Closet Work

Sparrow

A golden sparrow.

Thoughts were weaved on its wings like feathers themselves, capturing the wind and riding it like freedom itself. It was meant for destinations far along the edge or even farther. But not beyond. Never beyond.

The sparrow hopped from branch to branch, assessing and surmissing the cold stunted activities rationing under it. Human children grazed by the sorrow of their broken houses. When a bomb hits, it hits to dwindle, never aiming to spare. So the children had a solid blank like expression. They preferred it that way.

The sparrow took flight, leaving a deranged society to mingle in its own woe. When the air was once again sliding under its wings, it's brown seed like eyes hoped for the blue only. Ahead, anywhere, there should be somewhere where it was meant to be. Not here. Not in that bitter reality.

So the search was on again. The sparrow was blessed with an inner understanding to separate the false from the real, to see the traps from the kindness. And so it turned away from the scrumptious aspects of grains on a bowl just below it. The melancholy soldiers were behind that arrangement. Food was fed to the destruction and now the broken souls wandered in search for all manners of food-even if it's a golden sparrow with beautiful wings. Food is food.

Sparrow flew higher, daring it's dreams, it's small wings beating relentlessly against the brittle of the wind. It ascended to where the sky was lighter and free-er. And now in that untouchable height, the sad ground beneath wore just one colour:grey.

Dots of heads watched up. Then a shrill if a cry. The confusion was dissolved into terror in a split of a second for another, another of those bombs were about to dive.

The sparrow put no notion to this. It was only a scant creature, perhaps not even a life at all. The white missiles ate houses and humans only. A sparrow is not its meal. Yet fear arrives without the consent of the mind. The loud thunder from the ground and after that the dust storm that conjures appalled the flying creature. It happened once again and sparrow only beat its wings as smoke ushered from the ground. The surviving children, it thought, will graze again by their broken house. Such a pity.

The sparrow descended to rest quitely for a bit. Where there used to be a river, now there is dried land with puddles on it. The river bank stenched from the un named rots. The line of trees have given up on life long ago, much before the maniacs played with their missiles. Now the empty shell of their mortal self remains. Yet, once upon a time, this was paradise.

A sparrow have limited vision. It's eyes can never capture the details like a human. Otherwise, it would have seen the tension, the desolation, the waves of silent cries in the air. If it had a heart with more chambers and deeper colour, it would have felt overwhelmed. It didn't though. A sparrow was only a sparrow.

With the recitation of few breaths on the dead branch, it's wings flapped again, launching into the endless ceiling for its nameless destiny.

Its destiny however had a name. The young forest keeping its faith past the apocalypse wanted new residents. And the sparrow should be one.

It took days. Perhaps weeks in the count but the sparrow finally made it. It landed with a gleeful chirp on the tree adorned in lively green. A home was new and a future reincarnated.

Hence it searched around, for brothers and family, the green canopy looking greener and alive. This was life to the golden sparrow: a life bestowed by harmony and simplicity. The ground shaking thunders of the land behind its wings mourned in solitude. It was all those maniac's fault. Are maniacs humans too? It was just a golden sparrow. It lived to eat and fly, not stress on human jeopardy. The trees the golden sparrow called home were degenerated and burnt into charcoal. The truth is, that land suffered. From the betraying gaurdians called human and by the maniacs. Rest the souls of those green friends.

The sparrow will start new, collecting sticks and fibres to fill its home. It could hear the chirps, foreign and familiar along with the howls and growl native to the ground. Delight is what the sparrow felt next. That was it: a new beginning for the golden sparrow who had thoughts weaved in its feathers and could ride wind like freedom.

Even a sparrow can survive. The humans could not.