I’ve always believed when a wing gets crippled the best thing for it is to be stretched and exercised. I once had a little blue bird because I found it laying on my window seal with a broken wing. I gave a small cry. The poor thing was so still I was certain it was dead, but as I lifted it tenderly in my small hands it fluttered it’s one good wing slightly. I pressed my fingers to it’s white speckled breast and felt the faint swift flutter of its heartbeat.
My father, Adi, is king of a great land I have never really seen. It stretches far beyond the palace windows and I can never journey far because of my lame foot. I don't know if I could perhaps travel much more if I weren't a princess, but certainly I could if I didn't have a weak twisted ankle.
Eli, my bold sister, scoffed when I bandaged it’s wound and fed it. She didn’t think it was worth saving but then she is free to go wherever she likes with an entourage of only one soldier. It took several weeks and Adi brought me a beautiful gilded cage with gemstones in the door and silver perch. One wall was solid silver with several perches of various sizes and at different heights. The silver was carved with bluejays and peacocks. It was a beautiful little home,with plenty of food and water, but the bluejay was hopping around restlessly the moment it was strong enough to be on it’s feet. It sang all day long, chattering at the air and to me. Sometimes I thought it sounded bold and cheerful as if it was determined to be grateful. On other days, however, I could hear the pleading in it’s voice and it broke my heart.
It was on it’s feet in a couple days but it was nearly two weeks before I was able to take the bandage off. That day it started flying about it’s cage. First it flew softly, testing the strength of its wing, then with more speed, twisting and plunging to keep from striking against the silver bars.
That night I lay in bed staring at the shadowed corner where the cage was. My heart beat like the wings of my little blu jay. I could hear the gentle rustle and thrum of his flight around the large cage. For hours Iay still in my bed, wide awake, my heart as restless as my little bird. I couldn’t let him go! He was my one delight and link to the world beyond my window! Perhaps the gods had sent him to me to be my companion.
Then another thought struck. Perhaps the gods had sent him to me as a test. The stories did say they tested mortals in all manner of disquises. Perhaps, it was a test to see if I was willing to sacrifice my joy for another’s freedom and then maybe, perhaps…I didn’t let my mind turn there. I looked hard at the shadowed corner. Then tossing my head away I rolled away from it and stared at the curtain and open window.
The moon hung high in the sky like the glowing silver fingernail of some great god pointing to the south. Stars winked all around it like plotting diamonds in the skies murky depths. A cool breeze slid in over the windowsill and wound it’s way over my bead and through my black hair. I caught the sticky sweet smell of hyssop and chrysanthemum from the gardens below.
A nightingale’s song came with that breeze. So soft it most have been a long ways away, at the end of the gardens or beyond in the forest. These reminders of the great world softened my aching heart. No, I thought, If I let my blue jay go it would not be for any fear of the gods or hope of what they might give me. It would be for my sake alone. I would send a little piece of my heart with him, charging him to carry it far, far away to somewhere wonderful and breathtaking.
In a moment I had slipped out of my bed and tiptoed, as best I could dragging my foot a little, over to the shadowed corner.
“Come my little bird,” I cooed through the bars in a gentle whisper. “I won’t keep you caged any longer than you must. I suppose you can make it alright out there. Now that you’re well. ”
My throat constricted as I busied myself with lifting the large cage off it’s hook hanging from the ceiling. Adi had had it hung at a perfect height for me to stand or sit by it and watch my little blue jay but the whole cage was only a little smaller than I was and I couldn’t reach the latch. My lame foot began to hurt and I gave up that idea. I fumbled with the little door’s latch and it swung silently open on well oiled hinges.
In a rush the bird was perched on the hand I stretched into the cage as he always had been when he wasn’t able to fly. I cupped a hand over his wings to prevent him from flying before I got to the window. I couldn’t stand the thought of him getting lost in my big room or flying further into the palace and never finding his way to the wide world. I knew every inch of this palace. For a little bird to wander through it was far too dangerous for him.
There was no way I wanted him taking a part of me anywhere in here, trapped in his terrified little body. What if he had a family in the forest? His wings fluttered under my hands. I wanted to get him to the window before he struggled out of my grasp.
“Wait,” I whispered, “Wait! You’ll be free in a minute.”
I had to walk slowly both because of my leg and the focus it took to keep hold of him without crushing him or injuring his wing again. He was still a very small bird but my tiny hands were almost too small for him.
To console myself of my loss I began to talk to him.“Go for me my little bird. Go far away somewhere. Take me with you through my dreams. Go safely, get there. Make sure it’s somewhere wonderful, where you will be happy to fly about among the trees and flowers and whatever else the world may hold.”
By this time I had reached the window sill and stood staring out over the fields. I raised my hands into the wind and hesitated. The lonely bay of wolf came from the direction of the setting moon and I shivered. Would my little bird even be safe out there? The wild came with it’s dangerous perils and many a sacrifice and price to pay for such freedom. No food except what he could hunt up for himself. The wet and the cold and the heat all came and went with seasons. Winter was coming. How could he survive all alone?
I felt his tiny beak pressing between my fingers. He pecked at my finger gently. This bird knew the price he had to pay and was willing to die for it once. There is no life in a gilded cage. I only gave him a second chance to live and freedom was the only way for a bird.
I shut my eyes and opened my hands. A soft flutter, a sudden jubilent birdsong and the bracing chill of an autumnal wind.
“Be free,” I whispered.
I thought of my little bird many times that winter. Any time I looked out of my bedroom window or saw the empty hook in the corner. Adi had the cage moved into the palace gardens awaiting a special occupant and I was glad not to see it any more. It was only a reminder of my own condition. My heart was the bird and this body was my gilded cage. But I still have hope from my little bird. Maybe he outwitted that wolf and found his home in a glen by a mighty waterfall. That is where I would live if I were free. Among the trees always surrounded by the thundering sound of the water. There power courted beauty and time married sound and life is a living melody. That is where I dream my little bird is.