The bird was clearly dying. It was not a matter of if, but when, and it would be sooner rather than later. I would not have stopped for so long had it not been for the commotion that brought me there in the first place.
I had been walking along my usual road and took a left turn along a path I seldom travel, and for a reason. That is when I heard a woman’s voice in distress and a man talking soothingly to her in lower tones. I came out into a larger part of the path, and the woman looked at me imploringly and pointed down at the bird. She was crying hysterically, telling me that something was wrong with the bird, and that was certainly true.
These two were not from around here. Their expensive clothes and equipment made that evident, although I do not think they realized it. The dramatic scene was also a dead giveaway. She kept telling me that we had to help the bird, that his wing was broken. I went closer and looked at the bird. His wing was definitely not broken. He was walking about slowly and confusedly, and he was absolutely dying.
“Don’t you want to help??” she asked over loudly.
“This bird cannot be helped,” I said.
“WHY??”
“Because it’s dying.”
“Can’t we fix his wing?!” she shrieked.
“There’s nothing wrong with his wing.”
“Then what’s the problem?? I don’t get it!”
“He’s dying,” I said simply.
They both drew back quickly, as if I had struck them. Up until that point, they thought perhaps there was something they could do (or better yet, get someone else to do). But I know when things have gone too far, and this was definitely one of those times.
They eyed me warily, as if I had caused the problem to begin with. They had never seen something like this up close and raw. I deduced in a moment that their world was a world of representation but not authenticity. They were the kind of people who received all of their information through a filter, whose lives were carefully planned out, who followed the formula given to them early in life by their keeper.
But I am not that person. And as strange as they found me, I found them to be just as peculiar. We sized one another up quickly. I felt sorry for her because I believed her anguish was genuine, and they both seemed as if they truly wanted to help in some way. The problem was that they could not help, and they could not accept that.
Their world is a world of symbols, of representations, but not of reality. Their days are lived like scenes in a play, each year a new act, each decade a new part. They are actors and actresses on a stage, complete with an audience that cheers or hisses at their success or failure in pretending to be who they are. They have mastered the art of how to seem. When confronted with this problem, they fell into their typical roles because reality is too harsh and has no stagehands. No props. No curtains or costumes or adoring fans.
I tried to smile, to let them know that this was normal and natural. They smiled back nervously and then left quickly, whispering to each other down the path. The bird hopped under a small bush, and I knew he would not come out again. This is the way of things. There is a price for everything in this world, and the price of life is death. The arrangements are made at birth, and there is no way to opt out of the contract. Attempting to do so merely brings the contract to an end quicker, and the debt is still collected anyway.
My own contract looms before me. My greatest weakness in life has been my honesty, slinging the truth arrows of the Sagittarian, tipped with bitter drink at times. But everything that I have done after my eyes were opened, I have done of my own accord. There are no stagehands and no props. There is no applause.
There is just me, weapon clearly showing at my hip. No surprises. No false moves. No dishonesty. And in return, I am given the freedom of the road, to live my life cleanly, to experience it fully, to face it with both eyes open.
When we shed our body at the end, will we realize belatedly that we loved it after all, with all of its imperfections? Will that realization be our final, gut-wrenching heartbreak? Or will we be like the bird on the path today? Living honestly on the road, every moment experienced authentically and directly without props or symbols. And now he no longer needs his wings, for he has become flight itself.
To think that his whole life he was practicing to die. Perhaps things are simpler than they appear.
