The race to Freedom.
By Myranda Neizer.
Tucked away in the corner of a pearl white room sits a tiny golden cage, with bars as thin and whimsical as pixie dust. About the size of a shoe box, the cage sits on a stand just high enough for a little girl to reach in. A single yellow bird perches inside on its swing, chirping the days away. Its feathers twitch and feet shift restlessly in the afternoons when the sun is shining bright outside. The bay window across the room is always left slightly a jar, letting sweet breezes drift in and pick up the curtains.
How the bird longs to fly towards the beckoning lace curtains. One day,while resting on the little girls dimpled finger, the urge to fly consumes the bird. As quick as a gasp of air it takes flight. Its tiny heart hammers away in its chest in time to the beating of its wings. The curtains part, embracing the birds race to freedom. In just a few blinks of an eye the bird is across the room and almost free. It seems like eternity, those few blinking moments.
Thwack! The glass shivers as the bird strikes against freedom. Its body shivers as it crumples to the floor, its slight neck snapped. It lands with a thud on the shiny wood below, one bloody feather still dancing in the wind above. Its eyes glaze over as its body twitches, forever caught in the ecstasy that is freedom.
The little girl watches with wonder and disgust. She leans over the birds splayed body on the sun warmed floor, looking at death in the face for the first time. Its wings open, head turned at an odd angle, beak slightly parted with blood oozing out. How free the bird appears... as if it made it to a better place.
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