A LONELY WORLD OF WONDER: An Anthology ✓

An Ode to The Nightingale

There is a burden I hold close to my heart.

A faded melody from a past memory, not often heard in writers like myself. I had hoped to avoid it for a long time, as I've done in years past, but even I cannot escape the calls of the nightingales. Alas, their voices were beloved, their songs - oh so pure. The spirits would carry their whistles for miles, through the currents and winds that made up this holy land. But their stories held a depth that equaled my own, and birthed a void that I had fallen into more times than I could count. This burden, as I've foretold, was neither a gift nor a curse. It was never one to begin with. And thus, I speak not on my behalf, but on theirs. Not on the many wounds I carried, but the wounds they've withheld from us all. I speak a story that I've strained to carry, a story that I struggled to unfold: an ode to the nightingales.

Within this world lies a kind hearted person, the kind you'd worry much about. It's the type of personality that learned its sole role was to give to others and be generous at all times. It makes them so wonderful and, indefinitely, a blessing to all who are in their life. A soul born from heaven itself, as I would sometimes say, yet lost to it all at once. This befell to the gentlest nightingale, the one who sang the lowest note amongst the chorus of many, yet held the longest whistle. Had it not been for his insatiable appetite for fishing and scoffing jokes, the nightingale was pure and just. And true to his every word. He had a bond to me and my Father, longing every visit to go fishing out in the depths of the ocean. Making promises, here and there, and to some I had accepted, as had my Father. I longed to touch the waves of the oceans with the nightingale, to watch his motions as he caught his prey, and hear his laugh, deep yet comforting and beautiful. A beauty that, the world figured, wasn't acceptable for a pure-at-heart.

Father arrived home late one night, ragged and sweaty after his encounter with the nightingale, and stumbled upon the nearest chair, gazing silently at the empty room before him. I hadn't known what became of my Father's strange actions, not until Mother sat down with him to speak. But his face was contorted by sorrow, and all he could manage were but a few words.

"He took one breath," Father whispered into the emptiness, gazing down at the wooden floor, "Heaved for a second, then took another. And then it was quiet."

Mother fell silent as well, studying his face before giving him a reassuring rub on the back. Alas, not even the faintest of kindness could cure his sorrow. He had lost the tune to his undying nightingale.

And, like a shallow shell in the rain, he began to weep.

Days would follow, as the search for the nightingale closed, drawing us to his final zone. We had gathered there, the loads of us all weighing upon the creaking wood below, our heavy hearts only adding a burden to the place in which he laid. I would find the gentle nightingale here, deep in his slumber, his flesh so golden, his smile so pure, his body laid out so perfectly upon the bed. But he didn't move. And as we trudged closer, through the invisible snow that grasped our legs and pulled at our heart strings, I would realize that he would never move again. As if put under a spell no less, that smile I had imagined would fade, and that skin would flush out the thrumming essence that built us all. I would wait, and listen, and the more I waited the more that torment began to grow. I'd hope for the gentle bird to sing his fishy tune, just once more as he had in the past. And recall his last word: "I promise."

A word that soon died along with the wait.

My soul would crumble thereafter, my sanity breaking down alongside it. And we begged, long hours into the night, to change this nightmarish tune -- past all time itself -- until the nightingale's forgotten name would be left alone in the dust, plastered upon a wall, locked forever in stone.