This is me

Chapter 10: My reality

I had been in this strange place for two days. I hadn't sung again, as the last time I tried, they beat my cage until I understood that I shouldn't. The door was jammed for me not to open it. They had not renewed the corn they had put me to eat; they had not given me water; what did they think I would drink?

I was on an old rusty stick, the only one in this ugly cage, and very close to the horrible dog, which yesterday I saw tear alive a rat that his owner gave him. It was the worst, I thought I had already witnessed all kinds of animals' deaths because of humans, but they never had enough.

The dog was barking, and I could hear it almost over my sensitive little ear. I felt an enormous emptiness when I was no longer in Juan's house; I could no longer see Pikio or Aurora. I was completely alone, lost in this world of theirs. I always had been.

"I wish I were that parrot; his life only consists of standing there!" The guy complained while he drank and drank of that liquid that drove them all crazy. He always did.

If only he knew that my short and fragile life depended on him now, on him and his neglect. If he knew that, I felt empty and hated.

"When are you going to sell it?" complained an old woman. "You said your friend stole it because he was worth a lot of money. Do it now, or I'll give it to the dog, shoddy lazy!"

A child began to cry and was shouted to silence. I didn't feel sorry for the boy; he always came to shake my cage... And I jinx it. He stood up, as if I had called him, and came to me.

"Parrot!" He shook me. "Parrot, fall! Fall off!"

"Leave it, boy," the lady challenged him, but he ignored her.

"He wants to play!"

"Of course not..."

"YES, HE WANTS!"

He continued shaking until he knocked me off the pole. He opened the cage and yanked me out, put me on a broom, the kind they used to clean their floors, and spun it. Soon I started to get dizzy because, apart from the fact that I had not eaten, I was spinning too fast; I saw everything as little rays of light.

I shot out and fell. The only thing I could hear was the loud barking of the dog, very close, so I stood up very giddy and jumped away. My heart was already pounding out of my chest with fear.

I heard the boy running towards me. Was it that he would not leave me alone?

"Leave that dirty animal!" The older woman shouted.

The boy grabbed me, and I bit his hand.

If I had learned anything well, it was that they feared my beak more than I thought. But this time, I was wrong to defend myself, apparently. The boy screamed, and the woman sent me away with the broom. My wing feathers had been clipped again, so I just bounced off the hard concrete and hit the wall.

I shrugged my paws and lay there on my side with my eyes closed. My whole body ached. It hadn't been necessary for them to hit me with that, just pulling away would have been enough. But the other thing I had also learned was that humans never measured themselves with their excesses.

Minutes passed, or maybe hours. The cold was beginning to be felt. I was going to die soon, I already knew, but I didn't want it to be this way. Unfortunately, that was how it would be, lonely and empty, without love, without anyone telling me that I was beautiful, without anyone telling me that they loved me.

After all, I was just an animal. My existence in this world was not meaningful, and no one cared. Only humans cared about themselves, the planet was theirs, and we animals just got in the way. So why were we born?

"Hey! The parrot costs money: you almost killed it!" complained the friend of the guy who robbed me.

He took me without care and put me back in the cage. He dialed a number on his cell phone. That device caught my attention in Juan's house, and I liked to approach cautiously to bite it and listen to the little noises it made when I activated something while I jumped happily. Now I saw it without grace.

"Yes, did you get it? Great" He hung up and saw the old woman. "See? The skinny guy has gotten a guy interested in buying rare birds to sell."

He grabbed my cage carelessly and led me out onto the street. He walked a few blocks while some people came to want to look at me or ask the usual: "Does it speak?" That was the role I had to perform to do well in their world. Nobody noticed my condition; they just wanted me to give them a show.

Someone finally mentioned that I seemed ill since I was lying on the cage floor, but the guy kept going. We arrived at the house of his friend, the thief.

"What the hell have you done to him?" he complained when he saw me.

"He bit the Boris. Let's see that guy for once before this bug dies."

They put me with the cage in the back seat of a car, and we left. On the way, they bought something to drink, apart from the usual, and I was dying of thirst. Juan had always invited me from the juices he prepared; he always gave me to try most of the things that I indicated to him that I wanted. I had been happy for at least a short time.

I was determined to give my love to humans if they treated me nice. But it could not be so.

We arrived at a place full of rough and neglected birds; I did not paint better, of course.

"That thing?" said the guy and grabbed my cage. "A caique. But look at how bad it is."

I could hardly stand up anymore. My feathers were a bit ruffled, and I felt terrible. I was still on the floor of my cage, reeling.

"There was only something wrong with his stomach..."

"Have you at least fed it?" He put me aside. "Sorry, it is not going to last the trip."

"Ah, come on! We can lower the price."

"Leave it already. He's just a bug; we'll get another one."

They pushed each other because they wouldn't get their money for me. They took me, and we left.

"See?"

"Well, now what?"

"He is going to die, so I don't care. Juan went to find me and demanded that I return it to him, but I told him that I no longer had it. I'm not going to go and say, hey, here I have it again. No. I have a reputation to defend."

"I'm not going to have it. I must feed my dog."

"Kill him then, or let him die. It is the same. It will not last."

I didn't understand why I wasn't important. In the homes I had been in, they considered dogs or cats, but not me.

What did it cost them to give me back? He wasn't going to die like me. But it was too much to ask; nobody here felt sorry for me.