The Drowned Bird

Complete Amnesia

The thing called a hospital was a huge building that smelled of chemicals and plastic.

I was diagnosed with complete amnesia. The rarest form of mentality borne of shock.

I was a nameless child with no sort of history anywhere, a phantom child. The man took me to his home, where he would help me learn to live in society.

The reason I was with him and not in a psychiatric ward for close monitoring and study was he point-blank refused.

Two weeks passed and I learned to move all on my own, most importantly it seemed, to bathe and to swim on my own.

I learned to speak, I did use my voice but that was only because the man insisted.

I was named Darya meaning the river, where I was found. I learned that man's name too.

It's Ea, we live in a little village isolated in the countryside called Avis, the district of the birds. Ea teaches me Common, math and science. He takes me to play in the woods and teaches me it's ways.

I do not know many children save for Ea's other student Sora.

Sora is a loud, exuberant, but complex child. His family is not kind to children, and favors the cup more than anything.

I told my secret of my past life and end to Ea, he did not believe me, nor would I, but that is something that refuses to settle back in my mind.

I love to play on the riverbed in which I was reborn, play with the chicks of my old nest and chat with the wrens and sparrows as they visit me on my window sill.

I learned long ago that I have birth marks on each shoulder, that resemble that of wings. It's as if my previous life was labeled into my flesh as a reminder.

No one has ever seen them except Ea. He has told me time, and time again never to show my marks to anyone, lest I trusted them with every bit of myself.

He has never explained why, save the tale of a little boy with my markings drowned as a sacrifice.

Another of an older woman also marked like I, buried alive.

The most horrid of all was of a freshly birthed baby thrown to a pit of flame.

"These are not just tales to scare you Rya, they are acts truly preformed by these people. I afear you are a misplaced victim." he tells me one day finally tiring of my prying to know.

"I was a drowned little bird, that watched as her feathers turned to ash join her at the bottom of a basin like snow." I tell him and Sora stiffens beside me.

"That is awfully well-spun for a tale Rya." he says his sky blue eyes dulling for a moment, tormented by a memory of home.

"'Tis not a tale, it is true as the hair on my head." I say resolutely.

"Rya your hair is white, white as a dove's breast." Sora says slowly as if he were breaking sudden and important news.

I simply smile having exhausted my use of sound for then.

I think that the reason Ea bothers with us children because one day an old friend of Ea's stopped by.

"Ea! Long time to hide from the world yes?" a large man arrives unannounced one day mid-lesson and gave Ea a heart stopping scare.

"Pel, welcome."

"You have more kids?"

"No."

"I knew you'd let Penny rest one day."

"Pel." Ea's voice had gone stone cold as did his eyes. I already knew he had lost his wife and child to an illness that swept the land.

"I'm off, you will not be able to finish our lesson today." Sora says getting up and brushing his pants off. He offers a hand to me and I take it.

"Where are you going?" Pel asks head cocked.

"To the river." Sora says and I nod.

"Okay well don't fall in and drown." Pel warns.

"The water loves me too much to let me die by its hand again." I say to him quietly and follow Sora out leaving Pel in a tizzy mess of confusion.

I softly, almost to myself, sing a song I remember. It was a peculiar song a girl used to sing when I still had feathers.

"~Down by the river by the boats
Where everybody goes to be alone~" I sing and Sora glances to me with a funny look on his face.

"~Where you won't see any rising sun~" I continue with a soft smile

"~Down to the river we will run~" Sora joins me and my smile grows.

"~When by the water we drink to the dregs~

~Look at the stones on the river bed~

~I can tell from your eyes~

~You've never been by the riverside~

~Down by the water the riverbed~

~Somebody calls you somebody says~

~Swim with the current and float away~

~Down by the river everyday~

~Oh my God I see how everything is torn in the river deep~

~And I don't know why I go the way~

~Down by the riverside~

~When that old river runs pass your eyes~

~To wash off the dirt on the riverside~

~Go to the water so very near~

~The river will be your eyes and ears~

~I walk to the borders on my own~

~To fall in the water just like a stone~

~Chilled to the marrow in them bones~

~Why do I go here all alone?~

~Why do I go here all alone?~

~Oh my God I see how everything is torn in the river deep~

~And I don't know why I go the way~

~Down by the riverside~" our duet closes just as we reach the river.

"How do you know that song?" he asks.

"I used to hear it all the time." I say. "Why?"

"My sister loved that song." he says his eyes dulling and they did not bounce back like usual.

"What's wrong? Is your sister ill?" I ask lightly holding his fingers. His hands cover mine and he rests his head on my shoulder.

"Not anymore, she used to be very, very sick."

"Where is she now?" I ask smoothing his hair.

"She died, father killed her, said she was too expensive to keep." he says. His voice was devoid of any emotion save for sorrow and grief.

"Ah, perhaps she has been reborn. The gods take pity on those cruelly killed." I say.

"I hope so, she was only ten."

A tear streams down my face in grief. Should the world not have stopped for a little girl whom bedridden was murdered by her own parent?

No, it never did for the little bird drowned with no hope of ever actually touching the boundless blue of the sky.

The tadpoles and will continue to swim against the current as it washes over our feet.

The wind will continue to caress the fields with its sweet breath, as the clouds will continue to let the redeeming rain wash the earth.

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The song and the lyrics in this part are the same. By Anges Obel : Riverside.

I've come to love her and her music style, from which this story was inspired.