By Oninthough G
Once upon a time,
A long time ago,
There lived a falcon.
A meaty coat of monochrome feathers,
Piercing eyes, somewhat like the colorless toy marbles of a childhood,
A peach-dark nebula at the very nucleus of it,
A pair of wings, far-flung and overarching.
He would wake every morning to the daybreak atop the towering arm of a faraway eucalyptus.
The entirety still, like the stagnant tranquil of the seas before the storm.
The eyes, restless like the flight of a newborn.
It was an everyday.
The sun was setting to the southern winds across the western skies.
The falcon was homeward bound.
It was supper time.
As he sailed through the skies one last time,
Something crossed his eyes—
Something at the very heart of the unkempt jungles,
Something miles away, a distant blur that could be forgotten in the open eyes.
But the falcon was too exact to miss out on specifics.
And so, he aimed, and he aimed well.
He cut right through the throat of the jungle.
If only he knew, that moment onward, everything would just pave the road to a revolution—
A revolution like no other,
A revolution like no other, apparently.
It was a cassowary.
The thorns of a shrub had cut her.
There was blood, and a lot more pain.
But the cassowary was too disdained to plead for help; if only narcissism had a cure.
The falcon stayed the night,
The night after,
And the nights after.
Twelve nights after, she had healed.
But the falcon couldn't leave.
Neither did the cassowary ask him to.
What heals us is often what breaks us.
As the day broke, the falcon stood next to the cassowary, his right wing spread across her.
The flight of love, they'd call it.
"But I can't fly," the cassowary cried.
"I will fly for us," the falcon smiled.
"And I'll build ground," she smiled.
"But what about a home?" she was pensive.
"Home is here," the falcon smiled in an unusual calm.
It was an improbable wedding—
But a wedding nevertheless.
It was all good.
The falcon fetched.
The cassowary gathered.
It was family.
And then, one morning, parenthood embraced them.
Four fledglings.
The falcon kissed the cassowary to the meek shrills of the newborns.
As the sun went past the mahoganies and the fish,
And the moon shone with all her grace in the mid-sky,
The cassowary lay awake.
She was tired, she was sleepy, but yet, wide awake.
"What's bothering you?" the falcon asked.
"What if they can't fly?" the cassowary was disturbed.
"They don't need to know they were born to fly," the falcon smiled.
"But what do we tell them?" the cassowary asked.
"Nothing. They are what we are. And we don't fly," the falcon said.
"But you do fly!" she exclaimed.
"Not anymore," he smiled.
The falcon went fetching the next morning—
Only that, this time, the skies were different.
The time was lost in the tides—
The high and the low.
The fledglings had grown up.
The skies were nothing but the skies to them.
They called the jungle their home.
They were what they were told they were.
Aren’t we all?
And one day, they found love too.
The family wasn’t about just a family anymore.
The falcon was gone.
The cassowary was gone.
But what nobody knew was, with them was gone the truth of a hundred thousand lives.
What lived on wasn’t a lie.
What isn’t a lie is not the truth either.
The half-truth of a lifetime had become the folklore of the ages.
The folklore we all wish we could afford not to believe.
The folklore we all think we could believe was just another tale.
The folklore we all desire to re-write someday.
But then, what more are desires than mere desires?
Every revolution begins with an absurd idea of a madman.
How could this be any different?
One day, a madman wanted to re-write the folklore.
For the first time in years, someone was willing to risk it all.
But—so much for re-writing a folklore?
If only someone could convince the madman to the otherwise.
He was laughed at.
He was scorned at.
He was cursed at.
He was lamented at.
But then, a madman is a madman.
And so, he spread his wings and leaped.
He fell straight on his face.
The jungle called it “the fall of a lunatic.”
Death hasn’t deterred madmen.
This was just a fall.
He tried one more time.
He fell one more time.
He tried one more time—and one more.
He fell again. Again. Again.
Broken bones.
Bruised eyes.
A bleeding beak.
The madman took one last leap.
This fall would kill him.
And, as the jungle let out a sigh in anticipation of the inevitable—
The madman flew.
The wind was too strong.
The wings were too weak.
The entirety of his strengths and beliefs could suffice for just a flight.
The madman had his last fall.
The jungle called it “the flight of freedom.”
The madman had just begun a revolution.
The equations had changed.
The roadside lunatic of yesterday was the legend of today.
If only the world could afford legends while they were still alive.
Today, everyone wants to fly.
Today, no one wants to call the jungles their home.
Today, everyone is aiming for the skies.
Some fly.
Some few die trying.
The others just sit there, watching the flight of a falcon—
And complaining of prejudice.