Hysteria and Disillusion

It spoke to me. I'm sure of it.

It was midnight. It was quiet. It was silent.

I was warming myself near the fireplace. Only the cries of the fire and the wailing of the wind were the gentle noises I could hear. That was my nightly silence.

Something broke the silence. Something from the window.

What it was, I did not know. It sounded like the coo of a bird, but it was not one I heard of everyday.

Not the nightingale's song, not the raven's shrill... "What was it?" I wondered, and so I rose from my stool and looked at the window.

A pale figure. Black eyes. Distinguishable build. And a cry that asks for someone.

Who, it cried.

A bird so bizarre, so strange, in the middle of a land so cold and still. It was beautiful. Too beautiful.

This creature must have be asking for someone to care for it in this cruel world, thus its lamenting cry. But people see its beauty as something frightening, unreal, unnatural... Unfit.

I reached out to the bird. It looked back with its eyes black as an abyss.

I did not speak, for I hate to disturb the warm silence, but the bird understood. It flew to my hand and nestled on it, feet as sharp as the eagle's talons, but gentle as the dove's feather.

I hushed the poor bird, gently caressing its bulbous body. Never have I seen a bird so beautiful and wonderful.

I looked at it once more to see those black button eyes pinned perfectly to its light and round shape.

But what I saw was even more. It wasn't the abyss anymore. It wasn't empty.

I saw in it its soul. A soul that asks for someone. For someone to listen.

This strange bird, is it reaching out to me? If so, then all I ask is why?

I was no princess or duchess. I was just a normal maiden.

Unless, this poor bird is a maiden.

A maiden so bizarre, so strange, so beautiful, in the middle of a land so cold and still. A maiden that wants to cry out, begging for someone to listen to it, for someone to take care of it.

This bird, this maiden… Is it calling out to me because it is me?

I’m listening, I whispered to the gentle bird.

It left me and flew away from the window and into the cold outside. I reached out and silently pleaded for it to come back and tell me what it wants to say. But I stopped.

It wouldn’t come back.

In this world, everyone is caged under their rooves of hay. That bird, that maiden that came from outside, it would’ve wanted to escape that cage. To be free.

I hurried for the door and ran to follow the bird.

I didn’t care if my feet ached every step or if the wind cut through my delicate skin. I ran. I followed that bird. I ran away from my house, away from the town, away from the fields, and into the forest the bird had flown into.

The trees were unkind, much like the town, beating me with their wooden fingers prodding into my skin. I ran. I followed that bird. I ran and I ran for so long.

What I saw before me was the bird. It perched onto a stump of a tree. It urged me to sit down with it.

I sat down with it and I looked around.

It was a clearing. It was dark and cold, but it was beautiful. The little lights danced near the river reflecting the full moon. The grass swayed with the night wind, its body swaying with the flow. The night sky, the full moon, the stars… O, the stars! They are as brilliant and wonderful as I had known.

I felt warmth unlike the nightly one I felt back home in the town. This feeling... in my heart... This warmth amidst the cold and beautiful clearing...

The bird, what it told me was to follow it and be free.

…but now, the bird is nowhere to be found.

No longer will I find that calling, that begging, that pleading, for freedom and beauty. Not with the binding cold of the town.

The stones it hurls, the insults it vomits, the ropes it ties around me now, all because I told the truth.

It spoke to me, and the town sees it as something so beautiful. Too beautiful.

And now here I am, tied up and bound upright, surrounded by the sharp words of the town. I look up to see the night sky. The stars look so dim. The moon looks too cold. And I... I feel too warm.

Much like the burning soul that wanted to be free and wanted for someone to listen to it, I now bear its burden—the burning desire to call for someone. To come save me.

O, wondrous bird! Come back to me! Let me be free! I beg you, come to me!