"The Cassowary" by T. Luper


A jet aircraft on a cloudless night began its landing flight-path twenty
miles due east from the airport where it was due to land. For the first five
miles of its descent, the noise from the jet's engines disturbed no-one. At
the sixth mile, an orinthologist, birdwatching on a reservoir, was irritated
by the jet-noise just enough to give the aircraft a quick glance. He turned
into a swan. At the seventh mile a naturalist and his wife saw the aircraft
through net-curtains and were turned into crows. At the eighth mile, four
children in a school dormitory saw the aircraft through a skylight and
turned into herons. At the ninth mile, seven night-nurses in an old people's
home saw the plane and turned into swallows. At the tenth mile, twenty-one
members of eight families saw the plane and turned into gulls. By the
ninteenth mile, twenty-four thousand, nine hundred and twenty-seven people
in two towns, four villages and a camping-site had seen the plane. Most of
them had turned into penguins.

When the plane exploded on the air-strip, a cassowary with a purple beak
stepped from the wreckage and checked himself into the VIP lounge.