Blackbird (Part One) - For Annie
1.
A cold wind slipped into the world.
It slid between the leaves, coating their red tips with frost, leaving each branch shivering. The air turned stiff and empty, snatching warmth from breath and bones, and the trees became bare skeletons. Color fled in the face of frost. Icy fingers invaded branches and burrows, and the animals hunched their shoulders and shivered in their dreams to imagine the time ahead, while birds flooded the graying sky in search of warmer climes.
2.
The little bird had not yet learned to fly when autumn came. He was the smallest of his brothers and sisters, and he clung to the warm nest, always hanging back and tucking his head under his wing while the others took their first steps into the sky. One by one they took wing and headed south, the nest around him left empty. It was more than any bird could manage to scratch out the smallest worm from the icy ground; and on their flight, they mourned, sure that he would die in winter’s grasp.
3.
Days passed. Frost set in, claiming the bushes that had burst overripe with fruit. The bird huddled in his fortress of twigs and moss, feeling the cold of the first snow down to his very bones. Strength drained from his limbs, and he knew he must surely do something or die.
4.
Too late he took the plunge- a wicked wind swept in from the eat, howling through his feathers, buffeting his little body from branch to branch, only to catch him in its pitiless, icy arms and carry him up, up where his lung struggled for breath. His wings beat helplessly, the wind throwing him down, plummeting towards the unknown, the dark icy ground that rose up to meet him.
A hazy warmth pervaded his being; so frozen that he did not hear the crack of the glass as he was thrown into it, nor feel the air knocked from his lungs as he fell back into the snow on the windowsill. He was hardly aware he had lungs. He was too frozen to even draw breath.
5.
He sees:
The slim steel bars of the cage. The warm woodchips beneath him, and above and around him, a dim yellow light.
But the heart beats- breath rushes to his lungs- the ears catch a low rumble.
He sees: the shadowy figures of giants pressed in around him, and he imagines bears, wolves, vague pictures of teeth and claws. Beasts he has never seen, waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting victim.
He sees-
--hair blacker than a crow’s wing, eyes bluer than the sky. His ears catch the soft murmur of her voice, feels through the haze that reaches out to stroke his feathers tenderly.
6.
The bird imagines a good witch, living on the edge of the forest. He imagines the spirits of trees, carrying him to some warm land inside their bark. He imagines fairies and air sprites and all manner of strange and wonderful beings from the stories his mother told him when he was a nestling. Bird have their own legends, their own fairy tales.
He does not think- human. At the heart of the forest, in the depths of his nest, there is no conception of them. They may as well not even exist.
7.
There comes a day, snow still on the ground, when he finds he can flutter around the cage, now turned fat and gluttonous. And his voice rings out sweetly through the house, calling to his angel, his savior, trying to charm her with his song.
They take him out in the air and throw him up into the sky, and he takes off.
She, the girl, his angel, thinks: the bird is well, and it will not come back.
8.
There is a place in the heart of the forest where no human foot has ever tread. The bushes grow wild and thick, barring entrance; the trees cluster dangerously together, so that the air is thick and stifling with their breath. Silence grows in the moss, caught now in the icicles that dangle from each branch.
Into the woods the little bird flies. Everyone knows magic lives at the heart of the trees, where no breeze blows or snow falls; if you can find it, the birds whisper to each other, you can have a wish.
9.
What do you want? the queen of the forest asks. She has been asleep, wrapped in white furs. She is the voice in the trees, the dirt in which plants root. Her forehead is adorned with horns.
To be with her, the little bird answers. It is in his blood to request this. It is his right. His ancestors may have passed up the power, but the privilege is still his to request.
To be human, says the queen, and her voice is like the crack of a branch that breaks in the storm. She does not approve. He will not give in.
If that is what it takes.
10.
Bone strengthens; feathers fall painfully from his skin. The beak clatters to the stone, and the wings pop and bend, twisting, forming elbows, forearms, fingers. He wants to scream, but the throat is caught in the process of reconfiguring itself, vocal cords stretching and bending. The heart expands, the blood pumps erratically to new corners of flesh that seem to take on a life of their own, twitching without his command.
You will regret this, she says.
A cold wind slipped into the world.
It slid between the leaves, coating their red tips with frost, leaving each branch shivering. The air turned stiff and empty, snatching warmth from breath and bones, and the trees became bare skeletons. Color fled in the face of frost. Icy fingers invaded branches and burrows, and the animals hunched their shoulders and shivered in their dreams to imagine the time ahead, while birds flooded the graying sky in search of warmer climes.
2.
The little bird had not yet learned to fly when autumn came. He was the smallest of his brothers and sisters, and he clung to the warm nest, always hanging back and tucking his head under his wing while the others took their first steps into the sky. One by one they took wing and headed south, the nest around him left empty. It was more than any bird could manage to scratch out the smallest worm from the icy ground; and on their flight, they mourned, sure that he would die in winter’s grasp.
3.
Days passed. Frost set in, claiming the bushes that had burst overripe with fruit. The bird huddled in his fortress of twigs and moss, feeling the cold of the first snow down to his very bones. Strength drained from his limbs, and he knew he must surely do something or die.
4.
Too late he took the plunge- a wicked wind swept in from the eat, howling through his feathers, buffeting his little body from branch to branch, only to catch him in its pitiless, icy arms and carry him up, up where his lung struggled for breath. His wings beat helplessly, the wind throwing him down, plummeting towards the unknown, the dark icy ground that rose up to meet him.
A hazy warmth pervaded his being; so frozen that he did not hear the crack of the glass as he was thrown into it, nor feel the air knocked from his lungs as he fell back into the snow on the windowsill. He was hardly aware he had lungs. He was too frozen to even draw breath.
5.
He sees:
The slim steel bars of the cage. The warm woodchips beneath him, and above and around him, a dim yellow light.
But the heart beats- breath rushes to his lungs- the ears catch a low rumble.
He sees: the shadowy figures of giants pressed in around him, and he imagines bears, wolves, vague pictures of teeth and claws. Beasts he has never seen, waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting victim.
He sees-
--hair blacker than a crow’s wing, eyes bluer than the sky. His ears catch the soft murmur of her voice, feels through the haze that reaches out to stroke his feathers tenderly.
6.
The bird imagines a good witch, living on the edge of the forest. He imagines the spirits of trees, carrying him to some warm land inside their bark. He imagines fairies and air sprites and all manner of strange and wonderful beings from the stories his mother told him when he was a nestling. Bird have their own legends, their own fairy tales.
He does not think- human. At the heart of the forest, in the depths of his nest, there is no conception of them. They may as well not even exist.
7.
There comes a day, snow still on the ground, when he finds he can flutter around the cage, now turned fat and gluttonous. And his voice rings out sweetly through the house, calling to his angel, his savior, trying to charm her with his song.
They take him out in the air and throw him up into the sky, and he takes off.
She, the girl, his angel, thinks: the bird is well, and it will not come back.
8.
There is a place in the heart of the forest where no human foot has ever tread. The bushes grow wild and thick, barring entrance; the trees cluster dangerously together, so that the air is thick and stifling with their breath. Silence grows in the moss, caught now in the icicles that dangle from each branch.
Into the woods the little bird flies. Everyone knows magic lives at the heart of the trees, where no breeze blows or snow falls; if you can find it, the birds whisper to each other, you can have a wish.
9.
What do you want? the queen of the forest asks. She has been asleep, wrapped in white furs. She is the voice in the trees, the dirt in which plants root. Her forehead is adorned with horns.
To be with her, the little bird answers. It is in his blood to request this. It is his right. His ancestors may have passed up the power, but the privilege is still his to request.
To be human, says the queen, and her voice is like the crack of a branch that breaks in the storm. She does not approve. He will not give in.
If that is what it takes.
10.
Bone strengthens; feathers fall painfully from his skin. The beak clatters to the stone, and the wings pop and bend, twisting, forming elbows, forearms, fingers. He wants to scream, but the throat is caught in the process of reconfiguring itself, vocal cords stretching and bending. The heart expands, the blood pumps erratically to new corners of flesh that seem to take on a life of their own, twitching without his command.
You will regret this, she says.