Socien's Blog

“Will you be telling the kid hatchling that she will be spending all her life in that cage?” The Pigeon from the wild had briefly stopped to have a chat with a parrot couple that was in the cage, a window glass separating him from his audience. The next message was no longer targeted to Dad Parrot but to the new hatchling, Badgie: “Life is a one-time event. You live it finally.”

The Pigeon would take off upon seeing humans getting closer to their caged parrot pets. Badgie, the new hatchling happened to have heard humans saying she was a “cute parrot”. She had quickly learned to love this human nature which classified any pet as cute but fellow human neighbours as ugly.

Dad Parrot looked at Badgie and decided to wash out a potion of brainwash the Pidgeon had fed the hatchling. “Don’t be afraid to be who you are. These people are our keepers and being given the protection and by them is who we are.”

Badgie nodded as the advice came. Dad Parrot reinforced it: “Whatever happens. Stick with humans.”

The Pigeon returned to offer another contradictory advice: “Your life is on once and for all limited tenure. You don’t have the power to change that. Before you die let life be of value to you, expand and do not keep yourself caged.” This angered Dad Parrot as Badgie seemed to listen to both advisors.

Before Dad Parrot could get another shot at playing his counter-advising move, the cage slid across the table and fell to the floor. The who house was on the move, gliding on saturated earth beneath it in a mudslide. This was happening in Rio De Janeiro’s favelas after a tropical happen.

“It’s him,” Mother Parrot thought the Pigeon had created this accident. The cage bounced on the floor until Badgie’s tiny body was squeezed out. The window glasses had collapsed thanks to pressure leaving an opening for Badgie to get lost through it.

When Badgie woke up from consciousness, she was in a cage, and a new vast garden landscape. Humans with new faces were just closer, playing a game, and there was no sign of her parent.

“It’s Pocket Billards,” another bird in the cage next to Badgie’s startled her. Badgie kept her eyes on the game, refusing to talk to the Stranger as she couldn’t understand the arrangements in her reality.

“Visualise your target. Visualise where you want it to be and know how to hit it. If you don’t know, learn,” the Stranger said as one of the humans cued the white ball with a stick. “A difficult target requires concentration. But before you realise this any target is easily difficult. Generally speaking, these humans are not only playing well. They are playing properly.”

Badgie kept her mouth shut. She was not able to reply. She was not yet able to reply anyhow she was still a hatchling. She focused on feeding herself, eating every pellet and worm that was tossed into his cage. Days, weeks and months went by until a year had passed.

“Don’t you want to fly?” Stranger asked one day.

This cage does not provide me with any chance to fly. Besides, I don’t want to,” Badgie shrugged.

“By chance, I am sure you mean opportunity. My recommendation is not to wait for an opportunity available to yourself.” The Stranger said in following a warm smile: “Before you existed, the probability of your existence was one in a million. So was that of your dad meeting your mom, and of not dying before you were born.”

Badge was triggered into remembering her late parents. She was angry. “So what?”

Days passed and Badgie soon made it to his third birthday. In parrot terms, Badgie was already an adult and could qualify for reproduction. He was tiny and was therefore not a parrot humans wanted.

One day Badgie respawned from a quick midday nap only to find that the cage’s door was open. Stranger explained: “They’ve just decided to let you go. I certainly know a tiny parrot like you they released four years ago. I recommended his to learn to fly and he took my advice.”

Badgie knew that this meant she was now a wild bird who was yet to fly. “Such a bad thing happening in my life,” she said.

“Sometimes bad things happen in our lives to give us one thing rare to attain; purpose,” as Badgie was falling off his cage, Stranger said. “What is your reason to be alive?”

“My reason to be alive is to see my next day getting better and better, and staying alive until that purpose is fulfilled,” Badgie said. The Pidgeon’s advice from three years ago rang into his mind, “Life is a one-time event live it finally.” “Your life is on once and for all limited tenure. You don’t have powers to change that.”

But her Dad’s advice soon flooded above all of these: “Whatever happens. Stick with humans.”

So she walked straight to the humans who were playing Pocket Billards. She jammed her beak on one of the humans’ feet. Instead of attention, she received a kick that sent her rolling on the ground, some feathers plucking off.

Badgie chose to believe that the tickling sensation her beak had on the human’s feet caused an uncontrolled movement that magically became a kick. She regrouped and drew her body closer to humans. This time a human picked her up and threw her away. With the force of a stone from a catapult, she struck her former confinement.

“I am not smart.”

“Smart is invented to set boundaries between what they can achieve and what you can achieve,” Stranger said calmly. “Here is what you do: When all that’s left is a useless you, it takes the remaining unseen useful you to turn you into usefulness. Remember your purpose, when in pain and when in gain.”

Badgie flapped her wings. She couldn’t rest the following night until she did it right. Her life changed and her wings could now take her to places she never imagined.