Legend of the Boundless Birds v3.0
Author's Note: This is my 3rd draft, that has more radical changes. I am waiting to hear from my copy-editor friend about what needs to be fixed.
If we can have just this moment,
The sky is filled not with fighter-crafts, but with stars.
If we may pretend for now and ever more,
The lights gliding across our sky bear not
Destruction, but spirits of the boundless birds.
Once upon a time there was a bluejay, who could not fly. He cannot join his brothers and sisters, when they flew off to play with the other birds of the forest.
One afternoon, his siblings are out, up, and about. The jay left alone, stares wistfully at the passing clouds.
“Why so blue, little bluejay?” asks a raspy voice. The jay jumps in alarm. His eyes fall upon a tiny spider, descending from a water sprout.
In a hurried string of chirps, the jay answers, “I want to fly. And I know I can, but every time I try, my wings will not span.”
“So you are scared of flying,” interprets the spider.
“Fears?! I have none!” the jay says defensively. “But one. There is the golden rule of the birds.”
“I didn’t know the birds had rules.”
“We have many, most of them localized. But the golden rule is a law for all birds. It states ‘the sky is the limit.’”
“Ah, I hear the humans say it all the time. It means endless possibilities.” reflects the spider.
“For us, avian animals, it is the law of boundaries. Birds being creature of our earth, know they may only fly so high before their bodies burst aflame. If I fly, I want to go up as high as possible. If I too am a bird, then one day, I may fly straight into my limit. ”
“You just said ‘if I too am a bird’; do you doubt your nature?”
“All the time. But I look and chirp, just like any other bluejay. Yet I don’t understand them, not a single one. If I am not, then maybe I won’t be limited like they are.” The jay reflects. “That’s it! If I think of myself as not a bird, then I will be boundless. When I can fly, the other birds of the forest will let me join them in play!”
Excitedly he closes his eyes to imagine himself not as a bird, but as just a being, a being born to do nothing but fly. The jay takes flight into the vast sky.
He soars over the trees and scales up the mountains. When a torrent of air surrounds him, the jay falls into the wind’s embrace. Yet unknowingly, he finds himself journeying back to his nest.
The jay chirps to his brothers and sisters, to neighbors, and even to strangers.
“How can you all take flight, knowing you may only fly so high?” the jay inquires “Is it not then, that all birds, domestic or wild, are cage birds? Stuck in this cage we call stratosphere?”
His mother chirped sharply at him. “Stop this non-sense! Who do you think you are to denounce the golden rule?! ”
“I know not how to explain it. But I can because I am not one of you,” he replies. “I feel like I can fly, fly without the need for rest or to feed.”
“Well, if you are not one of us, then leave my nest!” Mother-jay demanded.
And so the bluejay search elsewhere for another companion bird to join his quest. He will say “Fly with me! Fly like you are not a bird and the sky is not the limit. Fly with me and together we shall challenge this terrestrial sky.”
But everywhere he flew, it was all the same. The swans gawked at his non-sense. The crows hollered at hubris. And the condors just stared.
Lonely it is to be high up in the sky.
The jay recalls his tiny hairy friend on the water sprout. If that little guy can journey alone, then so can this jay. He can forgive the others for not joining him, for they are just birds. Once more, the he takes his final leap into the sky.
This time, he does not stop for scenic glances at the terrains from on high. For it is from this accursed earth, he wished to be free of.
Beyond the troposphere, the jay soars through. It will now discover for himself what is the limit they call the sky. Higher and higher he ascends to heights no bird has ever reached. This bluejay is boundless.
Soon the jay’s body grows hot, breath heavy, and wings lite. And with one last flap, the jay bursts aflame.
But he did not burn, for his willpower to challenge the skies is so strong, even in his last material moments, the jay desires to achieve new heights.
This bluejay was not the first bird, nor the last, not even the only bird in his own time to test the skies. Rare they may be, but there will always be birds, who believe themselves as not birds. Free birds. Free of binds, free to discover for themselves the limit of the sky. But they too share the same fate as our little jay. Each boundless one believes itself to be the only exception. When one passes by others, it will not see them. Nor will they see it. But nonetheless they will never stop wishing for another bird to journey with. The boundless ones wander as satellites to our earth, with their hearts in eternal contradiction. Ever seeking for greater heights, and ever wishing for another bird to fly with.
pixelskylines
germansingergirl
annaxmalina
theartofmadeline
prguitarman
vaporwave
izzy806