estrafalaria

You found bluebird and I on a cold night in December. By that point I had already known Bluebird had been dying for some time, and her chirps grew more and more faint with each passing week. You could see that as well, and couldn’t help but to ask to take her into your care. You’d make her better in no time, you promised. But I had seen that trick before, and many of the bluebirds I had come to know had fallen victim to the quackery of lesser men. Even still, in an act of desperation and against my better judgement I handed her over into your wide hands.

In the weeks that followed you coaxed bluebird out of hiding and nursed her into health. You stroked her feathers and admired her colors. You made a nest for her out of your chest hair, heated by the warmth of your pumping heart. After years of flying away, falling, and fumbling, bluebird had finally found a nest.

In those months bluebird had grown to love you, and perhaps you even loved bluebird back, even if just for a brief moment. I urged her to show you her gratitude. Show him what you can do! And so she sang for you.

One day you held bluebird, stroking her feathers and said “Bluebird you have found your home now. There is no more need to fly away, your search is over. No nest could ever fit you better.” You then placed bluebird into a cage and locked it shut. Perhaps bluebird noticed the cage was to small to even stretch out her wings, but there was no more need to fly anyways. Perfectly content, she serviced your ears with her singing.

In the months following you housed blue bird in that small cage. "Sing, Bluebird!" you'd command when guests were over. "Don't I have a wonderful bluebird? She sings every day, just for me.” You were proud to own bluebird, and bluebird was proud to be owned by you.

But Bluebird eventually grew weary of the constant performance, and the strain made her voice grow more hoarse by the day. You grew frustrated. “My old birds would sing all day for me, for years on end, why don’t you?”

One day, frustrated, you grabbed bluebird and squeezed her body. Shrieks narrowly escaped her beak in between pumps of your squeezing. “See, it’s not so hard to sing” you laughed.

I watched as bluebird struggled. Should we go? I asked her, worried. No, no, he likes this and I like to serve. So sing she tried, but it was no longer with the same gusto as before.

More than a year had gone by before she realized the months of confinement had atrophied her muscles, something her prior state of satisfaction in the cage led her to fail to notice. One evening you came home, opened the cage and asked her to fly. She couldn’t. What happened to you? You asked. Always eager to please, and afraid to be abandoned, Bluebird promised to sing better, to perform better. She would be the same bluebird of before. Her mask would never slip. You and I watched her pleading in the most pathetic way. I think even bluebird was aware of her sorry status.

After a few futile weeks of trying you came home and grabbed bluebird’s cage with bluebird in it and set it outside. Bluebird, our time together has come to an end. It is time for you to move on. I hope you may remember our time fondly, and realize that there are good healers in this world, we are not all quacks. To my surprise, she accepted your decision without an argument. Dejected, I took her into my hands and we headed off.