. Honksworth. Get this flock to their destination on schedule, on route, and within budget, or we’ll have to discuss early retirement options. Do you understand?”
Gloria stared out the office window at the autumn sky. The wind was all wrong for the season – warm and southerly when it should be a crisp northerly blast. Just like last year, and the year before that. But nobody in management wanted to hear about climate change or habitat loss. They just wanted their neat little reports and their efficiency metrics.
“Fine,” she said finally. “I’ll do it. But I want it noted that I’m flying under protest.”
“Noted.” Ms. Twitterton gathered her papers. “Oh, and one more thing – the flock has requested that you install TikTok. Something about documenting the journey for their followers.”
After the sparrow left, Gloria slumped at her desk, surrounded by outdated maps and useless weather reports. On her computer, another email popped up: “10 Hot Tips for Modern Migration Management! You Won’t Believe #7!”
She closed it without reading. Instead, she pulled up the satellite imagery for next week’s route. The weather models were a mess, showing three possible storm systems and unprecedented temperature variations. The rest stops she’d used for decades were mostly gone – drained, paved, or dried up. And now she had to guide a flock of influencer geese who probably thought “ground effect” was a photo filter.
But as she studied the maps, a plan began to form. The official route was impossible – but there, cutting across an unexpected urban heat island, and there, following a new wind pattern she’d noticed last season… It wouldn’t be pretty, it wouldn’t be protocol, but it might just work.
She opened a new document and began to type: “Alternate Migration Strategy: Adapting to Modern Realities.”
Let the HR sparrows chirp about protocol. Gloria had a job to do, and she’d do it the way she always had – one wing beat at a time, adjusting to whatever the changing world threw at her. Even if it meant learning TikTok.
She just hoped the younger geese knew how to fly in formation while taking selfies.
* * *
About the Author
Dana Wall traded balance sheets for prose sheets after years of keeping Hollywood’s agents and lawyers in perfect order. Armed with a Psychology degree that finally proved useful when creating complex characters and an MBA/CPA that helps her track plot points with spreadsheet precision, she ventured into the haunted halls of Goddard College’s MFA program. Her work which has appeared or will appear in Intrepidus Ink, 96th of October, Fabula Argentea, Summerset, 34 Orchard, Eunoia Review, The Shore Poetry, Dreams and Nightmares, Bright Flash Literary Review and Sykroniciti confirms that words are more reliable than numbers, though occasionally harder to balance.