Why birds fall

A small white bird sat on a window sill shivering in the winter wind. She heard a creaking sound as someone opened the window, and a hand gently touched her frozen wings. She looked up into a man’s icy blue eyes. They shone with kindness and care and she thought that nothing in the world is as beautiful as a human. The man looked back at the beautiful bird, without even knowing what kind of bird it was, and thought that no creature could be happier than bird. They can fly everywhere, and see the whole world. They’re free and nothing can compare with that.
The man put his hand in his pocket and took out some crumbs, putting them down on the window sill. “Is that for me?” thought the bird. She looked at him and said “thank you” with her small eyes as she started to eat. She ate fast because she was afraid some other bird might charm this man and eat the food he had given to her so specially.
A strong wind hit her and she could barely stay on the sill as she saw her crumbs blow away. But she didn’t care. Crumbs are nothing. What mattered was the man had given them to her, and she was thankful. She looked at him and without a sound asked with her wide open eyes to go inside, to go beyond the window. She wanted to see his life, she wanted to get warm and sing to him with her tiny voice. But suddenly the man shivered and closed the window in front of her.
She thought, “It’s a mistake, he will open it again.” The look she had seen in his eyes couldn’t be fake, he been kind to her, he knew how hard it is for a small bird to find food in the winter. She was sure that he would let her see more of his life, he would let her go inside. But an hour went by, then two, and even after five hours still nothing had changed. No one opened the window for her again. To wait any more had no meaning, she knew, he didn’t want her to share his life.
So she flew. Flew as she had been born to fly. Flying because it stopped her falling down, and it’s all she could do. She raised her wings and flew high, as fast as she could. Below her the world was as small as a picture. So many people and yet no one could see the small white bird flying over their heads. Streets, buildings, cars, oceans, all was under her wings. Then she saw another building with many windows, and every window had its own story, its own life.
She flew down to one of the windows and sat on the sill. But she wasn’t waiting for someone to pay attention on her. She just sat and looked through the window, reading the story of the people inside. A happy family was ready to have a dinner, they were smiling and at peace. A little boy opened a window and said “Mom look it’s a bird! A small white bird. She looks so frozen.” But the mother just took a look at the bird and said, “Close the window before you catch a cold!” The boy quickly took some crumbs from the table and gave it to a bird, closing the window, and started dinner with his family. The bird looked at this family and said “Thank you” in her mind and flew away without eating the crumbs. She didn’t want them to care for her, she thought, because it’s all temporary and she would never be a part of their life anyway. They would never let her fly inside and give them her love and care. She’s just a bird, and her destiny is to fly from window to window. She can see people lives but will never be able to share with them. Her freedom is her pressure and she has to carry it all her life.
She flew up into the sky and realized that her wings really carried her body nowhere. To nobody. What’s the use of freedom if you’re prisoner in your own body? What is freedom if you can’t share your love with others? Who needs freedom to stay alone their entire life, without seeing a light? She spread her wings wide and stopped moving. Her body was flying by itself. She still saw people, oceans, and buildings below, but it wasn’t the same as before. She was falling. Her tiny body was falling down, slowly, then faster. The wind felt so heavy and she couldn’t move her wings. She kept falling. Falling until she felt the cold winter snow smash through her body.

* * *

A man was walking on the road and dropped his glove. He bent down to pick it up and noticed something red on the snow. It was a bird. The man’s icy blue eyes looked, and he realized it was the same bird that sat on his sill yesterday. But now that beautiful white bird was dead. Her red blood was all over the snow but still she was white. He took her in his hands, and dug a hole in the snow. He put her small body inside and covered her. As he stood to go his own way he thought, “How wonderful it would be to fly like a bird. To be free.


Editor Andrew Lee