Liberated

"My precious beastie, my beloved companion. Oh, what wondrous days await! What majesties you will visit! What adventures stretch before you, a stairway to your own heavenly pleasure! My friend, I will correct that most fatal error creation has cursed you with. Freedom, look how it unfolds before you, like the unraveling of all that was."

"Bck-CAW."

A stout man, a mask of fine black dust adorning his face, crinkled his eyes at the chicken strutting near his feet. A layer of sweat made him glisten in the muted light of a firelit basement as he returned to the miniature gears, almost ridiculous in his meaty hands. On the table before him, lay the most beautiful set of wings. Colors shimmered that even a macaw would envy, and the eagle would be hard pressed to outmaneuver such sleek design.

Against the backdrop of humming gears, the man's guffaw was a melody enticing the chicken to cock its head. With a flurry of feathers it returned to pecking away at the corn along the floor.

"A bird who cannot fly; this is injustice, malevolence, cruelty of the highest order! Depriving a creature of its rightful heritage, its basic right, its freedom, why, there is no greater evil! Fear not, my stalwart companion, the day of your deliverance is at hand!" With a bang that rocked the chicken on its feet, the man rose and held out the set of wings.

"Behold, your salvation!" The man thundered.

"Bck-CAW."

It took several weeks for the chicken to adjust to the new appendages fixed to its back. More still for the man to teach the creature to use them. Finally, after many hours in which the man explained, demonstrated, and trained his beloved chicken, with a happy squawk the newly flying bird took off from the ground with a mighty flap of its wings.

Tears glistened softly in the man's eyes as he watched the miraculous display. A hawk circled the glittering creation, shadows against the blinding sun, before the two shades flew away.

Smiling and humming an old tune, the man returned to his workshop, satisfied that today at least he had made the world a better place.

Days later, a path wound through looming trees, whose haughty heads bent towards a glimmer of brilliant red splashing their leafy fingers. A bird, neck twisted in garish geometry, sprawled next to a savaged mess of feathers and sinew.

The man, short and wide, ambled along this fateful road. It was the brilliant feather that attracted his notice at first. A shocking pink against the darkness of the forest. Rushing for this remnant of his perceived success, he suddenly froze. If he had been turned to granite he could not have stood more still. For there was Liberation, lying torn and bleeding on the ground.

Time cackled silently in the man's ear, gleefully pausing its eternal march to watch the stupefaction of man's folly.

"Why now, that is a mess." A cool voice dripped from somewhere nearby. The man startled but did not budge from his position. "A tragedy to be certain. Who would have thought to give wings to a chicken of all things?"

"No bird deserves to be flightless" The man mumbled through swollen lips, still seeing nothing but the wreckage before him. The voice, disembodied, circled around him.

"Hmmm. Deserves." A puff of air. "Well, no mysteries to be found here. Look, these joints were made of wax. Poor creature must have flown too close to the sun. Or a chimney more likely. Melted the things right off." The man, if anything, lost what vigor remained in his body and sank to his knees.

"I do wonder who would do such a thing. Give wings without teaching them how to fly among the dangers of the world. They must have set it free, with nary a thought as to how foolish it is to give someone tools and then set them to building the tower of Babel without any instruction as to how to apply these new gifts. More likely they bury themselves under the rickety structure of their own construction. A teacher cannot in good faith wash their hands of their pupil once they have imparted their lesson. If you give a starving man a gun, either teach him how to hunt or know that it may as well be your own hand on the trigger when he reaches to end his suffering."

The stout man, smelling of diesel and progress, began to weep.