Post by REMIGE on Jul 31, 2016 0:57:00 GMT -5
If it's a bird you catch it, he says one fine sunny day, spread-eagled in the meadow with the dull glint of thought dancing idly through his eyes. There's something in that time-gnarled face that speaks of lessons learned but his words are easy to misunderstand, drifting lightly through the air as they are.
Why? you ask, unused to catching much of anything. Even colds seem to avoid you like the plague, even the colds that go around and twist into everyone else 'round the house, spreading sickness until you're an island in a sea of mucus. Moreover it seems odd, really, this exclusion-- he doesn't say it but it's there, an implication that birds are the only thing worth catching, their skin-and-feather-and-bone somehow all the better for the hunter.
A huff is answer enough to your query. His eyes close peacefully and so does your window: no more words will be shared, not on this day, not on this matter. A few more moments waiting starves the faint hope of further exchange, and disinclined to worry, you settle back and track the birds that flit through the trees.
There are others to ask later, but when you bring up birds and the importance of their capture they just chuckle and say there's nothing really to it but what it is.
---
You catch a bird one day, black as night, wing flopping useless by its side. He's the first you show it to, down in the very same meadow, though now the gray-tinged sky warns of rain and the distant rumble of thunder pleads you to go back inside. His bemusement gradually warms into some bittersweet flavor of emotion once you explain, fingers curling into the grass, and he pulls you and the bird into his lap. If it's a bird you catch it, he says, but not like this.
The bird comes home with you, black feathers ruffled in a fine haze of angry terror, harsh calls rumbling through your ears. The sky is reaching for it, desperate to pull it back into its depths, and it wishes to return no matter what storms it faces, what brokenness it suffers. You fall asleep to its voice, still screaming its loss long after a roof blocked the expanse from view.
---
He mends the bird, binding up its wing in soft white dressing and giving it its own place in the house, cozy with food and water. It does settle, days after its capture, but it never stops wishing, longing for that which it has been denied. He says it's lonely without the sky, lonely here crowded amongst them instead of being truly alone somewhere beyond your view.
Some weeks later you carry it delicately to the field. The moment it sees the empty world above it yells, begging and pleading for release, clawing at the cage bars that are somehow lonelier than solid walls. When you swing open the door, it is as if it was never here at all, a black streak against clear, vivid blue.
A feather, dark as night, swings idly on the breeze. Its escape has led it here, back to the very hands that freed it, and he plucks it out of the air with little thought. He hands it to you, his eyes searching for understanding, but that knowledge is yet only a spark too dark to see.
One day, he says, you'll understand.
Your fingers close gently around this farewell, soft and delicate yet fit for the mighty skies above, and you come a little closer to discovering.
---
You understand suddenly one day when the world rests mightily on your shoulders and harsh winds are desperate to blow you down. It's not a real bird, not even a stuffed child's toy. It's a feeling, a longing somehow fulfilled, a glance at a world yours to discover. It's heady and dangerous and airy and sweet you know, now, how that bird couldn't bear its confines, so far away from what it desired, so close it could almost return. You pick up the feather, now worn and ragged from age, and smile.
Why? you ask, unused to catching much of anything. Even colds seem to avoid you like the plague, even the colds that go around and twist into everyone else 'round the house, spreading sickness until you're an island in a sea of mucus. Moreover it seems odd, really, this exclusion-- he doesn't say it but it's there, an implication that birds are the only thing worth catching, their skin-and-feather-and-bone somehow all the better for the hunter.
A huff is answer enough to your query. His eyes close peacefully and so does your window: no more words will be shared, not on this day, not on this matter. A few more moments waiting starves the faint hope of further exchange, and disinclined to worry, you settle back and track the birds that flit through the trees.
There are others to ask later, but when you bring up birds and the importance of their capture they just chuckle and say there's nothing really to it but what it is.
---
You catch a bird one day, black as night, wing flopping useless by its side. He's the first you show it to, down in the very same meadow, though now the gray-tinged sky warns of rain and the distant rumble of thunder pleads you to go back inside. His bemusement gradually warms into some bittersweet flavor of emotion once you explain, fingers curling into the grass, and he pulls you and the bird into his lap. If it's a bird you catch it, he says, but not like this.
The bird comes home with you, black feathers ruffled in a fine haze of angry terror, harsh calls rumbling through your ears. The sky is reaching for it, desperate to pull it back into its depths, and it wishes to return no matter what storms it faces, what brokenness it suffers. You fall asleep to its voice, still screaming its loss long after a roof blocked the expanse from view.
---
He mends the bird, binding up its wing in soft white dressing and giving it its own place in the house, cozy with food and water. It does settle, days after its capture, but it never stops wishing, longing for that which it has been denied. He says it's lonely without the sky, lonely here crowded amongst them instead of being truly alone somewhere beyond your view.
Some weeks later you carry it delicately to the field. The moment it sees the empty world above it yells, begging and pleading for release, clawing at the cage bars that are somehow lonelier than solid walls. When you swing open the door, it is as if it was never here at all, a black streak against clear, vivid blue.
A feather, dark as night, swings idly on the breeze. Its escape has led it here, back to the very hands that freed it, and he plucks it out of the air with little thought. He hands it to you, his eyes searching for understanding, but that knowledge is yet only a spark too dark to see.
One day, he says, you'll understand.
Your fingers close gently around this farewell, soft and delicate yet fit for the mighty skies above, and you come a little closer to discovering.
---
You understand suddenly one day when the world rests mightily on your shoulders and harsh winds are desperate to blow you down. It's not a real bird, not even a stuffed child's toy. It's a feeling, a longing somehow fulfilled, a glance at a world yours to discover. It's heady and dangerous and airy and sweet you know, now, how that bird couldn't bear its confines, so far away from what it desired, so close it could almost return. You pick up the feather, now worn and ragged from age, and smile.
