It was a bright and beautiful day like any other, a day full of hopes and surprises since it has only begun; yes, that is true with everyone else but not with Linda. She woke up with a great disappointment on her face because it was yet another day of stress and internal conflicts that she had to survive. By the time she was up, the sun had made its journey closer to the position right over our heads. She gave out a big sigh scratching her head, and then her hand slid over her face as if following her jawline and finally fell on her lap. Yet another long and sluggish day, she thought, if only things were different.
Her room was on the first floor, so she had to come down to get to the kitchen. The house was horrifyingly quiet as if no one was around, which probed her to pick up the phone and verify the time, and it was nearing half-past eleven. No wonder the house was quiet, she thought; everyone had gone for their work. Then the usual thoughts came rushing into her head; I am the only useless, jobless human garbage in this house. She always thought that being harsh to herself might help her ward off the harm those words might cause when they came from someone else's mouth.
She walked towards the fridge to collect her breakfast. There was a container on the topmost shelf which had a label saying, 'Breakfast, microwave it!'. Linda grabbed the box and went to the kitchen to microwave her food. On her way to the kitchen to heat the food, a strange thought came to her mind, the story of a tiny bird born with a perfect pair of wings. She remembered the story as she placed the dish in the microwave and set the timer to 5 minutes.
The story goes like this:
This tiny bird named Kou lived inside a tree hole with her two guardians. They loved Kou a lot and vowed to protect her from all sorts of danger. As she grew older, her tiny body and wings began to grow shiny white feathers. Soon approached the days of her first flight, and Kou was eagerly getting ready for that day. She used to count her feathers every day while wiping them with the oil secretions from her tiny oil glands. As the D-day came nearer, she found the count decreasing though it was at a barely significant rate. On the D-day, they all went to the branch that was a level higher than their home. Her guardians told her that she only had to flap her wings while giving up the grip on her claws once there was enough lift force. Kou listened to their words and extended her tiny wings, ready to fly, then she looked at both of them and turned around, facing the mountain ranges at the edge of the horizon. Looking at those distant mountains which she always saw from her home, she used to think, 'One day I will fly to you and see for myself how it is like to watch you from up close.'. "Today is finally that day.", she muttered to herself in a confident tone.
Following the steps that her guardians instructed, she flapped the wings as hard as she could, but nothing happened. Then she dropped her wings for a while, then raised them back to position after a few minutes, and the same situation occurred yet again. Each time it repeated, her confidence meter dropped slowly yet significantly. She could hear birds cheerfully chirping and applauding other young birds taking their first flight, which made her even sadder. It was already dusk, and her guardians went closer to her and told her consolingly, "We can try next time. You are still a kid now, don't you worry. You will soon be able to fly like all others."
From that day on, Kou went out to the branch and tried all her best to fly. After a month's practice, she was able to keep up her flight for a few minutes but, she couldn't fly higher. The tiny bird found herself putting great strength on her wings to do at least that much. Since she mastered flight, her guardians let her hang out and make friends.
In the excitement of meeting new friends her age at the expedition, Kou woke up early, brushed her shiny feathers and had arrived at their meeting spot even before the schedule. While waiting for others, she sat gazing at the mountains that she always loved watching and thought, 'Now I am one step closer to my dream.'. After a few hours, as the scheduled time neared, Kou heard birds coming her way. As she turned around to greet them, her gaze met with a bunch of tiny birds staring surprisingly at her. Ah! Of course, anyone would be amazed by spotless white feathers and shiny red eyes. Yes, she was an albino bird. There was only one of her kind in that neighbourhood. She chose to break the silence and said, "Hello, everyone! My name is Kou, and I live in the hole beside the first thicker branch in that tree." pointing in the direction of her house. Then everyone replied in unison, " Hello, Kou!" and then they continued to self introduce each one of them in order.
Then came a few guardian birds in charge of navigation and overseeing the kids during their expedition, but Kou's guardians weren't there since they managed older kids. After giving the instructions for safety measures and other relevant matters, they took off together towards the direction of the mountains. As they went higher and higher, the birds had to flap their wings harder and harder; Kou felt it overly straining on her wings and muscles, making her tired and even breathing felt laborious. One of the adult birds who found her working hard to keep up with the others called out to the ones leading the troupe to rest for a bit. Since Kou couldn't match up with the other birds, their group had to make multiple stops in-between before reaching their destination, and so theirs were the last to make it back. She felt sorry for dragging everyone down. The situation continued for the rest of the expeditions, and other fellow birds started to want Kou out of their troupe.
On their fifth day of the journey at their second stop, Kou heard someone loudly speak how inconvenient it was to travel with her. It struck in her mind and was eating away her confidence even more. That day she returned home when the sky was all dark. She went straight to her sweet-secret spot, a leafless branch outside their hole invisible from the inside.
Suddenly she heard two people speak.
"Don't you think you need to stop with whatever you have been doing?... Don't you see what is happening "
"I don't know what you are implying."
"Oh really! Whatever you have been doing with her feathers. I know you are worried and all. But look at her; she is all tired from all that because of your actions."
"Hey, even you agreed to my idea back then. What now?"
"You think I'm o..."
Their conversation was interrupted by Kou as she came in without any notice. She stared at them with a confused look and asked, "What was that just now? What about wings? Was that about me? What about my feathers? Wait, did you do something to them? Is that why I can't fly like others? You were praising me with all that smile on your face that day; was that all an act? Did you know how hard it was for me all this time? Why would you do something like that?"
She felt like something broke inside her, with all the pain pouring into her. They tried to convince her by saying, "Whatever we did was for your good, Kou. We didn't want you to fly far away and get separated from us. You know the world is dangerous. It isn't as pretty as it may look from here."
Kou glared at them in anger with teary eyes in silence and then rushed to her secret spot and pondered over the matter without knowing what to do. For the following days, she never talked a word to them, nor did she go out. Instead, she remained home and stared at the distant mountains that felt even more afar.
One fine day she picked up her courage to move out of the house without saying a word to her guardians. Kou had already grown back all of her feathers by that time, and so when she tried flapping her wings, she found it much easier than it was with the group. Then she flew toward the mountains without turning back.
As the timer went off, the microwave stopped with a beeping sound, which startled her, bringing her back to the real world. Linda took out the dish and walked towards the table thinking, 'How similar her life was with the bird Kou. Since Kou was a bird, moving out of the house was effortless for the bird, but what about me?' She needed to consider a lot of things if she had to do that. She laughed out loud, amused by how her train of thoughts went. Linda picked a spoon and scooped out some microwaved breakfast and thought, 'If I compared the feathers to my opportunities and skills, then yeah, that story makes more sense. I wish I exploded like that little bird. Ah! What did I do to deserve this?'. Then she continued eating her food.
