A scene out of Umbrella Story; it used to be on Facebook but I decided it was too long.
But some thought another way: birds are free while we are not, but are we not greater creatures than they? Teachings spoke of humanity’s superiority over all other creatures, of their predetermined position as the monarchs of the animals. Cults of passionate believers had then formed: they captured birds so they could not fly, locked them into little birdcages that left them almost no room to raise their wings—kept away from the sky.
They sang beautifully nevertheless, perhaps out of a tragic longing for freedom. Their songs kept them even longer behind the bars, ensured that they were never set free. For as long as they breathed, until they starved themselves to death, for sorrow.
Ruthenia had read, some birds were born with migratory instincts. They held clocks and compasses within their minds, natural instruments that called each one to a faraway place, every year at the turn of spring—the whisper in every swallow’s heart that led it south in the winter of Astra.
Sometimes at night, keepers spoke of birds that threw themselves at the bars of their cages, seeking out the direction of the land that called from somewhere they couldn’t see but knew existed, deep in their iron blood. Those that were kept indoors lost hope quickly, but those that had a view of the stars continued relentlessly to hope, to pound at the bars and the gates in the direction of south—even though a thousand times later, the bars had not moved. They knew they had to go somewhere. Their Destination.
