Flightless Bird

What good was a bird who cannot fly? Useless.

Yet when you see a bird in distress, its wings clipped or perhaps not yet fully grown, what do you do? You do not shun it for disgracing its evolutionary track. Simply, you kneel down, and whether in wonder or in awe, you extend your fingers to cup around its wings, and you help it. Because you are not a machine evaluating survival of the fittest. Because you are human.

The soil was wet beneath Archer’s boot, volatile in its nature, squishing beneath where he had applied pressure. The grass was pressed down firmly into the post-rain sludge. Somewhere beneath his sole, a snail he could not see was protesting, a first crack appearing on its shell as he shifted his weight. He did not seem to be not at ease. If anything, he seemed to reassure the earth beneath him instead. He was one with the nature that surrounded him. He was as integrated into it as the weeds or the insects.

Yet Archer did not transcend beyond the boundaries of the human existence for trivial reasons — he allowed his soul to merge with nature for a noble cause. His knee barely teetered above the mud, the highest point of the curve in his leg touched on the soil, a faint smudge of brown staining a deep olive corduroy. He seemed to not have been affected by the contamination to his clothing. Instead, he seemed to have welcomed it, as if it were proof of his work.

Just between the cusp of his hands Archer held not a flower or a possum but a bird. Its fluffs of plumage yet to be developed were in tufts, a greyed, fraying white that mimicked the perpetual fog that hung just over the Scottish Highlands, barely out of reach, tantalisingly tangible. Yet when touched, he was left with nothing more than a few droplets of water on delicate fingertips. His eyes sparkled as the bird, as if sharing his thoughts, squeaked. How it ached to fly through the mist and into the untouched sky…. And how he, trapped in the form of his human body, yearned to follow.

The bird squeaked again. This time, it held no promise, no vow, no proclamation. Simply, it was a greeting, and Archer intended to respond to it.

“Oooooh,” Archer cooed in return, the sound low under his voice. Almost unnatural. It did not seem appropriate, a sound so soft, so gentle, so fluid, escaping form between lips so used to being so difficult, so harsh, so grating. The words came to him subconsciously, and for a moment, the deeper implications of his words did not resonate with him. In that moment, he was simply a child again, and this world of the untamed land was his to tread upon. “Have you lost your mother?”

Then it struck him. Hard and in the stomach. Enough to have him almost drop the small creature within the mud, to taint its impeccable fur with dirt, to stain its innocent baby soul with sins. He took a breath, yet that breath was long and drawn out and for seconds that hung in the air with far too little comfort there was a moment where Archer thought he would speak nothing at all. Simply to allow it to pass, as if that would be enough for him to find the ability to live with it. “…Don’t worry, I have too.” He said, finally gathering himself. Yet his voice rattled, as if accompanying the orchestra of the leaves on the tree just above in a draft of the wind. Almost, intentional. “I understand your position, little bird.”

He buried his face into its plumage, and allowed its little claws to grasp onto his fingers. It did not hurt, but the sensory was grounding. In that moment he felt that it was the only anchor left to the world — the only anchor to a past that defined himself. He smiles, just slightly, just barely, but enough. Then, after a long pause for pondering, he clears his throat and pulls away, “I think… little sparrow hawk, you will grow up to be just like her.”

You, Archer Duncan, can extend such grace towards a creature so irrelevant to your life. Why can you, Archer Duncan, not extend the same grace to the centre of your existence: yourself?

Yet when you see a bird in distress, its wings clipped or perhaps not yet fully grown, what do you do? You do not shun it for disgracing its evolutionary track. Simply, you kneel down, and whether in wonder or in awe, you extend your fingers to cup around its wings, and you help it. Because you are not a machine evaluating survival of the fittest. Because you are human.

What good was a bird who cannot fly? Maybe just young, who had not yet grown his wings.

@Richard de Montmorency
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