Liberty

Mother gave me a little bird for my birthday. It was not a fancy, colored, gorgeous one, neither a big one. It was mostly kind of a street bird, you know, one of those little birds that are here, there and everywhere and that does not have anything flashy in particular. But the bird sang, oh yes it did, and its teenie tiny voice was like a sunflower caressing my ear. Is it really happy? How can that possibly be if he is trapped inside a metal cell? I kept thinking about it – while I helped mother in the kitchen chores, while I took a warm bath and even while I was trying to sleep. Then it struck me: I had to free it, I had to become its true savior. Surely mother won’t mind if I give her any excuse, including that the bird itself suddenly flew away. The day finally came. Mother was going to be out until a late hour. I swiftly prepared my plan. That day I woke up particularly early just to encounter mother apparently sleeping on the kitchen´s table.

She was crying, not quite aloud, she was doing it just like a soft short breeze of tears and moans. ‘Why you escaped?’ she kept saying with a shortened voice. I immediately turned my eyes right into the now empty cage hanging from the ceiling. The bird was gone. Somehow. Some way. I carefully approached mother but I stopped when I realized she had been drawing the most beautiful wings that I have ever seen. Colored. Full of light. She drew them surely for hours. Then I also began to cry. Not out of sadness, but from pure joy, from pure liberty.